Buechner: Memory, Eucharist, Jesus

Buechner: Memory, Eucharist, Jesus

“There are two ways of remembering. One way is to make an excursion from the living present back into the dead past. The other way is to summon the dead past back into the living present. The young widow remembers her husband, and he is there beside her. When Jesus said, ‘Do this in remembrance of me,’ he was not prescribing a periodic slug of nostalgia.”
—Frederick Buechner in Wishful Thinking (Harper & Row, 1973).

Buechner gives us two ways to remember: going back and bringing memories forward. Returning to past memories can allow us to relive a scene from our lives. Anthony de Mello writes that perhaps that scene was too powerful to experience the first time. As we relive it, we can participate in it again and again, each time gaining a greater sense of its meaning.

Bringing memories forward is like doing active imagination with a living friend or someone you deeply loved who has died. You imagine the person’s presence with you. My experience is that sometimes we feel that presence even without trying to imagine it.

Buechner believes that when Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24b), He was calling us to bring Him back into our presence—to know and feel His love, so we might go out and bring others in to share in this love. 

Some believe Jesus is present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Others believe that bread and wine are messengers or symbols that remind us of Jesus’ presence and love in our lives. Either way, the God of love is present.

Receiving the Eucharist is one of the most significant liturgical sacraments that many people missed during the pandemic’s isolation period. Jesus is still beside us and within us, but we are learning that the symbol of this presence is more powerful and more needed than we recognized. Perhaps, in our remembering, we can return to previous times or bring Jesus forward, letting him know that we believe with all our hearts that he is very present within and beside us.

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

Vamping

Vamping

“Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life, bringing peace, abolishing strife.”―Kahlil Gibran.

 Once a week, I played harp duets with a highly talented harpist who tolerated my missed or absent notes and tried to teach an old harpist new tricks and fingering.

One year, Pam also taught me an unfamiliar word: vamping. She said, “I will vamp you in.” She plays a brief series of chords before I start my part of the piece. I definitely like the word. Vamping. It means playing a simple chord or beat, usually before someone else begins, and then perhaps continuing to play the background chords quietly as the other player takes the melody.

I think this best describes a meeting with a spiritual friend. I may ask a simple question, such as, “Where did you see God in your life today?” I may then repeat the question when the subject seems to change. Often, I keep praying that the Holy Spirit will guide us. These prayers are my chords.

Vamping also describes the ministry as a deacon. Deacons identify needs in the world and then share them with others in their congregation. We then support and lead others into that ministry, as they become passionate about it as well.

Our job is to stay connected to the beat as we listen for the rhythm and melody of the Holy Spirit’s presence in us and those we support. We remain in the background, supporting and undergirding others in ministry. We keep the beat going, listening and praying to hear and feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, who guides and directs both of us.

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

Praying the Hours and Angels

 Praying the Hours and Angels

“We are always meeting deadlines; we are always running out of time. The message of following the monastic hours is to live daily with the real rhythms of the day. We learn to listen to the music of this moment. We learn to dance a little in our hearts, to open our inner gates a crack more, to hearken to the music of silence, the divine life breath of the universe.”

—David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B., in The Music of Silence: Entering the Sacred Space of Monastic Experience (HarperCollins, 1995).

The Music of Silence is an invitation to journey through the day by keeping the monastic hours in some manner. Each of the eight hours is prayerfully described by Brother David, often using the images of the Fra Angelico angels. 

I take this book off my shelf, and two cards drop out, both from deceased spiritual friends. The one from Nyna Keeton is an encouraging note about some of my writing. Another from Joanne Meadors is on a card from the San Marco Museum in Florence, Italy, depicting the Fra Angelico painting of the angel beating the drum from The Tabernacle of the Linaioli. The angels playing the harp and the trumpet are also on a card from another spiritual friend with whom I have lost contact. 

There is also a photograph of the musical “Fra Angelico Angels” on the altarpiece at the Pierce Chapel at Trinity Cathedral in Little Rock. I remember I went to Florence solely to see these angels. Also, between the book’s pages is a Forward Day by Day pamphlet about following the monastic hours. Our young son, John, picked it up from a tract rack when we visited Pat Murray and his family at All Saints Russellville when our children were growing up. John brought it to me and said, “Mom, I think you will like this.”

 This was my first introduction to the hours over thirty years ago. Years later, I would read so many of Phyllis Tickle’s writings about her experience with the monastic hours.

A book full of angels and memories, still being communicated from spiritual friends, many of whom I no longer physically see—calling me back to the spiritual life we shared.

Watch out for cards and notes you leave in books for unknown reasons. They may become messages from angels unaware, especially if they are brought to you by children.

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