Darkness and Light and Candles and Prayers

“If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn to night,’ darkness is not dark to you, O Lord; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike.” —Psalm 139:11-12.

At the five o’clock contemporary service every Sunday night at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, the nave is darkened and illuminated only by tealight candles on the altar in front of a large icon. After the usual Prayers of the People with a Leader and People response, members of the congregation are invited to come up and light a candle in front of the altar as they say a silent prayer of intercession. Tonight’s pianist plays music from the Taizé community, as almost all the members of the congregation come forward.

While I remain in the chair behind my harp, I experience the scene as a Spirit-filled synthesis of corporate and individual intercessory prayer. I watch men and women and sometimes children walk silently up to light their taper and put it in a large earthenware bowl filled with sand. I know a few of the prayers that may be on some hearts. There are many people I do not know, much less what they are praying for; but I see faces displaying earnest emotion, and even sometimes silent tears. Even when I do not perceive their prayers, I can feel their power and maybe even their connection. There is a stream of people connecting to God in prayers for others, and certainly sometimes for themselves.

The light from the many candles now brings brighter light to the nave of the church. The scene has become its own icon for teaching us what happens when we pray. Out of the darkened nave, prayers are germinated and born which transform the darkness into light. I keep remembering that C. S. Lewis once wrote that he “prayed not to change God, but to change himself.” These silent prayers being transported by candlelight are changing the appearance of the church and the pray-ers, and certainly they are changing me.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Our story

“The name is strange. It startles one at first. It is so bold, so new, so fearless. It does not attract, rather the reverse. But when one reads the poem this strangeness disappears. The meaning is understood.” —J .F. X. O’Connor, S. J., in A Study of Francis Thompson’s Hound of Heaven (John Lane Company, 1912), p. 7.

Once a week I meet with a group of friends who share how God is working in their life. I go to this meeting on Saturday morning because I believe in miracles, and that belief is always affirmed by what I hear and see. These are a group of people who were caught in addiction, who thought there was no way out—but somehow, through the grace of God and with the help of community, found a new life. I give up my Saturday morning to meet with some people I have seen for years and others I have never met before. There are people from all walks of life, many I would not have known otherwise.

This Saturday, many people talk about the time when they realized there might be a way out of their old lifestyle. They call it a moment of clarity. Many were desperate. Some just knew this was not the path they would ever choose, but there they were.

When they decided to come to the group for help, they were at first very uncomfortable. I came to this 12-step group around Thanksgiving. I can remember seeing posters about a Thanksgiving potluck. I remember thinking I don’t like being here, and goodness knows I don’t want to eat with these people as well! Today, almost twenty-nine years later, most of the people I go out to eat with are those I met through this community!

Many talked about how they had no idea what gave them the courage to come to this meeting. Story after story revealed that there is something greater than all of us—caring, loving us, and calling us to become the persons we were created to be. I also see this phenomenon in people who come for spiritual direction. Something is calling us out of our God hole—the God, the Christ within us, who, deep down inside of our being, makes us aware that we are unconditionally loved.

In 1893 Francis Thompson wrote a 182-line poem about his experience of being “hounded” by God and called it The Hound of Heaven. I could not have given a better description.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

Storm Warnings

“Jesus also said to the crowds, ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. … You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?’” —Luke 12:54-57.

I sit and watch a storm come up the beach in the early morning. The sun is out and there are blue skies to the east, but to the west the sky is grayer. Clouds begin to move overhead. Sometimes this dark overhead carpet seems so close I think I can touch it. Fishing boats come back into port to weather the coming storm. Birds begin to take shelter. The great blue heron moves inland. The pelicans are nowhere to be seen. The mighty osprey is the last to give up looking for one more meal before she moves back to her nest. A violent wind precedes and announces the main event, the driving rain, which is almost horizontal.

Jesus reminds us that we see signs in our own life that indicate storms may be coming. Our children act out or their grades at school begin to drop. We get little hints that a project is not going well; but we are too busy to take care of that matter right now. Later. Too many other things going on. We remember how a certain food affected us in the past, but we eat it anyway. Our clothes no longer fit, but we do not change our eating, our exercise habits, or our lifestyle. We ignore a pain that is a sign that some body part needs attention.

The same is true in our spiritual life. Our prayer life seems dry. We cannot remember our dreams. We can no longer write. All we read seems dull and uninteresting. We think of every excuse not to attend corporate worship. We stop going outdoors. It is too hot. Too cold. Too sunny. Too cloudy. We stop talking with friends. We isolate ourselves.

In medicine, a sign is an outward or objective appearance that suggests what is going on—like the red butterfly rash across the nose that is characteristic of lupus erythematosus. A symptom describes something subjectively experienced by an individual, such as the fatigue of lupus, or pain with a urinary tract infection, which requires some interpretation.

We constantly are given signs and experience symptoms in both our outer and inner life that can direct us. God never abandons us. We are called only to keep ourselves “in tune” in order to see and hear. Spiritual directors, spiritual friends, spiritual practices all are gifts that can help us along this journey. They assure us that we are not alone, and that a directional move or change in course may be needed in our outer or inner life.

My own experience, however, is that I am so much like that osprey, waiting until the very last minute before I surrender to something greater than myself.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com