Early morning is my favorite time of day. It's become as predictable as the newspaper carrier who deposits the Log Cabin Democrat in our box every morning before dawn. As the sky brightens, I head out the front door for a 2-mile walk along the rural neighborhood roads, pull the paper out of the box on my way back up the driveway, then sit back in the rocking chair on the front porch, breathing in the solitude and conversing with the oak trees. Breakfast follows with a bowl of Wheat Chex, topped with frozen blueberries, a piece of toast covered with butter and drizzled with honey, and a cup of steaming chai tea.
I'm never alone, even though on most mornings there's no one in the house but me. Mr. Emerson joined me each morning for a couple of months, as I shared in an earlier posting. Mr. Thoreau heard about my chai tea and came knocking, but kindly said that he would return, seeing that I already had morning company.
Joanna Seibert has been my invited guest for the last 150 days as I have read a psalm and meditation in her book, The Call of the Psalms, A Spiritual Companion for Busy People.
It was not the psalms that drew me to this book, but Joanna's responses to them, based on my respect for her as a deeply spiritual person and a writer. I had read psalms responsively for years, growing up in the Methodist church, and memorized the 100th Psalm when I was in first or second grade Sunday School. Lines I can still recite "by heart" today...
Make a joyful noise to the Lord,
All ye lands.
Enter his gates with Thanksgiving
and his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him; bless his name.
Beyond that, I spent little time reading them, treating them simply as words heard and memorized but never analyzed or experienced. Even in Joanna's book, I often skip the scripture and move directly to her reflection, eager to learn from her life. And what I find, without frills and without fail each day is. . . honesty. Honestly, which I've learned from Joanna, is at the core of the pslamists' writings.
If I had read Joanna's bio before meeting her, I would have been too intimated to shake her hand -- the Superwoman of all Superwomen. A doctor (professor of radiology and pediatrics at Arkansas Children's Hospital and the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences), deacon in the Episcopal church, published author, harpist, wife, mother of three and grandmother of six, with more distinctions and awards to her name than she's willing to admit. Thankfully, her genuine kindness and tender care touched my life before word of her resume. Her book reflects her humanness.
Joanna's struggle with addiction and a variety of "character defects," as she terms them, along with her search for balance, peace, and healing, pour out through her writing. I respond to her thoughts by writing in my journal, as if she and I were having a conversation as we sit across the table, blowing steam from our tea cups. I listen to her, I learn, take a step back, a step forward, connecting her words to my life, reflecting, striving to grow with the same illusive balance and peace.
"Peace comes with gratitude." Joanna writes in response to Psalm 148, and repeats the belief, the epiphany, on the final page of the book.
"Listening and living a life of praise and gratitude is a new life for me. It is a road less traveled."
I finished psalm #150 today, closed the book and put down my pen. I will miss Joanna's presence in my morning routine, the companionship through her writing. As I continue the journey with her on that less-traveled road, I'm grateful that I can pick up the phone, hear her voice and invite her to join me for a real cup of tea.
I'm never alone, even though on most mornings there's no one in the house but me. Mr. Emerson joined me each morning for a couple of months, as I shared in an earlier posting. Mr. Thoreau heard about my chai tea and came knocking, but kindly said that he would return, seeing that I already had morning company.
Joanna Seibert has been my invited guest for the last 150 days as I have read a psalm and meditation in her book, The Call of the Psalms, A Spiritual Companion for Busy People.
It was not the psalms that drew me to this book, but Joanna's responses to them, based on my respect for her as a deeply spiritual person and a writer. I had read psalms responsively for years, growing up in the Methodist church, and memorized the 100th Psalm when I was in first or second grade Sunday School. Lines I can still recite "by heart" today...
Make a joyful noise to the Lord,
All ye lands.
Enter his gates with Thanksgiving
and his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him; bless his name.
Beyond that, I spent little time reading them, treating them simply as words heard and memorized but never analyzed or experienced. Even in Joanna's book, I often skip the scripture and move directly to her reflection, eager to learn from her life. And what I find, without frills and without fail each day is. . . honesty. Honestly, which I've learned from Joanna, is at the core of the pslamists' writings.
If I had read Joanna's bio before meeting her, I would have been too intimated to shake her hand -- the Superwoman of all Superwomen. A doctor (professor of radiology and pediatrics at Arkansas Children's Hospital and the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences), deacon in the Episcopal church, published author, harpist, wife, mother of three and grandmother of six, with more distinctions and awards to her name than she's willing to admit. Thankfully, her genuine kindness and tender care touched my life before word of her resume. Her book reflects her humanness.
Joanna's struggle with addiction and a variety of "character defects," as she terms them, along with her search for balance, peace, and healing, pour out through her writing. I respond to her thoughts by writing in my journal, as if she and I were having a conversation as we sit across the table, blowing steam from our tea cups. I listen to her, I learn, take a step back, a step forward, connecting her words to my life, reflecting, striving to grow with the same illusive balance and peace.
"Peace comes with gratitude." Joanna writes in response to Psalm 148, and repeats the belief, the epiphany, on the final page of the book.
"Listening and living a life of praise and gratitude is a new life for me. It is a road less traveled."
I finished psalm #150 today, closed the book and put down my pen. I will miss Joanna's presence in my morning routine, the companionship through her writing. As I continue the journey with her on that less-traveled road, I'm grateful that I can pick up the phone, hear her voice and invite her to join me for a real cup of tea.
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