Slow Down... Wait

Slow Down…Waiting

“When I am told that waiting seems to belong to the heart of the spiritual life, I’m not pleased, for I want answers, direction, clarity—and I want them pronto. I desire to feel happy and to know what God is up to; I need my life to make sense—now. I’m pleased to live a spiritual life, but I want to be in charge of it and to make it unfold according to my schedule…. There is that old joke about the pilot who comes on the intercom and says, “I have good news and bad news, folks: The bad news is that we’re totally lost; the good news is that we’re making excellent time!” Maybe we’re forced to wait because God wants us seriously to reconsider the course we’ve charted, to stop hurtling down a dangerous road.”

Robert Barron, "What Are You Waiting For", U.S. Catholic, Dec 2003.

My experience is that spiritual friends initially come to talk because they are consciously or unconsciously in some kind of pain, and like the rest of us seek relief, answers, hopefully very soon. This is something to talk about early on about being aware that staying connected to God requires much waiting. “Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary, and they shall walk, and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31-1) This is a good verse that most people may know and can help all of us to remember when we find ourselves impatient. We will experience times when we will fly and walk and not be tired, but waiting is still a major part of the relationship. 12-step groups talk about not leaving before the miracle happens.

 I have learned a few exercises from my life as a physician about waiting. I would often go to meetings or have patients or other doctors that would keep me waiting. I had those huge ego experiences of “I am very important. You should not keep me waiting. Don’t you know how valuable my time is?” When overcome with these thoughts, I end up mad, arrogant, testy when the person or group finally come. This is never helpful for the interaction. Gradually I learn, that when I find myself waiting, that this is an opportunity to pray for that person or group before we meet, or it is an opportunity to meditate, calm my soul before the meeting. Waiting becomes a gift from that person which makes all the difference in my relationship with those I am meeting with as well as my relationship with God. The same is true about waiting for God. Goodness knows, God spends a great deal of time waiting for us.

 Of course, centering prayer, meditation, contemplation, lectio divina are also more exercises about waiting.

Spiritual writer, Michael Vinson, suggests a waiting exercise of remembering times in our lives when by some miracle we do wait and the miracle happens. Perhaps we wait talking to someone about a situation before we hear the whole story.  Another spiritual writer, Jane Wolfe, responds to Michael in his blog that God will always give us a nudge when it is time to respond and act after we spend time waiting. Jane reminds us of Mary giving Jesus that nudge at the wedding at Cana when it was now time for him to do something!

 “Sit and Wait,” Friday Food, jmichaelvinson.com, February 24, 2017

Joanna          joannaseibert.com

Preacher, Sponsor, Spiritual Friend

Preacher, Sponsor, Spiritual Director

“The first time I was asked to give a lecture on preaching at the Festival of Homilectics, I wasn’t sure what to say, so I asked my congregation. There was passion in their replies and none of it had to do with how much they appreciated their preacher being such an amazing role model for them. Not one said they love the real-life applications they receive in the sermon for how to have a more victorious marriage. Almost all of them said they love that their preacher is so obviously preaching to herself and just allowing them to overhear it.

My friend Tullian put it this way: ‘Those most qualified to speak the gospel are those who truly know how unqualified they are to speak the gospel.’

Never once did Jesus scan the room for the best example of holy living and send that person out to tell others about him. He always sent stumblers and sinners. I found that comforting.”

Nadia Bolz-Weber, Accidental Saints, Find God in All the Wrong People, 2015, pp. 29-30.

Nadia Bolz-Weber is a very unconventional Lutheran pastor in Denver whose presence, writing, and preaching speak to so many of us because she is so aware of who she is and her struggle.  I have found what her congregation is telling her about preaching is true for me in other disciplines as well. Everything I tell someone in a 12-step program as a friend or sponsor is actually what I need to hear in my recovery, pray every morning, make a gratitude list, do an inventory at night, make amends every day to the people I have harmed, remember I am powerless, keep doing the steps, keep going to meetings. This is also true as a spiritual director. What I say to a spiritual friend is also what I need to hear in order to keep my own connection to God, take time for silence, spend as much time outside where I may most realize the presence of God, look for Christ in myself, look for Christ in all I meet, be grounded in my body. When I forgot that I have need to hear all these things as well, in preaching, recovery, spiritual direction, I am in big trouble.  I become like the Episcopal bishop in CS Lewis’ The Great Divorce (chapter 5) who must leave heaven and return to hell because he is reading a paper to a theological society to enlighten them about how Jesus’s teachings would have changed if he had lived longer.

Joanna          joannaseibert.com

Nadia will be at Trinity Cathedral Little Rock April 5th 2018

Merton Prayer, Third Step Prayer

Thomas Merton Prayer, Third Step Prayer

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, 1956

Fork in the Road, Camp McDowell, Winston County Alabama

I share many prayers with spiritual friends, and this is one of my favorites, especially with friends who are discerning how they are going to be the person God created them to be, deciding a vocation, making life changing decisions, or just trying to live in the present, one day at a time. It has similarities to the Third Step Prayer (page 63 of Alcoholics Anonymous, the Big Book.) “God, I offer myself to Thee – to build with me and do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy will always.”

These are prayers of surrender.

Joanna         joannaseibert.com