Charleston: Stll Being Watched Over By Those Who Have Gone Before Us

 Charleston: Watched Over

“They are watching over you, the ones who have gone before, the ones who know you best, the spirits of a love that never dies, your ancestors of hope and courage, those bright souls who shaped your life and gave you life and showed you what life really was.”—Bishop Steven Charleston, Daily Facebook Page.

I know I am watched over by loved ones who have died. I do not doubt it. There are times when I can do things I know I could never do alone, without help and care from others.
My grandfather was the most significant person who taught me about unconditional love in my growing-up years. When he died, I was devastated. I wanted to do something to honor him. I knew he did not like my smoking. I had tried to quit many times without success. Quitting smoking for me was a spiritual experience. I have not had a cigarette since December 7, 1979, the day of my grandfather’s funeral. I have written a book about how my grandfather loved me while he was alive, and saved my life after he died—Letters from my Grandfather, A History of Two Decades of Unconditional Love.

One New Year’s Eve, I walked the labyrinth at Christ Church. It was a cool evening, and I wore a long black shawl with fringes like the ones you sometimes see over pianos. Suddenly, during the walk, I felt my grandmothers holding and surrounding me like the shawl I was wearing around my shoulders.

This weekend, I dreamed of receiving a letter from my former spiritual director, Peggy Hayes. I knew it was from her because of the address and writing, but I woke up before reading the handwritten message on the short, folded-up letter. My prayers have been asking what was in the letter. I plan to ask my dream group about it this morning.

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Transfiguration on the Last Sunday of Epiphany

Transfiguration and Last Sunday of Epiphany

Church of Transfiguration Mount Tabor

"If we want to find God, then honor God within ourselves, and we will always see God beyond us. For it is only God in us who knows where and how to look for God."­—­­ Richard Rohr Adapted from The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 2009), 159-161.

Today is the last Sunday of Epiphany, where we say goodbye to Alleluia and prepare for Ash Wednesday and the first day of Lent. On Sunday, we hear the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus when he is revealed on a high mountain to three of his disciples as the incarnation of God. Anyone in 12-step recovery can immediately identify with transfiguration, seeing the light, a moment of clarity, encountering the God who has been there all along within us. Still, we never saw the light within because we were busy making "dwellings" for other idols, alcohol, food, drugs, work, etc.

Moments of transfiguration occur in our lives when we are transported from deep unconscious sleep into conscious awareness, when we see, feel, taste, and touch God within. Transfiguration is about experiencing our true nature, the part of God inside ourselves. It is the moment when all else falls away, and we are simply of God and desire to turn our life and our will over to the care of God. It is that moment when we let go and let God.

Richard Rohr believes we cannot see God in others until we first see God within ourselves. So, recovery is seeing God first within ourselves, which leads us to see God in others. We encounter the person who once annoyed us. We notice a tiny glimpse of the face of God, and our only response is now love.

Frederick Buechner reminds us that as we see God within ourselves, we begin to see God in situations we never saw before: "the face of a man walking his child in the park, a woman picking peas in the garden, sometimes even the unlikeliest person listening to a concert, standing barefoot in the sand watching the waves roll in, or just sitting with friends at a Saturday baseball game in July. Every once in a while, something so touching, so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human face that it's almost beyond bearing." 1

Transfiguration is the message and the promise of a new way of living, seeing God's face in others and ourselves.

God’s presence is always there. We only have to open our eyes, our ears, our minds, and our hearts to see the ever-present God, as did the disciples that day.

Today, we are gathered online across many miles to celebrate the new eyes that transfiguration continually brings to our lives and to the face of every person we encounter.

1Frederick Buechner in Whistling in the Dark (HarperSanFrancisco 1988), p. 120.

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

Bishop Hibbs: The Jesus Prayer

 Bishop Hibbs: The Jesus Prayer

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,

Have mercy on me, a sinner.”

I remember being at Camp Allen in Texas for the first time at a Community of Hope International meeting with Mary Earle as the keynote speaker. As I look over her books, I find this newly published 20th-anniversary edition of An Altar in Your Heart: Meditations on the Jesus Prayer by Bishop Robert Hibbs with a Foreword by Mary Earle.

The Jesus Prayer has been my mantra in the early morning and at bedtime. I pray the words during any time of anxiety, fear, or temptation during the day or night, especially during medical tests or procedures for my family and me. It is my feeble attempt to pray without ceasing.  

I have known Bishop Hibbs for years through work with the Episcopal Recovery Community, but I was not aware of his work on the Jesus Prayer. As I share my connections with Bishop Hibbs with Mary, I learn he died a year ago in April. Mary preached the homily at his service.

I thank and honor him for the support he gave me and so many others in recovery by sharing this book with you. An audio CD of his lectures at a retreat is included in the book. The Cajuns call this a lagniappe, a little something extra. For years, Bob Hibbs was the primary voice for recovery in the Episcopal House of Bishops.

Saying the Jesus Prayer is like using a prayer rope or beads in our heads. Bishop Hibbs relates the story of Cardinal Mindzenty and Father Eschmann, who survived torture and solitary imprisonment by staying connected to God with the Jesus Prayer.

The first words of the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,” remind us of Jesus’ divinity and his humanity. Hibbs believes this is essential in keeping us in a relationship with Jesus. These first words of the prayer, with Jesus’ name, express Easter, the Alleluia part of the prayer.
The last phrase about mercy expresses the meaning of Good Friday. At this same conference, Sister Carol Perry reminds us that in this request for mercy, we ask for God’s mercy rather than God’s justice for how we have lived. Hibbs believes we always live in the tension between Easter and Good Friday.

Bishop Hibbs reminds us that this is an oral prayer that can be said aloud whenever possible, making the Jesus Prayer part of our being. He cautions us not to be discouraged, as we become distracted while we say it.

Instead, we gently return to the prayer without judgment on ourselves. Treat distractions in the same way we encounter in centering prayer. We might see them as barges moving down the Mississippi or any favorite river. We are to let them pass on down without interacting with them.

Eventually, the prayer develops a rhythm in our lives. It becomes a gift from God, closely related to the beating of our heart, a constant, habitual recollection or awareness of God’s presence. Hibbs also reminds us that when we pray the Jesus Prayer, we attempt to connect to Jesus, God, the Trinity above and beyond us, and to Christ in our neighbor and ourselves.

For people in 12-step recovery, this is where the steps intersect with the Jesus Prayer, as we “sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God.” (Step 11, Chapter 5, “How it Works,” Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, 2016, p. 85)

Sometimes, I modify the prayer to the Agnus Dei, the fraction anthem, after breaking the bread in the Eucharist. “Lord God, Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on me.”

While we meet with someone for spiritual direction or with spiritual friends, we give them our utmost attention. However, having the Jesus Prayer running through our mind and body is a way to stay connected to the Spirit, speaking to Christ in both of us.

Joanna  https://www.joannaseibert.com/