Living the Paradoxes of Life

Living Paradox

University of Arkansas graduates 2025

“The great paradox of life is that those who lose their lives will gain them. If we cling to our friends, we may lose them, but when we are non-possessive in our relationships, we will make many friends. When fame is what we seek and desire, it often vanishes as soon as we acquire it.”—Henri Nouwen, “April 30” in Bread for the Journey (HarperOne, 1997).

Nouwen again opens us to an authentic truth: that we live and work with paradox, holding tensions. One of the best books I read during my work as a physician was John R. O’Neil’s The Paradox of Success: When Winning at Work Means Losing at Life. It is subtitled A Book of Renewal for Leaders. O’Neil explains how our excessive pride as leaders, combined with the seductive perks of power, can become addictive. At some point, wielding power itself becomes more important than its goal. 

Power and the need to control our fate can take over and, at times, become the end rather than the means. The paradox of success is the promise of renewal, as we can step back, especially in a retreat, and see where we have gotten into trouble. There are obstacles to stepping back, such as our drive for perfection, which can turn our path into a prison. Often, we let our clocks tell us what we should be doing, especially as we drive toward the dead end of a substantial paycheck. 

O’Neil believes that any time spent away from our usual productive round of activities is renewing, as long as it is time spent pursuing wisdom. Renewing activities can include exercising, watching birds at my window, being in nature, listening to music, playing the harp, being quiet, writing, talking and connecting with friends, visiting the sick, and some form of daily retreat, usually involving writing. 

O’Neil encourages us to heal by pursuing a different situation, one where we do not run the show and focus on relationships rather than goals or end results. Our difficulties stem from the very traits that make us winners. We will find unmined gold in dark places, initially hidden from us.

The book includes a graph about success. We work hard to reach the top as we master our profession. However, we only stay at the top briefly, since there is always someone else, or many, who will soon surpass us. O’Neil suggests that we pause to assess our situation as we approach the peak of a pursuit and consider starting over in a new career. 

That can keep us humble, as we are back on a learning curve where we do not have all the answers. Then, as we approach the top of that career or undertaking, he suggests that we observe and again consider starting all over. As Benedictines might say, “Always we begin again.”

My summer reading again includes David Brooks’ The Second Mountain. I think Brooks is uncovering some of the same principles about life. For so many of us, our time during the pandemic was a period of discernment—learning to live with the paradoxes in our lives. 

Richard Rohr recently reminded us in his blog that our call is to hold the tension, not necessarily to find a resolution or closure to the paradox. We must agree to live without resolution, at least for a while. He believes that being open to this holding pattern is the very essence of faith.

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

Remembering Creative Friends and Mentors

 Remembering Creative Friends and Mentors

best friends growing up in Virginia Laura and Suzanne

“Some say the creative life is in ideas. Some say it is in doing. It seems, in most instances, to be in simply being. It is not virtuosity, although that is very fine in itself. It is the love of something—so much love for something—whether a person, a word, an image, an idea, the land, or humanity—that all that can be done with the overflow is to create. It is not a matter of wanting to, not a singular act of will; one solely must.”—Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves.

Several years ago, my husband and I took a motor trip of more than 2500 miles to revisit the towns and farms where I grew up, reconnecting with my cousins and childhood friends. On this last visit, I was reunited with women who loved me no matter what I did. I was with friends and family, including Liz, Kelly, Janie, Debbie, Laura, Jean, Christine, Betty, Anne, Wanda, and Suzanne, who encouraged me to become the person God created me to be. They still do, more than sixty years later. 

Traveling by car fostered long periods of silence, introspection, and reflection on the people, especially women, who shaped my life. I grew up in a small coastal town in Virginia. There were thirty-three in my high school graduating class. I went to college in North Carolina and eventually studied to become a medical technologist. Then, the summer before my senior year, I worked in that field and realized I had the training and education to become a physician. 

However, in my college graduating class of one thousand women, only two others attended medical school. No woman in my family had become a doctor. The only female physician I knew was Dr. Shirley Olsson in my small hometown.

Dr. Shirley Olsson

I now realize that Dr. Olsson was someone I most admired and unconsciously wanted to become, the authentic, caring woman and physician she embodied. She modeled in her everyday life how a woman can be a talented doctor and still have a family and a fruitful life. By chance, I would often run into her at the post office when I was home from medical school. I grieved when I later read that she died at age 92. I grieve that I never told her how she influenced my life, just as I did not realize at the time how she unconsciously shaped my decisions. 

I also know now that one of the incredible women I saw on this past trip had advanced dementia and has since died.

What I learned on this trip is to be a little more aware of how I can support others in becoming the person God created them to be, as Dr. Shirley, Laura, Liz, Janie, Suzanne, and so many others encouraged, sustained, and stood by me.  

We have another reminder to live in the present moment and to treasure each person we meet, especially those we meet by chance.

The Great Fifty Days of Easter is a time to reflect on the people who have influenced our lives, to let them know, and to thank them. There is still time.

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

What I learned from my Grandmothers

What I learned from my grandmothers

my grandmother Whaley and her sisters

The prompt for our writing group this week was “What I learned at my grandmother’s knee.” I am thinking about my grandmothers, especially around Mother’s Day, because I am one as well.

Grandmother Johnson’s wedding dress

I dedicate this piece to my Grandmothers Johnson and Whaley.

I had the privilege of growing up with two amazing grandmothers. My Grandmother Whaley lived a block away, and my Grandmother Johnson lived about a six-hour drive away. She lived near my other cousins, but I never felt she loved my brother and me any less. She was a widow for many years and lived on my grandfather’s Methodist minister’s pension, so she had very little money. But every Christmas, she would give one of her five grandchildren a little extra, according to their needs. When I was in medical school, I frequently received the Christmas Jackpot! 

My Grandmother Whaley was kind and very quiet. I would help her during her “women’s circle meetings,” serving refreshments like egg custard, punch, cake, nuts, and mints. She had four sisters; two lived close by. They often played canasta at my grandmother’s, and I would play with them when I was younger. Of course, we never played on Sunday. When I went away to college and medical school, I would always stop by my grandparents’ house to say a brief goodbye. I remember one time when my grandmother was playing cards with her sisters. I said goodbye, and shortly after leaving, I realized I had left something at their house. I walked back in, and my grandmother was not there. “Where is Grandmother?” I asked. Her older sister, Fannie, said, “She has gone upstairs to cry. She always misses you so much.” I quickly ran upstairs and gave my grandmother a big hug and a kiss. That day I learned how much my grandmother loved me, and I never forgot it. I would always decorate my grandmother’s Christmas tree. My grandfather would cut down a small tree from his farm and put it on the white marble table that is now in our living room. I don’t know what I learned from this, except that, as a child, my grandmother let me become the person God created me to be rather than some model of perfection.

Both of my grandmothers taught me about love through their actions more than their words. I treasure the time we spent together. They were both bright spots in my childhood, one far away and one close, each teaching me about unconditional love.

Joanna joannaseibert.com