10A Our Souls Fallen Behind Our Bodies, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, July 12, 2026

10A Our Souls Fallen Behind Our Bodies, Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, July 12, 2026

 At the height of Western colonialism in Africa, a European adventurer set out to explore uncharted regions in the heart of that continent. He hired local tribesmen as porters to carry his supplies.

For days, they covered miles of challenging terrain at a relentless pace. The European explorer was obsessed with meeting his goal within the ambitious timetable he had set for the adventure.

One morning, his porters refused to take another step. There was no drama, no revolt. They simply sat down.

The explorer tried everything to get them moving again. He shouted,/ offered bribes,/ and made threats. Nothing worked. In frustration, he finally asked, “Why aren’t you moving?”

One of the porters explained, “Our souls have fallen behind our bodies, so we must wait for them to catch up.”

Our souls have fallen behind our bodies so we must wait for them to catch up.1

 Does this resonate with you? When our souls have fallen behind our bodies, this isn’t living. It’s merely existing.

But Jesus constantly calls us to a different way,/ a different pattern of life, that nourishes and cares for the soul even as our bodies grow weary.

The porters were not complaining about carrying heavy burdens. Instead, their ordinary lives had instilled in them a wisdom about burdens that many of us have yet to learn.

In this life, we all carry burdens. Sometimes heavy, sometimes lighter. To be alive is to bear some burden.

To put that another way, a carefree life is no life at all. We are made in God’s image, designed to care for each other. Caring, being in relationship is what makes life meaningful.

But in the West, a pattern of life has developed in which we yearn for fulfillment and a life free from stress, strain, toil, or anxiety—no burdens.

We imagine we’ll get there once we reach our career goals, achieve notoriety, hold irresistible power, or accumulate enough wealth.

In the meantime, our energy and attention focus on whatever will get us to that carefree point.

Along the way, we leave our souls behind. We may achieve a great deal. We may make immense technological progress, become well-known, and accumulate considerable wealth./ Yet our hearts feel troubled, our social networks are fraying, and often our family ties unravel. We experience anxiety, exhaustion, and alienation.

We reach for relief. A break. We grab our iPhone, take a drink or a drug, or stream Netflix. Something to take the edge off. For a little while, it helps. Then we’re back to work, at school, or at home.

We’re rushing again. We’ve returned to the same pattern of life that left our souls behind in the first place.

In this digital age, we make the Devil’s job of evil a breeze. Hurry, pathological busyness, distraction, smartphone addiction, and the constant stream of alerts and interruptions—all of these cut us off from the Spirit, Christ, God within us. “When the Evil around us cannot make us bad, the Devil makes us busy.” (John Mark Comer, Live No Lies)////

Our spiritual challenge is to practice sustained awareness or attention,  living intentionally in the present moment. Christians have long understood that this sustained habit of awareness of God’s presence within and around us does not happen by accident. It requires attentiveness and a pattern. This is sowing seeds in good soil. This is what Christian tradition calls a rule of life.

A rule is a spiritual rhythm for living intentionally in the present moment, experiencing God in the present moment. The present moment is where God meets us. Here we cultivate ongoing awareness of God,  beauty, the earth, and truth in everyday life rather than rushing through each day, each moment on autopilot. We notice what is happening within and around us. The cadence of the daily rhythm is marked by time with Scripture, reflection, prayer, and regular worship with a community.

St. Benedict and those who followed him understood that momentary flashes of awareness can awaken us to God’s presence. But a sustained habit of awareness enables us to be in a position to make room for God, who is always present. We stay connected by cultivating the habit of sustained awareness. 2

For example, the Ten Commandments are not rules to follow to remain in God’s favor. They are practices that teach us how to live together in relationship as the kind of people God created us to be.3  

We may think keeping the Sabbath as part of our rule of life means taking a day off. But many of us are just as busy on our days off as we are during the workweek. We cram errands, chores, unfinished projects, and even leisure activities into every available moment. We may stop working for a paycheck, but we never truly stop.

Of course, this misses the point of the Sabbath.

