Healing Presence
Rev. Joanna J. Seibert, MD
Preface by Keith Miller
Foreword by Phyllis Tickle

Hardcopy
Release Date:
November 20, 2006
ISBN 0-9785648-4-7
$29.95

Softcopy
Release Date:
November 28, 2007
ISBN 0-9785648-
$14.95

Advance Praise for Healing Presence:

"I am not unusual when I say that my most powerful conversions have happened in the midst of suffering--my own and others.  Reading Joanna Seibert's stories is a rare opportunity to be drawn back into the grace that is present in suffering.  Having been present when this deacon/physician has offered a ministry of healing both spirit and body, I know the reflections contained in this book come from the depths of her faith and wisdom.  More than that, her readers will be invited into the lives of people whose stories are like windows to grace and holiness." 
--The Rt. Rev. Larry E. Maze, 12th Bishop of Arkansas

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"View this book as a doorway through which we enter the world of God’s healing grace.  With elegant simplicity, Joanna Seibert presents glimpses of life at the intersection of medicine and religion. She describes events we all recognize—the death of a child or the anguish of losing one’s mental or motor facilities—and truthfully presents the doubts and difficulties of both caregivers and recipients. But as we move through the events that Seibert describes, we begin to realize that the resources she names are available to us all.  We find ourselves encouraged to expand our own efforts to enter God’s healing presence.  If you are dealing with a life-and-death situation, or know anyone dealing with a life-and-death situation, read this book.  Dr. Joanna Seibert writes honestly about the issues that confront medical and theological caregivers.  Without sentimentality, she reveals many of the forms that God’s healing presence takes and invites her readers to hone their own pastoral skills.  Read this book;  it’s a powerful way to confront your own mortality."   

--Mary Sudman Donovan
A Different Call: Women’s Ministries in the Episcopal Church, 1850-1920
Women Priests in the Episcopal Church: The Experience of the First Decade
Will the Dust Praise YOU?

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"Interweaving the diagnostic skills of a physician’s eye and a pastor’s heart, Seibert probes with reverent clarity the mysteries of human suffering and healing presence.  In gentle, meditative conversations, comprised of Scriptures, prayers, and riveting accounts of tragic illness she has engaged as both doctor and deacon, Joanna gives eloquent psalm-like voice to the full range of feelings suffering evokes.  Healing, she says, can never be equated with curing; but is always available in concentrated acts of personal availability through which the touch of God is mediated. This slender volume incarnates what it advocates.  Who cares for caregivers?  Joanna Seibert does—abundantly."

--Rev. David J. Schlafer
Surving the Sermon
Your Way with God’s Word
        What Makes this Day Different?




About the Author
Rev. Joanna J. Seibert, MD, is a pediatric radiologist at Arkansas Children’s Hospital and the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences who has been an ordained deacon in the Diocese of Arkansas for five years. She was formerly a deacon at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Little Rock, and she is presently assigned to Trinity Episcopal Cathedral Little Rock. She has edited a book of meditations on the Eucharistic readings, Surrounded by a Cloud of Witnesses, has been a writer for Forward, Day by Day, and is a frequent contributor to The Living Church. The author is a facilitator for the Community of Hope, Walking the Mourner’s Path and Trinity’s health ministry. She is also on the board of the National Recovery Ministries of the Episcopal Church. Rev. Dr. Seibert was named one of three "women of distinction" in Arkansas in 1992 and has been named one of the top 100 women in Arkansas by Arkansas Business for several years as well as being on the list of outstanding doctors in the country for many years. She is a former president and chairman of the board of the Society for Pediatric Radiology.  She and her husband Robert have three grown children and have lived in Little Rock for 30 years.

I still so well remember the day I visited the room of an eight-year-old girl dying of cancer at Children’s Hospital. I went to perform a test to try to explain and relieve some of her suffering. Her disease and its treatment had greatly disfigured her body. Her head was almost bald with sparsely scattered streaks of once curly blonde hair. The dark sunken eyes on her ashen face were highlighted by purple blotches beneath her pale skin from previous bleeding episodes. Her paper thin skin seemed attached directly to the bones of her arms and legs. Her breathing was intermittent and labored. Each movement of her frail body took all of her energy. She was in constant pain.

As I entered her room, I was overcome immediately by her suffering—so unjust, unfair, unreasonable. This has been my closest experience of the horror of the crucifixion. But in the midst of this great suffering I also encountered something even more overpowering. This young innocent had not been abandoned. She was not alone. Lying in bed beside the almost lifeless child was her grandmother. This grandmother’s huge body was embracing and surrounding this precious inhuman suffering. I stood in awe, for I knew I was on holy ground. I was in the presence of the living God.

I will never forget the great, gentle arms and body of this grandmother. She never spoke while I was there. She was holding and participating in suffering that she could not relieve, and somehow her silent presence was relieving it. No words could express the magnitude of her love. I had been there before. I knew immediately that this was what my grandmother would have done for me if I had been that child.

I performed my test as quickly as possible, but stood at the door a moment longer, the image of this little girl and her grandmother searing into my heart. In silence I turned and walked out, the door shutting gently behind me.
Excerpt from "The Grandmother"
Section I, p. 9
Book Club Information

**Rev. Dr. Seibert is available to meet with your book club either in person or by phone. Please contact editor@temenospublishing.com

Healing Presence Discussion Questions

1.What is your concept of where God is in our illness and dying?

2.What is the concept in Healing Presence of  God’s presence in our pain and suffering and death?

3.One of the first quotes in the book is “The universe made up of stories, not of atoms.” What do you think this means?

4.How does the cover of Healing Presence relate to the stories in the book?

5.Which story was most moving to you? Why?

6.The stories in the section "Friends Carrying the Paralytic" are particularly about visiting the sick. What is the                            consistent theme throughout the book about how to visit those who are sick?

7.What is the author talking about when she says on page 139, “Will I ever learn how to stand in the face of others                   without having to take up all the space?”

8.The stories in the section "Raising of Jarius’ Daughter" are about the dying process. Where does the author find God               in the process?

9.In the section "Walking the Road to Emmaus," the author tells stories of continuing relationships to those who have                 died. What is her theme about our relationship to our loved ones who have died?

10.How do people in the stories in the "Walking the Road to Emmaus" section use ritual to honor and remember their                 loved ones who have died?

11.If you are in a health care profession, the stories in the last section, "Meeting Angels Unaware," are written especially             about ministering to patients at your workplace. Do any of the stories tell you how to balance being a health                           professional and a minister? Do any of the stories give you insight into how to minister to those at your workplace? 

12.After the death of a loved one, what do the stories in Healing Presence say about our relationship to our loved one               and to God after their death?