Funeral Cathryn Ann Coston noon January 24, 2024 Saint Mark's Episcopal Church

Funeral Cathy Ann Coston, noon on January 24, 2024, Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church.

We have come today to Saint Mark’s to celebrate and give thanksgiving for the life of Cathy Ann Coston. We gather as friends and family suffering an empty space in our lives. We also express gratitude for everything Cathy has meant to us and everything she continues to stand for. It is a day for tears and smiles. Friends have described Cathy’s unique humor, love of nature, and uplifting faith even after becoming homebound and having early retirement for health issues. Camille describes her mom as the embodiment of a life well lived. Cathy left all she touched with the gift of love and fun for life—a life of laughter and good humor.

I think the scripture readings and music Camille selected for this service give us an extraordinary hint of the love Camille knew from her mother and her mother’s parents. Camille described her mom as a great gift-giver. She and her friends are still receiving gifts from her mom that have arrived after her death. I can’t help but tell one of Camille’s stories about how her mom brought humor to every part of life she touched. Camille was being wheeled into emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix. Her mother was writing little notes to Camille with a magic marker on Camille’s hands and toes. The best one was what her mother wrote of the bottoms of Camille’s feet for her surgeon and all to see, “Dr. Tucker, don’t let me die!”

Camille loved going to church with her mom, because her mother had a pocketful of pipe cleaners that her mom made stick figures for her during the service. When they went out to eat, her mom made puppets out of their napkins. What great childhood memories.

We indeed do reach out today to Cathy’s family, especially her father, George, and her daughter, Camille. How do we tell them that someone they so cared for has gone on to life in the resurrection?/ How do you explain that eternal, resurrected life differs from immortality? Immortality means we never die. That is what we believed when we were teenagers. Eternal life is a new life, moving into new territory, different from the past. Remember that sometimes friends recognized the resurrected Jesus immediately, and sometimes not. Sometimes, he ate with them, and at other times, he walked through walls. He would suddenly appear, and then just as suddenly disappear. Eternal life is a new and different life, not more of the same old life. How do we say that dying is not a PERIOD at the end of a sentence, but more like a COMMA, where we die and go on to a new relationship with God AND with those we love?

This new life is truly a mystery. How I wish there were more stories about it in scripture. Couldn’t Jesus have spent a little more time telling us what this eternal life would be like? I wish we could have had some eyewitness stories about life after death, from Jarius’ daughter, the widow’s son, or Lazarus,/ those three people Jesus brought back from the dead. Maybe just a paragraph from them about life after death, but their words and experiences are not recorded.

We only know about the resurrected Jesus. When Jesus was raised from the dead, he did not bring us back any pictures of a place. All he brought back was himself in person. The resurrected Jesus did not resume his previous life. Nothing in the Gospel resurrection stories implies that he died, came back, and carried on life “as usual.” He did not seem confined to time and space. He would appear and disappear. Sometimes, his closest followers, like Mary Magdalene, could not recognize him until he called her specifically by name. He still had his wounds in his hands and feet,/ but they were healed.

The disciples who meet Jesus after the resurrection on the road to Emmaus do not recognize him as he walks and unbelievably explains the scriptures to them UNTIL he breaks bread with them.

And so here we are today, so much like those friends on the road to Emmaus, grieving the loss of someone we loved, our friend, a close companion, the one we did learn so much about love from when we ate with her at those family meals that were so important to her.

  Like Mary Magdalene, like those on the road to Emmaus, we will know that both Cathy and Christ’s love is very much here with us, but for some reason, we often may not recognize it. We may sometimes feel that love in our prayers or for you, Camille, when you sing. Sometimes, we will genuinely feel that love beside us. Sometimes, it will be more difficult, but that love will be there. The love of those who loved us and Christ’s love is always near, in death as in life. The love from the Good Shepherd they gave to us remains with us. It is that love from God that never dies.

We are told that the light we see in the night sky is the light of a star long since dead, but the light reaches us and leads us on. We are not surprised, therefore, when a light stranger than the light of any star falls across our way, warming us, leading us, reminding us, and pointing us to love we have known in the past. The light is real; we know where it comes from. It is the love from God that was always there in your relationship with Cathy.

