Memorial Day

Memorial Day

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”—John:15:13

four chaplains stained glass at National Cathedral

 This week we celebrated Memorial Day. It is an American holiday observed to honor and remember members of our armed services who died in battle. The observance on the last Monday of May began after the Civil War and officially became a federal holiday in 1971. As I see all the flags on graves at Arlington Cemetery, I am suddenly profoundly moved. I have heard that the observance began with women putting flowers on the graves of more than 600,000 soldiers who died on both sides of the Civil War Conflict.

 My husband and I have had parents and grandparents in our family serving in both great wars, and my husband served in the Navy in Vietnam. We have not known of family members injured or died.

 I cannot imagine what it must be like to have a friend or family member die during a military action. This is a noble sacrifice for our country. The sacrifice by the one who died is also a sacrifice for those left behind, who will long for their presence for the rest of their lives. I say prayers for those who died and those whose lives were changed by their absence.

 Sacrifice is not a word I like to consider in my life. However, whenever I visit the National Cathedral, I do try to find the stained-glass window honoring the Dorchester Chaplains: Lieutenants George Fox (Methodist), Alexander Goode (Jewish), Clark Poling (Reformed), and John Washington (Roman Catholic). They were chaplains aboard the U.S. transport ship Dorchester on a mission to Greenland in 1943 with 900 men when a German U-boat torpedoed and sank the vessel. The chaplains organized the evacuation effort, directed men into lifeboats, and handed out life jackets. When there were no more jackets, the chaplains gave their own to other sailors. The last image of rescued men was the chaplains on the deck linking arms and praying.

For the rest of my time, I hope to remember at least one person and their family on each Memorial Day who died in the war. In addition, I would love to hear the stories of those you remember that impacted your lives.

We must continue to remember the high cost of war and these tremendous losses.

Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/

This past pandemic was a time to remember how our lives, work, friends, and family were different after this sacrifice that each of us had made to stay healthy, a greater sacrifice for some and much more for others.

Thomas Merton and the Spiritual Life

Thomas Merton and Spiritual Direction

“The only trouble is that in the spiritual life, there are no tricks and no shortcuts. Those who imagine that they can discover spiritual gimmicks and put them to work for themselves usually ignore God’s will and his grace.”—Thomas Merton in Contemplative Prayers.

Thomas Merton’s concise book Spiritual Direction and Meditation is another excellent source for someone wanting to know about spiritual direction and the spiritual life. I often recommend it to spiritual friends before meeting about direction for the first time. It should also be a frequent reread for those giving spiritual direction. Merton reminds us that spiritual direction is not psychotherapy, and directors should not become amateur therapists. He recommends that directors not worry about unconscious drives and emotional problems. They should refer.

Merton’s sections on meditations are classic, straightforward, and practical. For example, he uses the story of the Prodigal Son to serve as a model for reflection, as the son “entered into himself” and meditated on his condition, starving in a distant land far from his father. Merton also suggests the Incarnation, the birth of God into human form, as a focus for another meditation about birth events within our own spiritual life.

Merton emphasizes the importance of holy leisure, believing meditation should not be work, remembering it will take time. He reminds us of promising artists ruined by premature success, which drove them to overwork to renew again and again the image of themselves created in the public mind. But, on the other hand, a wise artist spends more time contemplating his work beforehand than putting paint on canvas; a poet who respects her art burns more pages than she publishes.

In the interior life, we must allow intervals of silent transitions in our prayer life. Merton reminds us of the words of St. Teresa: “God does not need our works. God has need of our love.” Our prayer life aims to awaken the Holy Spirit within us so that the Spirit speaks and prays through us. Merton believes that in contemplative prayer, we learn more about God through love than knowledge. Our awakening is brought on not by our actions, but by the work of the Holy Spirit. 

Merton also cautions us about what he calls informal or colloquial “comic book spirituality,” which flourishes in popular religious literature. For example, when Mary becomes Mom and Joseph is Dad, and we “just tell them all about ourselves all day long.” For some, this may be a helpful path to God, but it was not Merton’s path.

Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Thank you for supporting our camp and conference center, Camp Mitchell, on top of Petit Jean Mountain, by buying this book in the daily series of writings for the liturgical year, A Daily Spiritual Rx for Ordinary Time: Readings from Pentecost to Advent. All proceeds from the books go to Camp Mitchell. If you like this book, could you briefly write a recommendation on its page on Amazon? https://smile.amazon.com/Daily-Spiritual-Ordinary-Time-Pentecost/dp/B08JLTZYGH/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=joanna+seibert+books&qid=1621104335&sr=8-1

 More thank-you’s than we can say!!!

Prayer Times

Seeking wisdom and connection

Canticle: A Song of Pilgrimage 

“Before I ventured forth,
even while I was very young,*
I sought wisdom openly in my prayer.
In the forecourts of the temple I asked for her,*
and I will seek her to the end.
From first blossom to early fruit,*
she has been the delight of my heart.
My foot has kept firmly to the true path,*
diligently from my youth have I pursued her.
I inclined my ear a little and received her;*
I found for myself much wisdom and became adept in her.
To the one who gives me wisdom will I give glory,*
for I have resolved to live according to her way.
From the beginning I gained courage from her,*
therefore I will not be forsaken.
In my inmost being I have been stirred to seek her,*
therefore have I gained a good possession.
As my reward the Almighty has given me the gift of language,*
and with it will I offer praise to God.”—Ecclesiasticus 51:13-16, 20b-22.

This “Song of Pilgrimage from Ecclesiasticus” is one of the Canticles offered for Morning and Evening Prayer in Enriching Our Worship 1, one of the alternative Canticles for the Book of Common Prayer.

Christians inherited a pattern of daily prayer from the Jews, who set aside a time for prayer three times daily. More diligent Christians later took to heart the Psalm 119:164 verse, “Seven times a day do I praise you.” By the Middle Ages, monks had developed a tradition of seven daily prayer times: Matins before dawn and Lauds at daybreak—combined into one service. Then, at sunrise, midmorning, noon, and midafternoon came Prime, Terce, Sext, and None; Vespers was observed at sundown and Compline at bedtime. Monks and nuns in monasteries faithfully kept this schedule over the centuries. Lay people could come when possible.

In 1549, in the first English Book of Common Prayer, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer revised the structure so that ordinary people could also follow a prayer schedule and praise God at the beginning and end of each day in just two services: Morning and Evening Prayer. The present 1979 BCP restored Noonday Prayers and Compline. (See A User’s Guide to Morning Prayer and Baptism by Christopher Webber.)

Praying during the day

Phyllis Tickle, the theologian, writer, and founding Religion Editor of Publisher’s Weekly, reintroduced a shorter version of daily observation of the Divine Hours in a series of books that many now follow. There is a pocket edition for easy carry. Her shorter versions of morning, noon, evening (vespers), and bedtime (Compline) prayers, readings, and Scripture offer a way to stop our work and reconnect to God frequently during the day and evening.

The readings are also online at http://www.explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/hours.php and http://annarborvineyard.org/tdh/tdh.cfm.

Consider observing at least one of the daily offices. Noonday prayers are offered on St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock’s Facebook page. Morning Prayer is offered on weekdays in the chapel.

Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/