Nouwen: Reimaging and Reimagining

Nouwen: Reimaging and Reimagining

“When we believe that we are created in the image of God himself and come to realize that Christ came to let us reimagine this, then meditation and prayer can lead us to our true identity.” —Henri Nouwen in You Are the Beloved (Convergent Books, 2017).

ob ultrasound

Much of my professional life has been imaging children with X-rays, ultrasound, nuclear imaging, CT, and MRI. I am intrigued by Nouwen’s insight that the Incarnation is a reimaging or a reimagining of God. Reimaging in radiology usually means taking a second look. We make another image if we are not entirely certain of what we saw the first time. When we see something we cannot quite understand, we produce another image to see if it is still there. We want to verify that what we saw the first time was real—so we take another picture, sometimes at a different angle.

Reimagining, on the other hand, means forming a new concept. Jesus came to reimage God, to show us a God of love with skin on. He also came to help us reimagine God and realize a new relationship with a loving God. The Incarnation is pivotal in bringing new concepts of love into our relationship with each other and God.

Reimage and reimagine that today.

neonatal head ultrasound

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

fracture clavicle

Learning From The Super Bowl Comeback 2023

Learning from the Super Bowl Comeback 2023

“Ask yourself what is absurd in your life right now. Then, recall that the roots of the word refer to being “deaf.” If you have stopped listening, try to begin again, first with what you love, then with what is difficult for you. Something may be trying to reach you—a voice, a destiny.”—Philip Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage, page 39.

Super Bowl Comeback 2023

Beginning the second half, the Kansas City Chiefs were ten down to Philadelphia. Using a wise tactic, they returned to the second half to score points whenever they had the ball.

On second down, they would try a play to see how Philadelphia would react. On third down, they repeated the play but adjusted to where they could get through the Philadelphia defense. They learned from what did not work and adjusted to a new way, sometimes only slightly different. If only we could do that in life.

I share this image sent to me from a significant Kansas City fan in Missouri, Donna, whom I met in Daughters of the King in their program, Daughters Going Deeper.

We tend to keep doing things the same way every time. Those in 12-step recovery call this insanity.

Sports do have a spiritual side for us to learn from.

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Looking For God In Our Lives

Looking for God In Our Lives

“I search for the Spirit as I take out the trash. The sacred is revealed in brilliant light only rarely, in the flash of some great unexpected insight, but much more than this, the holy is to be discovered in our daily lives when we are simply being ourselves.

Putting the kids to bed, working in the garden, sitting on the porch in the evening: the beauty of eternity is that it hides in plain sight all around us. We are all prophets of the predictable pattern, witnesses to the wonder of the average day.”—Bishop Steven Charleston, Daily Facebook Page.

 The God, of my understanding, uses every bit of our lives to call us to God’s love. I remember walking around my block one morning when I noticed all the trash bins in front of houses. On this walk, I realized that many spiritual disciplines we practice are simply to clear our minds—literally taking out the trash to hear God speak to our lives.

Bishop Charleston reminds us again of Brother Lawrence’s experience in The Practice of the Presence of God, seeking and seeing God in every aspect of our lives. He tells us we don’t have to live in a monastery to find and live this kind of life. He believes we can know God’s presence more in our daily routine than in some St. Paul-like, blinding, falling-off-our-horse, spectacular event.

Bishop Charleston also practices the family system’s axiom of trying to live a less anxious presence in the world around him. He is looking around with awe at the ever-changing beauty of God’s immanence in the vastness of nature and being transformed by what he sees. He actively seeks Christ in every place and every person he encounters. This is the spiritual discipline of living in the present moment.

Joanna     https://www.joannaseibert.com/