Walking Prayer and Meditation

Thich Nhat Hanh: Walking Prayer and Meditation

“People say that walking on water is a miracle, but to me, walking peacefully on the earth is the real miracle. The Earth is a miracle, each step is a miracle. Taking steps on our beautiful planet can bring real happiness.”—Thich Nhat Hanh, The Long Road Turns To Joy, a Guide to Walking Meditation.

For many years, I would walk around the block in my neighborhood for twenty minutes before going to work at the hospital. This seems to quiet the committee meeting in my head. Putting my feet on the earth, even the pavement of the road, reconnected my head to my body as I become “grounded.”

When I am outside, I realize there is a world greater than where I live daily. There is a power greater than myself.
 I have trouble meditating by simply sitting, but some movement, such as walking, can lead me into that meditative journey. The Vietnamese Buddhist, Thich Nhat Hanh, is one of the most well-known meditative walkers. This pocket-sized book contains simple mindfulness exercises to practice as we walk.
He introduces us to several methods of following and listening to our breath as we walk. He teaches us to be aware of the ground, our feet touching it, and our breath.
My pattern became breathing in on the right foot and breathing out on the left. This was like walking the labyrinth and paying close attention to the path. In mindful walking, as I stay with my breath, no more rooms are available for that committee to meet in my head.
Thich Nhat Hanh compares walking to eating, nourishing our bodies with each step. With each step, we massage the Earth. When the baby Buddha was born, he took seven steps, and a Lotus flower blossomed under each step.
Thich Nhat Hanh suggests we imagine a flower blossoming with each step.
 We can also practice mindful walking anywhere, between meetings, in hospitals, at airports, and walking to our car. The Buddhist monk also offers several poems to recite while walking: “I have arrived, I am home, in the here, in the now. I am solid. I am free. In the ultimate, I dwell.”

Murfee labyrinth El Dorado

MLK Day Remembered

MLK Day Remembered: Racism, Inconvenient Time

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great   stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;’ who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a ‘more convenient season.’

Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”—Martin Luther King Jr, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963.

thank you John and Shannon for these pictures

I receive letters, emails, and blogs from friends encouraging me to speak against racism. I also remember being at a dream retreat, where my spiritual director repeated the story of Jacob’s dream of a heavenly ladder several times. Jacob renames the place of his dream Bethel, the house of God or God is present. I remember Bethel AME Church in Little Rock, where I fell in love with that African American congregation. They taught us about racism and poverty when I was a deacon at Trinity Cathedral in Little Rock. We plan with Bethel a celebration of the anniversary of the 1957 desegregation of Central High School. Later, our daughter and two grandchildren would attend that historical school. A few years ago I participated in a prayer breakfast at our sister St. Mark Baptist Church to celebrate MLK’s birthday with my spiritual director. Being there was empowering for both of us.

Today, people worldwide celebrated the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. on the third Monday of January. His actual birthday was January 15th, 1929.
Our liturgical calendar also honors MLK on his death on April 4th, 1968. I feel ownership in his death, since I was a senior medical student in Memphis when he was assassinated. At that time, my world focused solely on finishing medical school. His death made it more difficult for us to get to the hospital, since Memphis was briefly under a curfew and martial law.

I do remember that the dean of St. Mary’s Cathedral carried the processional cross from the cathedral and marched with other ministers in Memphis to Mayor Loeb’s office, petitioning to end the injustices that brought King to Memphis. I also remember Dean Dimmick’s speaking out with his feet had significant consequences for him at the cathedral, losing nearly half its members.

So here we are over fifty years later. How do we carry that cross, as previously modeled for us, walking out into the streets, homes, schools, hospitals, and countryside, speaking and acting the truth with love against violence, hatred, and injustices still present? The examples of MLK and Dean Dimmick would tell us that nonviolence and love are still the way. The events of recent years, recent weeks, remind us how overcoming violence with violence never is the answer. We are called to pray on our knees, to pray standing and walking as we listen to so many in our country who are hurting.  

 I am a storyteller. I share my story with you, especially with our children and grandchildren, surrounding them with love and prayers, hoping we can empower them to do a better job than we have done.

I will be giving a Lenten program at St. Mary’s bookstore at the Cathedral in Memphis at 10 a.m., Saturday, February 3rd.

Buechner: Spiritual Gifts

 Buechner: Spiritual Gifts

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”—Frederick Buechner.

Our Sunday lectionary readings often are about a call, the call of the disciples, Jonah, Moses, and Paul’s call.
 In today’s world, Frederick Buechner gives us the best advice about how to find our ministry in perhaps his most quoted phrase about the meeting of “our deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger.”

The Spirit gives us gifts for our ministry for doing God’s work. “The varieties of our gifts” are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12, but we are unaware of many other spiritual gifts. The Rev. Dr. Kate Alexander reminded us recently that we must not limit our spiritual gifts to those described in biblical times. Many spiritual gifts may initially not seem “spiritual.” She gives the example of proofing the Sunday bulletin to further God’s work as a vital ministry performed by people with a very detailed, unique ministry.

We must remember that the gifts are to further the work of God, not necessarily our work, our agenda, or our goals.

Besides giving us several inventories, material from the Stephen Ministry by Stephen Haugk leads us through other clues to our spiritual gifts. For example, the skills we see in our most admired person may be ours. The gift we use to bring about our most fulfilling life events may be our gift. The action of Jesus we most appreciate may be our gift.

 I also learned from Lloyd Edwards’s book Discerning Your Spiritual Gifts that significant gifts may come from our woundedness. For example, those in recovery stay by helping others recover from addiction. Likewise, those who have experienced the death of a significant person are often the ones who can later best help heal others who are grieving.

Parker Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak is another classic book about where and how God leads us into the servant ministry God has created us to participate in.

My experience is that I am using my gift when the ministry in which I am involved energizes me. I put energy in, and more comes out. The tried and true biblical fruit of the Spirit can also indicate when we are using our spiritual gifts. Galatians 5 reveals that when we are connected to and guided by the Spirit, we will feel and know “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”

God seeks each of us out and calls us by name. We are each so needed today and tomorrow in our troubled world, healing that only each one of us uniquely can do, where “our deep gladness meets the world’s deep hunger.”
Joanna    https://www.joannaseibert.com/