Taking up your Cross

Take up Your Cross

“There is great pain and suffering in the world. But the pain hardest to bear is your own. Once you have taken up that cross, you will be able to see clearly the crosses that others have to bear, and you will be able to reveal to them their own ways to joy, peace, and freedom.”—Henri Nouwen in You Are the Beloved (Convergent Books 2017).

I have always wondered what Jesus means when he asks us “to take up our cross.” Is our cross the difficult co-worker or family member who keeps us awake at night trying to discern how to love and live with them? Is it a painful physical ailment that has now become chronic? Has a job become our cross? Maybe it is an addiction. Is it the cross of food or financial instability?

Nouwen believes our cross is often the inner pain we bear, and we keep pushing into our unconscious, which keeps bubbling back up, sometimes like an ugly dragon. The pain is produced by the parts of our personality we dislike, which we see and dislike in other people, instead of owning them ourselves.

The deep inner suffering may also live within us because of some trauma or pain inflicted by others whom we cannot forgive. They are still hurting us. We may have forgotten who the person is, particularly if it is a family member, but we still live with the pain.

Nouwen tells us that this inner pain is often even more challenging than all the suffering in the world.

As we meditate about Christ’s wounds this Holy Week, we can believe Christ within us can lead us to our own wounds and suffering. Connecting and feeling Christ’s wounds can connect us and bring us to awareness of the inner suffering that blocks our pathway to the God within us.

Nouwen believes that once we recognize and name our inner cross of pain, we will see the crosses others bear more clearly. 

I see this in our grief recovery groups. The participants realize the pain in others and begin to connect to them. Those who are suffering may know the depth of each other’s suffering best.

The miracle is that those who have experienced this inner pain are the ones who best heal each other.

 This is called resurrection. It happens in community.

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

Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow this Holy Week

 Keep Your Eye On the Sparrow this Holy Week

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So, do not be afraid: you are of more value than many sparrows." —Matthew 10:29-31.

On June 7, 2017, in the issue of The Christian Century: Thinking Critically, Living Faithfully, Liddy Barlow, executive minister of Christian Associates of Southwest Pennsylvania, was the guest preacher writing about the sparrow text from Matthew. She talks about the lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, who chaired the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, giving money to the families of those who died in the terrorist attack using a formula based on each victim's income and earning potential. The compensation ranged from $250,000 to $7.1 million. Feinberg struggles with this differentiation at the end of the experience, as he listens to the stories of the victims and their families and wonders if one person is twenty-eight times more valuable than another.

Barlow also reminds us of the Civilla Martin poem, "His Eye Is On The Sparrow," which became a Gospel hymn bringing comfort to the African-American Church in our past century. I will never forget hearing Kathleen Battle sing this hymn, a Cappella, in a concert with the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center. We were in the first-row center, and she was in front of us, a foot away, in this striking dark red-wine velvet dress. Her soul was singing from somewhere deep inside of her.

This, indeed, is a Scripture passage and a hymn about how valuable each of us is to God. People often come for spiritual direction when they do not feel valued by God. So when we talk, I wish I could sing this song like Kathleen Battle and tell them their worth.

Barlow concludes her message by telling us that Feinberg was again consulted in 2007 by the president of Virginia Tech about distributing the compensation to the families of those killed in that mass shooting. His 9/11 experience has changed Feinberg. He now believes in the equality of all life. Therefore, he recommends that all victims, students, and faculty receive the same compensation.

This is the story of how the God of our understanding works tirelessly to teach us the value of our neighbor. Our God desperately loves and values each and every one of us.

 Every morning, I am reminded of this as I watch the white-crowned house sparrows come to the feeder outside my window above my desk.

When fear filled my heart during this pandemic, the sparrows outside my window comforted me. I still hear Kathleen Battle singing "His Eye Is On The Sparrow/And I Know He's Watching Over You and Me." 

I often sing this hymn many times during the day, especially during Holy Week. These are seven special days to remember the depth of God's love for each of us. 

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

Re-living the Passion

Re-living the Passion

“I saw the spot Our Lady met thee carrying thy cross. She swooned and fell. I saw where thou didst wash the dusty feet of those who, when the soldiers came to haul thee off to death, took to their well-washed heels. With a candle in my hand I climbed the hill on which they nailed thee to a tree, thy tender flesh so rent and torn it was more full of wounds than ever was a dovehouse full of holes. In a round-shaped church of stone where knights kept vigil, I saw thy Holy Sepulchre itself, the very shelf they set thy body on.”

—Frederick Buechner in Godric.

We are approaching one of the holiest times of the Christian year, appropriately named Holy Week. In preparing for this time, our tradition suggests the sacrament of the reconciliation of a penitent. So today, I share the rough draft of my confession of the ups and downs of my relationship with God, looking through the lens of the Stations of the Cross.

Today, on Palm Sunday, we will read the Passion Gospel in Mark; on Good Friday, we will hear the Passion Gospel from John.

I imagine myself as one of the many players in this extraordinary drama in all the gospel stories. Come with me and see if you also have a part to play. I have been Judas and betrayed Jesus for politics and money. Yet, at the same time, I have also had the privilege for over twenty-two years preparing Christ’s supper. Jesus has washed my feet. I have sung hymns with him on the way to mountaintops. I have publicly declared Jesus as my God in front of large groups of people. I have prayed with Christ and fallen asleep, literally or by staying unconscious to the present moment. I have figuratively cut off ears defending him in my zeal.

I have been Nicodemus coming to him secretly at night and speaking out for him in ways that would keep me safe. I have given false witness against him by making my plan his plan. I have been Peter and denied my God more than three times. I have spat on him and mocked him with my actions. I have been Pilate’s wife, receiving dreams telling me God is among us. I have been Pilate and washed my hands of situations when I should have spoken out for what I knew in my heart was wrong.

I have been Barabbas, the freed criminal, and did not have to face the consequences of my sins. I have been privileged to wipe the face of God present in so many others in pain. I have perhaps been Simon of Cyrene and carried another’s cross for brief periods of time. I have been among the women who followed Jesus from Galilee and looked helplessly at his crucifixion from a distance. I have been the thief on the cross, crying out for God’s mercy in my distress. I have been the other thief on the cross, still trying to tell God what God should do to relieve my pain.

I have been the centurion at Jesus’ death, finally recognizing God in the lives of so many only after they have died. I have been Joseph of Arimathea and found a resting place for Jesus. I have been one of the spice-bearing women at the empty tomb, still looking for God. I have been Mary Magdalene in the garden, searching for God and not recognizing him.

This is an invitation to walk this Holy Week journey again together. I hear there is a surprise ending.

We will never forget the Holy Weeks of the last several years. This week, we will again have an opportunity to walk with God and many others, as we have never done before. We pray for those injured in Arkansas, especially in the tornado Holy Week of last year.

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