Offer Companionship on Christmas

Society of St. John: Offer Companionship

“As we approach the Christmas season, think of someone in your life who is sad, lonely, or hurting, and pledge to say or do something to help bring God’s healing love into their lives. Invite them for a coffee or a meal. Visit them. Phone them. Show them that they are not alone.” -Br. Geoffrey Tristram, Brother Give Us a Word, Daily Email, December 19, 2017, Society of Saint John the Evangelist

The Brothers of St. John remind us of the gifts we have to offer for Christmas. There are 12 days of Christmas between Christmas Day and Epiphany on January 6. These should be slow-down times for us where we can re-center. Children are out of school waiting for us to play with them. There is no better way to connect to the Christ born within us than connecting to the newly born Christ in children who have not developed worldly masks of protection, which also often hide Christ’s essence.

We all have neighbors and friends we have neglected because of our busyness. This is the time to offer them our precious gift of time. Share with them the love that the Christ Child’s birth brought to us and waits to be seen through us.

Joanna  https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Norris: Responding to Mystery

Norris: Responding to Mystery

“Mary proceeds—as we must do in life—making her commitment without knowing much about what it will entail or where it will lead. I treasure the story because it forces me to ask: When the mystery of God’s love breaks through into my consciousness, do I run from it? Do I ask of it what it cannot answer? Shrugging, do I retreat into facile cliches, the popular but false wisdom of what “we all know”? Or am I virgin enough to respond from my deepest, truest self, and say something new, a “yes” that will change me forever?”—Kathleen Norris in  Amazing Grace.

The heart of the spiritual life is our response to the mystery. Indeed, Mary is our icon for responding to a mystery presented to her. Like Mary, we must be open to the presence of a call to the unknown. I have always wondered if Gabriel visited other young women who said, “Let me think about it,” “Come back later,” “This is not a good time for me to do this,” “No, definitely, not!” “You must be kidding!”

Undoubtedly, our answers to the mystery will change our lives forever. My experience is that we can learn to respond to the unknown in small ways to be ready when a more significant call to the mystery comes. This is the practice of awareness and openness. However, we must also be open to going off or temporarily abandoning our agenda and listening to the interruptions in our lives. The mystery is all around us, in every waking moment, in Nature, young children, older adults, often in those in need and poverty, especially in our interruptions.

Taking time to be in silence or with others in need, or being outdoors each day can expose us to the mystery of a world greater than ourselves. Spending time with young children can connect us to joy and love without conditions. Some of the most spiritual people I know are older men and women who know better than any of us how little control we have in our lives and have accepted it and made peace with it. The people I once sat with who came to our food pantry often talked about how blessed their lives were. They saw blessings in every offering.

“Let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38) could be one of our best mantras for Advent and the rest of our lives.

Joanna   https://www.joannaseibert.com/

The Last Leaf

Lessons From The Last Leaf

“Everyone whom I allow to touch me in my weakness and help me to be faithful to my journey to God’s home will come to realize that he or she has a gift to offer that may have remained hidden for a very long time. To receive help, support, guidance, affection, and care may well be a greater call than that of giving all these things because in receiving I reveal the gift to the givers, and a new life together can begin.”—Henri Nouwen in You are the Beloved (Convergent Books 2017).

 A single autumn leaf has been clinging to the wood frame of my office window for weeks. It is the first and last thing I look for as my day begins and ends. It reminds me of one of my favorite O. Henry short stories, “The Last Leaf.”

A young artist in New York’s Greenwich Village at the turn of the last century loses her will to live and succumbs to pneumonia. She watches from her window as the cold winter wind blows leaves from a tree branch growing along the side of a nearby adjacent building. She decides when the last leaf falls, she will die.

She eventually watches the last leaf miraculously remain on the tree until she regains her will to live. Later, she discovers that an older artist in her building, whose own realistic paintings rarely sell, hears her story. He spends a night in the cold and icy rain while she sleeps, painting a leaf on the wall of the building. Shortly after he paints “his masterpiece” to save her life, he also dies from the pneumonia epidemic.

Of course, the story is one of sacrifice and love for another human, reminiscent of the story of the good Samaritan. It is also a story of hope. How do we offer people the hope that they will not remain in despair? There is a promise of Easter after every Good Friday experience.

But that promise of light in the darkness can be difficult without the help of others. The darkness forgets what light is like. We see and read about this hope from others. The story of old Simeon and Anna at the temple in Jerusalem at Jesus’ presentation reminds us of the promise that the Christ Child will always come to us as we wait.  

I also see this story about the use of our gifts and talents. We may think our abilities are minor compared to others, maybe even worthless. But there will be a time when what we offer is precisely what someone else needs. We will be called to use our talent at the right time when others may not be there to help.

Advent is a time to watch, wait, and pray that we will be open to offering what we consider as our “insignificant masterwork” that will make a difference in the life of another.

Joanna. joannaseibert.com