Camille, your experience tells you that God loves you so much that God brought you to live with your mother, Cathy,/ who loved you / more than either of you can describe. Our experience tells us that this Good Shepherd would not just let this love stop with Cathy’s death. The love from your God reached out to you in the life of your mom, and will still embrace you in her life beyond death.

It is impossible to believe that Cathy, her strength, her love, and her kindness are extinguishable. The God of our understanding would not do this. In this mysterious universe, we know that those who mean most to us mean EVEN MORE to God. The Good Shepherd will keep them, and because God keeps them, we will never be separated from their love, or they from us. //

Camille, do you remember the year your mom went with you when you started school? Remember that first day of school and how new and exciting everything was? You were the same little girl,/ but everything in your life suddenly changed. Death, too, is the beginning of something new and different. That’s what it is like right now for your mom, like starting at a new school, maybe a graduate school, and goodness knows you know she will LOVE IT, for she loves to learn and share with others. Somehow, we also know she may still share that new love with the rest of us. Perhaps you intermittently will receive some new understanding of her love from a particular piece of music/ or a prayer/ or when you are sitting outside in nature/ or watching a sunset, or at the Eucharist.

Some say that when the body dies, life stops. Our experience is that life continues in some form when the body dies. This was Christ’s gift to us. We know this is true because he has told us/ and we also know it because he has shown us in his life and the lives of so many others still going on.

Today, we give thanks for the life of Cathy Coston, who was a tower of strength, who stood by us and nursed and nurtured us; who cheered us by her sympathy and encouraged us by her example, who looked not disdainfully on the outward appearance, but lovingly into the hearts of men and women and children; who rejoiced to serve others; whose loyalty was steadfast, whose friendship was unselfish and secure; whose joy it was to be of service. May Cathy find abiding peace in God’s heavenly kingdom, and with God’s help, may we carry forward her unfinished work on this earth. Amen

Theodore Ferris,  Death and Transfiguration (FM Maxi Book 1974).

Edward Gleason, Dying We Live (Cowley Publishers 1990)

J. B. Bernardin, Burial Services  (Morehouse Publishing 1980), p. 117

 Joanna Seibert. joannaseibert.com

The Call, Epihany 3B, Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, January 21, 2024

 The Call, Epiphany 3b, Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, January 21, 2024

Some may remember the 1982 academy-award-winning movie “Chariots of Fire,” the story of Scottish sprinter Eric Liddell, and the 1924 Olympics. Liddell, a minister’s son and theology student at the University of Edinburgh, trains to be a missionary.

 A scene in the film is branded on our hearts. To keep up with the Olympic training, Liddell must discontinue theological studies. He and his sister walk the rugged hills around Edinburgh as she argues he should stop running and stay with God’s call to missions. Liddell lovingly responds, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. When I run, I feel God’s pleasure. To give it up would be to hold him in contempt;/ to win is to honor him.”//

Liddell runs and, later, makes a hard decision to follow his church’s teachings against running on the Sabbath. Eventually, he finds a race,/ setting a world record in the 400-yard dash,/ lasting over a decade. (He becomes a missionary to China, ultimately dying in 1945 in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp/ four months before liberation.), as all of Scotland mourned.

“I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. When I run, I feel God’s pleasure.” // Sam Lloyd, former dean of the National Cathedral,1 writes that these words are the most important questions we ever face: What is our life’s purpose? What is our calling? These questions are frustrating, because answers aren’t always clear.

A young college graduate says, “My friends are in law or medical school. That doesn’t seem right for me.”

“I don’t like my job,” another says, “but it puts food on the table. My boss is a jerk. The pressure is terrible. But do I have a choice—especially in today’s economy?”

“I’m burned out,” a woman says. “Between caring for my children and keeping up at work, I’m exhausted. But I don’t see a way out.”

“I’m sixty-eight and ready to retire. What will I do?”///

Over 2,000 years ago, an itinerate rabbi walks by four rugged, hardworking fishermen—Simon, Andrew, James, and John—and simply says, “Follow me.” According to today’s story, they follow. “Immediately,” it says./

Most call stories in the Bible, like this one, are somewhat intimidating. A voice comes from a burning bush, from heaven, or echoing from the smoke and incense of the Temple. God speaks, and heroic prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah proclaim with authority./ We feel challenged if those stories are our models for God calling us.

