Superficial life Thoreau

 superficial life  Thoreau

 ‘When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip.  We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not.  In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post office.  You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters proud of his extensive correspondence has not heard from himself this long while.” Henry David Thoreau, The Essential Thoreau

spiritual friends at MLK breakfast

My spiritual director sent this to me today. Most of us do not go to the post office, and letter writing is becoming a lost art, but we are now judged by how many Facebook friends we have!  I am a Facebook fan to keep informed about family and friends, but a Facebook message is very different from a phone call or a visit or conversation over a meal. This is where we can share what is really going on with us. This is where we may bare our soul and look for the Christ in our friend and hope that the Christ within us will guide us. Actual meeting with spiritual friends is not optional for the inner life, the life of the soul.

 Even better is meeting over a meal. Nourishing out bodies mysteriously opens up our mind to nourish the soul. Here is where we see Christ in each other and maybe even get a little glimpse of the Christ in ourselves.  I was in a pediatric radiology medical group for over 30 years. We each had our own agenda and our areas of expertise. We were having difficulty making decisions and seeing the importance of each other’s plans. We decided to meet for lunch once a week. It took a while, but miracles happened. We began to look at each other’s ideas in a different light. One mystery of the meal is that it nourished us into forming a community.

Joanna            joannaseibert@me.com

Labyrinths

Labyrinth

 “Labyrinths are usually in the form of a circle with a meandering but purposeful path from the edge to the center and back again. Each has only one path, and once we make the choice to enter it, the path becomes a metaphor for our journey through life, sending us to the center of the labyrinth and then back out to the edge on the same path. The labyrinth is a spiritual tool meant to awaken us to the deep rhythm that unites us to ourselves and to the Light that calls from within. In surrendering to the winding path, the soul finds healing and wholeness.”

Lauren Artress, Walking a Sacred path, Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Tool.

Walking the labyrinth is one of the most ancient of spiritual practices, first documented in 324 on the floor of a church in Algiers.  One of the most famous labyrinths was used in medieval times when Christians who could not go on the Crusades in the 12th century went to the church at Chartres, France, where there was the eleven -circuit labyrinth pattern on their church floor for a pilgrimage.  Labyrinths are winding paths that double back before reaching a center. It is different from a maze in that there is only one way to go. You cannot get lost. It can be a time for meditation on sacred words, scripture, or discernment as you move.  You can walk, crawl, skip as you walk, but you must be considerate of other pilgrims walking the path. The Episcopal priest, Lauren Artress, was a pioneer at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco for introducing the spiritual practice in the 1990’s. There are books about praying and meditating while walking the labyrinth (Camp. Geoffrion) and how to make your own labyrinth (Welch). A friend, Twyla Alexander, has written a book about her pilgrimage to walk the labyrinths in 50 states and to hear the stories of the women who created them. These are just a few of the sources for a labyrinth walk.

Choose one of these books or others or go or talk with a friend who has walked the labyrinth and try this ancient practice especially if you are one who cannot sit still and meditate. I would also like to hear from you about your experience walking the labyrinth and books you have found helpful.

Laruren Artress, Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Practice.

Jill Kimberly Hartwell Geoffrion, Christian Prayer and Labyrinth and Praying the Labyrinth.

Carole Ann Camp, Praying at Every Turn, Meditations for Walking the Labyrinth.

Sally Welch, Walking the Labyrinth, a Spiritual and Practical Guide.

Twylla Alexander, Labyrinth Journeys, 50 States, 51 Stories.

Joanna       joannaseibert.com

Hope

Hope

"It hovers in dark corners
before the lights are turned on,
     it shakes sleep from its eyes
     and drops from mushroom gills,
          it explodes in the starry heads
          of dandelions turned sages,
               it sticks to the wings of green angels
               that sail from the tops of maples.

It sprouts in each occluded eye
of the many-eyed potato,
     it lives in each earthworm segment
     surviving cruelty,
          it is the motion that runs
          from the eyes to the tail of a dog,
               it is the mouth that inflates the lungs
               of the child that has just been born.

It is the singular gift
we cannot destroy in ourselves,
the argument that refutes death,
the genius that invents the future,
all we know of God.

It is the serum which makes us swear
not to betray one another;
it is in this poem, trying to speak."

Hope" by Lisel Mueller from Alive Together. © Louisiana State University Press, 1996

Hope is a loving commodity that we are called to share and believe in until our dying breath. Those who lose hope, die. Those who have it, live. Hope can be in just a simple package, hope to have the courage to live through the day and make a difference, or it can be a larger hope of doing the absolutely impossible. The movie Hoosiers is about that seemingly impossible hope. It is about a small town high school basketball team with eight players who go on the win the state championship in 1952 in Indianapolis, Indiana, a major basketball state.  I identify with this hope because I grew up in a small town in Virginia with less than 200 in my high school and only 33 in my graduating class. Our school basketball team, the West Point Pointers did go on the win the state championship the year my younger brother was on the team.  The movie, Hoosiers, came out in 1986, and the next year I asked all my children and my husband to take me with them to see the movie on my birthday. That night each of our three children and my husband made a dish for an amazing birthday dinner at our home before we piled into our car to go to the movie theater. I cried throughout the whole movie that night and cried again this morning, as I always do, whenever I see Hoosiers. The movie still teaches me and moves me so deeply. It is certainly about hope in the impossible, when the small voice can speak out to be heard over the conventional large voice. For me, it also is a way to go back into my memory book and feel the love of my family as I did at that dinner and at the movie theater on my birthday.

The father of one of the Hickory players in the movie, Reverend Doty, is a minister who always prays before the game with the team. His prayer before the final game for the state championship includes the story of David and Goliath. My hope is that in my lifetime I have had the courage not to be afraid to go up against the Goliaths in my life. I know sometimes I have, and sometimes I have not. Most of the time the result is not like David’s, but there is something even more powerful about knowing we tried and in some way made a difference instead of staying quietly on the sidelines or not trying.

That birthday and that movie taught me another lesson. A spiritual friend, Peggy Hays, had suggested to me to tell my family exactly what I wanted for my birthday instead of “hoping” they would read my mind and do what I “hoped” for them to do. So, I told them about the dinner and the movie and it has become the birthday I will always remember. The lesson for me is to share with others my hopes and dreams instead of asking them to read my mind.

Joanna             joannaseibert.com