Sabbath means to stop. Stop hurrying. Stop producing. Stop distracting ourselves with all the urgent but not ultimate things in life. The point is not merely rest. The point is remembering what is most real: our life with God. Set aside one day a week to practice remembering that. Over time, Sabbath keeping leads us to carry that sustained habit of attention and awareness of God’s presence into the rest of our lives.

That is how human beings flourish, how we begin to feel in our flesh and bones that we were made by love and for love.

But the default pattern we learned early in life was built on the illusion that the good life is something we achieve, produce by our own efforts.

Today, Jesus reminds us that this way of life is a dead end. “As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing.” (Matthew 13:22)

Jesus tells us, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). This way is not a desire for things, status, or influence. It is a desire for connection, communion, relationship, and love.

We are here to be present—to God, to one another, and to the world. To learn to love and be aware of God before and beside us in the present moment. God calls us to sit in front of a window or on a porch and watch the rain or the birds/ or stop and watch the sunrise or sunset each day.

Be genuinely present to the world around us. To the people, the animals, the plants, and the earth itself. We are here to care. To make the well-being of everyone and everything we encounter matter to us as if our own well-being were inextricably bound to theirs. //

Richard Rohr reminds us that we cannot attain the presence of God, because we are already/ totally, in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness.4

We will grieve. And we will burst with joy. This is what it means to be created in the image of God. And it’s what it means to truly live. Not to merely exist.

The question is not whether we will carry burdens in this life.// The question is which pattern we will follow to carry life’s burdens.///

It is never too late to Stop,/ Be Aware,/ and get back on the path/ that lets our souls/ catch up/ with our bodies.

1Jake Owensby, “Listening is More Than Existing,”  The Woodlands, May 15, 2026

2 Jake Owensby, “Pentecost Learning the Habit of Attention,” The Woodlands, May 22, 2026 

3Jake Owensby, “What the Commandments are Really for,”  The Woodlands, May 29, 2026

4 Richard Rohr in What the Mystics Know.

Joanna Seibert

12-Step Eucharist, July 1, 2026 St. Mark's, "Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me."

12-Step Eucharist, July 1, 2026, 5:30 pm St. Mark’s Matthew 10:40-42  8A

“Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me.”

How do we see God working in our lives? I rarely know how God is guiding my life in the present moment, but I always find answers when I look backward.

Fifty years ago, on July 4th, 1976, the bicentennial year marking the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, my husband and I, with two toddlers and an infant, crossed the Mississippi and then the Arkansas River, beginning a new adventure in Little Rock. Since that time, the Fourth of July has always been an important holiday, marking another year of nostalgic memories. Our call was to be on the ground floor of a developing Children’s Hospital. Our careers were demanding. Our support staff was grandparents in Memphis who helped us at a moment’s notice, along with a live-in nanny who took a leap of faith to come with us from Iowa. They were both very needed.

We also had pediatric residents and nurses who wanted to spend time with well children, who took our children to ball games, swimming, and movies. We had a lot of help! We were welcomed by so many people.

My husband and I had been involved in the church when we were growing up, and when we were married, but when we journeyed to that “foreign” land named Iowa for graduate residencies, there was no time. There was no time here, either, but somehow it was important for our children to experience a religious life as we had before, though it was no longer important to us.

Well, this is how God works. If you do not want to pay attention to the hound of heaven, God works through your children. We picked St. Mark’s because it was close to our home and we liked their annual antique show. We were drawn in and welcomed by the clergy, Gordon Swope, Charles Chatham, and Truman Welch. Something drew me to a Bible Study, so I met with a small group studying the Sunday lectionary in homes each week. Immediately, we were welcomed by Barbara and Hap Hoffman, who became lifelong friends and welcomed us to a Cursillo weekend. Then there was no holding back. We were hooked. We later left with the Hoffmans to help start St. Margaret’s. There, I heard the call to the diaconate. Later, we were welcomed by three other churches where I served: Trinity Cathedral, St. Luke’s North Little Rock, and now back at St. Mark’s. Along the way, I also realized that alcohol was interfering with my life. A therapist sent me to one of her neighbors, who became my first sponsor, taking me to meetings every day for 3 months. In November, I will have been with that welcoming recovery group for 36 years. God keeps inviting us, welcoming us through God’s messengers. And as a sidebar, also saving our lives. There were many more stories and welcomings that Time won’t allow.