Thank God for Jonah, whose story we partly hear today. There is nothing impressive about this back-pedaling, stubborn complainer. A Prophet is the last thing Jonah wants to be. He wants to be left alone. But God won’t do that.

God calls Jonah to Nineveh, demanding they repent and turn to God. Instead, Jonah sails as far away as possible. Nineveh was the hated capital of the Assyrian Empire, now known as Iraq, and was as hostile to Israel then as now. Jonah wasn’t about to help his enemies escape doom.

 A storm at sea threatens to kill everyone on board. The crew decides God is punishing them for Jonah’s presence, and they toss him over. He lands inside the belly of a big fish for three days. Jonah composes a beautiful prayer there and is finally spewed out on dry land.

In today’s story, God tells Jonah again to go to Nineveh. This time, he goes. To everyone’s shock, especially Jonah, the people of Nineveh, from the king on down, repent, and God forgives them. The story concludes with Jonah whining and unhappy because those terrible Assyrians escaped God’s wrath.

How is that for hearing God’s call? Not too inspirational. We identify with Jonah. He’s not confident he wants to hear God’s call, immediately doesn’t like God’s answer, and flees from God’s voice. /Jonah’s story cuts to the depth of our souls: we often don’t want God to call us because we fear what God might ask us to do.

We long to feel connected to God, but what if God asks us to deal with people we don’t like/ or forgive those we don’t want to forgive? What if God asks us to help families struggling in Arkansas with food and housing insecurity, or those facing death and poverty in Guatemala or Gaza? What if God asks us to make time to grow our faith in our already oh-so-important, overloaded lives? ///

Recognizing a call can be elusive. We may not actually hear a voice; there may not be a specific event or earthshaking experience. Hearing a call means listening to our lives, sorting through our gifts and passions, talking to advisors and friends, trying to imagine this or that possibility,/ asking God to guide and inspire our seeking. Listening for God’s call means refusing to ask what we want for our lives/ and focusing on what God wants from the lives we have been given.

We look at our skills, our abilities, our passions. We watch for moments when we are ENERGIZED. It often takes looking backward at our lives to begin tracing a call within us. We start to see connections, hints, surprising turns that led us to where we are.//

People ask about my call to medicine and ministry. The calls were often Epiphanies, a sudden, profound understanding of something that had been bubbling up all my life.

As a girl growing up in small town 1950s Virginia, medicine was never considered an option for women. I loved science and heard a call to the healing profession as a medical technologist. When I worked as one a summer, I realized a desire to care more directly for patients. I had the identical training, so I modified that call my senior year in college to go to medical school. I soon knew I wanted to be a pediatrician, but a crippling car accident led me to become a pediatric radiologist, which brought us to Arkansas Children’s and Saint Mark’s.

Much later, we discerned a call with two friends, Hap and Barbara Hoffman, to leave Saint Mark’s in 1990 to be founding missionary members to start St. Margaret’s Church. By then, I was also a functioning alcoholic and had only been in recovery a few months. I met with Chris Keller, who spearheaded the mission. I remember uncomfortably telling him that I was only recently in recovery and did not know if I was the person he wanted to start a church. His words still ring in my ears. “You are exactly the kind of person I am looking for.”//

The call to become a deacon happened suddenly, even though something was brewing for years. I felt a desire to offer more than physical healing for children and their parents. I overheard Cindy Fribourgh tell someone at Saint Margaret’s about the new deacon program Bishop Maze was starting in our diocese. Immediately, I knew that was a call, and I have never regretted it these 23 years.

The issue isn’t whether we hear a clear call. It isn’t whether we are confident that we are doing precisely the right thing every day. It’s whether we sense that ours is a called life, a life accountable to God, a life that has a mission and purpose, even if it takes years to articulate it.

But our calling is not our job. Writer Studs Terkel says, “Jobs are not big enough for people.” We are more than our occupations. We are friends, spouses, parents, members of our neighborhoods, local organizations, and this community. All of this is part of our vocation.

Many take unrewarding jobs to support their families. This is also a noble calling. Remember, not one person in the entire New Testament does God call into a money-making job. While following Christ and being disciples, they always do other things to pay the bills, like tent-making, making purple cloth, or catching fish.////

So,/ what is your calling? What irreplaceable gifts do you have to offer the world today, whether you are 18 or 80?

