Facebook and First Day of School

Facebook and First Day of School

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”—Ecclesiastes 3:1.

I became engaged on Facebook for almost an hour this morning! I had gotten up early to post the Daily Something and was overwhelmed by the pictures of children returning to school that week. I couldn’t stop looking at them. There were children I knew from previous churches, children and grandchildren of people I worked with at Children’s Hospital, children I sang and prayed with at the Cathedral School, and children from so many Vacation Bible Schools—children I learned from and dearly loved. Some were almost grown.

Most of the younger children and some teenagers agreed to look happy and excited for their parents’ pictures. I envision these same photographs in albums and embarrassingly shown at future weddings and anniversaries. I think of the joy of grandparents and friends, who cannot see their loved ones as often as they would like, but frequently visit with them on Facebook.

“Where have all the years gone?” was an often-quoted heading with the pictures. I agree. Life is so fleeting. That is why living in the moment, the precious present—loving and enjoying the “now”—is so important. I remember these children most because I did, for a nanosecond, stay present with them at some time in the past. So today, I send love to each of them. They, in turn, have sent love back to my heart, as I remember who they were and cherish who they are today.

Anthony de Mello reminds us to keep our album of beautiful memories, so we can go back and relive them even more thoroughly than the first time. He believes that a first encounter is often too powerful for us to take in. He encourages us to guard and keep these memories when we want or need to reconnect to their power in the past. Since this picture from the past, Langley has now graduated from college and waiting to go to law school. Mac is a junior in college, and Gray is now a senior in high school.

Living in the present gives us such beautiful, loving memories, but there is also a season for returning to relive those memories. Times of transitions in our lives, such as starting school, can trigger this need.

That was a splendid day on Facebook, worth getting up early to see—and a grand excuse for forgetting to check the regular news of the day.

Joanna   https://www.joannaseibert.com/

                 

 

Encountering the Feminine Spirit

Charleston: Encountering the 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 1645 Musee des Beau Arts, 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 church practices. So I tried changing pronouns in the service, which 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 few years, as more women from different traditions joined the group, the words and practices became even too radical for me. Finally, I knew I had to decide: remain in my tradition and wait for changes, or join in practices now in territories too foreign for me.

I decided to stay with my tradition. Soon I saw improvements there. Our Prayer Book changed by adopting less masculine language. In addition, women were given more significant 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, body, and spirit when I least expected it, and for some time, I could not understand it. At the time, I lived in the masculine world of medicine. Suddenly, I saw a unique way of looking at things, working out problems, relating to others, and worshiping, honoring, and praising God. 

Why this power awakened me, 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 pass on or model the gift to my children and grandchildren. I know it can change the world, just as it changed me.

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

 

 

 

Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage

Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage

“I knew then that I must go to Selma. The Virgin’s

 song was to grow more and more dear in the weeks ahead.” The Jon Daniels Story, ed. William J Schneider, Seabury Press, NY, 1967; 67-20940.

 On the second Saturday in August, people from all over the country were assembled at 11 o’clock in Hayneville, Lowndes Country, Alabama, to remember the death of an Episcopal seminarian, Jonathan Myrick Daniels, on August 20, 1965, as he was protecting an African American teenage girl named Ruby Sales. The processions will travel from the County Courthouse Square to the old County Jail, where Daniels was detained after being arrested for picketing whites-only businesses.

The march continues to where there was previously the old Varner’s Cash Store, a small country store where Jonathan was shot. The 26-year-old pilgrimage then returns to the Lowndes County Courthouse for Eucharist, where the bread and wine are consecrated on an altar that was the judge’s bench for that 1965 sham trial lasting less than an hour that found the man who murdered Jonathan not guilty. This year, The Right Reverend Phoebe Roaf, the Bishop of the Diocese of West Tennessee, was the preacher.

Bishop Russell Kendrick of the Diocese of Central Gulf Coast reminded us a past year that this march remembering the death of the twenty-six-year-old Daniels took place on the same day as the disastrous march of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia several years ago. The similarities are sometimes too much to bear, remembering that we are still stuck in a place where we were three-quarters of a century ago about human rights and recognizing who our neighbor is.

Daniels took a leave from Episcopal Seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after hearing Martin Luther King Jr call for students to join him to march in Selma, Alabama, to support the civil rights movement. In Evening Prayer, he was moved by singing the Song of Mary, The Magnificat, especially the words, “He hath put down the mighty from their seat and exalted the humble and meek.”

Jon devoted many of his Sundays in Selma to bringing small groups of black high school students to church to integrate the local Episcopal church. They were seated, but scowled at. Many parishioners openly resented their presence and put their priest squarely in the middle.

Jon returned to the seminary in May to take examinations and complete other requirements. In July, he returned to Alabama, where he helped produce a listing of local, state, and federal agencies and other resources legally available to persons needing assistance.

 On Friday, August 13, Jon and others went to Fort Deposit to join in picketing three local businesses. On Saturday, they were arrested and held in the county jail in Hayneville for six days until they all received bail. After their release on Friday, August 20, four of them went to purchase sodas at a local country store, and were met at the door by a special county deputy with a shotgun who told them to leave or be shot. After a brief confrontation, the construction worker, a part-time deputy, aimed the gun at a seventeen-year-old young black girl in the party, Ruby Sales. Jon pushed her out of the way and was instantly killed.

Ruby later attended the same seminary as Daniels and now heads the SpiritHouse Project in Atlanta, a program using art, spirituality, and education to bring about racial, economic, and social justice.

When we sing or say Mary’s song, The Magnificat, remember Jonathan Myrick Edwards and Ruby Sales and how this canticle changed their lives.

Is there something in that song that also resonates with each of us?

Daniels died on August 20th, but is remembered on the day of his arrest, August 14th.

Book of Common Prayer, 119.