Night time prayers

July 23, 2017 joanna seibert

Night time prayers

compline

“Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or

weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who

sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless

the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the

joyous; and all for your love’s sake.” Amen.

St. Augustine of Hippo. The Book of Common Prayer p. 134.

This gift from St. Augustine is one of the night time prayers from compline, an evening service to be read just before bedtime. The brief prayer service can be said by families or groups as a gathering just before retiring. I particularly remember when our friends Barbara and Hap Hoffman came to our house and said compline with our family every night for six weeks while I was recovering from surgery. In my medical practice, this prayer was meaningful as I could visualize the people I knew working at night at our Children’s Hospital and the patients we were all helping to care for. This prayer also gave me strength when I was on call at the hospital at night, knowing that there were people all over the globe saying these prayers. As compline became a more regular part of my rule of life, I began to visualize people in other professions working at night in grocery stores, restaurants, airlines, police stations. I remembered those dying as well as those mourning the death of a loved one. I began praying for the joyous.

All of these prayers ever so briefly have helped me get out of myself and all my problems as I began praying and thinking about others. This service calms my soul, and is better than any sleeping pill or drug or drink.

Below is another night time prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book. I especially relate to the part, “what has been done has been done; what has not been done, let it be.” I keep remembering the CS Lewis quote you will often hear from me, “We do not pray to change God. We pray to change ourselves.” Night time prayers can change us.

New Zealand Prayer Book

“Lord,

it is night.

The night is for stillness.

Let us be still in the presence of God.

It is night after a long day.

What has been done has been done;

what has not been done;

let it be.

The night is dark.

Let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives rest in you.

The night is quiet.

Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,

all dear to us,

and all who have no peace.

The night heralds the dawn.

Let us look expectantly to a new day,

new joys,

new possibilities.

In your name we pray.”

Amen. p. 184.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Barbara Brown Taylor, Spiritual Direction in the World

July 22, 2017 joanna seibert

Barbara Brown Taylor, Spiritual Direction in the World

“People can learn as much about the ways of God from business deals gone bad or sparrows falling to the ground as they can from reciting the books of the Bible in order. They can learn as much from a love affair or a wildflower as they can from knowing the Ten Commandments by heart.”

Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World, HarperOne 2009

I received this quote from Barbara Brown Taylor today from Synthesis, A Weekly Resource for Preaching and Worship in the Episcopal Tradition http://www.synthesispub.com. I look to my right where my husband just bought a new bookcase today to house closer to me all the book I have read over the years that I want to share with you this year on this blog about spiritual direction. Then I look straight ahead out of a floor to ceiling window to the outside and watch a gentle July summer rain bathe the trees just outside between our house and our neighbors. I can also hear the rhythm of the rain on the roof above where there is very little insulation in our “modern” 1960’s home. We will soon have dinner with our children and grandchildren in their new home across the street. What a blessing just to walk across the road to be with grandchildren, our greatest gifts, our most important visitors we will entertain. I learn from them every time I see them about simple joy and unconditional love and wide-eyed excitement about life. All of these are learning experiences. I hope I can hold on to my gratitude for them that I have learned from Barbara Brown Taylor. She was a speaker this week at the Buechner Writing For Your Life Conference in Nashville at Belmont University that I attended. She is still the amazing writer, speaker, and teacher she was when I first read her over thirty years ago. If you have a chance to hear her, don’t miss it.

She has taught all of us so much about an awareness of the altars in the world that keep us constantly connected to the God of our understanding if only we have eyes and ears to see and hear and hands to touch and even noses to smell. Yes, the smell of a summer rain is not unlike the smell of a well-known costly incense from Smoky Mary’s in Manhattan (Church of St. Mary the Virgin). The altars in our churches are also thin places where we especially go to give thanks for our altars in the world.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

A letter from a refugee from Iran before he dies

July 21, 2017 joanna seibert

A letter from Dr. Taybi, a refugee from Iran, before he dies

The Rev. Joanna J. Seibert: Dear Joanna (please call me Hoosh),

Thank you very much for very kind email. Your encouragement is most appreciated. I have accepted my illness and have no trouble dealing with the situation, thanks primarily to the support of my loving wife Alice and my children.

I am so thankful for all the opportunities I have been given by my mentors, friends and many times strangers in this country. Your kindness and reading your email brings me back to 1946 when I was a practicing pediatrician in the city of Hamedan in Iran. An American missionary had a small hospital and clinic headed by a young American, Dr. Frame. I told him one day I was planning to go to America and get more education. A son of a missionary, he spoke Farsi fluently. I told him I wanted to learn "American." He taught me a few words in "American." (English.) When I left Iran Mrs. Frame gave a letter to deliver to her parents, the Andersons. I arrived in New York City in December 1948, just before Christmas and found my way in Manhattan to the Anderson's apartment. Mr. Anderson took me to New York University, met with Professor Tobin, the Dean of Students and enrolled me in English class. Andersons were missionaries having spent many years in South America's jungles. Their kindness did not end here. Many times they invited me to their home and I spent the 1949 Christmas at their home in New Jersey. The Frames moved back to USA and Dr. Frame had a practice in New York City. It was in 1964 when we gave a course in Pediatric Radiology at Indiana University Medical Center. I sent an invitation for Dr. Frame to come as my guest and attend the course. He was not able to come but in a nice note stated: I see your "American" has much improved, referring to my use of American instead of English in 1948!! This type of kindness is unforgettable. To the end of my life I shall remember what they did for a man from another land and another culture. Two of the Anderson photographs from my album are attached.

I appreciate very much your family remembering meeting this old friend. Please extend my regards to them and I hope we meet again at another SPR gathering,

Hoosh

As I say prayers today for refugees and those trying to immigrate to our country in face of the recent travel ban, I find this note from Dr. Hooshang Taybi from 2006. It is written three weeks before he died in response to my note about the news of his terminal illness. If you are a radiologist or a pediatrician, you will remember Dr. Taybi, best known for his study of children with difficulties that become part of a syndrome. He was professionally noted for his encyclopedic memory of the more than 100 journals he read leading to his classic textbook, The Radiology of Syndromes, but what I most remember is his kindness, humbleness, and caring for others, empowering others, never too important to spend time with you. A colleague shares a phrase from Dr. Taybi’s favorite Persian poem, “The best way to show your gratitude for a having a strong arm is to extend a helping hand to the weak.”1

I see a life of a brilliant man who close to his death still expresses gratitude for those who helped him over 50 years before. Dr. Taybi empowers us still today by telling stories, stories of children with illnesses, stories of how he was empowered, gratitude for all who touched his life even to the end. I continue to see daily the difference gratitude can make in a person’s life. Today I will try to remember and give thanks for those who empowered me and pray that I can pass empowerment and gratitude on to others. I also want to remember Dr. Taybi’s story of what a difference the strangers who helped him made in his life. I hope to try to do this for those who come to our country like Dr. Taybi for a new life.

I also remember that if the present travel ban had been in place, Dr. Taybi would never have come to his America. I think of all of us whose lives would not have been touched by his, but especially the children and their parents who would have missed his medical expertise.

1Ron Cohen, Charles Gooding, “Memorial Hooshang Taybi,” AJR, 187:1382-1383, 2006.

Joanna joannaseibert.com