Learning from the Mystics

May 19, 2026 joanna seibert

Feeling or Knowing God’s Presence Through the Mystics

“But the fruit of the Spirit is ‘love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.’ Against such things, there is no law.”—Galatians 5:22-23.

I recently met with an amazing group of people seeking God in their lives. They asked several questions: “How do you know you are in a relationship with God? How do you know God’s presence? How do you know God is speaking to you?”

I have always been skeptical of people who tell me, “This is what God told me to do.” I do not recognize the voice of God until maybe after something has happened, not before.

However, I have learned that I may be doing God’s will if I feel the presence of the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

We can also learn from the experiences of others who were deeply attuned to God’s presence. They are known as Christian mystics. They could more clearly see God’s love and presence all around them, in others, and within themselves.

Richard Rolle, the 14th-century English mystic, describes being in relationship with God when he feels a physical warmth in his body, senses God’s sweetness, and hears heavenly music while chanting the Psalms. I know music touches our soul, and the warmth and sweetness Rolle feels may be among the fruits of the Spirit.

I have heard others say they have a gut feeling of assurance when they believe they are doing God’s will. Another common experience of God’s presence occurs in nature, where we feel the presence of something greater than ourselves. Others may learn more about God’s presence when they become ill or lonely, or when they are suffering or dying. Many experience God in prayer.

Experience tells me that people of the feeling (F) type in the Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator may be more inclined to develop this relationship with the Divine. But I also know that thinking (T) people can experience this presence and assurance through logic and truth found in research and reading.

The approaching summer is a good time to read about mystics and find your favorite. I hope to spend the summer with Hildegard of Bingen, listening to her music.

[See Ursula King, Christian Mystics: Their Lives and Legacies Throughout the Ages (HiddenSpring, 2001).]

Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com

Rachel Held Evans: Searching for Sunday

May 18, 2026 joanna seibert

Rachel Held Evans: Searching for Sunday

“This is what’s most annoying and beautiful about the windy Spirit, and why we so often miss it. It has a habit of showing up in all the wrong places and among all the wrong people, defying our categories and refusing to take direction.”—Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday (Nelson Books, 2015), p. 196.

Our world still grieves the death of 37-year-old Rachel Held Evans on May 4, 2019. She was a spiritual voice for many millennials, their parents, and their grandparents. I treasure the times we met her on her podcasts, at writing conferences, and at our cathedral in Little Rock, where she was a guest speaker.

Larry Burton recently reviewed her book, Inspired, on this blog, where she interprets some of our favorite Bible stories as Rachel wrestles with some of our most significant questions about suffering and doubt.

Today’s writing relates to a quote from Searching for Sunday, in which Rachel struggles through the liturgical year, seeking her faith and a church community as she journeys through the sacraments.

At Pentecost, I will remember that Rachel reminds us that the wind, the Holy Spirit Jesus describes to Nicodemus, reaches even this Pharisee. Nicodemus eventually hears the wind, speaks up for Jesus at his trial, and cares for his body when most of the world abandons him.

Rachel reminds us that the Spirit is both within and beyond the traditional church if we only have eyes to see and feel it.

There is no corner of the world where God has abandoned God’s people, even when it is hard to see God in that place or among that group of people. Rachel reminds us that we will know the Spirit by recognizing the fruit of the Spirit: peace, joy, love, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Today, we may honor Rachel Held Evans as we pray that we may keep seeking God and the fruit of the Spirit in every possible place, as we talk about it in community and write about it as much as possible.

Today, we are reminded of the Spirit so clearly seen in all those who cared for the sick during the pandemic, those who care for the dying, those who care for friends with cancer, those who care for the starving in Africa and Gaza, and those who care for children all over the world, especially in Ukraine and the Middle East. Continue to give them strength and courage.

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

Bless you for supporting the ministry of our church and conference center, Camp Mitchell, on top of Petit Jean Mountain, by buying this book, A Daily Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter, part of the daily series of writings for the liturgical year. If you like this book, could you briefly write a recommendation on its Amazon page? More thank-yous than I can say!!!

Joanna. joannaseibert.com

Ascension Day

May 17, 2026 joanna seibert

Ascension Day

“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him, though some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”—Matthew 28:16-20.

This Sunday, we celebrate the little-known Feast of the Ascension of Jesus to Heaven, 40 days after Easter. Barbara Crafton1 describes this as the feast of the “simultaneous presence and absence of Christ.”

Charles Chatham, 2, a former priest at St. Mark’s, reminds us that the New Testament scholar Raymond Brown coined the helpful phrase about the Ascension: “the presence of the absent Jesus.”

There is an absence of the physical body of Christ, but in some mysterious way, he is still with us, within us, beside us, and within our neighbors as well.

Barbara Brown Taylor3 often writes about our desire to feel Jesus's presence. We think he is absent. She urges us to look around us rather than look up to heaven. Look to our neighbors. Look inside ourselves. Jesus is still here. Remember how God cared for us in the past. God has never abandoned us.

We know that the Ascension means Jesus took part of the world’s humanity to be forever part of God, the Holy. But Taylor describes the Ascension as if Jesus not only ascended but exploded, with the holiness once concentrated in him alone flying everywhere, far and wide, and with the seeds of heaven now sown in all the fields of the earth at that time and in the future. The body of Christ is not somewhere beyond our telescopes but here, beside us and within us.

We celebrate this presence in the Eucharist each week. Christ’s presence is still with us, “always to the end of the age,” as Matthew tells us. Jesus also promises that in ten days, we will celebrate the presence of the Holy Spirit within each of us at the Feast Day of Pentecost.

Both feast days are a mystery.

Kate Alexander4 at Christ Church offers us a prayer attributed to the 16th-century Spanish mystic and Carmelite nun Teresa of Avila, which may help explain what so many are trying to tell us:

“God of love, help us to remember

That Christ has no body on earth now but ours,

No hands but ours, no feet but ours.

Ours are the eyes to see the needs of the world.

Ours are the hands with which to bless everyone now.

Ours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good.

Ours are the eyes through which he looks

Compassion for this world. Amen.

1Barbara Crafton, “Ascension,” Almost Daily Email from Geranium Farm, 2004.

2 Charles Chatham, “Presence of the Absent Jesus,” in Thinking Faith #172, 2012.

3Barbara Brown Taylor, “Looking Up to Heaven,” Gospel Medicine, pp. 72-78.

4 The Rev. Kate Alexander, “Feast of the Ascension, Year B,” Christ Church, Little Rock, May 21, 2009.

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