Lectio Natura

 “Despite what happens with the many, many changes in our culture and in our lives of faith, we can always reach to nature to help soothe us, nourish us, and even guide us in faith.”

Coe, Cynthia. Considering Birds & Lilies: Finding Peace & Harmony With the Everyday World Around Us (Kindle Locations 254-255). Sycamore Cove Creations. Kindle Edition

Cynthia Coe lives on a farm in east Tennessee and also has been the Environmental Steward of the Episcopal Church. Her most recent book, Considering Bird and Lilies leads us all on an adventure through Nature and the Bible to re-connect us to the ever-present lessons Nature has to teach us about our spirituality. She gifts us to an introduction to the practice of Lectio Natura, a spiritual practice of seeing parables, biblical stories in the natural world around us and in our everyday life whether it be on the Appalachian Train or in our own backyards or gardens where peace and resurrection are abundant. These garden meditations on the sower, harvest, crowded conditions, transplanting, sprouts, first leaves, thunderstorms are “good soil” for us to plant and see fruit from our attempt to be more aware of   connections between the natural world and our spiritual world.

I want to share a recent quote from Cindy about her book.   “Birds & Lilies is a product of my daily walks around my farm in Tennessee. As soon as I step outside, I'm able to forget all worries and concerns. I've also gained many insights in troubling problems by observing the trees, flowers, and animals living on my farm. In researching early Christianity, I realized that many of the saints and early Christian spiritual leaders also found a deep sense of spirituality while in nature. I wanted to share this tradition of nature-based spirituality with contemporary Christians, using everyday language and a conversational tone.”

Joanna joannaseibert.com

De Waal, Trinity, Connected, Estranged

De Waal Trinity Connected

Estranged or Connected

“If I am estranged from myself, then I am also estranged from others too. If I am out of touch with myself I cannot hope to touch others. It is only as I am connected to my own core that I am connected to others. It is only too easy as I walk along a crowded pavement, rush into a supermarket, watch people crossing the road as I draw up at the lights, to dismiss them, to fail to see them as human beings, or simply to pass some superficial judgment on clothes or appearance, labeling them, putting them into some pigeon-hole.”
Esther De Waal, Living With Contradiction

Esther De Waal’s writings embody the Celtic way of life. It is a life where we learn about ourselves in relationships to others, in relationships to ourselves, in relationships especially to Nature and the world outside and to daily life with almost constant prayer and connection to God and awareness of each precious moment. I am indebted to her for one more book on Celtic spirituality, The Celtic Way of Prayer, The Recovery of the Religious Imagination.  I am re-reading her chapter today on Celtic prayers about the Trinity as we prepare for Trinity Sunday. She reminds us of the Celtic tradition of placing three drops of water immediately on an infant’s forehead after birth to symbolize the child’s connection to the Trinity which is now indwelling in the infant.

The Trinity is a natural part of the daily songs and prayers at work as well as with the changes in the seasons. The day of the Celtic life begins with splashing three handfuls of water on the face in the name of the Trinity. The day ends as the embers of the household fire are spread evenly on the hearth in a circle divided into three equal sections with a peat laid between each, called the Hearth of the Three.  A woman then closes her eyes, stretches out her hand and softly sings this prayer,

“The sacred Three

To save,

To shield,

To surround,

The hearth,

The household,

This eve,

This night,

Oh! this eve,

This night,

And every night,

Each single night.

Amen”.

De Waal describes what she has learned from the Celtic Trinitarian tradition, “It allows me to be at ease with a mystery that no longer threatens but supports, refreshes, and strengthens me.”

The Threeness and connectedness of the Trinity also reminds me of a prayer that is attributed to William Blake but sounds so Celtic:

         “I sought my God;

         My God I could not see.

         I sought my soul

         My soul eluded me.

         I sought my brother

         And I found all three.”

Joanna joannaseibert.com 

Good and God and Rohr

Good and God  and Rohr

“God does not love you because you are good; God loves you because God is good. And then you can be good because you draw upon such an Infinite Source. The older I get, the more I am sure that God does all the giving and we do all of the receiving. God is always and forever the initiator in my life, and I am, on occasion, the half-hearted respondent. My mustard seed of a response seems to be more than enough for a humble God, even though the mustard seed is “the tiniest of all the seeds” (Matthew 13:32).” Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media: 2008), 163-164.

God making butterflies from caterpillars at Izzy's

We once had a very intelligent friend who told us as soon as she became a better person, she would come back to the church. I actually hear this same thing from so many coming for spiritual direction. They either see church as a house full of hypocrites or the opposite, a gathering of the most holy of which they are unworthy.  My favorite answer, of course, is that a church is not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners! We go to meet God, to give thanks, to praise God, ask for forgiveness, and share the God within each of us with the God in our neighbors, neighbors often so different from ourselves. Rohr is teaching us, reminding us that it is God who is the good one, always present, forgiving, supporting, encouraging, loving. This is a hard concept for people who have been raised with a judgmental image of God, because often, they as well have unknowingly become most judgmental.

Joanna joannaseibert.com