Guest Writer: Isabel Anders, May You Live Long Enough

Guest Writer: Isabel Anders: Ricoeur and Anonymous: May You Live Long Enough

“I find myself only by losing myself”  —Paul Ricoeur.

“It is always possible to argue against an interpretation, to confront interpretations, to arbitrate between them and seek for an agreement, even if this agreement remains beyond our reach.”  —Paul Ricoeur.

Huyen Nguyen on Unsplash

May you live long enough …

To be able to laugh at your most embarrassing moments in the past—sportingly owning the temporary title of “dunce”—before passing it on to the next clown in this dance of win-and-lose, hit-and-error called “life.”

To side with your own former adversaries if only for a glancing moment—to accept that in certain past disagreements or outright conflicts that cobble your past: “The other person had a point.”

To realize that even your greatest “triumphs” owe much to outside influences: others’ kind and diligent contribution, the coming together of circumstances, and “sparks” of grace flung from afar that happened to hit you in the moment.

To experience prayer as the automatic breathing of petitions for others’ good—urgently present in your heart before your own needs or requests enter your awareness.

To meet someone whose efforts or example—in any category—put you to “shame,” and feel joy that such understanding or expertise or goodness exists in the world apart from your receiving any specific personal gain from it.

To recognize that your “defeats,” by the world’s judgment, were blessed checks and balances in the larger arc of your journey toward maturity and self-acceptance.

To feel genuinely sad for people who seemed to be unfair and cruel to you for no apparent reason, and to lament the conditions that must have made them that way—even when their cruelty caused you genuine pain.

To let go of any idea that we might be able to judge who is worthy or unworthy of anything that comes to them in this life- or in the life to come.

“We look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.”  —2 Corinthians 4:18.

“We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts. …” —Romans 5:3-5.

Isabel Anders

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Our story

Our Story

 “The name is strange. It startles one at first. It is so bold, so new, so fearless. It does not attract, rather the reverse. But when one reads the poem this strangeness disappears. The meaning is understood.” J.F.X. O’Connor, S. J., A Study of Francis Thompson’s Hound of Heaven. p. 7.  John Lane Company. 1912.

Once a week I meet with a group of friends who share how God is working in their life. I go to this meeting on Saturday morning because I believe in miracles, and that belief is always affirmed by what I hear and see. These are a group of people who were caught in addiction, who thought there was no way out, but somehow through the Grace of God with the help of  community found a new life.  I give up my Saturday morning to meet with some people I have seen for years and others whom I have never met. There are people from all walks of life, many I would not have known otherwise.

This Saturday, many people talk about the time they realized there might be a way out of their old life style. They call it a moment of clarity. Many were desperate. Some just knew this was not the path they would ever choose, but there they were. When they decided to come to the group for help, they were at first very uncomfortable. I can remember I came to this 12-step group around Thanksgiving. I can remember seeing posters about a Thanksgiving pot luck. I remember thinking I don’t like being here and goodness knows I don’t want to eat with these people as well! Today, almost twenty-eight years later, most of the people I go out to eat with I met through this community.!

Many talked about how they had no idea what gave them the courage to come to this meeting.

Story after story revealed there is something greater than all of us caring, loving us and calling us to become the person we were created to be. I also see this calling in people who come for spiritual direction. Something is calling us out of our God hole, the God, the Christ within us who deep down inside of our being knows about a God of love who deeply loves us.  

 In 1893 Francis Thompson wrote a 182-line poem about his experience with this phenomenon and called it The Hound of Heaven. I could not agree more.

 Joanna  joannaseibert.com

Forgiveness and Resentments 490

Forgiveness and resentment 490

“Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”

Jesus said to him Not seven times but, I tell you seventy times seven!” Matthew 18:22

         Today I encountered a woman on retreat with so much anger it was difficult to be around her.  Her body language, her speech cried out through tiny holes in a thick invisible wall surrounding her about a tremendous pain caused by once being abandoned. Almost every conversation was related to her unjust suffering which resulted from a broken  relationship fifteen years ago.  That person was no longer  in her life but was still profoundly hurting her.  

 She also was primed, looking for, waiting for another resentment to happen.  One had to walk on egg shells around her for fear of saying something that might offend her.   I got caught in that trap and then tried to ease the pain I had caused her in a brief encounter, but to no avail.  My amends went coolly unreceived.  She was unforgiving. It was so uncomfortable to be around her. She was  difficult to love, to see the Christ in her.

As I reflect on the encounter, I see, but  for the Grace of God,  I could have been stuck, paralyzed in the same place she was in when I had been wounded.  Why has God allowed some to heal from most of our hurt relationships, but has not brought healing to this child of his?  I learned from this woman so much.. so painfully.  I learned that until I can forgive someone and go on with my life, that person I am resenting is still harming me.    I can grieve that broken trust, that lost relationship, but unless I go on with my life, I am paralyzed.

 I also learned from this woman how I can harm others with the best of intentions in my own  humanness.    I can reverse the tables and see how others can do the same to me.  I honestly believe that most people do not intend to hurt others.  May I remember this weekend and this very wounded woman and pray that we both can forgive others.  I saw an image of someone I do not want to be.

 I also remember how the prayer our God gave to us tells us that part of  the condition of our being forgiven is forgiving others.  I hope to remember this woman, and hope that it will be a reminder to me of what happens when I no longer forgive.  May we both be changed.

Joanna joannaseibert.com