Nouwen: Forgiveness

Nouwen: Healing Our Hearts Through Forgiveness

“How can we forgive those who do not want to be forgiven? But if our condition for giving forgiveness is that it will be received, we seldom will forgive! Forgiving the other is an act that removes anger, bitterness, and the desire for revenge from our hearts. Forgiving others is first and foremost healing our own hearts.” —Henri Nouwen in Bread for the Journey (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997).

Recently I was with an amazing group of women in Searcy, Arkansas, as we talked about forgiveness. One of the first questions from two of the women was, “How can I forgive someone who has harmed me or someone I love when they do not see that they have done any wrong?”

These are the hardest hurts for me to forgive as well. We think we are doing fine; but then we hear how the people involved see no wrongdoing on their part, and an angry dragon rears his head again. This anger is nothing like our initial reaction; but it still endangers our body, our mind, and our soul. We are allowing the people and the situation to continue to harm us—unless we can transform that energy into something useful for our body and the world.

I think of a small church-related school that I, and many others, were involved with that was closed overnight. After several years, most of us have worked through the disappointment and have moved on. We will all carry a scar; but for the most part the wound is healing.

Most of us decided that if we cannot forgive those involved in the closing, or those who did nothing to prevent it, they are still hurting us. They take up space in our minds, our life, our bodies, and our relationship with others. We all have prayed to transform the huge amount of energy generated by this hurt into something positive. We all are now discovering gold—deep down below this pain.

I often go to a place where I remember the children and teachers and school board singing and carrying small lighted candles as they walked out into the world, in pairs, at the conclusion of the school’s last graduation. What I do cherish every day is the light that each of those involved at this school now bring to so many other schools, homes, churches, and places of work. We have been sent out to share what we learned from that experience: the relationships, the love, the kindness to others, the acceptance of differences, the belief in a very loving God.

There was so much light radiating from that school. That is why it was so hard to leave. But now we have been commissioned to carry the light we received there out into the larger world. We can make a difference in so many other lives, and so many have been doing just that.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

The Day After July 4th, 2019

“America! America! God mend thine every flaw,

confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.”

Katherine Lee Bates

This coming Sunday nearest the fourth of July we will have a patriotic hymn sing along after church. One of my favorites is the music to Katherine Lee Bates poem, “America the Beautiful.” “O beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain.” Bates wrote the hymn after she arrived in a prairie wagon on top of the 14,000-foot Pike’s Peak near Colorado Springs in the summer of 1893.

I became connected to the poem and the hymn when I helped plan a pediatric radiology meeting at nearby Colorado Springs in 1994. I took a sabbatical from Children’s Hospital for six months in order to plan the international pediatric radiology meeting. I had much help from people all over the world, but I also had a touch of what Parker Palmer calls “functional atheism,” believing I was the “only” one who needed to get most of the work done.

After a year of planning and everything was ready, I vividly remember sitting in a board meeting in May at the event hotel just before the conference was about to begin. I looked out of the adjacent large bay window, and saw to my horror, the beginning of the last snow of winter, in May! I had planned in detail a multitude of outdoor activities that now would never see the light of day. I now keep a beautiful picture of snow on the tulips in front of the hotel to remind me of how little in life I can control.

There were a multitude of other hiccups. We recorded speakers for a meeting video. One speaker did not like his recording and required us to redo his filming at least five times. I will always be indebted to Marilyn Goske whom I had casually asked to watch over the videoing of the speakers. She patiently stayed with the speakers and missed the whole meeting to get this done. Another hiccup was our evening entertainment after dinner. We had scheduled the Air Force Academy Cadet Choir. Then without warning they were called to maneuvers. Our meeting planner booked a local children’s chorus. I was embarrassed that this would be amateurish and poorly performed. As you might expect, they were some of the most charming, talented and poised children performers I have ever seen. They ended their concert by going to individual members of the highly-educated, sophisticated audience and held their hands and sang directly to them. We all gave them a standing ovation through our tears, remembering that the children we serve as physicians can teach us so much about life as well as “American the Beautiful.”

I also learned from this meeting that no matter how hard I try, I am not in charge, that God provides amazing people around me who will take over situations that are overwhelming, and I especially learned after dinner that when a door unexpectedly closes, the next door that opens often is surprisingly magnificent.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Daily Protection Prayer

“May the guiding hands of God be on my shoulders,
may the presence of the Holy Spirit be on my head,
may the sign of Christ be on my forehead,
may the voice of the Holy Spirit be in my ears,
may the smell of the Holy Spirit be in my nose,
may the sight of the company of heaven be in my eyes,
may the speech of the company of heaven be in my mouth,
may the work of the church of God be in my hands,
may the serving of God and my neighbor be in my feet,
may God make my heart his home,
and may I belong to God, my Father, completely.”

—Lorica of St. Fursa (Fursey), 7th Century, Translation composite, from Facebook Page of the Rev. Dr. Frederick Schmidt.

clay banks unsplash

Fred Schmidt puts a prayer on his Facebook page almost every day. I cannot get this one out of my mind. St. Fursa was an Irish monk who was among the first to spread Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England in the seventh century. A “Lorica” is a protection prayer in the Irish Celtic tradition, often used before going to battle. It may have come from the original Latin word lorica, meaning breastplate or armor. It is suggested to have been inspired by Paul’s writing in Ephesians 6:11 to “put on the whole armor of Christ.”

As modern Christians, we stand to learn much from the Celts. We have a treasury of their wisdom, because writing and education were so important to them. I think of others who worshiped God, but of whose traditions we know nothing, because their experience—and not the writing—was primary to them. We need both.

This is the kind of prayer that should meet us as we wake up in the morning, maybe with that first cup of coffee or tea, or even before.

We may need to go back to it during the day, leaving a copy of it in a convenient place so as not to miss putting on “the whole armor of God.” Sometimes life does seem like going into battle especially in times like this.

On this 4th of July I wonder if any of the men and women during the American Revolution said Celtic prayers like this one. I wonder if their experience was like ours. When prayers such as this one become part of our being, we recognize that the battle is over and that love has already won.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com