2022.11.27 ADVENT—Woes Begotten and Be-Gone, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

The season leading up to the birth of Christ is called Advent, derived from Latin ad + venire (to come). Something worth noting is coming up. Even waiting can make one’s soul tingle, anticipating even God!  

Sadly, Advent often gets run over by the sin of buying, shopping, shoving, crowding, crowing. Sin is whatever separates us from the goodness in ourselves, God and our neighbors. Preoccupation with over-shopping blinds us to this goodness. 

In this country we’ve overstuffed ourselves, offered thanks, and now head for a shopping day we nervously call Black Friday—now extended for weeks.  We also have witnessed  SEVEN days of SEVEN mass murders—one per day. We have witnessed world starvation and weather events of mass destruction. We are traumatized. What will bring hope and healing? 

Can collective prayer be a "weapon"? Dare we openly, out loud, barrage the God we usually thank and praise with a prayer assault, a prayer war? Love, divine and human, is best of course, yet how much Love is too much Love before it becomes empty of truth? I don’t know. 

Apparently neither does Jesus who, in the face of fear and questioning about ongoing apocalyptic chaos, says: “I don’t know. No one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, only the Father.”  (Mt.24:36) I find this harsh truth oddly comforting. I cannot know exactly why trauma and tragedy and unbearable loss happen, even if I can exactly describe and analyze the circumstances. So I live at the edge of unknowing. No one is ever condemned by God for wanting to know, for simply giving up, for wavering in faith, longing to know, or taking one’s own life. 

*  *  *  *

Once upon a time this lonely boy met this lonely girl. In their loneliness they found love. In the love they had found fun and laughter and marriage which, in the 1960s, meant they had to play house—he to work for money and she to home to cook and clean. Years went by. They had their money and their beautiful children, but they no longer could see each other clearly through the dense mist of fear and tears that—slowly slowly— had settled around them. They turned away from each other, said goodbye to each other, to the love they once had and would never forget, but reinvested it in their children and in new love.  

*  *  *  *  

I wonder if this is what Jesus’s followers did when they remembered that he once told them that the world as they knew it would come to an end, never be the same, and no one knew exactly when, why or how, except God who is silent.  

I’m annoyed but not depressed or helpless. I’ve been tempted to choose atheism or feign weak agnostic faith, but damn it, I can’t. Woe is me. And so I pray.  

Prayer will be my weapon, instead of knowledge. Prayer will be my faith-of-unknowing.                   

 

2022.11.20 Tiny Graces—Thanks Given. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

One of my sons asked me recently what patriarchy was. He is fifty-five, smart and resilient, and yet he asked, possibly because I’ve often said that we (the world) are experiencing the death throes of patriarchy. 

I answered that patriarchy is a centuries old hierarchal system, the world over, of social organization and power that, simplistically, looks like this: God, man, woman, son, slave/servant, animals, natural life. Race, gender, role, and geography, were added. Death throes mean change. We must ALL respect each other and together save our Earth. 

One of these changes is to de-patriarchalize divinity. It hurts, disorients and re-creates. In  such times, I survive by noticing tiny graces that provide hope and evoke big thanks. 

*  *  *  *

-A very small boy in the supermarket insists on carrying the family turkey after it’s checked out. The child, maybe six, stands on tiptoes, stretches forward, hoists the good-sized, neatly packaged and trussed turkey off the check-out line and into his small arms. He staggers backwards then catches his balance and with a huge grin embraces the turkey with a hug and carries it out of the store, his mother probably praying as she watches this little family Thanksgiving hero. Maybe God occasionally upsizes human effort. 

-From our window I have watched a birds’ nest being carefully built, twig by twig, high in a tree whose leaves soon fell. The good-sized nest looks sturdy and a work of art. Before long I observe baby birds, small brown and unprepossessing, emerge. One after another they take flight—not far at first, then experimenting with longer flights, all perching on branches of a nearby tree. Each time, after some signal, they simultaneously fly back to home base. One morning I see them all—twenty to my count—swoop over and land on the barren ground across the driveway from their home. They peck and peck at the barren ground. What food could be there? Then, on hidden command, they simultaneously ascend and fly back home. Many human teens do the same. 

-A Tee shirt meme: “Hold on. Let me overthink this!”  I’ve done this.

-Then there’s the resiliently resistant raindrop that simply will not continue its flow down the windowpane even after the rain stops. It’s large. It reflects sunlight. It does not dry up. It winks at me—God’s tear I think.   

-Finally, a little bit of mischief with the fact of Jesus’s humanity, not something many Christians like to remember about the one we call Lord—fully human and fully divine, neither nature compromising the other. One Christmas I was preaching about the whole nativity scenario—a tender scene everyone loves to sing about, and no one would want to experience. I cautioned against over-romanticizing this narrative, denying all the pain and danger surrounding it. After all, I said, swaddling clothes were diapers. A woman shot up from her pew, turned tail, and stormed out, never to return. I was forgiven, not “fired.” 

-Sometimes in the pitch dark of night I reach for my beloved’s hand. It’s still warm. We’re in our eighties. Life feels more fragile. Our 36th wedding anniversary is this week.  

