Schmidt: Dys-Feng Shui 1

Schmidt: Dys-Feng Shui 1

Guest Writer Frederick Schmidt

“To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.”—Mahatma Gandhi.

I don’t know much about feng shui (pronounced fung shwee), but as I understand it, it is a Chinese concept of aesthetics that applies “the laws of heaven and earth” to create harmony and order. It teaches how to maximize life’s energy to be in sync with the world around us.

Today, interior decorators use it in a somewhat more trivialized and commercial fashion, who may know much about ancient Chinese philosophy. But they know an exotic way to sell their services when they see one!

In the middle of a rather lengthy business meeting some years ago, those around the table found a way to kill a few free moments by joking about the rather strange table arrangement we had been given for our meeting. The worst was that people were sitting at tables behind us. They were forced to face the backs of our heads, and we were positioned with our backs to them.

Thus, one of the funnier “you had to be there to understand” moments was when we critiqued the arrangement as a product of “dys-feng shui.”

Whether you find that funny or not, I think it is true that the more we live into the spiritual life, the more we take responsibility for the world around us. We notice feng shui and dys-feng shui—or to turn the vocabulary in a direction that is a bit more familiar to me; we see where the Spirit of God is at work and where the Spirit of God is marginalized.

I am not talking about some kind of soft social consciousness, never mind a body of political beliefs. Instead, I am referring to the capacity to look at the world around us through the eyes of God.

Frederick Schmidt

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

Hope from the Fresh Air of the Gospel

Hope From the Fresh Air of the Gospel

“When the fresh air of the Gospel becomes our oxygen, the collective sin of the world will burn our sensitized lungs like toxic fumes. We will notice injustice everywhere we turn, and our powerlessness will crucify our hearts. Then, we will know the hope of the Resurrection from the inside. God’s power to raise, to heal, and to save will flow through us because God will be our only lasting hope.”—Br. Keith Nelson, SSJE 

Deacon Gay Romack Arizona

I try to remember and say this prayer as I stand to read the Gospel each Sunday. Gospel means Good News. Each year, I learn more and more that this is a weekly privilege, and one of our diaconal missions is to concentrate on reading the Gospel to the best of our abilities.

St Thaddeus Aiken South Carolina

That means practicing it out loud until it becomes part of our being. Not overacting or underacting. Trying to surrender to the message. I have learned that we can only deliver the Word if we are connected to the Christ within. Trying to see and feel the Spirit within us as well as the presence of Christ in each member of the congregation, especially the difficult ones.

When this happens, healing electricity flows from the Word to the people and back to the Gospel. Truly hearing the Word can then move our hearts to action. The message of Christ in the Gospel leads us to share the presence of Christ in each other, as the Gospel message permeates the nave of the church. This healing presence gives us peace and promise for the day, healing for the past,  and hope for the future.

Those who study dreams believe every dream has a promise and a warning. This may also be true in many gospel passages we read and hear each Sunday. Looking for the warning and the promise, as we do in dreamwork as we read and hear the Sunday Gospel message, might give us new hope in the Good News and God’s message.

Christ Church Winnetka IIinois

Joanna joannseibert.com

Movie Date

Movie Date

“I have a theory that movies operate on the level of dreams, where you dream yourself.”—Meryl Streep.

My granddaughter, Zoe, and I have been having a date for many years on Friday afternoons to watch old movies. I wish we could swim together, stroll in the woods, or walk down some of Little Rock’s beautiful trails, but my physical disability makes that too difficult. However, we can curl up in the king-size bed in our master bedroom, all lights out, each covered by our favorite blankets, while we eat popcorn and watch movies. We have seen almost every musical made. Sometimes, we watch drama, and less often, comedy.

One week, Zoe saw Some Like It Hot for the first time. Recently, we watched Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. I forgot to mention Zoe has just left for a junior year in Denmark, and I know we will miss these movie dates. We usually talk a little about the film after it is over. Sometimes, there is much to discuss; at other times, there is very little. One of my favorites to see with her was Babette’s Feast, a film about food and life.

Zoe is a Greek word for life. This is a photograph of Zoe on her first trip to Greece one summer with friends. Life is what our grandchildren teach us, life in the present moment.

In the past, I have shared paintings from my favorite art museums with Zoe, and rarely have we read poetry together. But, mainly, there is so much grandparents want to share with their precious grandchildren.

However, it is predominately about the pleasure of being in our grandchildren’s presence. They connect us to our souls. I have learned to drop everything I am doing and be with her if she texts about a potential movie date.

For me, this movie date has become an icon of what prayer time may be about. I think there is some built-in homing device through which God and we yearn for each other’s presence. Prayer is occasionally words, but mostly presence. I believe God longs to share God’s experience, God’s amazing world, with us, but mostly God longs for our presence—just as there is a conscious and maybe even a stronger unconscious longing in us just to be in God’s presence.

Joanna  https://www.joannaseibert.com/