Remember God never gives up calling Jonah, and God never gives up on those Assyrians, either. That’s the kind of God we’re dealing with—one who won’t stop calling us,/ ever.//

Even if you didn’t realize it/ when you came here this morning, God is calling you. God wants all of us—because there are things to do today and tomorrow, right in the midst of our lives and our world, that only we can do. Maybe a paycheck will be attached. Often, the pay will be the work itself.///

 Today, /God calls us to help each other say “Yes, we will follow, /even when we don’t know the way. Help us to listen, learn, and trust you, God, to show the way.”////

Do you hear a call bubbling up inside of you? Today?/ Right Now?

1The Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III, “What Is Your Calling?” January 25, 2009, 11:15 AM • Epiphany III, Washington National Cathedral. © 2009

Washington National Cathedral

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

The Last Leaf, January 3, 2024, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 12-step Eucharist, 5:30 pm. John 1:1-18.

 The Last Leaf, January 3, 2024, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 12-step Eucharist, 5:30 pm. John 1:1-18.

“What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

 A single autumn leaf has been clinging to the wood frame of my office window for weeks. It is the first and last thing I look for as my day begins and ends. It reminds me of one of my favorite O. Henry short stories, “The Last Leaf.” A young artist in New York’s Greenwich Village at the turn of the last century loses her will to live and succumbs to pneumonia. She watches from her window as the cold winter wind blows leaves from a tree branch growing along the side of a nearby adjacent building. She decides when the last leaf falls, she will die. Miraculously, the last leaf remains on the tree until she regains her will to live. Later, she discovers that an older artist in her building, whose own realistic paintings rarely sold, heard her story. He spends a night out in the cold while she sleeps, painting a leaf on the wall of the building. Shortly after he paints “his insignificant masterpiece” to save her life, he dies from the pneumonia epidemic.

Of course, the story is one of sacrifice of love for another human, reminiscent of the story of the good Samaritan. It is also a story of hope. How do we offer people that they will not remain in despair? There is a promise of Easter after every Good Friday experience. But that promise of light in the darkness can be challenging to see without the help of others. The darkness forgets what light is like. We see and read about this hope from others. The story of old Simeon and Anna at the temple in Jerusalem at Jesus’ presentation reminds us of the promise that the Christ Child will always come to us.  

This story is also about using our gifts and talents. We may think our abilities are minor compared to others, maybe even worthless. But there will be a time when what we have to offer is more significant than any other can offer. We will be called to use our talent at the right time when no one else will be there to help.

Steven Charleston writes, “We have been chosen to be who we are. Not as an accident. Not as an existence without purpose. But as a self-aware soul brought to life by a Spirit who knows our name. We have a mission to carry out, a message to send, a blessing to bestow. We are the only ones who can live this life. We are entrusted with a corner of the universe. We are a stakeholder in creation, selected for a task only we can complete.”

Give thanks today for someone who brought you out of darkness into light in 12-step recovery. Give thanks for those who showed you hope. Give thanks for those who brought you the message of recovery that now lives in you.

Consider that this new year is a time to share the gift of recovery you have received. Watch, wait, and pray that we will be open to offering the gift to others./ The gifts we may consider as our “insignificant masterwork” may soon make a difference in the life of another.       Joanna. joannaseibert.com

Christmas 1, John's Christmas Pageant, John 1:1-18, Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Little Rock

Christmas 1 December 31, 2023, John’s Christmas Pageant, John 1:1-18, Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock

 Growing up in Tidewater Virginia, the custom was decorating homes at Christmas with a single, lighted, electric candle in each window. The Virginia tradition goes back to colonial times when candles were necessary to light pathways to homes on dark winter nights./ From an early age, I also loved Christmas pageants. I think it is in our family’s DNA, for when our grandchildren were young, the oldest would write a Christmas pageant where all participated, delightfully costumed. I have pictures if any are interested.//

Christmas pageants are icons of God’s love. No matter how the children act, whether they remember their lines, pick up cues, or drop props,/ we are delighted, grateful, and full of compassion and encouragement to see the wonder and light in their eyes.1 I still feel the electricity in the air in this place from Christmas Eve one week ago at the packed children’s pageant. Stop for a second./ Can you feel something different around you? //