We have a God of love, always welcoming, caring, guiding, loving, saving. We think we know the path God chooses, but we don’t have a clue. It is like walking a labyrinth. WE think we came to Little Rock to care for sick children, which we did, but God led us to people here at St. Mark’s to care for our souls. I went to a therapist, not to be sidetracked to AA, but that is what happened.

And here we are back at St. Mark’s, right where we started. We haven’t really moved off the chessboard, but we are such different people because of the people who welcomed us along the way to a life with Christ.

Does this remind you of a universal theme well expressed in poetry by T.S. Eliot in the closing lines of “Little Gidding” part of Four Quartets:

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”                        Joanna Seibert

12 step Eucharist August 5, 2026 Jacob Wrestling with God 13A

12-Step Eucharist August 5, 2026: Jacob Wrestling with God 13A

Jacob is our biblical poster child for addiction.1 He may not have used alcohol or drugs, but his addiction was control. Jacob steals his brother’s birthright and blessing,/ runs away,/ and meets his deal-making match in Uncle Laban. He also meets the love of his life, cousin Rachel, and serves fourteen years of hard labor for her hand. The struggles of domestic life become life-changing for Jacob; there is probably nothing like having two wives, two mistresses, and eleven children to dispel the illusion of control. Sometimes this is how God works: we get what we ask for and realize our lives have become unmanageable. Jacob desires to change. In a late effort to make amends to his brother and return home, Jacob sends hundreds of animals ahead of him, moves his family to another camp, and waits alone across the river. In the darkness, Jacob meets God or a muscular angel. A new life, a resurrection, often happens in the dark. The birth of a baby also constantly reminds us that new life is a blessed, painful process, often filled with chaos. 

The angel and Jacob fight by feel until dawn. Just as Jacob seems in control,/ the stranger drops his weight onto Jacob’s leg, and “pop,” his hip is out of joint. But Jacob will not let go of the angel. He is in pain and crippled, yet he smells the scent of heaven. Jacob still remembers that scent from a long-ago dream, when he stood at the bottom of a ladder he called “the gate to heaven” while running away from home (Genesis 28:16-17). Then Jacob does what he does best; he makes a deal. “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Locked in each other’s arms, the angel asks, “What is your name?” If we really listen, we hear the echo of the same question, asked another time by someone who barely sees Jacob. “I am Esau,” he says that last time. “Jacob,” he answers this time, and the name falls away from him like a snake shedding its old skin. He is no longer Jacob, the imposter. He is Israel, the survivor, the one who strives, who struggles with God. Jacob limps to his reunion with Esau, in whom he sees the face of God for the second time in one day. His exile is over. He is back home.

We in this room know the feeling of home. We feel it when we come to this chapel. We feel it when we sit in the chairs at our home recovery group. We remember what our life was like before and what it is like now. We also know the feeling of surrender to the last act of making deals. We still remember that scent of heaven as we struggled with our higher power. And now we go through the remainder of life with a new name and a limp that is our new birthmark. 

Joanna Seibert

1 Barbara Brown Taylor, “Striving With God,” Gospel Medicine, p. 107-114.

Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth May 31

VISITATION OF MARY AND ELIZABETH

Luke 1:39-49

12-step Eucharist, June 3, 2026. St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock

Mary’s visit to Elizabeth is perhaps our best example of what happens when two people allow the Holy Spirit to intervene in their lives. Elizabeth, late in her third trimester, hears Mary, in her first trimester, greet her. We don’t know what Mary initially says to Elizabeth, but the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps for joy. Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, then greets Mary with these words: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb."/ If only we had the courage to say that to each other as we meet. “Blessed are you among women; blessed are you among men.” 

Mary then breaks into the song of praise and thanksgiving, known as the Magnificat. "My soul magnifies the Lord,

And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant."/ If only we would remember to say every morning as we awaken, “My soul magnifies God.”

