Kelsey: The Ballad of Judas Iscariot

Kelsey: The Ballad of Judas Iscariot

“We forget that the real task is to bring the totality of our psychic being to God and not just to repress and split off those parts of ourselves that we cannot change.” —Morton T. Kelsey in The Other Side of Silence: A Guide to Christian Meditation (Paulist Press, 1976).

Theologian Morton Kelsey wrote a very practical book more than fifty years ago called The Other Side of Silence: A Guide to Christian Meditation, which affirmed that meditation is not only for those in Eastern religions. His revised edition, which was published twenty years later, The Other Side of Silence: Meditation for the Twenty-first Century, contains more of his writings for an audience that is now more familiar with Christian meditation. Kelsey believes that meditation is simply the way we set up the conditions to prepare for the God who is seeking us and breaks through to us, particularly in silence. “Doing meditation” involves using biblical stories, dream images, poems, and images from other sources.

Included in Kelsey’s book is a moving poem, “The Ballad of Judas Iscariot,” by the Scottish poet, Robert Buchanan, which I read and meditate on every Easter season. It reminds us that no one is lost or unforgiven or unloved by God. The ballad must have been powerful when sung. The story is of Judas wandering through regions of darkness until he spies a light from a lantern at a doorway. Jesus is holding up the light, and he beckons to Judas to come in and join his fellow disciples who are getting ready to eat. Jesus tells Judas that they were just waiting for him before pouring the wine.

I offer the poem also to spiritual friends who feel they have done something unforgivable, or that God no longer loves them; and of course, I meditate on it myself when that darkness of guilt or shame or a poor self-image surrounds me as well. Judas is a reminder and icon of times when we cannot accept that we might be forgiven or loved, or are having trouble opening ourselves to God’s Grace continuously offered through dark and light times in our life. In all honesty, was Judas’ betrayal of Jesus really worse than denying Jesus or abandoning him as the others did? Judas simply could not ask for or accept forgiveness, and had forgotten that the God of his understanding was a loving and forgiving God.

Joanna. joannaseibet@me.com

Purchase a copy of A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter from me, joannaseibert@me.com, from Wordsworth Books in Little Rock, or from Amazon.

Chant Exsultet Easter Again

Chant Exsultet Easter

“Chant calls us out of chronological time, in which ‘now’ can never be located, and into the eternal now, which is not really found in time.” —David Steindl-Rast in The Music of Silence: Entering the Sacred Space of Monastic Experience (HarperOne, 1995).

David Steindl-Rast reminds us that when we use this ancient voice in praising and praying to God and speaking to each other we are standing in the presence of ancient angel choirs. We are changing the way we address God and each other. The words become notes. The message we chant sounds different. The sounds of chant are soothing, comforting. The music takes us to another place and another time. The sounds open our world to a new dimension. Chanting slows down the words of the message. The squirrels running in the cage in our head slow down and become a bit quieter. Sometimes time seems to stand still, and we feel at peace. We are home.

The chant that deacons most often sing is the Exsultet, which follows bringing the newly lighted Christ candle back into the church at the Easter Vigil. Well before Lent begins, this music becomes part of my body even if I am not the deacon designated to sing this lengthy Canticle. Jason Pennington, the music director at one of my previous churches, describes the Exsultet as “one of the most difficult chants of the Church’s treasury of song, sung at the opening of the Great Vigil, at the culmination of the events of the holy triduum as all of the congregation is holding their candles in the shadow of the one Paschal, the choir not yet allowed into the stalls, standing in the nave with the faithful as that most beautiful of Canticles is intoned, the Exsultet, promising us all the immeasurable gift of salvation.”

I keep a note from Jason from our last Easter together when I was having some mobility issues and standing for a length of time was more difficult. “She was facing excruciating physical pain to stand for the lengthy Canticle as she drew each breath to acclaim its message of life. She paced it well, taking her time and savoring every single phrase as if it were the very first. This was a beautiful gift of ministry, a Holy Spirit gift that put ministry before self. And isn’t that exactly the lesson to have been learned at the Mandatum not two nights before: ‘I give you a new commandment, that you should love one another.’ Joanna’s lovely, quiet chanting voice was tremulous with pain, yet was filled with joy. This was Easter.”

I keep Jason’s note to help remind me and others that chanting is always an offering, never a performance.

Joanna. joannaseibet@me.com

Purchase a copy of A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter from me, joannaseibert@me.com, from Wordsworth Books in Little Rock, or from Amazon.

Nouwen: Crushed Grapes

Nouwen: Crushed Grapes

“Sometimes our sorrow overwhelms us so much that we no longer can believe in joy. Life just seems a cup filled to the brim with war, violence, rejection, loneliness, and endless disappointments. At times like this we need our friends to remind us that crushed grapes can produce tasty wine.” —Henri Nouwen, “April 7” in Bread for the Journey (HarperOne, 1997).

Freeman Playground in Helena ribbon cutting

Our God never promises that we will not experience sorrow or tragedy; but God does promise to be with us through our despair. Out of every Good Friday experience can come a resurrection, an Easter. When we, our friends, or those we come to comfort are in the middle of sorrow and pain, the words we offer are not comforting. We are called at first to be the love of God just by our presence with those who grieve. There are no words sufficient to fix things—only our love and standing with the broken can bring healing life.

As the sorrow of the grieving eases, we can slowly offer this promise of an Easter experience in which crushed grapes turn into wine. For example: some people whose son committed suicide have developed a plan for suicide prevention so that others will not have to go through their experience. I see those who have endured the death of a loved one become the first ones to reach out to others whose loved one has died, sometimes sitting beside them for hours. Parents whose child has been killed in a tragic accident go and build a playground or a trail so that other children will have a safe place to go. A family whose teenage daughter dies in a car accident begins an arts program for teens in public schools, since art made such a difference in their daughter’s life. Participants who develop a friendship in a grief recovery group form a funeral team at their church to care for families before, during, and after the service.

All of us are a product of our wounds. We have a choice. We can learn and work and live through our sorrows, and over time—at some point— may experience another Easter, taste a new wine. Or we can stay isolated and buried in our Good Friday tomb. My experience is that Christ stays there with us as long as it takes, ready to roll away the stone as new life emerges.

Joanna. joannaseibet@me.com

Purchase a copy of A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter from me, joannaseibert@me.com, from Wordsworth Books in Little Rock, or from Amazon.