God Moments as We Live in the Present Moment

Finding God in the Present Moment

Living in the Present Moment of Langley’s First Christmas

“I search for the Spirit as I take out the trash. The sacred is revealed in brilliant light only rarely, in the flash of some great unexpected insight, but much more than this, the holy is to be discovered in our daily lives when we are simply being ourselves. Putting the kids to bed, working in the garden, sitting on the porch in the evening: the beauty of eternity is that it hides in plain sight all around us. We are all prophets of the predictable pattern, witnesses to the wonder of the average day.”—Bishop Steven Charleston, Daily Facebook Page.

 The God of my understanding uses every bit of our lives to call us to God’s love. I remember walking around my block one morning when I noticed all the trash bins in front of houses. On this walk, I realized that many of the spiritual disciplines we practice are simply to clear our minds—literally taking out the trash so we can hear God speak to our lives.

Bishop Charleston reminds us again of Brother Lawrence’s experience in The Practice of the Presence of God, seeking and seeing God in every aspect of our lives. He tells us we don’t have to live in a monastery to find and live this kind of life. He believes we can know God’s presence more in our daily routine than in some St. Paul-like, blinding, falling-off-our-horse, spectacular event.

Bishop Charleston also practices the family system’s axiom of being the less anxious presence in the world around him. He is looking around with awe at the ever-changing beauty of God’s immanence in the vastness of nature, and he is transformed by what he sees. He actively seeks Christ in every place and every person he encounters. This is the spiritual discipline of living in the present moment.

Joanna     https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Thoreau: Avoiding the Superficial Life

Thoreau: Avoiding the Superficial Life

“When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. Sometimes, we meet a man who can only tell us the news he has read in a newspaper or been told by his neighbor. As our inward life fails, we may constantly and desperately go to the post office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while.”—Henry David Thoreau.

My spiritual friend, Bridget, sent this to me. Most of us do not go to the post office, and letter writing is becoming a lost art. But we are now judged by how many Facebook friends we have! I have a Facebook page to keep informed about family and friends, and one as an author. However, a Facebook message differs from a phone call, visit, or conversation over a meal. When we are face-to-face, we can share what is truly going on with us. Then, we may bare our souls and look for the Christ in our friend, hoping that the Christ within us will guide us. Meeting with spiritual friends is not optional for the inner life, the life of the soul. It is mandatory.

Even better is meeting over a meal. Replenishing our bodies mysteriously opens up our minds to nourish the soul. Here is where we see Christ in each other and maybe even get a brief glimpse of the Christ in ourselves. 

I have previously written about a pediatric radiology medical group I was a part of for over thirty years. We each had our own agenda and areas of expertise. We were having difficulty making decisions and seeing the importance of each other’s plans. We decided to meet for lunch once a week and simply talk about what was going on in our lives. It took a while, but miracles happened. We began to look at each other’s ideas in a better light. The mysterious result of meeting, talking, and regularly sharing a meal was that the food and conversation nourished us into forming a genuine community.

Being unable to meet with friends, especially over a meal, during this pandemic took its toll on our spiritual life as we knew it in community. Zoom meetings, FaceTime, Google Meet, Live streaming, and many other ways to see and talk with each other helped only minimally. We learned and accepted new technology. We also learned to stay connected more closely to a small core of people for strength and support.

People are also connecting more to nature, walking, gardening, and spending more time outside. I connect daily to the downy and red-bellied woodpeckers who come to the feeder near my window. I watch them feed each other while the trees outside, where they vertically climb and rapidly peck, remain steady, their green leaves daily photosynthesizing my soul.

Joanna   https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Winning and Losing and Resurrection

Winning and losing

“We perceive that only through utter defeat are we able to take our first steps toward liberation and strength. Our admissions of personal powerlessness finally turn out to be firm bedrock upon which happy and purposeful lives may be built.”—TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS.

My grandchildren have reintroduced us to the world of sports. Sporting events were the social life in the small town where I grew up, where everyone came out to support our high school, which had approximately 200 students. Now, we are glued to the television for their high school and college games, hoping to find children and grandchildren playing or in the crowd. Of course, there has been no escaping Razorback football as well. Otherwise, we would not know about the games to understand or share in conversations with many friends.

We cannot escape it. Our schooling, sports events, and professional work are all about winning and losing. I root for all the schools where our grandchildren now reside: Arkansas, Georgia, Tulane, and now Kentucky and Liverpool. Sometimes it is so intense that my husband and I have to switch to another channel and look for replays. When we win, we are excited, even if we miss it in person. But watching in person shows us something we may miss when we are not there in real-time. We see the agony of defeat. The next day, I think about kickers who missed that winning field goal or receivers who missed that last football thrown into their hands over the goal line.

Richard Rohr has pointed out another way of life, which he calls the prophetic path. We take two steps forward and one step back. In the suffering of our step back, we gain the wisdom and energy to take the next steps forward. The whole process continues, forward and back. 12-step literature might call it “a moment of clarity.” For Christians, the wisdom gained to move forward again after suffering a step backward might be called resurrection. Resurrection is a continuous cycle in our lives every day if we choose to accept it.

Joanna    https://www.joannaseibert.com/