Buechner: Tillich, Ocean

Buechner, Paul Tillich: Ocean

“They say that whenever the great Protestant theologian Paul Tillich went to the beach, he would pile up a mound of sand and sit on it gazing out at the ocean with tears running down his cheeks. Maybe it was when he looked at the ocean that he caught a glimpse of the One he was praying to. Maybe what made him weep was how vast and overwhelming it was and yet at the same time as near as the breath of it in his nostrils, as salty as his own tears.” Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words

I share Tillich’s experience every time I go to the ocean or the Gulf. It is indeed the vastness and the closeness. Today I also think about how destructive the sea can be as I say prayers for friends on the North Carolina coast who have been devastated by Hurricane Florence. I also remember well the vast destruction on the Gulf of Mexico with Frederick, Ivan, Katrina.

I also see the pleasure that the sea and the sand have brought to so many more of us. The sound of the waves calms my soul. Watching children swim and play in the sand pulls at the heartstrings of the child within me. Watching families, lovers, children walk the surf is a lesson in our connectedness to each other. The dolphins, the pelicans, the lone osprey are a constant reminder of a different life and a different agenda than our own. The turtle people who walk the beach in the early morning looking for turtle tracts to a secret nest are icons of faithfulness and caring about something other than ourselves.

I see the ocean, the sea, the Gulf, the sand as icons of something created out of love no matter what the process was. Living by the sea is a relationship of love. It is like being in love with spouse, friend, children. Whenever we take that chance to offer ourselves, our love to another, it can be beautiful, beyond words, like the sea.

At the same time, we are open to storms, sometimes as ugly and powerful as this hurricane. But like the people by the sea, we remember that the positive of love many times overwhelms the possible hurtful negative. The lows are pale in comparison to the highs. We keep on picking up the mess and forgive the wind and the sea and those we love and hope they can likewise forgive us for the harm we have knowingly or unknowingly done to them.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

Myrrh bearers

Myrrh bearers

“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared.” Luke 24:1.

Spend some time meditating on this icon from www.uncutmountainsupply.com, maker of Orthodox Christian iconography. This is a picture of one of the myrrh bearers, one of the women taking spices to the empty tomb before dawn on an Easter morning. This is what I think Christ calls us to do. We are to bring what is costly to us, our intellect, our feelings, our intuitions, simply our presence, and look for the Christ in the world. We are called to look especially for Christ in those we think are physically and spiritually and mentally dead. We can only find Christ when we give of ourselves, freely, even when we sometimes know it may be dangerous.

We carry with us precious perfumes, costly spices. This is what each of our lives is made up of.

When we have been harmed or have sinned against our neighbor and cannot forgive or accept forgiveness, our life is closed up. We build walls, thick walls, tall walls. We do not want anyone to get in to see our own ugliness or we live in fear that we will be harmed again. We are like a jar filled with this precious oil closed tight. When we accept forgiveness and forgive, we lift up the top, and the bottle is opened.

Now myrrh is not the sweet pungent aroma like frankincense. It is earthy, woody, smoky. It is derived from a hardened tree sap. Myrrh has been used for thousands of years and is mentioned in the Bible over one hundred fifty times. It was used as a natural remedy, an antiseptic to treat wounds, and to purify the dead.

After this oil has been blessed, we might put some in a small dish and use it a healing service symbolically letting its aroma seep through the walls around our bodies, letting it purify the dead parts of ourselves, letting it heal our wounds and bring us back to a life in the resurrection.

But there is more. Next we are being asked now to go out into the world carrying within us or on us the precious myrrh that was shared with us. We are now myrrh bearers to heal each we see and meet in the world.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Holy Places and Holy Stories

Holy Places and Holy Stories

“Bethlehem and Nazareth and Jerusalem remind us that is to possible to touch, and hold and see God, even in this life, in the guise of helpless infants, worried parents, broken bodies and empty tombs.”Br. James Koester, Society of St. John the Evangelist ssje.org, Brother Give Us a Word, September 12, 2018

Entrance to Children’s Chapel, National Cathedral Washington DC

Many of you have visited the Holy Land and been to these thin places. You also recount that it has made the stories of what happened at each place more vivid. For those who have not traveled to these particular sites, the stories are still powerful and often can come alive in our own imagination, often through art. There are also places that represent these holy shrines that can also bring them alive. I am thinking of the National Cathedral and the Bethlehem Chapel, the Children’s Chapel, the Chapel of Joseph of Arimathea, and the Chapel of the Resurrection.

Each location can also represent a part of our own lives.

Our Bethlehem is not only the place of our birth, but the place where we start to begin to feel alive, reborn, become the person God created us to be. Our Bethlehem often is a retreat place where our life is changed.

Our Nazareth is not only the place where we were raised but also the places where we are still cared for by the people and places who still nourish and restore us. For many, their Nazareth is their church or spiritual community.

Jerusalem is the holiest of places. It is the place God most often lives. It is where we suffer and parts of us have to die. It is where out of this suffering we find resurrection. I see Jerusalem most often in a grief recovery group called Walking the Mourner’s Path. That is where I see great suffering transformed into a new life, honoring the person that was loved who died and becoming wounded healers to others who have suffered.

In many ways each city is a new life, a new birth, a resurrection. Renewal can be messier at some places and easier and gentler at others.

Today may we contemplate where these holy cities reside in our lives. Where are the places or the groups of people we go to to be reborn, to be nourished, and to be resurrected out of suffering?

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com