Parker Palmer: Seeking Sanctuary

Parker Palmer: Seeking Sanctuary in Our Own Sacred Spaces

“Sanctuary is wherever I find a safe space to regain my bearings, reclaim my soul, heal my wounds, and return to the world as a wounded healer. It’s not merely about finding shelter from the storm: it’s about spiritual survival. Today, seeking sanctuary is no more optional for me than church attendance was as a child.” Parker Palmer, “Seeking Sanctuary in our own sacred spaces,” On Being with Krista Tippett, September 14, 2016.

Red Doors, an ancient sign of Sanctuary

We still read about churches, towns, and cities that are providing sanctuary to undocumented immigrants who now face deportation, dreamers, many who have been working, living, and raising families in our country for years. Many were our healthcare workers saving the lives of those we love during the past pandemic. They sought a better life for themselves and their families, and now fear losing all that is sacred to them.

Many who come to spiritual directors also seek a sanctuary for their sacred spaces, a spiritual life that once had been vibrant, but now may seem lost. They have lived and followed a road less traveled, but they have come to a spiritual fork in the road or perhaps a dead end.

They fear they have lost the spiritual life they once had. They are now on a path that seems undocumented. Our ministry as spiritual friends is to be a sanctuary for the soul of those who seek our trust and guidance, especially when they feel isolated from their God connection. It can be a lonely time.

We must treat as sacred this precious part of all people, that presence of God within each of us, which we can sometimes see but is blind to them or to others. We must never lose sight of the privilege or the awesomeness of being asked to care for the soul of another, especially at a vulnerable time.

This is a sacred trust, a rare chance to make a difference, just as our churches in years past and years to come have been a place of sanctuary. I am told that the red doors of some of our churches are an ancient sign of sanctuary within. When we meet with a spiritual friend, may we imagine that we are sitting together just within the sanctuary of red doors?

This calls us also to relate to other seekers in the world who need a sanctuary at this time of their life, in prayer and in person, remembering that we are all seekers and often are on an undocumented, uncharted path. We hope we will have the courage to stand, sit, sleep, work, eat, and pray beside all who need sanctuary within the red doors of our churches, minds, and hearts.

Finding a sanctuary during these difficult times is essential for our mind, body, and soul.

Camp Mitchell, a place of Sanctuary

Joanna Seibert. joannaseibert.com

Living Paradox

Living Paradox

“The great paradox of life is that those who lose their lives will gain them. If we cling to our friends, we may lose them, but when we are non-possessive in our relationships, we will make many friends. When fame is what we seek and desire, it often vanishes as soon as we acquire it.”—Henri Nouwen, “April 30” in Bread for the Journey (HarperOne, 1997).

University of Arkansas graduation

Nouwen again opens us up to an authentic truth: that we live and work with paradox, holding tensions. One of the best books I read during my work as a physician was John R. O’Neil’s The Paradox of Success: When Winning at Work Means Losing at Life. It is subtitled: A Book of Renewal for Leaders. O’Neil tells us how our excessive pride as leaders, combined with the seductive perks of power, can become addictive. At some point, the wielding of power itself becomes even more important than its goal.

Power and the need to control our fate can take over and sometimes become the end rather than the means. The paradox of success is the promise of renewal, as we can stand back, especially in a retreat, and see where we have gotten into trouble. There are obstacles to stepping back, such as our drive for perfection, as our path becomes a prison. Often, we let our clocks tell us what we should be doing, especially as we drive toward the dead-end of a substantial paycheck.

O’Neil believes that any amount of time spent away from our usual productive round of activities is renewing as long as it is time spent pursuing wisdom. Renewing activities can be exercising, watching birds at my window, being or sitting in nature, listening to music, playing the harp, being quiet, writing, talking and connecting with friends, visiting the sick, and some form of daily retreat, usually involving writing.

O’Neil encourages us to become healed by pursuing a different situation, where we do not run the show and focus on relationships rather than goals or end results. Our difficulties stem from the very traits that make us winners. We will find unmined gold in dark places initially hidden from us.

The book includes a graph about success. We work hard to reach the top as we master our profession. However, we only stay at the top briefly since there is always someone else or many who will soon surpass us. O’Neil suggests we stop to observe our situation as we approach the peak of a pursuit and consider starting all over again in a new career.

That can keep us humble, as we are back on a learning curve where we do not have all the answers. Then, as we get close to the top of that career or undertaking, he suggests we observe and again consider starting all over again. As Benedictines might say, “Always we begin again.”

My summer reading again includes David Brooks’ The Second Mountain. I think Brooks is discovering some of these same principles about life. For so many, our time during the pandemic was a period of discernment—learning how to live with the paradoxes in our lives.

Richard Rohr recently reminded us in his blog that our call is to hold the tension, not necessarily find a resolution or closure to the paradox. We must agree to live without resolution, at least for a while. He believes being open to this holding pattern is the very name and description of faith.

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

Strangers, Angels, Visiting Firemen

Strangers, Angels, Visiting Firemen

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”—Hebrews 13:2, NRSV.

Early in our medical careers, as my husband and I had the opportunity to help develop departments at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, we constantly recruited out-of-town physicians looking for positions in our specialties for several weekends a month.

We also had three small children we wanted to be with, especially on the weekends. So, we usually took our children with the visitors on tours of Little Rock and treated them to lunches in the afternoon. We often ate at a hotel restaurant with an indoor glass elevator and escalators. When the children had enough recruitment entertainment at lunch, they entertained themselves by making several birds-eye-view trips up and down the hotel elevator and escalators.

I don’t know if this term is still in fashion, but we would identify the visiting physicians to our children as “visiting firemen.” The phrase is still a well-used part of our family vocabulary.

Many of these “visiting firemen” indeed became “angels unawares,” as the King James Bible translates this verse from Hebrews. We had no idea how we would be able to work with those we were recruiting, but we took a leap of faith, and they changed and healed children’s lives, and influenced us as well.

They helped us put out fires when the politics of medicine reared its ugly head. They taught us by their presence how grateful we were for them every day as we tried to solve,  identify, and change the course of children’s diseases, consulting with each other in community rather than making decisions by ourselves. Their presence and wisdom changed me from an anxious person to a grateful person. They brought with them peace, one of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5.

The most significant accumulation of strangers we now meet is at St. Mark’s food pantry. But soon they, as well, are no longer strangers. Many, indeed, are angels. They ask for prayer, but know how to pray better than we do. They have very little, but they share it with others. Many bring their neighbors who cannot drive. They repeatedly tell stories about how blessed they are. Perhaps this is a sign of an angel who lives in gratitude.

I share with spiritual friends that I have learned most often from strangers that gratitude is a path to our soul and the God within us.

If you or a loved one became sick during this pandemic, you indeed met many strangers who were angels, unaware. But we don’t need to get sick to see the angels. They bring our mail. They work in our grocery stores, pharmacies, and food pantries.

Today, we also remember Macrina Wiederkehr, who died near this time in 2020. Her book, Tree Full of Angels, speaks to what we are all trying to write about.

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