Mary and Elizabeth 2: Spiritual Friends

“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’ … And Mary said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.’”

—Luke 1:41-47.

This visit of Mary to Elizabeth in Luke is one of our most descriptive Scripture passages about what it is like to be and have a spiritual friend or soul mate, seeking to see Christ in each other. The response by our neighbor may sometimes be just as miraculous as being able to respond with the joy of The Magnificat.

The story tells us that seeing Christ in our neighbor is a gift of the Holy Spirit. We are to put ourselves in position to receive this gift of the Holy Spirit; then see Christ in our neighbor; and then honor Christ in our neighbor. The Spirit enables us to look and listen for and honor the Christ in those we encounter. The promise of this story is that when we reflect the Christ in our neighbor back to him or her, he may also see the Christ in himself and be enabled to live out—and even sometimes sing out—The Magnificat.

What does it mean to “sing out The Magnificat”?

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.”

The words are very clear. It is living out a life of gratitude and praise and being open to God working in our lives even in times of great stress. Our role model is an unmarried, pregnant young girl who is enabled by the love of her older relative to express her faith in her God so eloquently. The fruit of the Spirit that springs forth when we see Christ in each other is gratitude and praise. This is our sign that we are indeed open to honoring God in each other.

What a difference we could make in our own lives as well as our neighbors’ if we could each be an Elizabeth to the Marys we daily visit at home and at work. When we see Christ in our neighbor we will find that our true self, our God connection within, will also “leap for joy”! 1

1Seibert in The Living Church, May 25, 2003.

Joanna . joannaseibert.com

Merton: Mary and Elizabeth

“Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes.”

—Thomas Merton in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Doubleday, 1966), pp. 140-142.

Merton’s mystical experience captures what spiritual friends seek to accomplish, seeing the light of Christ in each other. If only we could see each other as God does. I am reminded of the visit of Mary, the mother of Jesus, to her even more pregnant relative, Elizabeth, in Luke 1:39-56. As Elizabeth, carrying John the Baptist, hears Mary’s greeting to her, the baby in her womb leaps for joy. Elizabeth is then filled with the Holy Spirit and greets Mary with the words: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Mary then breaks into the song of praise and thanksgiving that we call The Magnificat: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.” How wonderful, when we meet our neighbor, that the creative part within us, the Christ within us, leaps for joy to perceive the Christ within our neighbor. What does this story tell us occurs in our lives and the lives of our neighbor when this happens? We are filled with the Holy Spirit, and our neighbor is empowered to say or sing or live out The Magnificat.

Some of us are like Mary, just beginning to bear children. Many of us are like Elizabeth, beyond childbearing age. Some of us have never borne children; but this story of these two saints, along with Merton’s story, still speaks to all of us. God is speaking to the birthing, the creative part of us that empowers us to see the Christ in ourselves and the Christ in our neighbor.1

1 Seibert, The Living Church, May 25, 2003.

Joanna . joannaseibert.com

Sue Monk Kidd: Cocoons

“Our deepest struggles are in effect our greatest spiritual and creative assets and the doors to whatever creativity we might possess.”

—David Whyte in The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America (Crown Business, 2002), p. 62.

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In When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions, speaker and writer Sue Monk Kidd reflects on her spiritual journey at mid-life. She compares this journey to being in a cocoon of darkness and finally emerging as a butterfly. Even though this image is more often one of Easter, it can also be a model of our journey through Advent. In the cocoon, Kidd shares with us her experience of the false selves that keep us from being the person God created us to be—the defenses we use for survival that, like an addiction, eventually harm us. She reminds us to embrace them, kiss them, thank them for caring for us, but realize it is time to see what is beneath the thick skin cover-up.

Kidd describes the word crisis that in the Greek means separation, to leave the dead. Crisis is a holy summons to cross a threshold. Our response to crisis can be fighting it by looking for comfort or justice, or by waiting and using the time to be soul-making (the narrow gate). Instead of trying to ride the crisis she challenges us to attempt to understand and identify the feelings that come up in the crisis— like sorting tangled ribbons—and then express these feelings, especially through symbols. One such useful image is a cocoon, helpful in writing or sharing our story or reflecting on our dreams.

Those who are a part of a sacramental tradition in which everyday symbols such as water, bread and wine, and oil are used as outward evidences of a inner grace can identify with the use of earthly symbols in our spiritual lives.

Kidd talks about the difficulty of letting go by comparing it to the caterpillar’s resistance to change, called “diapause.” We fear leaving this former life as though it is “all we have.” I personally experienced this “nothing left” as I heard a call to transition from my medical career.

Letting go also happens at retirement and when we find an empty nest after our children leave, or after we experience the death of a loved one. Kidd quotes from poet Rainer Maria Rilke that as we resist, we should try loving the questions in our heart like locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. We should live the questions in the darkness, and the answers will come later, as we see resurrection. Jesus, of course, was the master of leading people to growth with more questions.

As Kidd moved from the cocoon of darkness to light, she began eastering or experiencing resurrection. She experienced delight in life, found a feminine side of God, learned a love of creation, and made a connection with her body. She learned that when she showed disrespect for her body, she also showed disrespect for the earth.

She also had a desire to live in the present, the now here instead of the nowhere when we live in the past or future, as though we are preparing to live instead of living. When we live in the present, time becomes not a straight line but a deep dot.

Kidd describes three stages of her contemplative awareness: first, hearing the words but not the music, then hearing the words and the music; and finally being the music.

Our orchestra seats for the Arkansas Symphony in Little Rock are almost on the front row. I wonder if these seats may be an unconscious icon and invitation to be the music. As we live in the present, listening to the music, we learn, as Kidd also did, little by little, about our authentic self, the true self—that musical piece God has made.

joanna joannaseibert.com