Early Risers

Early Riser

“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 the spiritual friends I know are indeed early risers. This is their time to read or meditate or write before the business of the day begins. I used to walk around our neighborhood in the early morning before going to the hospital. Now I look out of a large picture window and watch and wait for the sun to come up and the cardinals and blue jays to appear at my feeder. At the beach, I like to sit outside and feel night becoming day. I like to feel the gulf breeze, watch the water creatures start to begin their day. This is their home. They are local. I am a visitor.  The lone osprey circles high above the waves. The single blue heron swoops in and slowly struts on his stilts to be as near as possible to the early morning fishermen standing by the gulf’s edge, hoping he will be given their small rejects. The pelicans fly in military formation so close to the waves that they must constantly get their feathers wet.

 The early risers are like the women at the empty tomb on Easter morning. They are seeking resurrection, a new beginning, and they will find it every day as the sun majestically rises above the horizon with its color guard.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

Feminine Spirit

Charleston and Women

“Like you, I have seen reports suggesting young girls and women were targeted by recent terror attacks. The goal is to punish women for living independent lives and to drive them back into silence and submission. If this is true, then let me share another truth, one I have learned over decades of working alongside spiritual women of the world: there is no power men can devise that can overcome the strength, dignity and courage of women. Trying to deny the rights of women is like trying to outlaw life itself. The Spirit that stands by her sisters stands eternal. The Mother that defends her daughters never sleeps.” Bishop Steven Charleston

Georges de La Tour, "The Newborn," 1645, Musee des beau Arts, Rennes, France.

I remember when I first encountered the feminine Spirit of the God of my understanding. It was in the 1980’s. I became acutely aware of how masculine the words and works of the liturgy and practices of my tradition were. There was no honoring of the feminine in language or in church practices. I tried changing pronouns in the service, and that worked for a while. The altar party was made up of men. I longed to worship with other women, maybe even heaven forbid, around an altar, so we started a group on Saturday mornings using our church facility to study and learn about feminine spirituality. We soon had a huge crowd. How comforting to know that others were hungry for this facet of the divine.  After a couple of years, as more women from very different traditions joined the group, the words and practices became too different and radical for even me. I knew I had to make a decision. Remain in my tradition and wait for changes or go over to the feminine traditions that now were in territories that were too foreign for me. I made the decision to go back to my tradition. Soon there were changes there. Our prayer book changed with less masculine language. Women were given much greater roles in the church.

I know and believe in the feminine Spirit of God that Bishop Charleston is talking about. It is a power that visited my mind and body and spirit when I least expected it, and for some time, I could not understand it. I had been living in the very masculine world of medicine at the time. Suddenly I saw a different way of looking at things, of working out problems, or relating to others, of worshiping and honoring and praising God.  Why I was awakened by this power, I do not know. It was like a Damascus road experience. I had no choice but to pursue it. It was like experiencing another pregnancy.  Perhaps this nudge come from one of my deceased grandmothers who lived under a masculine rule, but subtly tried to accomplish something different. I only know that my job now is to treasure the gift of the feminine spirit and try in some way to pass on or model the gift for my children and grandchildren. I know it can change the world just as it changed me.

I wait to hear more from you.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Leadership Parker Palmer

Let your Life Speak Parker Palmer

Leaders

“A leader is someone with the power to project either shadow or light onto some part of the world and onto the lives of the people who dwell there. A leader shapes the ethos in which others must live, an ethos as light-filled as heaven or as shadowy as hell.”

Parker Palmer, Let your Life Speak, p. 78, 2000

 I learned about Parker Palmer when I attended a College of Preachers conference just for deacons at the National Cathedral led by the bishop of Maryland, Robert Ihloff. We spent the whole week learning to preach and studying Palmer’s book about vocation. Parker Palmer told us about what causes leaders to fail.  We cast shadow rather than light when we fail to go on an inner journey and have insecurity about our identity and worth. Our identity becomes dependent on performing. When we are insecure about our own identity we create situations that deprive others of their identity or develop settings where others are required to build up our own needs. We create titles that place us above others. We call others by their first name while we must be addressed by our last name or title. Leaders fail when they see the universe as a hostile battlefield. We see the world as either allies or enemies where we must be highly competitive or we will lose. Palmer’s third image of why leaders fail is functional atheism, a term he may have coined. We believe that the ultimate responsibility for everything rests with us. The fourth shadow within a leader that leads to failure is fear, fear of chaos.  This fear leads to a rigidity of rules and procedures. We forget that creativity is born out of chaos. Finally, Parker sees leaders fail when they deny death. They keep resuscitating programs that are no longer alive, putting them on life support.

I can identify with all of these shadows of leadership. Do these shadows speak to you as well?

Joanna

 Share your wisdom at joannaseibert.com   or Facebook