How wonderful when we meet our neighbor, if the child, the God, the resurrected Christ within us, could leap for joy to see the God, the Christ within our neighbor. What does this story tell us will happen in our lives and in our neighbors’ lives when this occurs? We will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and our neighbor will be empowered to live out a song of gratitude and praise. 

This is one of our most descriptive passages about being and having a spiritual friend, a soul mate. As spiritual friends, we are called to see Christ, new life, in each other. Our friend's response may sometimes be as miraculous as the joy of the Magnificat. How do we see Christ, new life, in our neighbor? It is a gift from the Holy Spirit. Our job is to put ourselves in a position to receive this gift of the Holy Spirit, to see Christ in our neighbor, and then to honor Christ in our neighbor. The promise of this story is that when we reflect Christ, new life, back to our neighbor, she may also see Christ in herself and be enabled to live out the Magnificat. 

What does it mean to "sing out the Magnificat"?

"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.” The words are clear. It means living a life of gratitude and remaining open to God working in our lives, even in our greatest times of stress. Our role model is an unmarried, pregnant young girl, empowered by the love of her older relative, who eloquently expresses her faith in God. Through the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth sees God in her young cousin. /When Mary is open to God within herself and can also see and feel God within herself, her response is this great hymn of gratitude and praise.

       What a difference we could make in our own lives and in our neighbors’ lives if we each became an Elizabeth to the Marys we visit and live with daily, at home and at work. When, through the Holy Spirit, we see God, Christ, and new life in our neighbors, the God within us will also "leap for joy" as we continue to meet others/on this road to a happy destiny, one step, one person, one greeting at a time!

Joanna Seibert

Pentecost 2026, Mary 24, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock

Pentecost 2026, May 24, St. Mark’s, Acts 2:1-21, John 20:19-23

Today is the third most significant celebration of the Christian year. After Christmas and Easter comes the Day of Pentecost, when a gale wind blows through a house on a backstreet in Jerusalem, equipping Jesus’ disciples with everything they need to turn the world upside down. It is God’s own breath, the Holy Spirit, the most mysterious and least typecast person of the Trinity, the muse and soul of Christ’s church.

We have Christmas pageants, Easter parades, but Pentecost has no Hallmark cards

 Maybe we are spooked by the Holy Spirit. At 8 o’clock, we sometimes call it the Holy Ghost, which adds a more macabre effect.

Today, Jesus’ disciples receive the miraculous good news that their bodies are to take the place of Jesus’ body in the world. The same Holy Spirit who has filled him comes into them, giving them all they need to carry forward his ministry.

The day of Pentecost is also celebrated as the birthday of the church, the whole state of Christ’s church, united by God’s breath and empowered by God’s Spirit. All over the world today, people are wearing fiery red clothes to church, releasing balloons, reading the gospel in foreign languages, or blowing out candles on a cake with red frosting that says, “Happy Birthday, Church!” //

To understand why a church has a particular personality, find out how it began. If a congregation is founded to oppose something, that opposition composition will remain part of that church’s DNA and its relationship to the world. If a church is born, like St. Mark’s, to embrace and expand something, you can expect that inclusive posture to be passed down to every generation.//

 This makes it all the more fascinating when we hear two distinct birth stories of the church involving the Holy Spirit today. One, from John, and the other, from Luke.

John’s story unfolds on Easter evening, as the eleven disciples are locked inside the upper room of a house in Jerusalem. Whenever we experience traumatic events, nighttime takes on new meaning. Ordinary fears are magnified, and we lock windows and doors. Jesus enters without a key. John says he simply “came” and stood among them. “Peace be with you,” he says. Next, he shows them his ID, the wounds in his hands, feet, and side.

Then John describes Jesus doing something creepy and mystical. He commissions them by breathing on them, opening his mouth, and pouring his breath inside them so that their hair poofs up and their eyelashes flutter. They can smell that breath, not just from Golgotha and Galilee, but back before the world was born. Their own lungs fill with the smell of Eden: salt brine, river mud, calla lilies. His breath restores all that Fear killed inside them. It is a second Genesis, as they are created over again by the power of the Spirit coming out of Jesus’ breath.

