Surrender

Turning It Over

“I abandon all that I think I am, all that I hope to be, all that I believe I possess. I let go of the past, I withdraw my grasping hand from the future, and in the great silence of this moment, I alertly rest my soul.”—Howard Thurman in Deep Is the Hunger (Friends United Press, 1978).

The first line of this quote, “I abandon all that I think I am,” reminds me of the exchange of rings in the liturgy of the celebration of a marriage. “N, I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow, and with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you, in the Name of God.” (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 317).

Thurman goes even further than the vow at the exchange of rings. This prayer now turns over to God all we think we are, all we might hope to be, and all we imagine we possess: our past, present, and future. So then, in the moment’s silence, the result is that we mindfully rest into our soul, united to the God within us, and find that peace that words cannot describe.

This is freedom. I am no longer in charge. Doing the next right thing, but not worrying about the results. We strive to be the person God created us to be, not the person others may call us to be. Discerning and then doing what we think God calls us uniquely to do. We hope to find direction through spiritual practices and inner work as we live faithfully in community.

But those old tapes of trying to be perfect, with no mistakes for ourselves or others, keep creeping in like shadows in the night. Living in community can keep these voices at bay. We share our triumphs and our mistakes with others who do the same. Finally, we realize that sharing our love in community is more important than all our attempts at perfection and being right.

We learn these secrets much later than we wish we had discerned them. Listening. Listening to other people’s stories. Then, at the right time, we tell our own story. We are learning to forgive others and forgive ourselves—being always grateful. Becoming a servant leader.

This is the life of surrender.

  Joanna    https://www.joannaseibert.com/

All Saints and All Souls: Generous Heart, Columbus

All Saints and All Souls: Generous Heart, Columbus

“In his holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops a pocket handkerchief. These handkerchiefs are called saints.

Many people think of saints as plaster saints, men and women of such paralyzing virtue that they never thought a nasty thought or did an evil deed their whole lives long. As far as I know, real saints never even come close to characterizing themselves that way.”–Frederick Buechner initially published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words. 

Columbus

Buechner reminds us that being a saint is less about ourselves but more about the way God, for some reason, works through and redeems the mess of our lives. November 1 is All Saints Day when we remember the saints of the church who have died. November 2 is All Souls Day, where we remember all the faithful departed.

I cannot help but remember Columbus, someone well known by all in the recovery community in Little Rock, Arkansas, only by his first name. Every year, usually early in the morning on the birthday of your sobriety, you receive a phone call from Columbus. You wait in anticipation for that call, celebrating one more year of an alternative life with someone you knew only over the phone lines.

Columbus’ wife of forty-six years would leave him three times before he went into his last rehabilitation, after many DWIs and missed work, and days when she admitted not knowing where he was. Columbus died in the thirty-eighth year of his sobriety and was credited with having led to sobriety thousands of men and women worldwide.

Columbus made 15,000 calls a year and almost half a million calls before his death. He also called people he knew were no longer in recovery and told them he cared about them. As a result, many people say they returned to recovery because of Columbus.

Columbus’ wife described his change when he went into recovery as “truly unbelievable. He became a dedicated and involved father and grandfather after he came so close to losing his family.”

When I hear people wonder what they could do to make a difference in the world, I tell them Columbus’ story: one man with a generous heart, picking up the phone every day and changing lives with a simple phone call. One day at a time.

This may be the way saints live. They are resurrection people. They know all too well what Good Friday is like. Yet, God continues to change them and the world one day, one phone call at a time.  

Grace Chapter Daughters of the King at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock, will lead a prayer vigil on Election Day, November 5, 2024. Enter through the chapel door at Saint Mark’s and go into the church to the adjacent transept. Saint Mark’s will be open for prayers from 8:30 a.m. after Morning Prayer to 4:30 p.m.

All Souls from Stuart Hoke

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

All Saints Day

 All Saints Day

Guest Writer: Karen Dubert

All Saints’ Day: a Crowd of Saints 2020

 “After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation.”— Rev 7:9.

Fra Angelico

My solitude of social distance is suddenly congested

by reminders of the great cloud:

that crowd of witnesses huddled over there in eternity,

peering into time

from vast margins of timelessness,

voids of space.

How is it that we eternal beings—

embedded in time,

prehistoric insects in amber—

How is it we so obsess over the amber

that we imagine ourselves the focus?

We sing of saints “who from their labours rest”

possibly imagining

eternity as an endless “rest" of watching us—

Dreary infinitude.

This amber chamber in which we live and move and be

confounds, imprisons us

defining our vision

regulating our expression;

so we envision the ancestors of millennia

eagerly peering over each other’s shoulders

to catch glimpses of us—

“the living ones”

The irony catches in my throat,

a log hung up on the flotsam of a cosmic flood.

That our amber-vision defines us

rather than enabling us

to gaze beyond and marvel that

out of here, somewhere

amberlessness means

movement.

(revised 2 Nov 2021)

Karen Dubert

Grace Chapter Daughters of the King at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock, will lead a prayer vigil on Election Day, November 5, 2024. The chapel at Saint Mark’s will be open for prayers from 8:30 a.m. after Morning Prayer to 4:30 p.m.

St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church Dancing Saints David Sanger

Joanna joannaseibert.com