Walking in Someone Else's Shoes

 Walking in Someone Else’s Shoes

“Within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. The person who hates you most has some good in him; even the nation that hates you most has some good in it; even the race that hates you most has some good in it.

“And when you come to the point where you look every person in the face and see deep down within what religion calls ‘the image of God,’ you begin to love in spite of. No matter what the person does, you see God’s image there.”—Martin Luther King, Jr., in “Loving Your Enemies,” a sermon at Dexter Ave. Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, 1957.

I once worked with another physician whom I thought was incompetent. I felt her decisions did not make sense and were not helpful. She often spoke almost in riddles, trying to consider many sides of a question, while I already thought there was an obvious answer that, beyond question, was right. Moreover, she was amazingly slow to make any changes.

One weekend, I had to cover her job while she was on vacation. Overnight, I realized why she behaved as she did, the magnitude of her responsibility, and the endless number of real and imagined problems she faced. I walked in her shoes, and it made all the difference.

Placing myself in her shoes helped me see God’s image in her and in others I had previously found difficult to understand.

A story also circulates about someone asking Mother Teresa, “How do you stand it when you have to serve some truly despicable person?” With a sigh, she replies, “I look deeply into their eyes and say to myself, ‘My Jesus, what an interesting disguise you are wearing today.’” – Deborah Sokolove, Seekers Church, “Weekly Gospel Reflection,” Inward/Outward.com, Church of the Saviour.

This is also how Benedictine Spirituality calls us to see others. It is called radical hospitality. We are to look for the light of Christ in others. Often, when we have difficulty with others, it is because we are having trouble finding the light of Christ, our God, within ourselves. We have strayed from our path of staying connected to God in our own lives. We have lost the “light” in our lives that directs us to the light in the lives of others. Having difficulty with others is always a “stop sign” to look for the light of Christ within ourselves and perhaps even to ask someone else for help. Walking in someone else’s shoes is always a good starting point for seeing others in a new light. 

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

May You Live Long Enough To:

Ricoeur and Anonymous: May You Live Long Enough To:

Guest Writer: Isabel Anders

“I find myself only by losing myself.”—Paul Ricoeur.

“It is always possible to argue against an interpretation, to confront interpretations, to arbitrate among them, and to seek agreement, even if that agreement remains beyond our reach.”—Paul Ricoeur.

Grandmother Whaley and Her Sisters Who Laughed and Cried and Loved

May you live long enough …

To be able to laugh at your most embarrassing moments in the past—sportingly owning the temporary title of “dunce”—before passing it on to the next clown in this dance of win-and-lose, hit-and-miss called “life.”

To side with your former adversaries, if only for a moment—to accept that in certain past disagreements or outright conflicts that have shaped your past: “The other person had a point.”

To realize that even your greatest “triumphs” owe much to outside influences: others’ kind and diligent contributions, the convergence of circumstances, and “sparks” of grace flung from afar that happened to hit you at the moment.

To experience prayer as the automatic breathing of petitions for others’ good—urgently present in your heart before your own needs or requests enter your awareness.

To meet someone whose efforts or example—in any category—put you to “shame,” and to feel the joy that such understanding, expertise, or goodness exists in the world, even without receiving any specific personal gain from it.

To recognize that your “defeats,” by the world’s judgment, were blessings in disguise, checks and balances in the larger arc of your journey toward maturity and self-acceptance.

To feel genuinely sad for people who seemed unfair and cruel to you for no apparent reason, and to lament the conditions that must have made them that way—even when their cruelty caused you genuine pain.

To let go of any idea that we might be able to judge who is worthy or unworthy of anything that comes to them in this life or in the life to come.

“We look not at what can be seen, but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.”—2 Corinthians 4:18.

“We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope. Hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts. …”—Romans 5:3-5.

Isabel Anders

Author of Circle of Days: A Church Year Primer--Years B and C: A Celebration of the Major Themes and Texts of the Church Year

Year A is out as well!

Joanna   https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Ratification of Women's Right to Vote

Women’s Right to Vote and Notable Women

Ratification of the vote for women

On August 20, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, giving women the right to vote. There had been strong opposition to women’s suffrage since before the Constitution was drafted. Men and sometimes women believed that women should not vote or hold office because they needed to be protected from the sordid world of politics. Abigail Adams asked her husband, John, to “remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors,” but to no avail.

A more organized women’s suffrage movement arose in the 19th century, hand in hand with the abolitionist movement. In July 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized a women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Stanton drafted a Declaration of Sentiments, modeled after the Declaration of Independence, demanding that women have an equal say in their government if they were to be bound by its laws. Attendees — women and men — signed the Declaration of Sentiments to show their support, although some later asked that their names be removed when they faced media backlash.

In the latter half of the 19th century, states gradually loosened restrictions on women's voting rights. Wyoming was the first state to grant women the full right to vote, when it gained statehood in 1890. The first national constitutional amendment was proposed in Congress in 1878 and in every subsequent session.

Finally, in 1919, it narrowly passed both houses of Congress and was sent to the states for ratification.

Most Southern states opposed the amendment, and it came down to Tennessee on August 18, 1920. The pro-amendment faction wore yellow roses on their lapels, while the “anti” coalition wore red American Beauty roses. It was a close battle, and the state legislature was tied 48 to 48. The decision came down to one vote: that of 24-year-old Harry Burn, the youngest state legislator. Proudly wearing a red rose, he cast his vote ... in favor of ratification. He had been expected to vote against it, but he had a note from his mother, Febb Burns, in his pocket.  

Harry and Febb Burns

“Dear Son: Hurrah, and vote for suffrage! Don’t keep them in doubt. I noticed some of the speeches against it. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don’t forget to be a good boy and help. Your Mother.” Burn responded to attacks on his integrity by inserting a personal statement into the House Journal, explaining his decision to vote, “I knew that a mother’s advice is always safest for a boy to follow, and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification.”

On November 2, more than 8 million women voted for the first time.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com