Encouraging One Another in Difficult Times as We Live Through Another Hurricane Season

Encouraging One Another in Difficult Times as We Live Through Another Hurricane Season

Ivan

“We need one another. The more things get crazy and spin out of control, the more we recognize that our true allies are standing all around us, men and women as bemused by events as we are, as tired of living in the daily disaster as we are, longing for the firm ground of an honest dissent and a democratic process. Until that crazy gyroscope of power stops spinning, we need one another. We need common sense, strong values, deep listening, and honest talk. The counterweight to confusion is community, the balance to chaos is a coherent vision.” —Bishop Steven Charleston, Facebook page.

I remember a trip to the Gulf Coast after several hurricanes. We sent prayers for safety to our friends along the Carolina coasts, still recovering from Hurricane Florence. We also prayed for those in the Florida Panhandle, who were hammered that weekend by Hurricane Michael, especially those in Panama City, Mexico Beach, and Port St. Joe. We prayed for their churches on the Central Gulf Coast, including Trinity Apalachicola, St. James, Port St. Joe, St. Patrick’s Panama City, Holy Nativity Panama City, St. Andrew’s Panama City, Grace Panama City Beach, St. Thomas Laguna Beach, St. Matthew’s Chipley, St. Luke’s Marianna, and Nativity Dothan. 

I vividly remember the year we were on our way back to the Alabama Gulf Coast after Hurricane Irma. Our destination was not damaged by that storm, which devastated neighboring Florida. All the cars we followed had Florida license plates. Some were packed to the gills, And some were dangerously carrying extra cans of gasoline in their trunks and on their roofs. 

Trucks with generators passed by. Pickup trucks were filled with bottled water. We spent the night at a hotel on the way, where the parking lot was filled with cars bearing Florida license plates. The hotel was more like a hostel, housing large families with their large and small dogs.

There was no water under the causeway at Mobile Bay. It had all been blown out to sea, into the Gulf. Could this have been how the Israelites crossed the Red Sea in the Exodus? Hurricane-force winds pushed the waters aside, allowing the Israelites to cross, and then the storm surge came in as the tide changed, swallowing the Egyptians.

We prayed as each car passed, remembering our return to the Gulf Coast after the devastation of Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina. The memories are still painful—of not recognizing our road or our condo building, of not knowing how to enter it, and of the overpowering stench of rotting food in the refrigerator. 

Perhaps this is what we have to offer. A small connection to what people are experiencing in Texas, the Carolinas, Florida, and the Caribbean, while recognizing that their experience is so much worse. We send prayers and financial aid to help them get through. We are waiting to hear more details. Most of all, we stand together in relationship with them, hoping they can feel, in some way, the cosmic love being sent to them. 

We send hope, love, prayers, and financial support, but mostly the hope and promise that resurrection can emerge from these Good Friday experiences.

Joanna. joannaseibert.com

St. Peter’s By the Sea

Two Spiritual Approaches, Ascent and Inward or Contemplative

Two Spiritual Approaches

“Darkness is not dark for you, and night shines as the day. Darkness and light are but one.”—Psalm 139:12.

Richard Rohr, in his daily emails, describes the two traditional approaches to God as “dark” and “light.” The more cognitive, formal, theological approach is called the kataphatic way. In it, we reach God by studying the divine, practicing an ascent to the sacred, and reaching for the light. This has been the most widely followed approach to God since the Protestant Reformation and the Age of Enlightenment. We could describe it as the way of knowledge or knowing God. 

The other spiritual tradition or way of seeking God is the apophatic way, in which we move beyond words and rational knowing into silence. This is the contemplative approach to the mystery, the “not-knowing.” It is an emptying or descent into darkness, into the unknown sacred within.

Rohr emphasizes the importance of both ways of seeking God for a balanced spiritual life. Those whose personality type involves more thinking and sensing, and who make decisions based on concrete, rational facts, will be drawn to the kataphatic, or ascent, approach. Those whose personality leans more toward feeling and intuitive functions, who make decisions based on relationships and consider many connections and patterns, may be more drawn to the apophatic, or inward, emptying, or descending approach.

Many involved in spiritual direction suggest that we try to use the approach opposite our tendencies during Advent and Lent. For example, if we are a thinking person, we should try contemplative prayer. If we are a feeling and intuitive person, we should consider putting our toe in the water by studying our tradition, sacred Scripture, or the writings of significant theologians. 

Just a suggestion to think or wonder about.

1Richard Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation. Daily Meditation, “Darkness and Light,” adapted from Richard Rohr’s Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media, 2008), pp. 115-116.

Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water, Spirituality and the Twelve Steps

Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water

“The work of spirituality is the ongoing liberation of head, heart, and body toward full, luminous seeing and living, not a mere mental ‘decision for Jesus’ or a one-time insurance policy of sacraments received. Most head churches do not touch the heart; most heart churches do not bother with the head; and almost all churches ignore the body.”

Richard Rohr’s book, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, is a masterpiece on how to turn our lives over to God. It is for everyone, even those who may not have an addiction. But Rohr believes that, in truth, everyone has some form of addiction that helps them live life on life’s terms.

Rohr describes our need to open three inner spaces: our heads, minds, and bodies. To open our minds, he suggests a contemplative or meditative practice. This is not about saying or reciting prayers. These are emptying prayers. Two of the most common are centering prayers and mindfulness prayers. 

As we open our minds and let the committee in our heads rest, Rohr directs us to fill our hearts in the same way, at the same time. Filling our hearts means healing the harms we have carried from the past, passed down from generation to generation. He suggests learning about the Enneagram, which helps us understand the strategies we have used to survive with our injured feeling function. Each Enneagram type is a half-truth about ourselves. 

Rohr also believes the heart space can be opened through “right-brain” activities, such as music, art, dance, nature, poetry, games, and the art of relationship, which Christians might call seeking God, the Spirit, or Christ in one another. 

Our body grounds us to the earth. The body keeps us in the present moment. God meets us in the present moment. For many, the body is more repressed than the head and the heart, and it is taking its revenge through compulsive eating, repressed sexuality, anorexia, and disregard for our planet, water, animals, and healthy foods.

The head, heart, and body reconnect as one when we set our egos aside and begin to see the ever-Presence, the immediate embrace of God, healing our limited and toxic image of God.

Joanna joannaseibert.com