Paying it Forward

Paying it forward

“It is important that we learn humility, which says there was someone else before me who paid for me. My responsibility is to prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who is yet to come.” Maya Angelou

At Christmas, I often remember special friends who have died. I remember Sylvia, whom I dearly loved for many years. We worked together early in my ministry, and she taught me about servant leadership. She was a single mom, a nurse and a care taker like none other. She was a visitor from our church to the sick to say prayers, but she become more like a parish nurse being an advocate in the hospital for the medical condition of those with whom she said prayers. Sylvia would go to nursing stations and let anyone there know what “her patients” needed.

We started a 12-step group at our church which only lasted for about four months, but Sylvia was one of the first people who came to it and was in recovery for the rest of her life. We always believed we started it just for her and never regretted the effort we put into it.

Sylvia loved us but more than us she loved her grandchildren whom she talked about almost constantly. She died too early while her grandchildren were still young. Somehow I stay connected to her family and know a little about her oldest granddaughter. I intermittently write to Darcy and let her know some of the stories about her grandmother, but I especially tell her how very much she was loved and adored by Sylvia.

I honestly believe that Sylvia has in some way still been “suggesting” that I do this the way she made “suggestions” so well in her physical life. This is exactly what she would tell me to do if she were physically beside me. Sylvia wants her granddaughter to know how much she was and is loved, and in turn Sylvia is reminding me that I have that opportunity to do the same.

When I remember Sylvia’s untimely death, I am moved to call or text or email or visit with my own grandchildren and remember what a privilege it is to let them know they are loved.

This was my Christmas present this year and many years to come from Sylvia.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Rohr, Poe: Seeing

Richard Rohr, Poe: Seeing

“Most people do not see things as they are because they see things as they are!” Which is not to see at all. Their many self-created filters keep them from seeing with any clear vision.” Richard Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation, Richard Rohr ‘s Daily Meditation.

Edgar Allen Poe also gives us more clues about seeing in “The Purloined Letter.” The Paris chief of police asks a famous amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin to help him find a letter stolen from the boudoir of an unnamed women by an unscrupulous minister who is blackmailing his victim. The chief of police and his detectives have thoroughly searched the hotel where the minister is living, looking behind the wallpaper and under the carpets, examining tables and chairs with microscopes, probing cushions with needles, and finding no sign of the letter.

Dupin gets a detailed description of the letter, visits the minister at his hotel and complains of weak eyes so he can wear green eye glasses and disguise his eye movements as he searches for the letter. There it is in plain sight in a cheap card rack hanging from a dirty ribbon. He leaves a snuff box behind as an excuse to return the next day and switches out the letter for a duplicate.

Rohr is calling us to put on a new pair of glasses, perhaps 3 D glasses, to see the depth of what is in plain sight immediately around us in the present moment. We will meet God in the present moment. This is the call of the Christmas Season.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Boxing Day

Boxing Day

“But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them.” Wisdom 3:1

Christmas card my brother Jimmy and I sent out together in 1959

My experience is that those who have known the death of a loved one around Christmas may find the holidays not always a joyful time in their memory.

My brother died in December four years ago in 2014 on Boxing Day, the second day of Christmas. He died less than four months after his 70th birthday, almost exactly at the same age as our father died. My brother was born on Labor Day and died on Boxing Day. We will have to work on the significance of all that.

Boxing Day is traditionally the day after Christmas when servants in English households receive a gift from their employer in a “box”, and of course Labor Day honors those who are working and gives them an extra day of rest. I do know Jim loved Christmas. My brother also died on the day our church calendar honors Stephen, the first deacon and martyr. I don’t know about a martyr, but my brother was definitely a survivor. He had open-heart surgery, three cancers and at least three strokes.

I did something I have never done before shortly after my brother died. I prayed asking him what he would like for us to say about him. I have given many funeral homilies but never have prayed that question directly to the person who died. I now wish I had. This is what immediately came to me that my brother said: ”I tried to be a good man, and I loved my family.”

“I tried to be a good man, and I loved my family.” So that was my message from my brother. I know he dearly loved his family and was very proud of his three sons. He loved his community, serving faithfully as a banker, a member of the Boys and Girls Club, and the school board.

I know my brother especially loved his church where he served faithfully.

Since the Episcopal Church is a love we both shared, we talked about it often. Only once did we have the privilege of serving at an altar together. That was at our mother’s funeral where we both were Eucharistic ministers serving the chalice.

My brother was an eight o’clock churchgoer. They are a different breed, a little more private, a little quieter, sometimes a little more reserved. They get the ear of the rector after the service, as there are so few people present that early.

My brother loved serving on the vestry, another rare breed. If an eight o’clocker is a lector or Eucharistic minister, they serve more often than those at the later service as my brother did. I tried to talk my brother into becoming a deacon, which I think could have happened if he had had a little more time. The church is in the genes of our family. It comes out in many different forms, but we cannot escape it.

My brother was a believer and there is no doubt that he now lives in the resurrection, just as he experienced so many resurrections in this life.

So today I am sharing with you some memories of my brother, my only sibling. I daily miss him especially on the holidays. I remember how when we were children we would wake up in the early morning on Christmas, too excited to sleep, and lie together in bed hoping by some miracle that our parents would wake up early. He so loved Christmas. I honor him by sharing Christmas stories about him and celebrating the holiday as he so loved to do. He always brought joy to my life and I hope to keep sharing that joy especially at this time of the year. Sometimes when our family is sharing stories I can hear his distinctive laugh, and I give thanks for our life together.

Joanna joannaseibert.com