Cloud of Witnesses at the Eucharist

Cloud of Witnesses at the Eucharist

“The gifts of God for the people of God.” “Holy Eucharist II, p. 264, Book of Common Prayer, Church Publishing 1979.

I cannot keep thinking about and praying for two women, Vicki and Diane, in my spiritual direction class who live on the North and South Carolina coasts and whose towns are being battered by this storm. My mind wanders back to Kanuga Conference Center at one of the graduations at the Haden Institute for Spiritual Direction. We are in the Chapel of Transfiguration. A flute is playing in the background. The eight women graduating process in and sit in chairs in front of the raised altar. They share their story and their journey and the work they have done on this spiritual quest to learn how to lead others to find God in their lives. They receive their certificates and plaques and then begin the Eucharist together around the altar above us.

“The gifts of God for the people of God.” As the bread and wine are offered, they ask each person to come up the several steps to the altar to give themselves the bread and wine.

Suddenly I panic. There is no rail for the steps to the altar as was built when I started as the deacon at St. Luke’s and at St. Mark’s when members realized I had difficulty with steps and quickly built a rail. I say a prayer of gratitude for the kind and thoughtful people of both congregations. What will I do?

I remember the ten amazing women that I had spent the past year with studying about spiritual direction. We had prayed together, eaten together, done spiritual direction, verbatims, dream work, and most especially shared our life together.

Suddenly my group surrounds me. They do not miss a beat. We will all go to communion together, they whisper, not separately. They will all stand with me at the bottom of the stairs to the altar. Ann, the priest in our group will offer bread and Bridget will serve wine. There are not words to describe what it was like standing in the middle of that long feminine line with my spiritual friends at the foot of the altar that seemed so far away but instead was moved to be right in front of us. I had a glimpse of what it is like to feel Christ not only inside of me but beside me, standing, walking with me on this journey, present and surrounded by a cloud of witnesses.

The picture today is from the following year at our own class’ graduation. I hold that group of spiritual friends in my prayers daily, and now especially Vicki on the coast of North Carolina and Diane in South Carolina, and I will never forget their kindness. I have experienced how well they care for others. I pray someone also is caring for them today.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Spiritual Practices and Social Action

Spiritual practices and social action

“Spiritual practices undergird social action. Accordingly, socially active congregations must make spiritual practices essential to their mission. There is no division between prayer and protest, between spirituality and social concern. Contemplation deepens our spirits and broadens our sensitivities. Action expands the scope of our spiritual sensitivity. And God can enlarge our hearts to see God’s presence in every human and all creation, and to respond with grace and compassion.” Bruce G. Epperly, “What does it mean to have a Savior?” Sunday’s Coming, The Christian Century, September 16, 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, Christian Century.org

Life goes smoother if we can balance spiritual practices and social action at the same time where each cycles back and forth with the other. One leads to the other and nourishes and affirms the other. We learn about the Christ in ourselves and the Christ in each other.

There are many who support social justice who do not seem to connect to a spirituality they can affirm, and consequently sometimes these issues consume them, and there is no visible presence of love in their actions. There also are those with deep spirituality but no sense of social justice. Often their spirituality turns so inward that it becomes stagnant and cannot grow.

I have also had other experience suggesting that this relationship between the two does not always happen in the same way and at the same time. My story unfolds with the death of someone I loved. This drew me back to the spiritual life I had a taste of in my youth. For years later I simply learned and read and prayed and practiced spiritual practices daily. I was one of those “groupees” who went to every possible conference and retreat I could find. I never spoke out or participated in any social justice action. I blamed my inaction on being an introvert. Gradually my heart could no longer hold inside the injustices to women, African Americans, immigrants, gays. I had to speak out, sometimes boldly, often quietly, more often writing about it.

My “spiritual” excuse for the delay is biblical, of course. After Paul’s conversion and before he started his ministry this is his story. “I did not confer with any human being nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus. Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him for fifteen days.” (Galatians 1; 16-18). Paul then goes on to say he went to Syria and Cilicia and was unknown to the churches of Judea, but after fourteen years he finally went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas.

My time in Arabia was much longer. It took me twenty years of spiritual reflection before I began to make a dent at social action, and finally almost twenty more years before I let my feet do the talking and participate in two women’s marches. Now I make calls, write letters, and financially help social justice causes and the candidates who support them. My hope is that my spiritual practices keep me centered on the God of love, the God who loves us all, and that being a voice concerning social injustices leads me to the people where the God of my understanding abides.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Music as a Travel Agent

Music

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” Aldous Huxley

When my husband and I were in training at the University of Iowa, the Department of Otolaryngology ( Ear, Nose, and Throat) put on a program where the entertainment was a slide show of scenes from Iowa called “Iowa, a place to Grow.” The background music was opening movement from Beethoven’s 6th Symphony or the Pastoral Symphony. It is playing now on our public radio station. Of course, every time I hear it, I think of our four years in Iowa City.

It is amazing how over the years we only remember the good parts, and that is exactly what I flashes through my mind this morning. The friends we studied with, my first job as a pediatric radiologist and the amazing physicians I worked with who taught me how to be a pediatrician and a radiologist, taking trips on Sunday afternoons with our two boys to small towns looking for antiques. One of our favorites towns was West Branch, the birthplace of Herbert Hoover.

I remember the first house we were able to buy with the help of my husband’s parents, the fresh food from Iowa farms, Sunday dinners at the University of Iowa, concerts at Hancher Auditorium, the city park just around the corner from our house on Park Road, the large elm tree in our back yard and the apple tree between our garage and the house, riding our bicycle for two with our two boys on it unprotected, visiting the Amana Colonies, weekends in Davenport on the Mississippi River, and short trips to Chicago.

I hear the music and I am immediately back in Iowa with old friends. Music transports us to new places but especially immediately takes us to places we have been. These are soul trips that bring us to places of comfort and peace if we will take the time to allow them back into our minds.

Music can be one of our best travel agents to times and places where we were loved and cared for. This leads us always eventually to a place of gratitude for opportunities, friends, and teachers, and the many who cared for us that we forgot to thank at the time, but take time to do so this day.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com