Sparrows Christian Century Kathleen Battle

Sparrows Christian Century Kathleen Battle

“Or not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So, do not be afraid: you are of more value than many sparrows.” Matthew 10:29-31

The Christian Century, Thinking Critically, Living Faithfully is a biweekly magazine with current religious topics. I started subscribing many years ago when a Scott Lee told me Barbara Brown Taylor often wrote for it.  Today I especially look for a section called “The Word, Reflections on the Lectionary” where some amazing ministers of all denominations write a response to the Sunday lectionary readings. In the June 7, 2017, issue Liddy Barlow, executive minister of Christian Associates of Southwest Pennsylvania, was the guest preacher writing about the sparrow text from Matthew for the Sunday of June 25th.  She writes about the lawyer Kenneth Feinberg who chaired the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund giving money to the family of those who died in the terrorist attack using a formula depending on the income and earning potential of the victim. The compensations ranged from $250, 000 to $7.1 million. At the end of the experience, Feinberg struggles with this differentiation and wonders if one person is really 28 times more valuable than another as he personally listens to the stories of the victims and their families.  

Barlow also writes of the Civilla Martin poem, “His Eye is On the Sparrow”, which became a gospel hymn bringing comfort to the African-American church in our past century.  I will never forget hearing Kathleen Battle sing this hymn a cappella with a concert of the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center. We were on the first-row center and she was there in front of us, a foot away in this striking dark red velvet dress. Her soul was singing from something deep inside of her.

This indeed is a scripture passage and a hymn about how valuable we each are to God. So often people do come for spiritual direction when they do not feel valued by God. When we talk, I so wish I could sing this song like Kathleen Battle and let them their worth.

Barlow concludes her message by telling us that Feinberg is again consulted by the president of Virginia Tech about how to distribute the fund for compensation to the families of those killed in the mass shooting there in 2007. Feinberg has been changed by his 9/11 experience and has come to believe in an equality of all life.  He recommends that all victims, students and faculty receive the same compensation.

This is the story of how the God our understanding works in the world, a God who so desperately loves and values each and every one of us.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Wythe Saving our Soul at Work

Wythe saving our soul at work

“WORKING TOGETHER

“We shape our self
to fit this world

and by the world
are shaped again.

The visible
and the invisible

working together
in common cause,

to produce
the miraculous.

I am thinking of the way
the intangible air

passed at speed
round a shaped wing

easily
holds our weight.

So may we, in this life
trust

to those elements
we have yet to see

or imagine,
and look for the true

shape of our own self,
by forming it well

to the great
intangibles about us.”

  -- David Whyte
  from The House of Belonging
  ©1996 Many Rivers Press

Written for the presentation of The Collier Trophy to The Boeing Company marking the introduction of the new 777 passenger jet.

English poet, David Whyte, works with employees and employers in the corporate arena who struggle to keep their humanity in the frantic life of the business world. Whyte believes belonging to something greater than ourselves and our creativity are at the soul of our lives. In Whyte’s book, The Heart Aroused, he explores the possibility of being at home in the world, melding soul life with work life, “reconciling the left-hand ledger sheet of the soul with the right-hand ledger sheet of the corporate world”. To find the real path, we must go off our present path and experience the privilege of losing our way even if it is ever so briefly, as we realize that despite all we have achieved we will not be immune to life’s difficulties.

 Whyte uses the story of Beowulf to describe our vulnerability and power in the workplace. This legend is about the descent of the masculine to the waters of the unconscious where the restoration of a profound inner feminine power is essential for survival. He sees the modern corporate equivalent of Beowulf’s repressed monsters below our surface as our unresolved parent-child relationships that play out into rigid company hierarchies with paternal management systems and dependent employees, unresolved abuses, a longing for self-protection and the wielding of organizational power and control at any cost to keep that protection. Wythe reminds us that modern man is just emerging from the constructs of the hunter/gatherer society. The office environment is barely a few centuries old, and the electronic age is only one generation old.

 Whyte describes the opportunities and fears we face when we attempt to be more passionate and creative in the workplace as we attempt to fight fire with fire and struggle with fire and ice, as dense smoke fills the body while it remains still unlit. Whyte believes that our voice can finally emerges from the body, representing our inner world as in the story about the mouse and the lion. A good lion knows what it is to be a mouse.

Whyte also tells the Irish story of Fionn as one who like us grapples with the balance between innocence and experience. This reminds me of the story of Parsifal and the Fisher King Wound that Robert Johnson tells in He.

Whyte concludes by believing that the first step to preserving our soul in the world is to believe that the world itself has a soul also, and that there is a sacred otherness to the world.

Joanna   joannaseibert.com

A Prayer of St. Chrysostom

A Prayer of St. Chrysostom

“Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplications to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them: Fulfil now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen.”

The Book of Common Prayer p. 102.

How often I have said this prayer at the end of the daily Morning Prayer Office from The Book of Common Prayer as well as when praying with one or two others in desperate need, letting them know that God hears our prayer, most certainly even before we pray.  As I say this prayer, I remember that C.S. Lewis always reminds us that we pray not to change God but to change ourselves. As we pray this prayer in the Daily Office of Morning Prayer we also can feel connected to all others praying Morning Prayer this day especially at this time in the early morning. That is why I have often also been part of a group of pray-ers saying prayers for a specific person or condition at a certain hour during the day when that person is in need. Knowing that others are praying petitions for the same person or cause all over the country or the world is a force of nature. Sometimes we may later know whether that person is safe or better, but always, always, we are changed.

St. Chrysostom’s prayer also reminds us of how fleeting fame is. Chrysostom was the most famous early Christian preacher and prolific writer, only exceeded by Augustine in writing, outspoken about abuses in the church and politics, an archbishop of Constantinople in late 4th century, often referred to as the “golden mouthed” because of his excellence in preaching He is still a strong part of the Eastern Orthodox tradition and has a feast day on September 13. However, in the West, I know only a few preachers who deliver his Easter sermon, most often at the Vigil. Primarily, this daily prayer is all the majority of us in the western church have to remember him by, but definitely, it is more than enough.

Joanna      joannaseibert