Welcomed Back by a Sacred Space

Welcomed Back by a Sacred Space

“The sea is his, and he made.”—Psalm 95:5.

 We return to our sacred space on the Gulf after being gone for months. As I sip my morning tea, a huge welcoming party awaits us. A cool breeze keeps us from being overheated. The wind brings with it the welcoming salty smell of the sea. Hundreds of fishing boats leave the pass early in the morning to say Hello. A pelican silently flies by our balcony and tips her wings. Another comes so close he takes our breath away.

Gulls circle the water in front of us, but decide not to stay. Their loud squawk tells us they would only stay if we fed them. The clouds above make funny little faces to make us laugh. The lone blue heron flies by, but does not land. He must be visiting new friends down the beach. Dolphins have not arrived, but they may consider extending the welcome later in the day. I hear the blue angels, but cannot see them. A sparrow patiently waits on our balcony for any breakfast droppings.

I think of the men and women and children in the fishing boats. What will they catch today? They put their lines out deep beneath the surface, sometimes to great depth. Some venture far from land in search of the unknown. The fisher people travel with guides who know where to go where they have been before.

It is another metaphor for our spiritual journey, where we search beneath the surface of our lives to a deeper place of memories, dreams, and reflections. We go with spiritual guides who have been there before and know the territory. We share the joy of what we have found in community. We take back into our bodies and share the nourishment we have discovered previously unknown to us.

There is so much more in store for us in the deeper waters than what is found by the lone fisherman casting his line on the shore. However, this fisherman meditates while waiting for the infrequent nibbles from the sea. He also has the opportunity to go deeper into his mind. He also shares his poles with young children, teaching them the new art form. Another is standing by with his cell phone to make a permanent memory of the event.

God is there, reaching out to us no matter how we extend our search. The finding is always in the searching.

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

Holy Smoke

Holy Smoke

“And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.”—Revelation 8:4.

I slowly stand up from my seat next to the Bishop’s chair near the altar at Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Gulf Shores, Alabama, as the organist plays the prelude to the closing hymn, “Lift High the Cross.” The music is uplifting, but suddenly I am transported and raised to another space. There is an unusual burning smell in the air. I look up and see two almost straight lines of black smoke rapidly rising at least a foot above the altar, just as quickly disappearing into the air in front of the congregation.

As the acolyte in the white alb passes by me to reach for the silver processional cross, I am aware that she has just extinguished the two candles on the glass altar.

This smell is unfamiliar from what I usually perceive at the end of the service. This is an especially holy smell, accompanied by an uplifting, holy smoke stronger than incense. It is raw, attention-getting, signaling that something has happened. The few in the front rows of the congregation can see the black smoke, but the smell probably persists only around the altar. By verse two of the hymn, as the crucifer leads the choir members in their blue cassocks and white surplices out of the church, I realize what this is all about.

The Altar Guild of Holy Spirit uses real candles, not the oil candles I am familiar with in many churches I visit. This is the smell and smoke from extinguished candle wax, and I am close enough to smell it.

This is also the residual fragrance after a spiritual direction session with seekers as they depart. I light the candle at the beginning of a session, when I am doing spiritual direction to symbolize our meeting as holy, as we care for our souls. I extinguish the candle at the end of our time to symbolize the passing of what we have shared. I know our time together as spiritual friends is holy work, just as our Eucharist on Sunday is sacred time.

The smell and the smoke tell me that whatever has happened is now being lifted up, spreading into the air of our surroundings, our universe. The Word we had together has now moved away from the altar or our meeting place and out into the world. We can no longer see the smoke, but it is there. I experience the smell only briefly, but it is an icon of what is happening. 

The Holy Word has moved on with its healing blessing out into the world, making a difference in all our wounded spaces.

Bless the Altar Guild of Holy Spirit for teaching me a little more about the movement of the holy. 

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

Tillich by the Sea

Buechner, Tillich: The Ocean 

“They say that whenever the theologian Paul Tillich went to the beach, he would pile up a mound of sand and sit on it gazing out at the ocean with tears running down his cheeks...Maybe what made him weep was how vast and overwhelming it was and yet at the same time as near as the breath of it in his nostrils, as salty as his own tears.”—Frederick Buechner in Beyond Words (HarperOne, 2009).

early morning

I share Tillich’s awe whenever I visit the ocean or the Gulf. It is an experience of vastness and closeness with Nature and some Power greater than ourselves. Today I also think about how dangerous the sea can be, as I remember past prayers for friends on the North Carolina coast devastated by Hurricane Florence. I remember the vast destruction along the Gulf of Mexico after hurricanes Frederick, Ivan, Katrina, Michael, Laura, and Sally.

I also think of the pleasure the sea and the sand have brought to generations. The sound of the waves calms my soul. Watching children swim and play in the sand pulls at the heartstrings of the child within me. Watching families, lovers, and children walk the surf is a lesson in our connectedness to each other. The dolphins, the pelicans, and the lone osprey constantly remind us of the varieties of coexistent life with agendas that differ from ours. The “turtle people” who walk the beach in the early morning looking for turtle tracks to secret nests are icons of faithfulness and caring about something other than the self.

I see the ocean, the sea, the Gulf, and the sand as icons of something created out of love, no matter the process. Living by the sea is like being in a loving relationship with a spouse, friend, or children. Whenever we offer ourselves, our love, to another, it can be beautiful beyond words, like the sea.

Living on the Gulf, we are open to storms—sometimes as ugly and powerful as these hurricanes. But like the people I observe by the sea, we remember that the positive potential of love many times overwhelms the possible hurtful negative. The lows are pale compared to the highs. So we keep picking up the mess and forgive the wind, the sea, and those we love, and hope they can forgive us for the harm we knowingly or unknowingly did to them.

hurricane Laura

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