The World Within

  Charleston: Magdalene, The World Within

Repentant Magdalene National Gallery Washington DC Georges de La Tour

“How hard it is sometimes to live in two worlds, the one we inhabit with the people around us and the one we live in alone. None may know the pain we hide, the deep wells of worry into which look the memories that enfold our lives like a forest. But the Spirit knows, cares, understands, and is ever beside us to offer comfort and counsel.”—Bishop Steven Charleston Daily Facebook Page.

The Repentant Magdalene

A few years ago, I spent time with a 394-year-old friend I have known for the last thirty-five years. We first met when she was one of three Georges de La Tour’s Magdalene paintings at a rare National Gallery of Art exhibition. She was the only one in their permanent collection. Before an important meeting in Washington, I visited her that morning, and she quieted my soul.
I instantly fell in love with her. She spoke to me as no other painting has before or since. This Magdalene sits with her left hand on a skull. She does not look at the skull directly but sees the skull’s image in a mirror in front of her. The chiaroscuro scene is dark and only illuminated by a partially hidden candle beside the skull. I talk to Magdalene and thank her for her insights.

 For me, the skull represents our insides, the inner life, what our skin covers up, the Christ within, and the negative parts of our unconscious. Over the years, this Magdalene has taught me that we most often see inside ourselves by looking into a reflection, a mirror. Seeing what we are beneath our surface is too painful and overwhelming. We cannot look there directly. It is like looking at the sun. The mirror represents the reflection we see of ourselves in others. We learn and understand the authentic parts of ourselves by seeing ourselves in our neighbors.

 God calls us to community to learn from others who we truly are. I best see my own soul, the Christ within me, as well as my many unconscious character defects, by first seeing them in others. We learn about our unconscious character defects by first becoming aware of them as we see what they look like in others.

Caring for our soul is finding Christ within ourselves by first seeing what is holy in another. The Christ in our neighbor soon helps us realize the miracle of  Christ’s presence also within ourselves.

Next, we are called to share it with others.

If we do not pass it on, our image of God stays too small.

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/

 

 

Hillesum: Finding Answers in Emotional Difficulties

Hillesum: Finding Answers in Emotional Difficulties

“Thinking gets you nowhere. It may be a fine and noble aid in academic studies, but you can’t think your way out of emotional difficulties. That takes something altogether different. You have to make yourself passive then and just listen. Re-establish contact with a slice of eternity.”—Etty Hillesum in An Interrupted Life, Daily Quote, June 29, 2018, Inwardoutward.org, Church of the Saviour.

Etty Hillesum shares her formula for finding a way through difficult emotional situations. Those who make decisions using their thinking (T) function, what is reasonable, will probably disagree. Considering the importance of relationships, those who make decisions using their feeling (F) function may agree with Hillesum. Many would say we need both thinking and feeling when making decisions.

Looking deeper beyond personality types takes us to another level. Hillesum is trying to tell us to let the committee in our heads rest by whatever means we use: reading, meditation, music, walking, praying, writing, or just being.

She tells us to connect to the God within us however we can. We are to try to find an answer from something greater than ourselves.

We do not know the exact answer.

We will recognize it because we know it will have something to do with love.

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

 

Keller, Tillich, Lamott: faith and Doubt

   Keller, Tillich, Lamott: Faith, Doubts

“Observers in the full enjoyment of their bodily senses pity me, but it is because they do not see the golden chamber in my life where I dwell delighted; for, dark as my path may seem to them, I carry a magic light in my heart. Faith, the spiritual strong searchlight, illumines the way, and although sinister doubts lurk in the shadow, I walk unafraid towards the Enchanted Wood where the foliage is always green, where joy abides, where nightingales nest and sing, and where life and death are one in the Presence of the Lord.”—Helen Keller in Midstream: My Later Life.

How beautifully Helen Keller describes faith. Someone who is blind describes faith as light, a light in her heart. I share my image of light in my heart. It is watching my grandchildren celebrate each other’s birthdays! It is joy and all the other fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. Love, peace, kindness, goodness, forbearance, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Helen Keller also does not negate doubt. The words of Paul Tillich, which Anne Lamott has popularized, ring in my ears, “The opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty.” Faith implies believing in something or being in a relationship with something that is a mystery not defined by our human understanding.  

Our rational minds can just take us so far in understanding faith.

When a person has difficulty with mystery, doubts move in. However, our doubts can be stepping stones to deeper faith as we read, share our doubts with others, and learn and experience the mystery together.

Certainty means we have become God. We know all the answers. Doubt enlarges our view of God. As we work through our doubts, our God becomes larger. Certainty narrows it to only the little piece of God we have realized. Our God has become and stays too small.

 I often speak with spiritual friends about doubt and reassure them that this is not unnatural or unhealthy. I tell friends, “Let’s talk about the doubts. Doubts can always be a pathway to deeper faith. Then, if, in the process, you come to a place of unbelief, let me carry your faith until you are ready to take it back. I am counting on you to do the same for me when I am overcome with doubt.”