Facebook and the First Day of School

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” —Ecclesiastes 3:1.

I remember this morning how I became engaged on Facebook for almost an hour a few months ago! I had gotten up early to post the Daily Something and was overwhelmed by the pictures of children going back to school that week. I couldn’t stop looking at them. There were children I knew from previous churches; children and grandchildren of people I worked with at Children’s Hospital; children I sang and prayed with at the Cathedral School; children from so many Vacation Bible Schools—children I learned from and dearly loved. Some were almost grown.

Most of the younger children and some of the teenagers agreed to look happy and excited for their parents’ pictures. I envision these same photographs brought in albums and embarrassingly shown at future weddings and anniversaries. I think of the joy of grandparents and friends who are not able to see their loved ones as often as they would like, but frequently visit with them on Facebook.

“Where have all the years gone?” was an often-quoted heading with the pictures. I agree. Life is so fleeting. That is why living in the moment, the precious present—loving and enjoying the “now”—is so important. I realize I remember these children most because I did, for a nanosecond, stay present with them at some time in the past. Today I send love to each of them. They in turn have sent love back to my heart, as I remember who they were and cherish who they are today.

Anthony de Mello reminds us to keep our album of good memories so that we can go back and relive them even more fully than the first time. He believes that often a first encounter is too powerful for us to take in. He encourages us to guard and keep these memories for when we want or need to reconnect to their power in the past.

Living in the present is what gives us such beautiful, loving memories; but there also is a season for going back to relive those memories. Times of transitions in our lives, such as starting school, can trigger this need.

That was a good day on Facebook, worth getting up early to see—and a great excuse for forgetting to check the regular news of the day.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Book Signing Wordsworth Books

Saturday, November 2, 2019 1 to 3 pm

Just in time for the holidays

A Spiritual Rx for Advent Christmas, and Epiphany

The Sequel to A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter

Both are $18. Money from sale of the books goes to Camp Mitchel Camp and Conference Center in Arkansas or Hurricane Relief in

The Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast

Humor

“Laughter is carbonated holiness.” —Anne Lamott.

Anne Lamott is also a great writer who has helped me look for the humor in the truth.

There is no question that the God of our understanding has a sense of humor. Therefore, our spiritual life or relationship with God also should reflect that humor. Some of the things that happen to us can be explained only by acknowledging that our God does indeed have sense of humor! This is the God who keeps bringing annoying people into my life–until I realize that what bothers me about them is something unrecognized in myself. I have come to see this as an example of God’s little “jokes.”

Sometimes there are situations in life that can be tolerated only by our having a sense of humor as well. There was a boy in our medical school class, Mike Levinson, whose frequent quote was, “You’ve got to laugh or you will cry!” Some of the challenges then were so difficult that we had to find some lightness in them. When we can acknowledge humor and even absurdity in life, I do believe that that is the Spirit working in us to comfort us. My sense is that if the joke is at someone else’s expense, making fun of another—it is not from God. I see God in situations when I can see humor in some of my own character defects, my sins. “Goodness gracious, God, I just did it again!”

I learned about humor and character defects from 12-step groups. It is not “gallows humor” when something deadly serious is made fun of in a silly or seemingly disrespectful way. There is a fine line.

My mother did the best she could in her lifetime, but I did not appreciate her. I can now remember that every time I would call her, I would expect her to be different, instead of contemplating how I might change my way of relating to her. I now look back on this, and rather than beating myself up, I see how humorous it is to “do the same thing over and over the same way and expect a different result.” It is so true that it is humorous. It is also insanity!

When I find myself getting too serious or am visited by a friend who is looking at life too soberly, my experience is that the antidote for both of us is play: playing with our children or grandchildren, being with friends who know better than we do how to lighten up and “let go.”

Joanna joannaseibert@me.com

Book Signing Wordsworth Books

Saturday, November 2, 2019 1 to 3 pm

Just in time for the holidays

A Spiritual Rx for Advent Christmas, and Epiphany

The Sequel to A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter

Both are $18. Money from sale of the books goes to Camp Mitchel Camp and Conference Center in Arkansas or Hurricane Relief in

The Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast

Guest Writer Isabel Anders: Our Novel Life

“It would seem that the universal society is a great novel, of which each of us is at once joint author, and one of the characters, and many of the characters. At every level we make one another what we are, by reciprocal projection and reflection.” —D. E. Harding in The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth (Faber and Faber, 1952, Introduction by C. S. Lewis).

I have long felt that our human actions with, and for, and sometimes against each other are of more significance than I was taught to believe. C. S. Lewis certainly affirms that truth when he says in The Weight of Glory (Macmillan, 1949) that “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” He continues: “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”

If we were able to sustain even a portion of this awareness as we go about daily life, how different our world would be. The unfolding “novel” in which we find ourselves would take on a different tone. We would think (at least) twice about cutting someone off (in mid-sentence, in our highway lane—or in life). We would learn the discipline of tongue and hand and fist that might banish violence from its pages.

Overestimating our own importance, of course, could work against a truly harmonious world—one of genuine courtesy and consideration. Like any truth, awareness of our human significance can be distorted into making us believe we are gaining “points” for goodness—rather than acting freely out of knowledge and love as we were created to do.

Some fiction writers have reported that their novel seemed to “write itself.” That is not a bad model to keep in mind regarding our behavior toward each other as we go about co-writing the novel that is this shared life.

—Isabel Anders.