“Receive the Holy Spirit,” Jesus says. With a gentle breath, Jesus breathes his Spirit into his disciples, who now become the guardians of that Spirit./ According to this Gentle Breath story about the church’s birth, the Church has received the Holy Spirit. The world has not. It is the church’s job to carry that Spirit into the world.

A birth story like this creates a distinctive form of church. Some Gentle Breath congregations forget the “send” part that Jesus says: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” They like being breathed on so much that they stay right where they are, clapping their hands and praising God for the breeze, without ever unlocking the doors.

Other congregations hear the “send” part and go out into the world, to lead those who don’t know about the Spirit back into the church so they can meet God in person.  

This is a very Jo/han/nine idea of the church. There is nothing wrong with it, but it is not the only biblical account of the church’s birth. //

Luke describes a different delivery room for the church’s birth in Acts. The disciples are still in a house, but Luke’s story occurs fifty days after Easter. About 120 people are crowded into a house instead of 11. The doors and windows are open because those inside know they are waiting for something to come in. According to Luke, Jesus’ last words are “Stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” While they don’t have a clue what it looks like, they open all the doors and windows so whatever it/ is can get in. 

On the day of Pentecost, “it” turns out to be something even Luke has difficulty describing. It begins with a sound like the rush of a violent wind, filling the entire house. Then it bursts into divided tongues like flames above their heads. When they open their mouths to shout, “Watch out! Your head’s on fire,” different words come out, speaking languages none of those Galileans ever learned. Perfect strangers, foreigners, have to tell them they are talking about God in their native language. The disciples are behaving so bizarrely that bystanders describe them as/ drunk.

But Peter says no. “It’s only nine o’clock in the morning,” and then the Spirit rescues Peter by giving him something to say in his language. He describes an old prophecy from Joel, who foresees days like this, when God’s Spirit is poured out upon all flesh, not just chosen people, not just eleven male people, not just church people, but all people, young, old, male, female, slave and free. 

EVERYONE upon whom the Spirit is poured is called to spread the word. God’s fiery, transforming Spirit is LOOSE in the world, and from this day forth the church’s job is to FAN it wherever it is found.

In Acts, we hear about the birthing of an alternative church, not a Gentle Breath congregation but a Violent Wind congregation, propelled more by God’s sneeze than God’s breath, where such a strong wind blows toward the open doors of the church that people must lash themselves to the pews to stay inside. They come back weekly to rally, rest and reflect, but then God’s finger goes back under God’s nose, and it is out into the world again, not just to take the Spirit out but to discover it in all the surprising people upon whom it has already been poured.

Members of Violent Wind congregations count on the Spirit to guide them as they go out in search of Holy Fire. They may find it absolutely anywhere: at a disaster-relief station, in the beauty parlor of a nursing home, in a jail where Free Read books go, in the food pantry line, around a family supper table, at a homeless Vets dinner, at VBS, or at Camp Mitchell.

How do we know when we find it? Wherever the Spirit is,/ there is heat and light. People’s lives are being changed around that fire, and they are so excited about what is happening to them that they speak the language of love, a love so generous that it cannot be contained by any human institution.

As different as John’s and Luke’s church birth stories are, they share this: the church doesn’t need a sign out front, a copy machine, or adequate parking,/ though these things certainly help. All it needs is people with a story about how their life together began and what it was like to be LOCKED UP, short of breath, waiting for God knows what. They do know what it is like to be awakened/ by some mysterious divine breath, whether it comes as gently as a sigh /or so violently that their life turns upside down.

Best case scenario, most churches have an obstetrical team trained in both Pentecost deliveries.

These stories do not tell us where God’s wind is going, but they do tell us that God gave the church to the world, not to possess the Spirit, but to serve as ministers of the Spirit, sending us out in the WORLD, wherever the Spirit calls and leads us. /////

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful with the fire of your love, and lead us out to heal our suffering world. Amen 

 Joanna Seibert

      Barbara Brown Taylor, “God’s Breath,” Journal for Preachers, Pentecost 2003, pp 37-40.