A Message from North Carolina:: 50 Sandwiches

A Message from North Carolina: 50 Sandwiches

 'Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me." Matthew 25:40

Guest Writer: Pan Adams McCaslin

For over eight years, I have been actively involved with our area shelter agency, which serves seven counties in Western North Carolina. One of the many services provided includes feeding around 120 meals, three meals a day, 365 days a year, with takeout containers available for those not housed in the shelter or surrounding areas.

 Evening meals are provided by area churches, families, and civic groups who work in teams to prepare meals. During the pandemic, everything was served in takeout containers. We lost the ability to sit at the table together, share stories, listen to each other's anxieties, and better understand the circumstances of daily life.

In 2016, a Kickstarter project gathered stories of those living with homelessness – the book Fifty Sandwiches was the result. Its purpose was to raise public awareness, helping them understand that homelessness was more than just a lack of shelter.

"For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger, and you invited me in,  I needed clothes, and you clothed me, I was sick, and you looked after me, I was in prison, and you came to visit me." Matthew 25:35-36.

Since Hurricane Helene hit Western North Carolina, shelter, food, and water have become basic survival needs for so many whose homes were either destroyed or no longer habitable. Compassionate care for those affected has poured in from around North America as restaurants that could not open due to the loss of potable water or other utilities provided food from food trucks or neighborhood grills.

The National Guard delivered food and water by helicopter. Construction equipment to move downed trees, destroyed water beds, and demolished homes appeared from northern states. College students unable to attend classes joined with non-profit groups to clear roads and debris. Utility companies from Canada and around the nation showed up to help rebuild utility lines. Neighbors helping neighbors, strangers helping strangers. "I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat." 

The world is hungry for compassion and caring. Jesus calls us to pay attention - and act.

Who in your midst is hungry – for caring, for compassion,  for food, and for shelter?

Pan Adams McCaslin

Joanna Seibert joannaseibert.com

Charleston: Magdalene, The World Within

Charleston: Magdalene, The World Within

“How hard it is sometimes to live in two worlds, the one we inhabit with the people around us and the one we live in alone. None may know the pain we hide, the deep wells of worry into which look the memories that enfold our lives like a forest. But the Spirit knows, cares, understands, and is ever beside us to offer comfort and counsel.”—Bishop Steven Charleston, Daily Facebook Page.

Repentant Magdalene George de La Tour

The Repentant Magdalene

Several years ago, I spent time with a 394-year-old friend I have known for the last forty years. We first met when she was one of three Georges de La Tour’s Magdalene paintings at a rare National Gallery of Art exhibition. She was the only one in their permanent collection. Before an important meeting in Washington, I visited her that morning, and she quieted my soul.
I instantly fell in love with her. She spoke to me as no other painting has before or since. This Magdalene sits with her left hand on a skull. She does not look at the skull directly; she sees its image in a mirror in front of her. The chiaroscuro scene is dark, illuminated only by a partially hidden candle beside the skull. I talk to Magdalene and thank her for her insights.

 For me, the skull represents our insides, the inner life, what our skin covers up, the Christ within, and the negative parts of our unconscious. Over the years, this Magdalene has taught me that we most often see ourselves by looking into a mirror, a reflection. Seeing what we are beneath our surface is too painful and overwhelming. We cannot look there directly. It is like looking at the sun. The mirror represents the reflection we see of ourselves in others. We learn and understand the authentic parts of ourselves by seeing ourselves in our neighbors.

 God calls us to community to learn from others who we truly are. I best see my own soul, the Christ within me, as well as my many unconscious character defects, by first seeing them in others. We learn about our unconscious character defects by first becoming aware of them as we observe them in others, and seeing how unattractive they are. We see Christ’s love in others, realize that love is also in us, and want to become like that love outwardly and share it.

Caring for our souls is finding Christ within ourselves by first seeing what is holy in another. The Christ in our neighbor soon helps us realize the miracle of Christ’s presence within ourselves as well.

Next, we are called to share it with others.

If we do not pass it on, our image of God stays too small.

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Working Through Loss

Working Through Loss

Guest Writer: Larry Burton

It is probably my age because I often find myself reminiscing about the past. Growing up in a preacher’s family meant moving every few years. At one level, I became quite good at it.

 All those losses were stuffed in a mental drawer, and we started over in a new city, house, school, and church. That drawer of memories was pretty full, and now it opens quite often, whether by intention or not. I feel pangs of empathy with those in Southern California suffering from the devastation of the fires, which have angrily burned homes and neighborhoods to the ground.

We have all suffered loss and will continue to until we die.

I recall a day years ago when my father and I drove to all the places where he had lived as a kid and as a young adult. We visited cemeteries—mostly forgotten and overgrown—schools now closed, a house or two still standing, and then to Knox County, where he met my mother. My grandfather had been the pastor of Asbury Chapel, and it is there that my mother and most of her relatives are buried. It is also where my parents met. 

Growing up, my brother and I spent many summers on the family farm in Knox County. We helped with the chores. I learned how to milk a cow; my brother was driving a truck when he was 13. A white barn (cows and two horses) and a red barn (hay storage and tractor) were the favorite places. There was a smokehouse and a chicken yard, and standing grandly in front of it was a large house built in 1812. 

I loved that house. But when we pulled up in front that particular day, a link fence surrounded it, and the house had collapsed into the cellar. I burst into tears.

Those memories came back as I read about the California fires, and I felt my stomach begin to churn as I imagined all the things and places that had been familiar to those folks in LA but destroyed beyond recognition in just moments. The library, the school, the church. The place where someone had their first date, the field where they played, the movie theater, the drug store…all gone. Loss after loss after loss. 

When we go to sleep, we put another day to rest and expect to greet a new day in the morning. And that is what will happen…eventually. Humans cannot live long in the midst of loss, or we would go mad. I have friends who are still processing the November election and are still angry at the loss of their presidential candidate. They fear the end of democracy. But the sun sets, and the sun rises. The days get longer. Spring will surprise us, but it will arrive soon. 

And there is one other thing. The most important thing. St. Paul, writing to the community in Rome, said, “Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?... I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[b] neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.” And that, in one way or another, is what sustains us in the midst of loss, even devastating loss. 

Our parents are dead, and even a grandchild. We have left places and people we loved. Right now, I look up and see a painting of the best house of all, the one on the river in Winamac, IN. A condo is not the same as that house or the farm of long ago. But God is with us, just as God is with all those who have fled from the fire, perhaps never to return. And still, God is with us.

So, in these days of terrible loss, there is a sustaining power beyond memory and fear. That is where we can live and even thrive in these troubling times.

Larry+ Burton

Joanna Seibert joannaseibert.com