The Interconnection of Prayer and Service

Nouwen: The Interconnection of Prayer and Service

“Life becomes an unbearable burden whenever we lose touch with the presence of a loving Savior and see only hunger to be alleviated, injustice to be addressed, violence to overcome, wars to be stopped, and loneliness to be removed. All these are critical issues, and Christians must try to solve them; however, when our concern no longer flows from our personal encounter with the living Christ, we feel an oppressive weight.

Jesus in the House and Mary and Martha Erasmus Quellinus

Here arises a key question: “Can we see Christ in the world?” The answer is, “No, we cannot see Christ in the world, but only the Christ in us can see Christ in the world.” This means that through prayer the Christ within us opens our eyes to the Christ among us.”—Henri Nouwen in The Road to Peace (Orbis Books 1998).

Nouwen reminds us that prayer and service can never be seen as conflicting or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless piety, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation.

When we pray for others, we stand in the presence of God for them, just as Christ does for us. Praying for others takes us out of our heads and places the problems of the world in the Presence of God. Nouwen reminds us that when we pray for the endless needs of the world, our soul expands and brings them to the Presence of God.

But we cannot embrace the world, but God can.

When we connect to God’s Presence, we are no longer victims of the fear, hatred, and violence that rule the world. In God’s Presence, we connect to the Christ within us, and we see the Christ in others. Our hearts of stone break, and we feel compassion as we pray for others. Our prayers are energy, pulses of Hope that connect to God’s greater energy that surrounds us.

We are filling the water pots with water to the brim. The wine-making is God’s. We remove the stone. “Lazarus, come forth,” belongs to God. We are the dry bones. Putting on flesh and breathing are God’s.

We are called to prayer and service together, not one or the other.

Joanna Joannaseibert.com  

Feng Shui, Being in Relationship with the World Around Us

Schmidt: Feng Shui, The Order God Intended For Our Lives

Guest Writer Frederick Schmidt

“Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.”—Alice Walker.

Not everyone who identifies as spiritual necessarily considers that a more significant responsibility. Most of us are taught that spirituality is about getting God involved in our lives, fixing our problems, comforting us when we are down, and showing us the way. Our culture has taught us to think that way, and some spiritualities are devoted to that understanding of the spiritual life.

love thy neighbor interfaith service

Now, at one level, I’m all for God being involved in my life. I don’t relish having problems. When God seems particularly close, I enjoy the palpable sense of peace that goes along with such moments, and I never mind knowing what to do next. But, at the same time, I don’t think that is the purpose of the spiritual life. 

love thy neighbor interfaith service

We have a more significant responsibility. Feng shui doesn’t quite capture that responsibility, but it hints at a concept found in the Torah, the prophets, and the teaching of Jesus—pretty much in the entire Bible. It’s called the righteousness of God—the order God intended, to put it in more accessible terms. Put another way, we are called into partnership with Jesus to care about how the world around us does or does not conform to God’s design. 

friendship camp

Contributing to the righteousness of God won’t be as easy as rearranging the furniture in a room. Doing that in our world is a much bigger job. Not everyone will agree with God’s opinion on where the furniture should go. We won’t even agree among ourselves on where it should be all the time. And on this side of eternity, the furniture will never be where all of it should be.

friendship interfaith camp

But we can witness to making God’s righteousness a reality. We can make personal choices and relate to one another in ways that reflect the presence of God in our lives. Those may not be sizeable pieces of furniture, but it’s an excellent place to start. 

Frederick Schmidt 

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

Schmidt: Dys-Feng Shui 1

Schmidt: Dys-Feng Shui 1

Guest Writer Frederick Schmidt

people behind each other

“To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.”—Mahatma Gandhi.

I don’t know much about feng shui (pronounced fung shwee), but as I understand it, it is a Chinese concept of aesthetics that applies “the laws of heaven and earth” to create harmony and order. It teaches how to maximize life’s energy to be in sync with the world around us.

Today, interior decorators use it in a somewhat more trivialized and commercial fashion. They may not know much about ancient Chinese philosophy, but they know an exotic way to sell their services when they see one!

In the middle of a rather lengthy business meeting some years ago, those around the table found a way to kill a few free moments by joking about the rather strange table arrangement we had been given for our meeting. The worst was that people were sitting at tables behind us. They were forced to face the backs of our heads, and we were positioned with our backs to them.

Thus, one of the funnier “you had to be there to understand” moments was when we critiqued the arrangement as a product of “dys-feng shui.”

Whether you find that funny or not, I think it is true that the more we live into the spiritual life, the more we take responsibility for the world around us. We notice feng shui and dys-feng shui—or to turn the vocabulary in a direction that is more familiar to me; we see where the Spirit of God is at work and where the Spirit of God is marginalized.

I am not talking about some kind of soft social consciousness, never mind a body of political beliefs. Instead, I am referring to the capacity to look at the world around us through the eyes of God.

Frederick Schmidt

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