Buechner, Nouwen, Tillich: Ocean

Buechner, Tillich: Ocean   

“They say that whenever the theologian Paul Tillich went to the beach, he would pile up a mound of sand and sit on it gazing out at the ocean with tears running down his cheeks...Maybe what made him weep was how vast and overwhelming it was, and yet at the same time as near as the breath of it in his nostrils, as salty as his own tears.”—Frederick Buechner in Beyond Words (HarperOne, 2009).

I share Tillich’s awe whenever I visit the ocean or the Gulf. It is an experience of vastness and closeness with Nature and some Power greater than ourselves. Today, I also think about how dangerous the sea can be, as I recall past prayers for friends on the North Carolina coast who were devastated by Hurricane Florence. I recall the extensive destruction along the Gulf of Mexico following hurricanes Frederick, Ivan, Katrina, Michael, Laura, and Sally.

I also think of the pleasure the sea and the sand have brought to generations. The sound of the waves calms my soul. Watching children swim and play in the sand pulls at the heartstrings of the child within me. Watching families, lovers, and children walk along the surf is a lesson in our connectedness to one another. The dolphins, pelicans, and lone osprey constantly remind us of the variety of coexisting life with agendas that differ from ours. The “turtle people” who walk the beach in the early morning, searching for turtle tracks to secret nests, are icons of faithfulness and a caring attitude towards something other than themselves.

I see the ocean, the sea, the Gulf, and the sand as icons of something created out of love, no matter the process. Living by the sea is like being in a loving relationship with a spouse, friend, or children. Whenever we offer ourselves, our love, to another, it can be beautiful beyond words, like the sea.

hurricane laura. Joanna Campbell

Living on the Gulf, we are open to storms, sometimes as ugly and powerful as these hurricanes. But like the people I observe by the sea, we remember that the positive potential of love always overwhelms the possible hurtful negative. The lows are pale compared to the highs. So we keep picking up the mess and forgive the wind, the sea, and those we love, and hope they can forgive us for the harm we knowingly or unknowingly do to them.

Henri Nouwen calls Nature “God’s Hidden Language.”

“Nature is not a possession to be conquered, but a gift to be received with respect and gratitude. Only when we make a deep bow to the rivers, oceans, hills, and mountains that offer us a home, only then can they become transparent and reveal to us their real meaning. All of nature conceals great secrets that cannot be revealed unless we listen carefully and patiently to God’s hidden language.1”

1Henri Nouwen in Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life 

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

 

 

What Editors Do For Fun: Write Children's Books

Usable, What Editors Do For Fun

Guest writer: Isabel Anders

“Editing and writing walk together, and they both require the eye and the ear.” —Found in the New Yorker (3/27/23). 

Isabel

It never failed. Every time I typed my name, Isabel, the spell-check function on my old computer would change it to “usable.” I laughed, but there was a kind of logic to it. 

Eventually, it accepted my name as a valid entry rather than a typo. If you stick around long enough, you get written into the story. 

“Editors and their input are inconspicuous by design. … Editors work in service of their authors and are the invisible shepherds (or packhorses or midwives, pick your metaphor) of the books we read,” wrote Sara B. Franklin.

My primary vocation as an editor has suited me perfectly—requiring accuracy, diligence, solitude—and allowing a degree of independence as one works on a manuscript. If only life were like that—a page spread out with identifiable bumps (errors) and cracks (omissions) that could, at one time, be “fixed” by an editorial pencil—but now succumb to the electronic delete key that wipes away mistakes completely. 

An editor’s work actually should be invisible, causing a piece to read and flow as though it had been written that way from the beginning. Injecting one’s own personal style is not the function of a responsible editor who serves the work. 

Since I have written books myself on the side, I truly appreciated other editors who performed that useful function for me—because, as they say, “everyone needs an editor.”

Perhaps workers in any helping profession can easily relate to this need for focus: “Attention,” the psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist writes, “is a moral act: It creates, brings aspects of things into being.” Those of us who are usable in some way are privileged to have a hand (though often an invisible one) in the process.

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” in this life, we’re told in Ecclesiastes 9:10. It’s likely when the scroll of life’s story rolls out complete, editors will not be needed. 

Isabel Anders’ Mother Bilbee Tales is a collection of nursery rhymes and folktales with a twist that allows her editorial spirit to have a fun ride.

Sing a Song of Six Birds and several others are available on Amazon.

Examen at Night

Schmidt: Ignatius, Examen

Guest Writer Frederick W. Schmidt

“The Examen builds on the insight that it’s easier to see God in retrospect rather than in the moment.”—James Martin in The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life (HarperOne, 2010), p. 97.

“Rummaging for God” in our lives.

One of the central practices in Jesuit devotion—the one Ignatius of Loyola considered indispensable—was the prayer of Examen. Ignatius believed that the key to spiritual growth was cultivating awareness of when and where God had been present throughout the day. It was so important, in fact, that he urged his followers to do the Examen, even if it cost them the little time they might have for prayer. 

One writer refers to this as “rummaging for God” in our lives. Rummaging is an excellent, commonplace activity that we often resort to when we have lost something; car keys, phones, and umbrellas have been among my favorites over the years.

The Examen is a practice that tells us something important about the spiritual life: Spiritual practice is preeminently about cultivating a sense of God’s presence. It isn’t about devotional piety or the number of hours we spend in overtly religious activity. It isn’t an anxious, endless effort to earn God’s love. The Spiritual life is about cultivating habitual awareness of God’s presence, which shapes and informs our lives.

Ignatius recommends two questions:

One: What were the events in your life today—the moments, conversations, and choices—that drew you closer to God and others in love?

Two: What were the events in your life today—the moments, conversations, and choices—that drove you away from God and others?

The answers to those simple questions invite us to evaluate our lives from a spiritual center. They are not about what feels good and what doesn’t feel good. Some things—such as addiction—feel good at first, but they invariably isolate us from God and others; by contrast, some things that don’t feel good, like asking for forgiveness, can draw us closer to God and those around us.

Instead, these questions raise our awareness of how patterns, habits, and choices shape our lives and how, armed with that knowledge, we can learn to be more readily available to God and others.

Rummaging around in our lives for God can be a source of inspiration, encouragement, strength, gratitude, and a renewed sense of spiritual purpose. That’s not a bad result for an activity that usually leads to discovering dust bunnies and lost umbrellas.—The Rev’d Dr. Frederick W. Schmidt.