Soul Friends

First Soul Friend

“Finally, I suspect that it is by entering that deep place inside us where our secrets are kept that we come perhaps closer than we do anywhere else to the One who, whether we realize it or not, is of all our secrets the most telling and the most precious we have to tell.”—Frederick Buechner, Frederick Buechner Center, Quote of the Day, formerly in Telling Secrets

Kenneth Leech’s book, Soul Friend, an Invitation to Spiritual Direction, was the first book I read on spiritual direction over thirty years ago. Something was calling me to be more connected with other spiritual friends. I was going to a counselor who helped me deal with life on life’s terms, but somehow, I instinctively knew I needed a friend who cared for my soul, concentrating on helping me see the God of my understanding working in my life.

I learned the importance of sharing ideas and consulting with others in my medical practice. I knew from many mistakes that when I tried to make decisions without getting input from others, I often went down the wrong path and made the incorrect diagnosis.

 How do you find someone you can trust with your soul? Spiritual directors were rare breeds at that time. It had to be someone I trusted with my fears and secrets. I knew I shared my life with my family members, but my direction or path to God always affected them directly or indirectly. I needed to talk or be with someone who was not explicitly affected by the insights we might have.

After some time, I found another friend, Dean McMillin, in a book group. She was also seeking a soulmate and a spiritual friend. We read Leech’s book together. Leech had so much to teach us, but we concentrated on this message. We met once a week.

We each told what was going on in our lives, our secret worries, our concerns, our fears, and where we thought God might be working. We each talked without interruption or interpretation. There was no advice to the other, nor was there empathy or sympathy. We just listened. Then, we prayed for each other, specifically for each other’s concerns.

 I am sure Leech would have wanted us to do more, but that was a start for both of us. It connected us to God by telling our stories to someone else. In doing so, these secrets lost their power over us, and somehow, we entered the secret place inside of us where God was dwelling.

It was a start. I learned a little about how the power of secrets and fears can seal us off from God. We no longer meet, but we are still friends and trust each other. We give thanks for this time when our journeys brought us together and started both of us on a new journey.

I have more soul mates now. Many are from my spiritual direction class at Kanuga. Many others have traveled beside me for years as we have supported each other. Soul mates are now writers like Barbara Brown Taylor, Phyllis Tickle, Kate Bowler,  Dean Kate Moorehead Carroll, Frederick Buechner, and Henri Nouwen, who visit us daily in their writing. I don’t know how people make this journey without soul friends.

This kind of friend is invaluable, a gift from God. If you are looking for one, keep it in your prayers. My experience is this kind of treasured spiritual friend will materialize.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Forgiveness Prayer

Mary Dwyer: Forgiveness

"Forgiveness is not forgetting, not condoning, not a form of absolution, not a pretense, not a once and for all decision, and not a sign of weakness but of strength."—Mary Dwyer, One Day Retreat of Contemplative Outreach, Learning to Forgive, February 10, 2018, St. Mark's.

At a forgiveness workshop with Mary Dwyer from Contemplative Outreach, Ltd., at St. Mark's, we learned some basics to start the journey of forgiveness. She reminds us that forgiveness is the only conditional part of the Lord's Prayer, "forgive our sins, as we forgive others."

Reconciliation involves both parties. Forgiveness involves only one party.

 Mary cautioned us about forgiving too soon.

She used the process from Fr. William A. Meninger's book, The Process of Forgiveness. The first stage of beginning to forgive involves claiming the hurt, often by writing about it.

 Telling our story is also a big part of Bishop Tutu's book, The Book of Forgiving. In the second stage of healing, we feel guilty that maybe we did something wrong for the harm to happen. Here, we are healed by comforting our inner child.

In the third stage, we see ourselves as the victim. Mary gave examples of how so many people get stuck in this stage. Their whole life centers around some hurt many years ago. Support groups help in this stage, as we see we are not the only ones harmed. 

In the fourth stage, we become angry about the hurt. Anger brings tremendous energy and clarity. If we can transform that energy, we can start healing, releasing it and becoming whole again.

What helps me the most is knowing that the person who has harmed me is still hurting me as long as I cannot forgive them. 

Mary then described a process of active imagination with God and the person who harmed us, called the Forgiveness Prayer. After a period of Centering Prayer, we imagine our sacred space with God very close to us. Mary imagines she is sitting in God's lap. Some imagine being at a quiet, contemplative service.

My sacred space would be sitting on the white sandy beach by the ocean, watching the waves come gently in as the seagulls fly in and out at the water's edge. We then invite someone who has harmed us to come into our space. We tell them all that they have done to hurt us. Next, we ask them if we have hurt them and ask them for forgiveness.

Sometimes, having a picture of the person who harmed us may help us speak to them. This is not a one-time event but may require many encounters. The Forgiveness Prayer is helpful for me when the person who harmed me refuses to talk about it. The Prayer allows us to speak to that person in a safe place where we cannot be injured again and acknowledge our mistakes.

Mary also recommends praying daily for the person who has harmed us until we are ready to forgive.

Joanna  https://www.joannaseibert.com/

MLK: Next Right Thing

MLK: Next Right Thing

 “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”—Martin Luther King, Jr.

Mural Please Touch Children’s Museum Philadelphia

Today, my husband and I remember the 57th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death in Memphis on April 4, 1968, and the events leading up to it and afterward. We were both senior medical students in Memphis during those troubled times when the world seemed to be falling apart. King left us so many legacies.

 I am thinking most about how he started in the civil rights movement, becoming a leader in the Montgomery, Alabama, 385-day bus boycott, which began in December 1955 after Rosa Parks was arrested for sitting in the front of a bus. King was 26, the new pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, the capital of Alabama.

He was supposedly selected by the African American community to lead the bus boycott because he was new and had not been intimidated by the white community, nor had he aligned himself with the various factions in the black community. During the boycott, King was arrested, and his home was bombed. However, King’s articulate and nonviolent leadership brought him into national prominence.

In his book Stride Toward Freedom, King also wrote about a spiritual experience as he sat at midnight at his kitchen table after another bomb threat. He felt a divine inner presence that took away his fears and uncertainty as he was ready to give up. This experience prepared him to face whatever came, and that courage sustained him for the rest of his life. I think this is one of the experiences he considers when he refers to “going to the mountain and hearing the truth.”

King did not decide to go to Montgomery to lead a bus boycott or become the civil rights movement leader. Instead, he probably went to be a good minister and start a family, as his father did. But a situation arose; he was chosen, and he stepped in. Indeed, his family background of three generations of ministers and his training as a pastor allowed him to be that leader; however, being a civil rights leader had not been his goal. 

I see this as a message to all of us that we may be trained to be one thing but then be called to do something else we never realized we had been trained to do all along. Each of us, like Martin, will be called at some time to speak our truth. We most probably will not think we are prepared. We may be given a job because we are young, old, inexperienced, or no one else wants the job. Every biblical story of leadership speaks to this kind of call.

Tonight, I also remember the young high school students who led a fight for gun control after an attack at their school.

My experience is that this is one of the ways God works. The lives of King, Moses, Abraham, the disciples, David, Mary, Joseph, Paul, Esther, St. Benedict, St. Francis, St. Ignatius, Bill Wilson, Dr. Bob, and these students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida all exemplify it.

During this coronavirus pandemic and time of unrest, we were called to a new task that we unknowingly have been preparing to do all our lives.  

Joanna  joannaseibert.com