-In Corrie ten Boom’s holocaust memoir, The Hiding Place, she, a Dutch Christian, is tossed into prison—starved, freezing, alone, and facing death. In a barren cell, she spots a tiny ant crawling in from between cracks invisible to human eye. She is thrilled. She shares crumbs from her single piece of stale bread with the ant. Soon more ants appear, and she dines with them, praying with praise, “A relationship!” 

-Christians move into both Christmas and Easter, with the same Bible story: Jesus about to face the trial of his life, leading to his hideous death. In this highly symbolic and historic story there is a stunningly tiny detail: he rides into town on an ass—a donkey! 

There is no place that God is not. Hear the psalmist sing: “Your presence is known through all who help me; with them I can look danger squarely in the face.” (Psalm 118, Greenberg) And I say, Thank you. 

 

2022.11.13 What? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

Be patient and do nothing extraordinary. Oh sure! I’m not that type, but thanks for the advice anyway. I’ll keep on trying till I bust, even when it seems as if I’m failing and flawed.

I have to admit this futility is some of what I have felt lately about our world, our country, our planet. I even stopped watching the news. I prayed and read the Bible over and over until everything looked the same to me, except the Psalms, well known for heart-rending laments. Mostly, I’ve felt dry and dull and edgy. 

I was reading a sentence in some book: “No one knew and no one knows.” I kept reading it over and over. Unexpectedly I suddenly felt real fear—real fear like a stab of lightning in my gut. What if this country stops being my home? What if the whole Earth just dies? I thought these thoughts were irrational, but there was nothing irrational about the knot of terror in my gut.

*  *  *  *

Then came Election Day, 2022. I went to bed without waiting up to see at least the first results. Strangely, I slept. 

Not until the evening did I listen to some news. Shocking! The American people went to the polls in record numbers. There was no youthful apathy. They voted. There was no violence. No one got shot. Political predictions of doom did not come true. Yes, the outcomes were according to my own hopes and party, but that wasn’t the point, just as winning is not always the point of a well run race. The point is that something very big had happened: WE happened. 

The American people, we the people, actually voted for our lives together and for our democracy. No one knew and no one knows exactly how or why this happened, despite many theories, stats, and pundits. And no one can predict the future, though many will try anyway.

Jonathan Capehart, PBS News Hour commentator, said “The American people proved they can walk and chew gum at the same time.”  The electorate chose Democracy, period. This could be the emergence of an anti-authoritarian move—proof that we actually know how to get things done without violence or noisy political bullying. 

My gut fear has been replaced by gratitude without reservation for being American.

Jesus told his panicky followers during apocalyptic times: Sit tight. Do nothing extreme. Trust the process. “By patient endurance you will save your lives.” (Luke 20:19) 

What Kind of World? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 11/6/22

      

People the world over are anticipating a new something. Change is happening. Change must happen. As Sister Joan Chittister declares in her new book Awakening. Prophetic Reflections:  “In the face of every obstacle, I heard the call of God to wake up, to speak out, to leave some melodies behind. Then, perhaps others could sing new songs of the truth within them, too, so that generations to come might also wake up.

IF WE AWAKEN. NOW.”  

What kind of a world do I want?

I want a world that places less emphasis on mastery and more on participatory cooperation. My world would be/have:

-less denominational, more relational 

-less Christian, more Christ-like

-less partisan, more hospitable 

-less preaching, more dialogue

-less assumptions, more asking

-less knowledge, more education

-less reactivity, more communion

-less national, more cosmic

-less denial, more risk

-less hoarding, more sacrifice

-less weeding, more planting

-less mouth, more ear

-less labeling, more accepting

-less hunt, more gather

-less hate, more compassion

-less abortion, more compassion

-less cursing, more blessing

-less sentimentality, more emotional intelligence

-less fear, more gratitude

-less judgment, more prayer

-less despair, more hope

One image for my “world” is a Sycamore Tree—arms of branches embrace, accommodate this planet and ALL inhabitants.

What would I sacrifice for this awakened world? 

-My deep affection for Jesus as I see him in prayer and the Bible? Jesus, however, was only one of several great mediators between Creator and created— not the one and only. Jesus’s uniqueness I’d sacrifice.

-My own life?  I would risk my life for my closest family, undergo organ donation surgery, for example. But I wouldn’t jump out in front of an oncoming bus, just to prove my love. I’m not suicidal. Nor am I the martyr type. 

-Prayer?—not saying prayers but being prayer. I found this connection in early childhood through a book and my mother’s story.  It’s probably not unique to me, nor is it magical, mystical, or particularly religious. It is my fuel—ongoing, intimate, introverted, conversational, inaudible, some of it 911 stuff but mostly more like daily “bread”. 

What if I were unconscious, demented, a “vegetable” as they say? Then God would pray. 

What if 911 doesn’t answer? If I don’t get the outcomes I pray for, you mean? That’s the case, more often than not, and that’s not the point of prayer. I’d cry and rage to God, anyway, but not put God on trial. I’m spiritual, not irrational; nor am I God. 

Occasionally, this listening presence of a deity pipes up with some startlingly new idea, like, what the hell are you doing?  I listen.  

So no, I wouldn’t sacrifice prayer for the sake of a better world. Not because it “works,” nor because it’s spiritually powerful, nor because it’s what the Church does, nor even because I’m so good, or so bad. Prayer is not something I could give up, because it’s not mine alone to give.