Charleston: Feminine Spirit

“There is no power men can devise that can overcome the strength, dignity and courage of women. Trying to deny the rights of women is like trying to outlaw life itself. The Spirit that stands by her sisters stands eternal. The Mother that defends her daughters never sleeps.” —Steven Charleston Daily Facebook page.

Georges de La Tour The Newborn . Child 1645-1648 . Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes France

I remember when I first encountered the feminine Spirit of the God of my understanding. It was in the 1980s. I became acutely aware of the masculine slant of the words and works of the liturgy and practices of my tradition. There was no honoring of the feminine in language or in church practices. I tried changing pronouns in the service, and that worked for a while.

The altar party was made up of men. I longed to worship with other women, maybe even—heaven forbid—around an altar. So we started a group on Saturday mornings using our church facility to study and learn about feminine spirituality. We soon had a huge crowd. How comforting to know that others were hungry for this facet of the divine.

After a couple of years, as more women from very different traditions joined the group, the words and practices became even too radical for me. I knew I had to make a decision: remain in my tradition and wait for changes; or go over to join in practices that now were in territories too foreign for me.

I made the decision to go back to my tradition. Soon I saw improvements there. Our Prayer Book changed by adopting less masculine language. Women were given much greater roles in the Church.

I know and believe in the feminine Spirit of God that Bishop Charleston is talking about. It is a power that visited my mind and body and spirit when I least expected it; and for some time, I could not understand it. I had been living in the very masculine world of medicine at the time. Suddenly I saw a different way of looking at things, of working out problems, of relating to others, of worshiping and honoring and praising God.

Why I was awakened by this power, I do not know. It was like a Damascus Road experience. I had no choice but to pursue it. It was like experiencing another pregnancy. Perhaps this nudge came from one of my deceased grandmothers who lived under a masculine rule, but subtly tried to accomplish something different. I know only that my job now is to treasure the gift of the feminine spirit and to try to pass on or model the gift for my children and grandchildren. I know it can change the world just as it changed me.

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

Schmidt: Feng Shui 2

Guest Writer Frederick Schmidt

“Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.” —Alice Walker.

Not everyone who identifies as spiritual necessarily takes that larger responsibility into consideration. In fact, most of us are taught that spirituality is about getting God involved in our lives, fixing our problems, comforting us when we are down, showing us the way. Our culture has taught us to think that way; and some spiritualities are devoted to that understanding of the spiritual life.

Now, at one level, I’m all for God being involved in my life. I don’t relish having problems. When God seems particularly close, I enjoy the palpable sense of peace that goes along with such moments, and I never mind knowing what to do next. But, at the same time, I don’t think that is the purpose of the spiritual life.

We have a larger responsibility. Feng shui doesn’t quite capture that responsibility, but it hints at a concept found in the Torah, in the prophets, and in the teaching of Jesus— pretty much in the entire Bible, in fact. It’s called the righteousness of God—the order God intended, to put it in more accessible terms. Put another way, we are called into partnership with Jesus to care about the way in which the world around us does or does not conform to God’s design.

Contributing to the righteousness of God won’t be as easy as rearranging the furniture in a room. Doing that in our world is a much bigger job. Not everyone will think that God’s opinion on where the furniture should go will agree with us. We won’t even agree among ourselves on where it should be all the time. And this side of eternity the furniture will never be where all of it should be.

But we can witness to making God’s righteousness a reality. We can make personal choices and relate to one another in ways that reflect the presence of God in our lives. Those may not be large pieces of furniture, but it’s a good place to start.

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

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