New Day

“Waking up this morning, I smile.
Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.
I vow to live fully in each moment
and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”
—Thich Nhat Hanh in The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching (Broadway Books, 1998), p. 102.

caterpillar becoming pupa. sally klein

Richard Rohr in his daily email compares Christians and Buddhists. “Christians are usually talking about metaphysics (‘what is’) and Buddhists are usually talking about epistemology (‘how do we know what is’). In that sense, they offer great gifts to one another.” 1

All I know is that the writings of the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh so often speak to me. What a marvelous idea to wake up in the morning and say to ourselves, “We have twenty-four brand new hours before us. I don’t want to waste a second, a minute, an hour. It is a new day.”

Yesterday is past. We went over what we had done and left undone the night before when we prayed that God would forgive us of wrongdoing, also called sins. We remembered where we found joy, often where we least expected it. We recalled where we found love. We remembered the day’s experiences in which we saw God working in our life.

This is a new day, a new beginning. We can no longer regret the past. If we have harmed others, we will make living amends where we need to; but today we are offered a new start. We hope we have learned from the past. We will not keep doing the same thing every day and expect different results. We will look for synchronicity or moments or serendipity in which we make connections, see how events are related.

I write about the Eucharist one morning and someone not aware of that confides later that same morning about how important the Eucharist is in his life. We receive a message from a friend we have been thinking about that day. We think about someone we have not seen for some time, and then that person calls. The person tells us that what we did or said was exactly what was needed at the time. That is synchronicity. These are God connections, and they are all around us in each new day.

1 Richard Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation, Meditation: Mindfulness, cac.org, August 24, 2018.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

Faith

“Faith means receiving God, it means being overwhelmed by God. Faith helps us to find trust again and again when, from a human point of view, the foundations of truth have been destroyed. It gives us eyes to see what cannot be seen, and hands to grasp what cannot be touched, although it is present always and everywhere.”

—Eberhard Arnold in Why We Live in Community (Plough, 2014).

casey horner unsplash

Faith is believing in something we cannot see or understand. The mind takes us to a certain level of belief; but then faith must be present for us to take the leap from there. My favorite quote about faith, attributed to a multitude of people, is: “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.” If we are so certain about something, we have crossed back over that line, away from the place where faith abides.

This gives all of us doubters great comfort. In fact, we have come to know that our doubts lead us into a deeper faith—across the line, down new pathways, sometimes even onto major highways. We may take a wrong turn, or run a red light and hit someone, or just become completely lost. Then that stranger who met us on the road to Emmaus shows up. He may remind us of a quote from Scripture that had been meaningful to us in the past. He may ask us if we remember how we have been cared for continually by the God of our understanding, as well as by God’s stand-ins, our community and friends. He always feeds us exactly what we need to continue the journey; and before he disappears, he leaves on the dinner table a GPS.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

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