Serenity Prayer

“God, Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And Wisdom to know the difference.” —Reinhold Niebuhr.

My grandmother kept a copy of the Serenity Prayer on her bathroom mirror. Today I honor her by doing the same. I can remember visiting her as a young girl and reading the prayer in her bathroom every morning. What I especially remember is that I thought, “This is the most ridiculous prayer! If there is a problem, I know if I try hard enough, I will be able to solve or fix it!”

Many years later, many trials later, I have learned the hard way the truth of the Serenity Prayer. There are so many things I cannot change. In fact, the only thing I can change is myself and my reactions to other people and situations. I cannot change others. I try to share my firsthand experience with spiritual friends; but so often others like myself need a firsthand rather than a secondhand experience to see this truth.

I wonder if it took my adoring grandmother as long as it did me to discover and learn to live the truth.

I wonder if she had as many setbacks as I so often do—thinking I can change situations and others.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

The Trinity

“ Trinitarian theology says that true power is circular or spiral, not so much hierarchical. If the Father does not dominate the Son, and the Son does not dominate the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit does not dominate the Father or the Son, then there’s no domination in God. All divine power is shared power.” —Richard Rohr in The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (Whitaker House), pp. 95-96.

Robert Farrar Capon says that when humans try to describe God, we are like a bunch of oysters trying to describe a ballerina. But we can’t help but try, especially as we strive to understand the doctrine of the Trinity, perhaps one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian faith.

A Greek Orthodox bishop, Timothy Kallistos, at a lecture at a summer course at Oxford University, introduced us to Andrei Rublev’s 15th-century icon, The Trinity, or The Hospitality of Abraham. It pictures the three angels who visited Abraham at the Oak of Mamre (Gen. 18:1-8) to announce the coming birth of his son, Isaac. It has been interpreted as a symbol to help visualize the mystery of the interrelationship in the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each of the figures is in a circular harmony with the other, humbly pointing to each of the others with mutual love. If we relate only to the Trinity in its separate parts, we miss the mark. The Persons are in community, transparent to each other, indwelling one another, in love with each other. They have no secrets from one another, no jealousy, no rivalry. They are teaching us how to live in community. Barbara Brown Taylor describes their relationship as the sound of “three hands clapping.”

The doctrine of the Trinity calls us to a radical reorientation in our way of seeing and living in the world. We are what we are in relationship with. The God of the Trinity is not an I, but a we; not mine, but ours. Our belief in and understanding of the Trinity can definitely make a difference in how we drive our cars; how we fill out our tax returns; how we relate to others of different faiths, colors, and political views; how we stand in relation to war; how we treat the person sitting across the aisle from us, as well as those living across the Interstate and outside our country’s borders.

Richard Rohr’s and Barbara Brown Taylor’s thoughts are excellent to mediate on when we are having a conflict with another person, when the Christ within us is having difficulty seeing the Christ in another.

[See Barbara Brown Taylor, “Three Hands Clapping” in Home By Another Way (Cowley), pp. 151-154.]

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

Arthur: Literature for Pentecost

At the Stillpoint “is a journey of the imagination guided by poets and authors, both classic and contemporary, who have known the things of God but speak in metaphor.” —Sarah Arthur in At the Still Point (Paraclete Press, 2011), p. 7.

At the Still Point by Sarah Arthur is a literary compilation of daily and weekly readings and prayers designed for the long green liturgical season between the Day of Pentecost and Advent. Arthur has also published similar guides for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany (Light Upon Light); and for Lent, Holy Week, and Easter (Between Midnight and Dawn).

In these twenty-nine weeks between the Day of Pentecost and the first Sunday in Advent, Arthur kindles our imagination as she exposes us to brief excerpts or short works of well-known writers—as well as offerings from authors we may not know but should! Arthur warns us that as we encounter some of the readings in this anthology, there should be an alert: “Warning: Powerful Spiritual Moment Ahead!” She suggests that we read these passages not as assignments for our English Literature class or for pleasure, but as liturgical pieces for worship and especially prayer.

Each week begins with an outline for the next seven days, consisting of an opening prayer, Scripture passages, readings from literature, a place for personal prayer and reflection, and a closing prayer. Arthur suggests applying the ancient principles of lectio divina or divine reading that many of us have used with Scripture, now applied to selected weekly poetry and fiction writings. We read the passage, meditate on it, pay attention to a word or phrase that connects to us, and finally rest in God’s presence with what we have experienced. It has been helpful to me to carry that word or phrase with me during the day, or perhaps the whole week. Since this process is now being used for literature and poetry rather than with Scripture, Arthur has christened it holy reading or lectio sacra.

I invite you to journey with me and with Sarah Arthur during this “Ordinary Season” with an extraordinary spiritual practice of daily worship and prayer.

Joanna joannaseibert.com