We Celebrated the Early Risers Yesterday on August 3rd: The Myrrh-Bearing Women Who Came to the Empty Tomb

We Celebrated the Early Risers on August 3rd: The Myrrh-Bearing Women Who Came to the Empty Tomb

Myrrh Bearer Uncut Mountain Supply Icon Company

"Wisdom is radiant and unfading,

and she is easily discerned by those who love her,

and is found by those who seek her.

She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her.

One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty,

for she will be found sitting at the gate."—Wisdom 6:12-14.

Many of my spiritual friends are early risers. Early morning is their time to read, meditate, or write before the day's business begins. I once walked around our neighborhood in the early morning before heading to the hospital to work. Now I look out a floor-to-ceiling picture window, watching and waiting for the sun to rise and for cardinals, blue jays, and woodpeckers to appear at my feeder. 

Joanna ES Campbell

At the beach, I like to sit outside and feel night give way to day. I look forward to the Gulf breeze and to watching the water creatures gather to begin their day. The Gulf is their home. They are local. We are visitors. The lone osprey circles high above the waves. The single blue heron swoops in and slowly struts on his stilts toward the early-morning fishermen at the water's edge, hoping to receive their small rejections. The pelicans fly in military formation, so close to the waves that they must constantly get their feathers wet. 

Sunrise Montana. Sally Klein

The early risers are like the myrrh-bearing women at the empty tomb on Easter morning, whose feast day we celebrate on August 3rd. They rise early, living in the present moment, unaware of what they will find. Each new morning offers the possibility of a resurrection experience, a new beginning—and they will find it daily as the sun rises majestically above the horizon with its color guard, especially on Sunday mornings.

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

The Odyssey: When Hospitality to Strangers Is Forsaken

 The Odyssey: When Hospitality to Strangers is Forsaken

Guest Writer: Larry Burton

Have you seen Christopher Nolan’s new movie based on The Odyssey? We are going, but we haven’t seen it yet. However, I’ve read a batch of more philosophical articles about the film and am captivated by a theme that runs through several of them, namely what happens when virtue—especially hospitality to the stranger—is forsaken.

Much is made of the ancient virtue of hospitality and civility toward the stranger. This was attributed to Zeus—though Nolan doesn’t make much of the gods—and served as a way of managing intergroup relationships.

David French, a columnist for the NY Times—and a Christian—raised the issue yesterday: What happens when there are no moral norms or virtues? Peter Werner, in the Atlantic, references Nietzsche on this, then continues, “But Nietzsche was at least honest about the cost of the revolution he heralded. With God dead, he warned, the morality built on God might collapse as well, and into the gap meaninglessness, fanaticism, and substitute faiths could rush in. Nietzsche declared, with some sorrow, the death of God. Many of his heirs gleefully practice their cruelty in God’s name.”

We have a few Atheist friends—mostly scientific—who, despite the lack of God, nevertheless hold to certain virtues, like honesty and trust. I guess what bothers me most is not atheists but people who claim to be Christian yet whose primary “virtue” is might makes right. As one who taught Aristotle, Kant, and the utilitarians, I recognize there are secular options, and though there are issues with each of these major approaches, each still has a grounding in human dignity and respect.

If you see the movie, I hope you’ll find some friends with whom you can chew on its moral message…if you think there is one.

Hoping you are not under the heat dome.

Love, blessings, and peace,

Larry Burton

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Faith

Faith

“Faith means receiving God. It means being overwhelmed by God. Faith helps us find trust again and again, even when, from a human point of view, the foundations of truth have been destroyed. It gives us eyes to see what cannot be seen and hands to grasp what cannot be touched, even though it is always and everywhere present.”—Eberhard Arnold in Why We Live in Community (Plough, 2014). 

Faith is believing in something we cannot see or understand. The mind takes us to a certain level of belief, but faith is what enables us to take the leap from there. My favorite quote about faith, attributed to many people, is: “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.” If we are so sure about something, we have crossed back over that line, away from the place where faith abides. 

This gives all of us doubters great comfort. In fact, we know our doubts lead us into deeper faith—across the line, down new pathways, and sometimes even onto major highways. We may take a wrong turn, run a red light, hit someone, or become completely lost.

The Supper at Emmaus. Caravaggio

Then that stranger who met us on the road to Emmaus shows up. He may remind us of a Scripture passage that was meaningful to us in the past. He may ask us whether we remember how we have been continually cared for by the God of our understanding and by God’s stand-ins, our community and our friends. He constantly feeds us precisely what we need to continue the journey, and before he disappears, he leaves a GPS on the dinner table. 

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