Our Neighbor

Our Neighbor

““The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self – to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it.” Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, HarperOne. 2010.

Zoe and her dad

Our oldest son takes his daughter to high school each day on his way to work. If they leave with some extra time they stop at their favorite coffee or smoothie haunt and have a cup of coffee or smoothie together. I am thinking what a treasure to have a few minutes a day with one of your parents and maybe even share a cup of your comfort drink. They are both introverts so they probably may not say much, but it is a presence, one on one experience with someone you care about and would like to get to know a little better.

I grew up in a small town with amazing neighbors. Mrs. Rick, a widow with pearl white hair, lived across the street in a house that seemed huge at the time. One of our neighbors on second street had to move away for physical reasons. Mrs. Rick then started walking at nine every morning for seven blocks from second street to ninth street up to Riddle’s Drug Store to meet this neighbor for coffee. Our next-door neighbor, Paul, cut Mrs. Rick’s grass every week.

I have a friend who calls me every morning. Most people are too busy just to call or talk to one person a day on a regular basis that is not work related.

These are the kinds of relationships that especially can spring us from ourselves. We don’t have to pretend any more. If we allow it, these people learn who we really are like. When we are with them we begin to let down our mask and start becoming the person God created us to be.

Joanna joannaseibert

Remembering September 11

Remembering September 11

Father Mychal's Prayer

“Lord, take me where you want me to go;

Let me meet who you want me to meet;

Tell me what you want me to say, and

Keep me out of your way. Amen.”

Fr. Mychal Judge, O.F.M.

Chaplain, New York Fire Department killed on 9/11/2001 at the World Trade Center. Death Certificate Number 1.

Remnants of twin towers at Newsum, Washington DC

This now famous prayer of Father Mychal Judge who died at the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001 will continually on my mind today as our country observes a moment of silence as we hear the names read of the almost 3000 people who died in four coordinated attacks on this country that early autumn morning. Flags are at half-staff as we travel about Little Rock.

 Mychal Judge was a Franciscan friar and Catholic priest serving as a chaplain to the New York City Fire Department, not afraid to become part of the messiness of life. After the first attack, he prayed over bodies in the streets and then went into the lobby of the North Tower that had become an emergency command post. He was killed by flying debris when the South Tower collapsed. His biographers say his dying prayer was “Jesus, please end this right now! God, please end this!” The iconic photograph of five men carrying his body out of the North Tower has been described as an American Pieta, another Michael’s statue of Mary holding the dead body of Jesus in St. Peter’s in Rome or a lesser known work of Michelangelo, Deposition with Joseph of Arimathea, as Barbara Crafton showed  on her The Almost-Daily Emo from The Geranium Farm.

Father Mychal was also most remembered as a staunch supporter of LGBT rights as well as being a sober member of Alcoholic Anonymous for 23 years.   Another 3000 were reported to have attended his funeral. Father Michael Duffy closed his homily at that service with, “We come to bury Myke Judge’s body but not his spirit. We come to bury his hands, but not his good works. We come to bury his heart, but not his love. Never his love.”

Michael Daly, Daily News (New York) , February 11, 2002.

Shannon Stapleton, September 11, 2001, Photojournalist.

Stephen Todd, Daily Ponderables, September 11, 2017.

“Slain Priest: ‘Bury His Heart, But Not His Love’ September 8, 2011, NPR Morning Edition

Joanna    joannaseibert.com

Buechner: Parents

Buechner: Parents

“’Honor your Father and you mother,’ says the Fifth Commandment (Exodus  20:12). Honor them for having taken care of you before you were old enough to take care of yourself.” Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking  and later in  Beyond Words.

 Buechner reminds us of the fifth commandment to honor our parents. He reminds us to honor them because they loved us and cared for us.

 I sat with a group of friends last  week and we all spontaneously started talking about scars from our parents, particularly our mothers. Some had been abused, neglected by their parents. Some did not receive the love they had hoped for from their parents. Some had parents who never grew up to be the adults that a child needed for mentoring and protection.

Buechner reminds us that our parents also had scars. They were doing the best they could with what they knew. He also reminds us that we should always be grateful to them for the gift of life that they gave to us.

We then wondered what our children would say about us, the scars we have given to them because of our imperfections.

Our prayers became that we  can still  make living amends for the harm we have done and that we can stop some of the behavior that we have inherited and be grateful for the rich heritage that we hope to honor.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com