Schmidt: Dys-Feng Shui 1

Guest Writer Frederick Schmidt

“To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.” —Mahatma Gandhi.

I don’t know a great deal about feng shui (pronounced fung shwee), but it is, as I understand it, a Chinese concept of aesthetics that applies “the laws of heaven and earth” to create harmony and order. It teaches how to maximize the use of life’s energy in order to be in sync with the world around us.

Today it is used in a rather more trivialized and commercial fashion by interior decorators who probably don’t know a lot about ancient Chinese philosophy. But they do know an exotic way to sell their services when they see one!

In the middle of a rather lengthy business meeting some years ago, those of us around the table found a way to kill a few free moments by joking about the rather strange table arrangement we had been given for our meeting. The worst of it was that there were people sitting at tables behind us. They were forced to face the backs of our heads, and we were positioned with our backs to them.

Thus, one of the funnier “you had to be there to understand” moments was the one in which we critiqued the arrangement as a product of “dys-feng shui.”

Whether you find that funny or not, I think it is true that the more we live into the spiritual life, the more we take responsibility for the world around us. We notice feng shui and dys-feng shui—or to turn the vocabulary in a direction that is a bit more familiar to me, we notice where the Spirit of God is at work and where the Spirit of God is marginalized.

I am not talking about some kind of soft social consciousness, never mind a body of political beliefs. I am referring to the capacity to look at the world around us through the eyes of God.

Frederick Schmidt

Release party!!!!!!!!!!!

Come and get a signed copy of the new book

Just in time for the holidays

A Spiritual Rx for Advent Christmas, and Epiphany

The Sequel to A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter

Both are $18

All Money from sale of the books goes either to Camp Mitchel Camp and Conference Center in Arkansas or Hurricane Relief in the Diocese of Central Gulf Coast

Seibert’s, 27 River Ridge Road, Little Rock, Arkansas 72227

10 to noon, Saturday September 14, 2019

RSVP joannaseibert@me.com

Flexible Bible

“Mary Cosby used to begin her New Testament class by bending her soft-cover Bible and saying she preferred a Bible that was flexible. Then she would say, ‘The Bible is not a manual for morality, but a mirror for identity.”’ —Carol Martin, Bread of Life Church, “A Mirror for Identity” at InwardOutward.org, Church of the Saviour, July 15, 2018.

My first introduction to this deeper and more flexible Bible study was with a small group of people at St. Mark’s in Little Rock in the 1990s with a leader named Dick Moore in a room above the children’s classrooms that we called “the upper room.” As we studied the books of the Bible, Dick reminded us that the Bible was a roadmap, not the destination.

I think of old friends like Carole and Gary Kimmel who were in our class who now live on the Outer Banks in North Carolina. I remember Betty and Brady Anderson, who went on to be Bible translators in Africa in Tanzania, and how Brady later became the American Ambassador to that country. They taught me so much. Together we uncovered new insights from the Bible that had never before occurred to us.

As we saw God present in the lives of people in the Bible who were just like us—with gifts and faults—we also became more aware of God, the Holy Spirit, at work in our own and others’ lives. We began to see that the relationship of the Holy Spirit did not end with first- and second-century Christians; rather, the Spirit is still leading us today. If we believe only a strict, literal translation of the Bible, we are denying the continued presence of the Holy Spirit working in our lives today and ever bringing us more good news.

I am thinking of the Bible I received from my Bishop eighteen years ago at my ordination. It, as well, is flexible.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

Release party!!!!!!!!!!!

Come and get a signed copy of the new book

Just in time for the holidays

A Spiritual Rx for Advent Christmas, and Epiphany

The Sequel to A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter

Both are $18

All Money from sale of the books goes either to Camp Mitchel Camp and Conference Center in Arkansas or Hurricane Relief in the Diocese of Central Gulf Coast

Seibert’s, 27 River Ridge Road, Little Rock, Arkansas 72227

10 to noon, Saturday September 14, 2019

RSVP joannaseibert@me.com

Feeding, Being Fed

“The question of bread for myself is a material question, but the question of bread for my neighbor is a spiritual question.”

—Nikolai Berdyaev.

Dan Gold unsplash

Certainly Jesus gives us continued examples of his feeding thousands as well as going to eat at the home of others, often with the most despised such as Zacchaeus and Matthew, tax collectors. Jesus, a role model in this, feeds others and lets others feed him. For Christians, Jesus leaves us with another meal, the Eucharist of bread and wine, a sacrament reminding us of his care and bringing his presence to us.

When I am having difficulty with someone, I imagine us together at the altar rail, kneeling if possible, to receive the bread and the wine of the Eucharist. Jesus is with us. After kneeling together, I see the person in a different light. Sometimes I can see the Christ within him or her.

I have given up trying to understand why eating a meal with someone else can help us to develop a relationship faster than spending hours talking to that person. As we are being fed, we see the person more clearly. Often we can carry on a deeper conversation when food is present. It is almost as if the food is a natural ice breaker.

I remember when, in my medical practice, I worked with nine other physicians. Each of them had different gifts and were advocates for different parts of our practice. Each person wanted his or her area to be funded and fully staffed.

One day we decided to have lunch together once a week to try to work through difficult issues. The situation changed almost overnight. We began to see each other’s needs as they related to our many areas of interest. We began to prioritize what was really most important for the patients we were caring for, instead of focusing on our own needs. Some of us even became lifelong friends!

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Release party!!!!!!!!!!!

Come and get a signed copy of the new book

Just in time for the holidays

A Spiritual Rx for Advent Christmas, and Epiphany

The Sequel to A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter

Both are $18

All Money from sale of the books goes either to Camp Mitchel Camp and Conference Center in Arkansas or Hurricane Relief in the Diocese of Central Gulf Coast

Seibert’s, 27 River Ridge Road, Little Rock, Arkansas 72227

10 to noon, Saturday September 14, 2019

RSVP joannaseibert@me.com