Love Never Dies

Love Never Dies

“Love never dies.”—1 Corinthians 13:8.

I have heard this passage from 1 Corinthians about love many times, but when I heard it recently, directly from our friend Paul and our preacher Michael McCain, I could not hold back the tears. I have told grieving people that their love for and from their loved ones remains and never dies.

I don’t understand it. It is a mystery. I look at pictures of my loved ones who have died, including my brother and my grandparents, and I can feel their love as I send it to them.

Frederick Buechner and Henri Nouwen tell us that our bodies die, but our mutual love somehow returns to God and is preserved for all eternity.

If you are a mystic, you have no difficulty understanding this. However, this may be a challenging concept for those who primarily rely on rational thinking.

Why did this passage move me that Sunday? As I grow older, I am often overwhelmed by how I will miss friends and family when death separates us. Yet I suddenly know in my heart that our love for each other endures. 

Our love for them is ongoing, as is their love for us. We will never be without their love. I believe that, in some mysterious way, this love never dies and is carried into eternity to transform us, others, and the universe.

Today, I give thanks and share with you the love of friends who have died: my younger brother, Jimmy, my parents and grandparents, and the many friends who died last year.

Joanna   https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Rohr:Forgiveness

Rohr: Forgiveness

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“As long as you can deal with evil by any means other than forgiveness, you will keep projecting, fearing, and attacking it over there, instead of ‘gazing’ on it within and ‘weeping’ over it within yourself and all of us. Forgiveness demands three simultaneous ‘seeings’: I must see God in the other; I must access God in myself; and I must experience God in a new way that is larger than an ‘Enforcer.’”—Adapted from Richard Rohr’s Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media, 2008), pp. 193-194.

Richard Rohr is teaching us fundamental lessons about forgiveness. It involves seeing the Christ—God in the person we are forgiving—and seeing God or Christ in ourselves. That makes sense. However, Rohr then introduces a third condition. We see that God is not a hall monitor handing out detention slips, checking a list, scrutinizing our every action, and judging whether our neighbors and we behave correctly. 

My experience is that we are called to expand our concept of God as a God of love. How do we do this? First, we place ourselves among others who seem to experience God’s love. Second, we observe how they know how to forgive others.

As we see the Christ in others who know love, the God of love, the Christ in us awakens—and slowly, often very slowly, we begin to see the Christ in those who have harmed us. We may discover that personal tragedies have led them to hurt others. This awareness begins as we pray daily, sometimes hourly, for the person who has harmed us.

We realize we are still carrying a heavy load of resentment, which makes it so challenging to live and walk our journey through life. It is like a cancer, slowly destroying the joy in our lives. That person is still hurting us. They are becoming our higher power, our God. More and more, they are all we can think about.

As we pray daily for that person, they may never change, but my experience is that we do.

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

Bishop Charleston on Overcoming Fear with Joy and Humor

Bishop Charleston on Overcoming Fear with Joy and Humor

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"I have an assignment for you this weekend: don't be afraid. Wait, before you roll your eyes, hear me out. I am not talking about greeting-card spirituality, where you just put on a happy face and pretend nothing bad is happening around you. I am talking about taking some time over the next three days to seriously confront fear in your life and feel its power over you diminish. How?”

Like most spiritual healing, it can seem deceptively simple. First, find a quiet moment when you won't be disturbed. Then, sit upright in a comfortable position. Close your eyes, open your hands, and breathe in and out, aware of each breath. Sit quietly. Don't pray at this time. Open your heart to the Spirit and feel a sacred presence entering your life. Abide in it. Let it permeate your whole body, as if you were being bathed in light. 

Join me in doing this for at least ten minutes once a day over the next three days. Join me in the fight against fear: become a receiver of light."—Bishop Steven Charleston's Facebook Page.

Bishop Charleston often writes about fear. He remembers how fear loomed over us like a suffocating cloud during the pandemic and now during political unrest. Fear has a smell, an odor, a way of speaking, a walk, a glance, a posture. Fear lies, getting "bottomless" Pinocchio's Factchecks from The Washington Post.

 Fear wakes us in the night. Fear keeps us from saying our prayers because we do whatever we can to confront and overcome it. We can try to hide it, avoid it, or put it in the closet of our mind and body, but it sneaks through a keyhole when we are not looking.

Fear comes without invitation. It is a bully, pushing its way through the happiness of our days to stand front and center, shouting in an outside voice so we cannot hear the preciousness of our days. Fear also knows how to whisper so softly that we do not recognize its presence.

Charleston gives fear one more attribute I was not aware of. He says fear is a coward that shrinks like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz when water is poured on her, and that it shrinks when it hears joy and laughter. Bishop Charleston says, "Laughter is to fear what garlic is to a vampire. It chases away fear by revealing the depth of life, its vibrancy, and the numerous possibilities that make our worst fears seem unlikely. Humor and hope drain worry and anxiety of all their power, leaving them sulking in a corner while joy walks in through the front door." 

So, Bishop Charleston tells us to think of the funniest thing we have experienced when fear sneaks in. My experience is that laughter often comes from something humorous I have read in a story, seen in a movie or television series, or experienced in my life.

As I remember playing with my children and grandchildren when they were small, I came upon another answer. Being with children is an automatic source of laughter. We couldn't be with them during the pandemic or after they went away to school, but we could have video calls, FaceTime, and even Zoom calls with them. Just the sound of their voices can make a difference. Children make us do funny things, like sitting on the floor, making silly faces, or speaking an ancient language. If this is not possible, surround yourself with friends who bring laughter to your life or spend time outdoors in the sunshine.

Of course, there are many other ways to deal with fear, but for today, we will try this one until fear is reduced to a manageable level.

Joanna  https://www.joannaseibert.com/