Part of the Symphony

Balbir Matbur: Part of the Symphony

“I plant trees, but I am not the doer of this work. I am the facilitator, the instrument—I am one part of the symphony. I know there is an overall scheme to this symphony that I cannot understand. In some way, we are each playing our own part. It is not for me to judge or criticize the life or work of another. All I know is that this is my dance. I would plant trees today even if I knew for certain that the world would end tomorrow.”

Balbir Matbur, Heron Dance interview (Issue 11) from Inward Outward, Daily Words, October 19, 2016, inwardoutward.org

Our tickets at the Arkansas Symphony are on the third row. At times we do indeed feel as if we are part of the orchestra. We have gotten to know who sits where, when someone new is there, or when someone is missing. We know a few by name. There are still many members of the orchestra who were there when we first came to Little Rock over forty years ago.

I especially remember one moment many years ago when the first cellist had a twenty second solo very close to the end of the performance. Suddenly his deep melodious sound was heard about the rest of the orchestra and then just as suddenly he faded back into the background to support the other instruments. I knew that if I had been him, I would have been too nervous the whole night waiting for that brief time with the soloist voice soaring above the rest of the orchestra. The professional cellist of course seemed as comfortable blended in the symphony as he was with his solo. He also stayed continually with direct eye contact with the conductor as he played his brief solo part. I later wondered about the many hours he must have practiced this short solo until it was almost part of his being.

The cellist taught me that most of our life is spent being a member of the orchestra with our unique instrument, our talents, blending and giving depth to the composition assigned to us. There will be times when we are called to speak out above the music of the symphony. Before we do this, however, we should be prepared by practicing, knowing intimately our part, especially the timing, and keeping our eye on the conductor. Most of the time, we are called to spend our gifts blending, supporting, and in many ways encouraging the sounds of others.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

4 Opportunities to purchase this book for Lent and have it signed.

Holy Spirit Episcopal Church, Gulf Shores Alabama, Saturday February 23, 10-2 and Sunday February 24
Wordsworth Books, Little Rock,  Saturday March 2, 1-3 pm

St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, Narthex after 8 and 10:30 services on March 3 and March 10

Proceeds from this book go for Hurricane Relief in the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast

Nouwen: Death

Nouwen: Death

When we lose a dear friend, someone we have loved deeply, we are left with a grief that can paralyse us emotionally for a long time. People we love become part of us. Our thinking, feeling and acting are codetermined by them. When they die a part of us has to die too. That is what grief is about: It is that slow and painful departure of someone who has become an intimate part of us. But as we let go of them they become part of our "members" and as we "re-member" them, they become our guides on our spiritual journey.”

Henri Nouwen August 26, 2018, Henri Nouwen Society, Daily Meditation, from Bread for the Journey, August 26, HarperOne 2006, henrinouwen.org

my grandfather and his 20 siblings. He is standing 4th from our right

The God of my understanding does not give us a person we love deeply and then let that relationship end with the death of that person. Ours is a God of love. The love from that companion we so deeply cared about is still there with us. Love never dies.We are still in relationship with that person but in a way we do not understand. Their love does not stop. Our love for them does not stop. Death is not a period at the end of a sentence, but more like a comma.

Sometimes when we bring to memory events and ordinary and special times with the person we loved, we will also feel their presence and their wisdom. We can still talk to them in this new relationship that is still a mystery. Nouwen believes that we sometimes can be even more intimate in this relationship than in life. It is their love that we feel. Love is what continues and never dies.

Some people find it helpful to wear a piece of jewelry or clothing as a physical reminder of a relationship that is now spiritual. Our loved ones are now in some way always present with us while in life they were only present when they were physically with us.

The grief recovery work that we have been involved with for at least twenty years called Walking the Mourner’s Path believes that one of the most helpful ways to stay in relationship with our loved one is to do something to honor the relationship we had. Amazing transformations have occurred. People have started suicide prevention programs, built walking trails, written books, developed new careers in helping professions, built halfway houses for those in recovery, given land where their loved one died to habitat for humanity.

For myself, I returned to church and stopped smoking when my Grandfather Whaley died to honor him.My grandfather’s love cared for me while he lived and saved my life even in death. I still feel his presence today even almost forty years since his death, and especially as I write about him this morning and now send that love on to my own grandchildren.

Joanna. joannseibert.com

4 Opportunities to purchase this book for Lent and have it signed.

Holy Spirit Episcopal Church, Gulf Shores Alabama Saturday 10 to 2 February 23 and Sunday February 24
Wordsworth Books, Little Rock, Saturday March 2, 1-3 pm

St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock, Narthex after 8 and 10:30 services on March 3 and March 10

Proceeds from this book go for Hurricane Relief in the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast

Merton: Epiphany

Merton: Epiphany

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers.” Thomas Merton

This is the first line of Thomas Merton’s famous mystical revelation and epiphany in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, described in his 1968 journal about the world of the 1960’s, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. pp. 140-142.

Merton had been a Trappist monk now for seventeen years and was on an errand for the monastery in the middle of an ordinary day on March 18, 1958. The story becomes so famous that the city of Louisville erects a plaque at the site in 2008 at the 50th anniversary of Merton’s revelation. Ordinary people and popes continue to visit the corner of Fifth and Walnut that was life changing for Merton and for those who read his works.

Merton’s experience seems similar to what James Finley describes in Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God as “having a finger in the pulse of Christ, realizing oneness with God in life itself.”

This experience may also be similar to what St. Francis realized in nature when he called the sun his brother and the moon his sister. Richard Rohr calls it finding our True Self, “our basic and unchangeable identity in God.” 1

Methodists might relate it to John Wesley’s experience at 8:45 pm on May 24th, 1738, at a Society meeting in Aldersgate Street when someone read from Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to Romans and Wesley says, “I felt my heart strangely warmed.”2

1 Richard Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation,” Richard Rohr Meditation: “Thomas Merton Part II,” October 6, 2017

2 John Wesley, Journal of John Wesley, Charles H. Kelly, London, 1903, p. 51.

Joanna joannaseibert.com