Today, we hear John’s Christmas story. It, too, is all about love, but is markedly different from Luke or Matthew. No angels, sheep, shepherds, wise men. Not even Mary or Joseph. A Christmas pageant based on John’s story has a single child holding a lone candle in front of a dark curtain, saying one line, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and the darkness did not overcome it.” That child then leads the congregation out to the hymn, I want to walk as a child as a light. The dismissal secretly concludes with, “Go in the name of Christ… to an early Christmas Eve dinner.”//

More often, we hear John’s Christmas story when children go off script in traditional pageants. My favorite is when Mary and Joseph approach the innkeeper, asking for a room. The sensitive teenager playing the innkeeper’s wife opens the door and spies the pregnant Mary, obviously in early labor pains. She throws down her script/ and shouts, “Of course,/ come on in. We have lots of room for everyone,/ especially for pregnant mothers.”/ The astonished director is forced abruptly to end the pageant and invites a surprised Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, and the compassionate innkeeper to lead haloed angels with magic wands, sheep, stuffed animals, bath-robed shepherds, drummers, and jeweled gifts along with the congregation out into the winter night singing Love Came Down at Christmas. Again,/ to an early Christmas Eve dinner.

Frederick Buechner describes another pageant at an Episcopal church.2 The manger is in front of the chancel steps. Mary wears a blue mantle, and Joseph has a cotton beard. The wise men are there with a handful of shepherds; the Christ child lies deep in the straw in the manger. The rector reads the nativity story as carols are sung at the appropriate places. All goes like clockwork until the arrival of the angels of the heavenly host, children of the congregation robed in white,/ scattered throughout the nave with their parents.

They all gather around the manger and say, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill among men.” But, there are so many angels crowding and jockeying for position/ that one of the smallest nine-year-old angels ends so far on the fringes that/ not even by craning her neck and standing on tiptoe can she see the Christ child. She has been waiting all Advent to see baby Jesus. “Glory to God in the highest,” the angels sing on cue. Then/ in the momentary pause that follows,/ the small girl electrifies the entire church by crying out in a voice shrill with irritation, frustration, and enormous sadness at having her view blocked, “Show me Jesus! Where is Jesus? I can’t see Jesus. Show him to me!”

Much pageant is still to come, but Buechner’s friend says one of the best things she ever did was ending everything precisely there. “Show me Jesus!” the child cries out again, and while the congregation sits in stunned silence, the rector intuitively pronounces the benediction. The crowd processes out of the church, singing, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing with those unforgettable words ringing in their ears. “Show me Jesus!”//

We also gather today because we, like that tiny angel, have heard John’s Christmas story of how lives have changed for over twenty centuries by the light in the darkness that now “lives among us.” We are like the Greeks later in John, who approach Phillip, saying, “We would like to see Jesus.” We long to come closer to see that light from the “word that became flesh,” but the mess in our lives and the world seems to block us from that view./

In another town, a third pageant begins.3 The second and third graders are animals making unusually realistic creature sounds. The new pageant director fails to realize the preparation time to dress/ and fix the hair/ of the heavenly host, who are thirty-two angels between ages two and four. It is a rough night in Bethlehem. Mary is sick, and the bucket near the manger is for her. Joseph may be a “righteous man, unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace,” but he is thirteen/ and decides not to enjoy this pageant. When the mooing, barking, meowing, and baaing animals arrive behind the shepherds, all hope of heavenly peace vanishes. The animals take over the whole chancel and elevate “lowing”2 to a new cacophonous art form. The angels miss their cue and arrive long after the wise men, after the congregation sings Angels We Have Heard on High,/ and after the teenaged narrator says four times, “and suddenly there was with the angels a multitude of the heavenly host.” /But when the angels finally arrive, they look good: their halos and hair are perfect./

Right before everyone sings, Joy to the world! the narrator fights to center stage for his last line. He walks over an abundance of sheep, cows, dogs, cats, and one mouse. The angels’ parents ignore the narrator, making up for lost picture-taking time, entirely disregarding the no-flash photography request.

