The Present, New Year's Day, Eighth Day of Christmas

The Present, New Year’s Day, Eighth Day of Christmas

“What comes next? The answer is: we never know. No matter how smart we are, how carefully we have planned, or how much data we have gathered, we are still only mortals who can never control the future. We live in the now, in the eternally changing series of spaces we call the present. The now is where we shine. In the now we can have an impact, be creative, shape reality, build relationships that can withstand change. What happens tomorrow may always be a surprise, but what happens today can still feel our presence. In fact, we are the artists of the now. We can turn a moment into a memory, a glance into a promise, an idea into a vision that will last forever.” Steven Charleston Daily Facebook

I think I become aware of the gift of living in the present moment in the 1980’s when I bought Spencer Johnson’s 80-page book, The Precious Presence as a Christmas present for my husband and decided to read it first. It is a practical parable of a man living in our fast-paced world trying to find meaning and peace, opening the most precious of presents. Later I would read two more of Spencer’s books, The One Minute Manager and Who Moved the Cheese during my self-help period attempting to cope with the demands of a busy pediatric radiology practice. Then I was reminded again by the power of living in the present when I read from CS Lewis in the Screwtape Letters that God meets us only in the present moment. “The Present is the point at which time touches eternity.” This is where God lives in our lives. God is not in the past or the future, but there to greet us in the present moment.

How do we stay in the present moment? Anthony De Mello in Sadhana teaches us that living in our body and not living out of our head keeps us grounded. Spending time in nature connects us to the present. Being with children keeps us in the present, for that is where they live.

Living in the present moment can be our gift to ourselves, to God, and to all we will meet in this new year.

Joanna. joannaseibert.com

Buechner, Lewis: Telling Secrets on New Year's Eve

Buechner, Lewis: Telling Secrets on New Year’s Eve

“I have come to believe that by and large the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition—that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else.”

Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets, p. 2.HarperOne 1991. Buechner Quote of the Day, Frederick Buechner Center, Frederickbuechner.com

In Telling Secrets Buechner reminds us that we so often are like the dwarves in the stable in The Last Battle by CS Lewis. We do not see the good and do not realize that we are surrounded by beauty but live trapped lives because of our dark secrets. We are as sick as our secrets and only can get well by airing these secrets if only in our own hearts. Like the dwarves we live our lives huddled together in what we think is a cramped, pitch-black dark stable where there is little room to breathe.

In reality, we are in the midst of an endless green meadow where the sun is shining and the sky is blue. Aslan himself (God) stands there offering freedom, but the dwarves cannot see him and only see each other.

We are our secrets. Our trusting each other enough to share these secrets has much to do with the secret of what it is like to be connected to the God within us as well as honoring our humanness.

This last day of the calendar year is a good time to take inventory of what secrets we may be carrying into the new year that will keep us in the dark and block our relationship with God within us, God in our neighbor, and God transcendent.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Gesu Bambino

Gesu Bambino

“Upon a winter night,

Was born the Child, the Christmas Rose,

The King of Love and Light.

The angels sang, the shepherds sang,

The grateful earth rejoiced.” Frederick Martens, music by Pietro Yon (1917)

Advent. Christmas at Kanuga

As you know, my younger brother died several years ago on the day after Christmas or Boxing Day or the Feast Day of St. Stephen. I still miss him.

The last Sunday in Advent, Advent IV, the day before Christmas Eve as I was preparing in the early morning to go to the eight o’clock service, I heard on our National Public Radio Station (NPR) a piano arrangement of Gesu Bambino. This is Italian Christmas Carol with O Come All Ye Faithful for the chorus with the music written by Pietro Yon and the lyrics by Frederick Martens.

Suddenly I felt my brother’s presence. My brother sang this as a solo at a Christmas program when he was ten or eleven years old in the basement of the Baptist church in our hometown, West Point, Virginia. He was taught Gesu by the minister’s son, Bobby Pleasants, who also was an organist and my piano teacher. I wonder where he is now. I give thanks for Bobby for the gift he gave me today by teaching my brother to sing this ethereal Christmas anthem so many years ago. I see and hear my young brother singing like a cherub in the candle light, lifting his head and his eyes as he strains for the high notes, singing with all his might.

This was a Christmas gift from my brother. He was physically very strong. I have many mobility issues. This Christmas Eve we had two very large services at St. Mark’s. I have been concerned whether I could physically serve as one of the deacons at these demanding services late at night where almost a thousand people will attend. That morning before Christmas Eve I was empowered. I felt my brother and his strength beside me. I had no doubt that this was something I could do, and I still feel his strength and love throughout these twelve days of Christmas.

Joanna joannaseibert.com