Spiritual Friends

On a Pallet

“He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; he descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead.” Apostles Creed

Bishop Jake Owensby of western Louisiana recently reminds us in his blog, Looking for God in Messy Places, about the line in the Apostles Creed where Jesus descended to the dead. (“Unbearable,” Looking for God in Messy Places, July 1, 2018 jakeowensby.com) Bishop Owensby’s message is that our God goes to the places that seem like hell on earth to us. I also remember that our definition of hell is the absence of God. Perhaps the creed is telling us that even when we do not feel the presence of God, when life seems unbearable, God is still there.

When we are there in hell, when we feel unlovable, when our health fails, when we lose our job, when our best friend dies, when depression lives not only in a cloud above us but flows in our bloodstream and in the synapses in our brain, this is a hard belief to remember.

During Advent many churches celebrate a Blue Christmas where the church remembers those who have died and offers the grief of those who are grieving to God. This is also a time for us individually to remember and reach out to those who still live in sadness.

This image of a loving, caring God must be written on our hearts during times when we feel connected to God and live in what seems like heaven so that we can then carry that knowledge and feeling with us when our life descends into hell. This is still too hard.

We cannot depend on ourselves to remember how much God loves us. This is why spiritual friends and community are so needed. This is why God calls us to community. When we become paralyzed with fear and loneliness and pain, we need spiritual friends to carry us on that pallet through the roof to God. Otherwise life becomes too hard.

This is not the only answer, but it is the experience I have known best as my friends offer for me to be cared for by the God of love of their understanding until I again am connected to the God of love and compassion I once knew.

Then more will be revealed.

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