Mary reaches for the bucket, and Joseph has rolled his eyes so many times that they are about to fall out of his head. Our star narrator has to shout over the barnyard noise,/ and never gets the parents’ attention. /Exasperated, he throws down his folder,/ stretches out his arms,/ and yells, “Christ was born for this??”4 The exhausted pageant director cries out, “It is an exclamation point, not a question mark!”/ //

BUT, INDEED, Christ was born for this, IN ALL OUR MESS… “The word did become flesh, and lives among us.”/

Some days, the birth of Christ does feel like a question mark. Underneath the surface of our lives that look so good on the outside live hidden, secret, hemorrhaging, fractured relationships. We long to see Jesus’ love, peace, and light in our darkness. That scared inner child in each of us cries out,/ “Show me Jesus!”.//////

The child holding a single candle in John’s Christmas pageant says, “Here is the light we have been waiting for,/ the very presence of God living among us,/ inside us,/ beside us,/ and at this table.” That light of Christ miraculously enters our wounds and our messy world. The light heals us daily through neighbors,/ friends/ and this community gathered today/ if only we open our eyes and hearts to see this light already in each other, ourselves, and at this table.

God sees all of us as participants in this messy Christmas pageant we live in daily, and God dearly loves each of us, just as we love the children in last week’s pageant. God loves us no matter how well we remember our lines, sing our solos, or keep from knocking down the scenery. 

In our rich and messy pageant of life, we are called to remember and keep looking for that light from that single candle/ held by a child in John’s Christmas pageant/ proclaiming that the light can always overcome our darkness. Keep looking for that light, open to all of us,/ here at this table, in ourselves, our neighbor, our children, and the stranger. Hold John’s Christmas story in your heart, where we learn that “the word became flesh”/ and now dwells among our messiness.… “Christ was born for this!”

1 Br. Curtis Almquist, Society of Saint John the Evangelist

2 Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark A Life in Sermons, (Harper Sanfrancisco 2006) p. 268.

3David Davis, “A Kingdom we can Taste,” Sermons for the Church Year. pp. 25-30.

4“Good Christian Friends,” The Hymnal 1982.107.

Joanna Seibert   joannaseibert.com

Feast Day of Saint Nicholas

Feast of St. Nicholas

St. Mark’s 12-step Eucharist, December 6, 2023

If you have been at this 12-step Eucharist in December, you have heard a homily about St. Nikolas. I apologize, because you are going to hear about him again. I am powerless over St. Nikolas. He has become a significant figure in my life. It is possible that in December, I replace my addiction to alcohol with an addiction to St. Nikolas. 

Little is known about Nicholas, bishop of Myra, who lived in Asia Minor around 342. He was probably at the Council of Nicaea in 325. He is the patron of seafarers, sailors, and especially children. As a bearer of gifts to children, his name was brought to America by the Dutch colonists in New York, where he soon became known as Santa Claus.

The feast day of St. Nicholas, today, December 6th, was celebrated in our family as a major holiday. We began with a big family meal together. My husband dressed up as Bishop Nicholas with a beard, a miter, a crozier, and a long red stole, and came to visit our grandchildren after dinner. He spoke Greek to the children and the adults. Speaking Greek is my husband’s favorite pastime, and of course, you know that Nikolas is Greek. Our grandchildren then went into the bedrooms and left their shoes outside the doors, and Bishop Nicholas placed chocolate coins and presents in their shoes. If you want to see our pictures of this family event, they are stunning.//

Why am I sharing with you our family story? Yearly, I remember how I sat and watched this pageant and was filled with so much gratitude, for my sobriety date is close to the feast day of St. Nicholas. Each year, I remember that if someone had not led me to recovery, I would not be alive tonight. I would not have witnessed this wonderful blessing of seeing my children and grandchildren giggle with glee as they tried to respond to a beautiful older man with a fake beard speaking Greek to them/ and secretly giving them candy in their shoes. For me, it is a yearly reminder to keep working the 12 steps, so I can be around to remember and treasure the next feast day of St. Nicholas./

This is a suggestion. Look at the calendar of saints. Find one close to your sobriety date or an important event in your life. Learn about that saint. Observe that saint’s day in your home, in your life. You might consider that saint as your patron saint.

This is simply one more way to remember how our sobriety has transformed our lives. Spend that saint’s day giving thanks for those before us,/ who loved us before we were born,/ developing a program before we were born to save our lives. This love only comes from the love of the God of our understanding. My hope is that we will all pay this love forward, giving back God’s love to a world so desperately needing it.

A secret./ St. Nikolas may make an appearance Sunday night at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock, at the Christingle Service at 5 pm on December 17.

Joanna joannaseibert.com