Early Riser

Early Riser

“Wisdom is radiant and unfading,

and she is easily discerned by those who love her,

and is found by those who seek her.

She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her.

One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty,

for she will be found sitting at the gate.”—Wisdom 6:12-14.

Joanna Campbell

Many of my spiritual friends are early risers. Early morning is their time to read, meditate, or write before the business of the day begins. I once walked around our neighborhood in the early morning, before going to the hospital to work. Now I look out of a floor-to-ceiling picture window, watch, and wait for the sun to come up and the cardinals, blue jays, and woodpeckers to appear at my feeder.

At the beach, I like to sit outside and feel night becoming day. I like to feel the Gulf breeze and watch the water creatures gather to begin their day. This is their home. They are local. I am a visitor. The lone osprey circles high above the waves. The single blue heron swoops in and slowly struts on his stilts to be as close as possible to the early morning fishermen at the edge of the Gulf, hoping he will receive their small rejections. The pelicans fly in military formation, so close to the waves that they must constantly get their feathers wet.

The early risers are like the women at the empty tomb on Easter morning, whose feast day was earlier this past week. They come to honor the dead, but instead find resurrection, a new beginning—and they will find it daily as the sun majestically rises above the horizon with its color guard, especially on Sunday mornings.

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

 

 

 

Wise Selfishness

Wise Selfishness

“We have to take care of ourselves without selfishly taking care of ourselves. If we don’t take care of ourselves, we cannot survive. We need to do that. We should have wise selfishness rather than foolish selfishness. Foolish selfishness means you just think only of yourself, don’t care about others, bully others, exploit others. In fact, taking care of others, helping others, ultimately is the way to discover your own joy and to have a happy life. So that is what I call wise selfishness.” (the Dalai Lama).”—His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams, The Book of Joy (Avery, 2016), p. 47-48.

Michael Ancher By a Sick Bed

Recently, I met with a group of people who visit hospitals and homebound members of our congregation. I asked the question, “What feeds your soul about visiting the sick and homebound? Why do you do something that will always interrupt your routine to visit someone you may not know?” Almost to a person, the answer was, “I always get more out of the visit than the person I meet with.” Another speaks up, saying, “It is a two-way street. We both learn to see Christ in each other. This helps us see eventually the Christ in ourselves.”

One person said, “We must not forget that we bring love and community to someone who is very vulnerable and in need of connection.” These wise men and women have experienced that visiting and praying with those in need bring love and connection to both parties. Most of the visitors have experienced this as well. At one time or another, many also received a pastoral visit when they were in need. They have experienced what it is like to walk in the shoes of the ones they visit.

I don’t think any of the hospital visitors would consider their ministry as selfish, but the Dalai Lama might describe it differently. He would say that feeding the soul of another that also feeds our soul is wise selfishness. An act of loving-kindness is always wise selfishness.

Bond Francico 1993 Sick Child. Smithsonian

Sacrifice

Giving Up Our Lives

Sacrifice

“There will be countless occasions to witness for Christ, to give up our life for the sake of Christ. There will be many opportunities to “lay down our life” for another person in need, probably even today – and not in some kind of ostentatious act of heroism and notoriety, but more likely in some very mundane and rather hidden way.”—Br. Curtis Almquist Society of Saint John the Evangelist

Sacrifice is perhaps a word we have forgotten or lost in our vocabulary. We have become so polarized because we cannot sacrifice our beliefs and listen to each other. Yet, we know we are so right.

First of all, the sacrifice we are required to make is simply to listen to those who think differently than we do. On the surface, we see only that they are trying to take away our rights and the rights of others. They are so wrong. The sacrifice may simply involve listening to this other side. How did they get there? What triggered their fears? My experience is that wounded people want someone to listen to them and their stories. Then maybe they will listen to our story. It is not a quick fix. It takes time. It means we consciously look for the Christ in each other. This may take years.

When we were living in this pandemic, everyone I talked to knew someone who had died or been infected, most often a beloved family member. We desperately wanted to be together again, back to our old life. We learned this would not happen unless each of us made sacrifices. We had to wear masks indoors in large gatherings and get vaccinated. We were never going to live the life we once had. Things would be different.

We learned we would miss so many whom we so dearly loved unless we continued to make sacrifices. This time in our lives required sacrifice.

The hardest sacrifice for us was not being able to see our family members we so love as often as we would like. We had to settle for seeing our grandchildren, Zoe and Turner, through a picture window. Today, we celebrate this has changed.

Sacrificing for the whole has been ingrained in our country’s DNA. We must remember our history and re-member. We are called to become members of the body, instead of a mass of individuals with shouting voices and our fingers in our ears.

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