Anders: Icons

Icons

“I have always heard that icons represented ‘windows into heaven,’ glimpses of the glory of the life to come, hinted at in golf leaf and vivid colors suggesting fullness of life. But our speaker countered this view by pointing out that we don’t really need ‘windows’ as much as eyes that are opened up to see what is around us here in this life. For in Orthodox thought heaven is not so much ‘another place’ that needs to be peered into but rather the quality of life in Christ which begins here through the power of his resurrection. In this view, eternal life includes the day-to-day getting there, the faithful journey of the saints as they are permitting glimpses of glory that punctuate everyday life, especially as they are revealed in us in corporate worship. No wonder Orthodox services tend to be so long-with seemingly endless choir responses and many opportunities to grasp the beauty of joy of resurrection, especially as it is celebrated in the season of Easter.” Isabel Anders, Awaiting the Child, Cowley, 1987, 2005.

Rhodes Greece

A recent short dream has called me back to a daily use of icons as my spiritual practice. In the dream the icons for my hard drive and my backup on my computer desktop have suddenly disappeared, but the icons for the documents I am working on are still there on my desktop. I have difficulty understanding that, for the desktop icons should not be there without the hard drive. My dream group and my spiritual director tell me that this may mean the hard drive and backup are still there but hidden. The things which I use for support that I think I have lost are still there but hidden.

One of the people in my dream group with much computer experience reminds us that icons are also called short cuts. This is a new understanding of icons. Computer icons help us get to information that is behind them more easily. That is what icons on our desktop as well as religious icons do! Religious icons are short cuts, often also called windows to connecting to God, but Isabel Anders tells us there is much more to it. They are also exercises recognizing beauty and God so that we can transfer that skill to the presence of God all around us. So, icons could also be considered the cliff notes, a concentrated experiential practice of awareness, connecting us to the kingdom here on this earth.

I hope my icon friends will not view this as trivializing the spiritual practice of using icons, for my own desk and walls are covered with so many icons so that everywhere I turn I can hope to connect to them. Icons help me stop in my busy day to remember what the day is all about.

All this is just my inadequate attempt to introduce others to icons who may be afraid to use them for fear that these are foreign practices or idol worshipping.

Spending time with a favorite icon, especially one of Mary and Jesus is a favorite Advent meditation of many spiritual friends.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

New word, Name

New word, Name

“But Moses said to God, ‘If I come to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your ancestors has sent me to you”, and they ask me, “What is his name?” what shall I say to them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I AM who I AM.’ He said further, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “I AM has sent me to you.”’ Exodus 3:13-14.

Every day I try to learn a new word. My word for today is splash stick. Actually, it is two words. It is the green stick that Starbucks puts in your coffee cup to keep the coffee from spilling out of the hole from which you drink. For years we have called it the green stick, spill stick, the thing, the stopper, long green thing, but now after so many years we know its real name, or at least that is what the courteous Starbucks’ attendant or barista at the take-out window called it today. Barista was a word several years ago. Splash stick is today. Splash stick, I will now honor you and call you by your proper name.

How important it is to be called by our correct name. There is something enriching in hearing our name called properly. It means we are real, a person. We are known. Someone may know our true identity. My name is Joanna, but sometimes people call me Joanne. I want to say, I am not Joanne. That is the name of my friend who died. I cherish my name because my parents chose it to honor two of my grandparents, Joe and Annie, who immediately taught me how to love.

Of course, Seibert is called so many things. We have learned to accept what we are called with humor. Cebert is the most common pronunciation of this last name I was given as a gift from my husband’s beloved family. We always know we are getting a call from someone who does not know us when a phone conversation begins with, “Hello, Mrs. Cebert.”

I in turn can sometimes realize when I have called someone else by the wrong name, which now is happening more that I would like to say. There is an unrest in the air that previously was peaceful and a look of pain on the person’s face, never completely concealed.

As for God, we only know God’s name as “I Am.” God doesn’t seem to have this hang up that we humans do to be called by name. God just desperately wants us to love him or her or whatever and maybe say something. “I am mad at you, God. I am so thankful, God. I love you, God.” All these seem acceptable. Spiritual friends suggest that maybe we don’t really have to call God by name, but just sit and be present with God. This tells us a little about the difference in God’s wisdom and ours.

Through an angel God does tell Mary and Joseph to give Jesus his name. I presume that God knew it would be hard for us to call Jesus by his name, “I Am.”

So, what should we do? Perhaps we are to continue to call each other by name whenever we can and continue to try to see the great mystery of God’s love, so different from ours. Perhaps we are to strive to love as best we can and offer that love up to a God who someday may tell us God’s name. Maybe instead, God will surprise us and give us another name as he did for Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, and Paul.

Maybe someday we may realize that our name is already several syllables or part of the “I AMS” written into the mysterious parts of God’s name.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Earle:Julian

Earle: Julian

“Then, with a glad face, our Lord looked into his side, and gazed rejoicing; and with his dear gaze he led his creatures’ understanding through the same wound into his side. And then he revealed a beautiful and delightful place which was large enough for all humankind who shall be saved to rest there in peace and love.” Mary Earle, “Long Text 24,”, Julian of Norwich, Selections from Revelations of Divine Love, annotated and explained, p. 69, 2013 SkyLight Paths.

Episcopal priest and well-known writer, Mary Earle, was the keynote speaker this year at the Community of Hope International meeting at Camp Allen. Her topic was “Julian of Norwich and the Oneing Love of God.” Julian was a 14th century English mystic who is perhaps best known for her sayings, “All shall be well. All shall be well” as well as her Revelations of Divine Love, her reflections on a series of visions or showings she received when she was near death. The writings are in two parts, Short Text written soon after the visions and Long Text written much later and are thought to be the earliest book written by of a woman in Middle English.

We know so little of her life and even her name except that in later life she became an anchoress to St. Julian Church in Norwich, living in a walled off cell connected to the church. Julian lived in a difficult time before the Reformation during the 100 Years’ War between England and France as well as three outbreaks of the deadly Black Plague caused by bacteria living in the fleas of rats, decreasing the population of Europe by probably one half. There also was a lack of leadership in the church with the Great Western Schism when there were two and sometimes three popes.

All this is to say that most people must have felt like the world was coming to an end! But in the midst of this comes Julian’s message from her mystical experience not with an angry God who must have retribution, but with the God of love. This God of love comes to her through her relationship and visions with the suffering of Jesus on the cross. Earle believes wherever Julian mentions Jesus she means the Trinity, God in three parts. Through God’s suffering Julian saw and felt God’s love for all mankind.

Julian believed that we can enter into a mystical relationship with God through suffering, where like the disciple Thomas we enter into the wound in Jesus’ side and find a place large enough for all mankind to rest in peace and love, or like Nicodemus we are born again through pain and suffering.

Earle suggests that instead of our arguing over how Jesus was born of Mary, our energy should be concerned about whether Jesus and God’s deep love is being born in us.

This is our ministry as spiritual friends to help others see not a vengeful, hall monitor God but the God of love calling and caring for us even in the darkest times as we and the loving God of Julian’s understanding stand beside our friends in their pain and suffering.

This pain was and is also so well-known by our God.

Joanna joannaseibert.com