Sue Monk Kidd: Waiting
“Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.”
—Simone Weil
I decided to read Sue Monk Kidd’s book, When the Heart Waits, Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions, as a break from the intensity of the last book I studied, John Sanford’s, Mystical Christianity, A Psychological Commentary on the Gospel of John. But here again, I am fooled. I have underlined most of Kidd’s book.
She reminds us of biblical waiters, Noah, Mary, Moses, Sarah, Jacob, Paul, the father of the prodigal son, all who had to wait for God’s answers for them. She reminds us of G. K. Chesterton’s writing that praising and connecting to God is less like a doxology, a short hymn of praise, as much as a paradoxology. The paradox is that we achieve the most and relate most to God by standing still!
When I visit with spiritual friends, I hope to offer Kidd’s prayer of waiting, remembering Jesus’ words to his disciples in the garden of Gethsemane from Mark 14:13, “Sit here, while I pray.” We only need to sit while Jesus prays for us, particularly the Jesus within us that will pray for us while we wait. If we are having difficulty doing this, Jesus reminds us of the community surrounding us. Jesus is telling us to follow his example and ask friends to come and pray with us while we wait, and, if we are that friend, to make the offer. We are also promised “a great cloud of witnesses” around us, constantly praying and waiting with and for us. Jesus reminds us that we will never wait and pray alone.
Joanna joannaseibert.com. https://www.joannaseibert.com/
Book Signing St. Mark’s, Sunday December 4th
After 8 and 10:30 service
Letters from my Grandfather: A History of Two Decades of Unconditional Love. by Joanna Seibert
A pediatric physician, an Episcopal deacon, a mother, grandmother, and author of ten other books on spirituality, shares letters from her grandfather after she left home. She responds to his letters in the present time, giving insight into two decades of unconditional love. $20 all proceeds go to Camp Mitchell.
Advance Praise. Letters from my Grandfather: A History of Two Decades of Unconditional Love.
I love this book, which began as a collection but became a correspondence. Dr. Joanna Seibert, a distinguished Professor (and practitioner) of Pediatric Radiology at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, had treasured a fourteen-year stream of letters from her grandfather and saved them all for more than sixty years. Lately, she decided to publish them, so that her own five grandchildren, among others, might someday enjoy and profit from them. Joanna’s re-reading of the letters now prompted fresh reflections, resulting in her writing a new reply for each epistle (there were sixty-six)! Both sets ––his to her back then, and hers to him this year–– are picturesque and full of detail in the lives that each of them has led. The yield to us is two biographies, his and hers: from one side, a World War I soldier, born in 1888, a Southern Baptist who made his living repairing watches in a one-man shop; and from the other, his beloved grandchild, a distinguished Arkansan on the leading cusp of the women’s movement, who taught and practiced medicine through a time of rapid change in that––and, it has often felt, in everything. He knew life in 1888, she in 2022. So here they are writing forth and back across that historical divide––and breathing gratitude and love on every page. Three times, Joanna says, in three different ways, “you saved my life.” But, above it all, “you taught me how to love.” She wants to pass it on.
The Rev. Dr. Christoph Keller, III