Returning to Florida

Encouraging one another

“We need one another. I think we can feel that. The more things get crazy, the more they seem to spin out of control, the more we recognize that our true allies are standing all around us, men and women as bemused by events as we are, as tired of living in the daily disaster as we are, longing for the firm ground of an honest dissent and a democratic process. Until that crazy gyroscope of power stops spinning, we need one another. We need common sense, strong values, deep listening, honest talk. The counter weight to confusion is community, the balance to chaos is a coherent vision.” Steven Charleston Facebook page

Chapel of College of Preachers, National Cathedral

Returning to Florida

We are on our way to the Alabama Gulf Coast after Hurricane Irma. Our destination was not damaged by the storm that devastated neighboring Florida. All of the cars we follow have Florida license plates. Some are packed to the gills. Some are dangerously carrying extra cans of gasoline in their trunk and on their roofs. Trucks with generators pass by. Pickup trucks are filled with bottled water.  We spend the night at a hotel on the way where the parking lot is filled with cars with Florida licenses. The hotel is more like a hostel with large families with their large and small dogs.

There is no water under the causeway at Mobile Bay. It was all blown out to sea, to the gulf. Could this have been the way the Israelites crossed the Red Sea in the exodus?  The waters were pushed out by hurricane winds for the Israelites to cross and then the storm surge came in when the tide changed to swallow up the Egyptians.

We say a prayer as each car passes remembering our return to the gulf coast after the devastation by Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina. The memories are still painful of not recognizing our road or our condo building or how to enter it and the smell of rotting food in the refrigerator. Perhaps this is what we have to offer. A tiny connection of what people are going through in Texas, Florida, and the Caribbean, but knowing that theirs is so much worse. We send prayers and financial aid for the present. Waiting to hear about more. Most of all we stand together in relationship with them, hoping that they can feel in some way the cosmic love that is being sent to them. We send hope, love, prayers, financial support, but mostly hope and promise that resurrection can come from this Good Friday.

Joanna        joannaseibert.com   

Remembering September 11 again

Remembering September 11

.Father Mychal's Prayer

“Lord, take me where you want me to go;

Let me meet who you want me to meet;

Tell me what you want me to say, and

Keep me out of your way. Amen”

Fr. Mychal Judge, O.F.M.

Chaplain, New York Fire Department killed on 9/11/2001 at the World Trade Center. Death Certificate Number 1.

Remnants of Twin Towers at Newseum

This now famous prayer of Father Mychal Judge who died at the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001 was continually on my mind yesterday after our country observed a moment of silence as we heard the names read of the almost 3000 people who died in four coordinated attacks on this country that early autumn morning. Flags were at half-staff as we traveled yesterday.

 Mychal Judge was a Franciscan friar and Catholic priest serving as a chaplain to the New York City Fire Department, not afraid to become part of the messiness of life. After the first attack, he prayed over bodies in the streets and then went into the lobby of the North Tower that had become an emergency command post. He was killed by flying debris when the South Tower collapsed. His biographers say his dying prayer was “Jesus, please end this right now! God, please end this!” The iconic photograph of five men carrying his body out of the North Tower has been described as an American Pieta, another Michael’s statue of Mary holding the dead body of Jesus in St. Peter’s in Rome or a lesser known work of Michelangelo, Deposition with Joseph of Arimathea, as Barbara Crafton showed yesterday on her The Almost-Daily Emo from The Geranium Farm.

Father Mychal was also most remembered as a staunch supporter of LGBT rights as well as being a sober member of Alcoholic Anonymous for 23 years.   Another 3000 were reported to have attended his funeral. Father Michael Duffy closed his homily at that service with, “We come to bury Myke Judge’s body but not his spirit. We come to bury his hands, but not his good works. We come to bury his heart, but not his love. Never his love.”

Michael Daly, Daily News (New York) , February 11, 2002.

Shannon Stapleton, September 11, 2001, Photojournalist.

Stephen Todd, Daily Ponderables, September 11, 2017.

“Slain Priest: ‘Bury His Heart, But Not His Love’ September 8, 2011, NPR Morning Edition

Joanna    joannaseibert.com

Labyrinths and Expectations

Labyrinths and Looking Forward and Expectations

“Not too long ago I walked a labyrinth for the first time in my life. I had flirted with labyrinths for years, but my expectations were so high that I kept finding reasons not to walk one. I did not want to hurry. I did not want to share the labyrinth with anyone who might distract me. I did not want to be disappointed. I looked forward to walking a labyrinth so much that looking forward to it kept me from doing it for years.”

Barbara Brown Taylor,  An Altar in the World

Labyrinth at Arkansas Childrens Hospital

With her usual honesty, Barbra Brown Taylor reminds us of how our expectations of a spiritual practice can keep us from the practice. We may have fears that we will not be able to do the practice that so many of our spiritual friends find helpful. The answer of course is that it is impossible for us to connect to God through all the spiritual practices. We try them out, give them some time, and may realize that this is not our best way to connect to God. God has provided a smorgasbord of ways to connect to God. Some practices may be helpful at one stage in our life and not in another.  At one time in my life, Morning Prayer and Lectio Divina stabilized my body and soul. At other times a daily walk around my neighborhood centered me before I went to work at the hospital. Now it is writing. Writing has now become my best form of prayer.

 I talk to spiritual friends about not giving up or never considering a spiritual practice again. Listen to the Spirit within. My experience is that we will have a nudge to try something again. What a blessing that we have so many ways to connect to God.

I have difficulty with centering prayer. I have difficulty just sitting still and calming the committee in my head, but I do not give up. Walking the labyrinth is a natural for me. Concentrating on walking the path gives my mind a much-needed rest. Walking a path makes me live in the presence again rather than the past or future. The surrender to the path, a metaphor for our spiritual journey, is a reminder of how we keep this connection to God within us as well as God in our neighbor. Early on the journey we come very close to the center. I think, “Aha, I have finished”, but immediately after that thought, I am back around the edge. I am close to the edge near the end and think I still have a long way to go, and then suddenly I am finished.  I need a meditation with movement to connect me. The labyrinth, dance, yoga, walking meditations are ways to quietness for those of us who lives with the busyness of life and let it park in our minds constantly thinking about the past or future.

My experience is that I do not receive the gift of connection always in the labyrinth center. It may be anyway along the path. I remember one New Year’s Eve I walked the labyrinth at Christ Church. It was chilly and I wore a shawl with fringes that was like ones you saw over your grandmother’s piano. Half way out, I felt a new warmth. I felt the love of my grandmothers surrounding me like the long black shawl.

 Often as I walk I meditate on to the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, a   Vietnamese spiritual leader in walking meditation, “People say that walking on water is a miracle, but to me walking on earth is a real miracle.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Long Road Turns to Joy, A Guide to Walking Meditation.

Joanna         joannaseibert.com