Walking Each Other Home

Walking each other home

“Find those who tell you, Do not be afraid, yet stay close enough to tremble with you. This is love.”—Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh, p. 90.

f kimenink

I have most often described courage as “fear that has said its prayers.” Many may recognize this as a 12-step recovery saying.

Cole Riley deepens our understanding of fear. He tells us that fear is not something we need to face alone. We are to live in community with friends who understand our worries and may even share them. Friends walk with us through fear. Neither of us knows what will happen, but their presence, not their words, makes all the difference. This, indeed, is love. 

We sit with those who are sick and afraid to die. We stand with each other when no one else will.

I see the image of Dr. Joycelyn Elders, when she was the Surgeon General, holding her young son’s hand as she walked with him to court when he was accused of drug use. That was love. 

I see parents and friends sitting at the bedside of a child who was severely injured in a car accident.

I see men and women in Ukraine standing together to resist an invasion of their country, even though they were shopkeepers and teachers just a few months earlier.

Ukraine LA Times

I see members of a town devastated by a hurricane, flood, or tornado holding each other up and picking up the pieces together.

I see young men and women in the military, protecting our country in wars they did not start, who went to proms and graduations just months earlier.

Today, we give thanks for all those known and unknown who have done this for all we love.  

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

Thick and Thin Places

Thin and Thick Places

Guest Writers: Paula Franck and Isabel Anders

chapel of the good shepherd, National Cathedral, Washington DC

God be with you and grant you to stand in ‘thin places’ where the Presence is deeply known, and Mercy abounds and Wisdom flourishes.— Celtic prayer.

In Celtic mythology, there is the notion of ‘thin places’ in the universe where the visible and invisible worlds come into their closest proximity. According to an Irish saying, “Heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even shorter.”

In a New York Times article titled “Where Heaven and Earth Come Closer” (March 9, 2012), Eric Weiner reflects on being drawn to thin places during his worldwide travels—places that “beguile, inspire, sedate and stir, places where, for a few blissful moments, I loosen my death grip on life and can breathe again.” However, travel to thin places is not always marked by spiritual transformation. These experiences can be disorienting and confusing as we lose our bearings and find new ways of seeing the world. They unmask us, revealing our more essential selves. Time is altered.

Thin places can be anywhere we experience this sense of out-of-time transcendence. They may be sacred places like St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, the Blue Mosque or Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Rumi’s tomb in Turkey, the Boudhanath Buddhist shrine in Nepal, or a Sikh temple in New Delhi. However, not all recognized sacred places are thin, or where, according to Apache Indian lore, “wisdom sits in places.” There are also “thick places” that are so burdened with history and “outsized expectations” that they collapse under the weight of their own sacredness. For Weiner, Jerusalem is such a “thick place,” weighed down with animosity and historical grievances.

Thin places may be found in the tranquil beauty of nature, in the noise of crowded cities, or in unlikely places—a favorite bar, a city square, a bookstore, or an airport. One of Weiner’s favorite thin places is Hong Kong International Airport. He loves its “self-contained hermetic quality and the way [it] makes me feel that I am floating, suspended between coming and going.”

Stonehenge

He writes that you don’t necessarily plan a trip to a thin place—you often stumble upon one unexpectedly. But he offers some advice for increasing the odds of encountering thinness. First, have no expectations—they can get in the way of a genuine experience. Do not rely on guidebooks or others’ recommendations, for “one person’s thin place is another’s thick one.”

If God transcends time and space and is everywhere, or, as the Australian Aboriginal peoples say, “everywhen,” then why are some places thin while others are not? Weiner suggests that perhaps we are too thick to recognize them. “Maybe thin places offer glimpses not of heaven but of earth as it really is, unencumbered. Unmasked.”

Isle of Iona

The Rev. Dr. Mark D. Roberts writes on patheos.com that “the purpose of thin places is to help us realize that all places can be thin. Or, better yet, perhaps the purpose of a thin place is to train us to make the other places in our lives thinner. Moreover, when we realize that the Spirit of God dwells within us, we will come to believe that we are called to be thin places, as God makes his presence known through us.”

This reflection is adapted from Circle of Days: A Church Year Primer – Year A by Paula Franck and Isabel Anders, available in print and ebook from circleofdayspublishing.com or amazon.com.

Paula Franck, Isabel Anders

Joanna joannaseibert.com

August 15: The Feast Day of Saint Mary, Mother of Jesus

 August 15th, is the Feast Day of Saint Mary the Virgin, Mother of Jesus. The Greeks call her Theotokos, God-Bearer. We learn a great deal about Mary through the eyes of artists, who often serve as our best guides, seeing and connecting us with God. I share a traditional view of the Annunciation by Fra Angelico, featuring Mary, at San Marco in Florence. I see a peaceful Mary surrendering to God’s call.

Fra Angelico San Marco

A modern painting of the Annunciation by John Collier reminds us of Mary’s youth.

john collier

Michelangelo’s Pieta at St. Peter’s Basilica depicts the depth of a mother’s love for her deceased son. No words can express the sorrow in this statue, as in real life.

Pieta Michelangelo

Kelly Latimore’s wood print reminds us that the members of the Holy Family became refugees, hastily journeying to Egypt with King Herod at their heels. We must never forget that all of us in this country were refugees, except for Indigenous People. 

kelly latimore

The image of Mary and Jesus from the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is a traditional icon that teaches us to see God through the eyes of Mary as we look through the icon to see God.

Hagia Sophia

My favorite image of Mary is with her relative Elizabeth, who is in early pregnancy

and the other near term, at the Church of the Visitation in Jerusalem. Two women see God in each other, and Mary explodes with joy and prophecy with the Magnificat. Mary is calling us to do the same. Pray that we may have eyes to see God, the Christ, in ourselves and one another.

Church of Visitation Jerusalem

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