Grace

Grace

“Like the unexpected call of a friend just when you need it most, grace arrives unannounced. A door opens. A path becomes clear. An answer presents itself. Grace is what it feels like to be touched by God.” —Bishop Steven Charleston, Facebook Message.

I stand waiting to walk out and read the Gospel as we sing the Sequence, the hymn before the Gospel: “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.” I glance at the last verse, and there, faintly written in pencil, just before the beginning of the last line, is the word “softer.” It is in my mother’s distinctive handwriting. I had forgotten that my mother sang in the choir at her small Episcopal church in Virginia. This must be a directive from the choirmaster.

My mother has been dead for more than nineteen years. We did not always understand each other; but when she died, I wanted to honor her in some way, and decided to start using her personal hymnal/prayer book in church.

Her name has worn off the front cover; the gold cross on it will soon be gone. The red leather cover is now coming apart, particularly the backboard of the spine of the book. I have not repaired it because for some unknown reason what remains of this book, just as she used it, seems to be connecting me to her.

When I saw my mother’s writing, I gasped and sent up a small prayer of thanksgiving. We had some very difficult times; but over the years since her death I have begun to feel healing. This morning, in this split second, I felt reconciled with my mother and was grateful for the life and support she gave me.

Healing of family relationships takes time and constant prayer for family members and for ourselves. Today I realize that prayer works. Attempting to connect to an estranged family member through something that family member treasured and we can share with them over time works. This valuing what we have in common rather than remembering our differences brings about healing in life as well as after death. My mother and I shared our love of the Episcopal Church and singing in particular. Today I almost felt my mother beside me.

Through this realization I experience one more way that God’s Grace continues to heal and care for us over time if we only put ourselves in the position to receive.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

The Sea Is His

The Sea Is His
Venite

Come, let us sing to the Lord;
let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before God’s presence with thanksgiving;
and raise to the Lord a shout with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God;
you are great above all gods.
In your hand are the caverns of the earth;
and the heights of the hills are yours also.
The sea is yours, for you made it,
and your hands have molded the dry land.

Come, let us bow down and bend the knee,
and kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For you are our God,
and we are the people of your pasture, and the sheep of your hand.
O that today we would hearken to your voice!

—Psalm 95:1-7.

He hurries in late with coffee in one hand and keys in another. “Sorry about being late, trying to do too much, too much going on.” I light our candle as a prayer to the Holy Spirit to be present. We sit in silence until his breathing becomes less labored. “When I am so busy, my world becomes all about me. I do not feel God’s presence. I wish I knew how to slow down my life and better hear God working in my life,” he finally says.

I tell him this story.

On our last visit to the Gulf of Mexico, my husband and I rose early whenever possible, sitting out on our balcony and waiting in the dark for the sun to rise. Usually the sun creeps up, a little pink, a little lighter, and then with a huge crash of light like the cymbals and tympani at the conclusion of a symphony. On a few days we become real beach bums, just sitting or looking out on the changing sea, waiting for the early morning fishermen: the osprey, the fishing boats, the surf fishermen with their accompanying blue heron waiting for the catch of the day. Soon come the dolphins and the pelicans, swimming and flying and diving back and forth along the shoreline. We take in a world greater than that of our own making.

The Venite from Morning Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer speaks to what happens more than we can express. One of our most famous theologians and philosophers, who spent his lifetime trying to understand God, came and sat by the ocean for the very first time and wept uncontrollably as he experienced the vastness of God in the sea—more than he had ever imagined. Sitting by a body of water and observing new life as it emerges each day from under and above the sea, marveling at such a vast world of wonder can be more healing than drugs.

Is it possible for you to start the day, or stop during the day to sit by a body of water? For only a half hour, maybe during lunch or after dinner, stop and allow the rhythm of life on the river or the sea or the lake to heal you.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Strangers, Angels, Firemen

Strangers, Angels, Firemen

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” —Hebrews 13:2, NRSV.

Early in our medical careers, as my husband and I were given the opportunity to help develop departments at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, we were constantly, for several weekends a month, recruiting out-of-town physicians looking for positions in our specialties. We also had three small children whom we wanted to be with, especially on the weekends. So we usually took our children with us on tours of Little Rock and treated them to lunches in the afternoon. We often ate at a hotel restaurant that had an inside glass elevator and escalators; so when the children had enough recruitment entertainment at lunch, they entertained themselves by making several bird’s eye view trips up and down the hotel.

I don’t know if this term is still in fashion—but we would identify the visiting physicians to our children as “visiting firemen.” The phrase is still a well-used part of our family vocabulary.

Many of these “visiting firemen” indeed were “angels unawares,” as the King James Bible translates this verse from Hebrews. We had no idea how we would be able to work with those we were recruiting; but we took a leap of faith, and they changed and healed children’s lives—and influenced us as well.

They helped us put out fires when the politics of medicine reared its ugly head. They taught us by their presence how grateful we were for them every day, as we tried to solve and identify and change the course of children’s diseases, consulting with each other in community rather than making decisions by ourselves. Their presence and their wisdom changed me from an anxious person to a grateful person. They brought with them peace, one of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5.

The greatest accumulation of strangers with whom I now meet weekly are at St. Mark’s food pantry; but soon they, as well, are no longer strangers. Many indeed are angels. They ask for prayer, but they know how to pray so much better than we do. They have very little, but they share with others. Many bring their neighbors who cannot drive. Most repeatedly tell us stories about how blessed they are. Perhaps this is a sign of an angel, one who lives in gratitude.

I share with spiritual friends that I have learned most often from strangers that gratitude is a straight path to our soul, to the God within us.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com