Life In Death In Life—Stories, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 3/26/23

There’s a story in John’s gospel (8:3) about life-choices.The locals complained to Jesus about a woman who was caught in adultery. For this she should be condemned and stoned to death. [NOTE: The Inclusive Bible translation is: “A couple had been caught in the act of adultery, but the accusers only brought the woman.” This contemporary translation completely, and rightly, changes the slant of this story. ]  

Still, according to traditional translations used in most worship settings, we hear about the offender being female. Biblical stories are hefty, whether people take them literally or as symbolic stories. Think of favorite children’s story books. I bet they still tell you something about your personality, your soul, life’s big issues, about sins and graces. 

Sexuality is one such issue in the news daily, although sex is usually private. How did this adulterous woman get caught? You might think that the cunning politicians of Jesus’s day brought this case before him to trap him: Did he know the sin/sex-rules or not? Jesus, no fool, stooped to scribble something in the sand, such as “So where’s the guy?”  We don’t know so we wait. Jesus bought himself time to think before he offered the divine teaching/verdict, which is what these accusers wanted. He then stood to address the crowd: “Let the person among you who is without sin throw the first stone.”  Stoning, then and now in some places, was the prescribed punishment for such a sin.    

Silence fell. 

No stones were hurled.  

“Has no one condemned you?” Jesus asked the woman, who said, “No one, Teacher.” 

 “Neither do I condemn you,” Jesus said, sending her off with a warning not to sin further—not the couple, just the woman, mind you. 

This story speaks volumes about the breadth and depth of divine grace, no matter what our sins. It also speaks volumes about human vulnerability, spiritual naiveté, and ignorance about God’s love under all circumstances. 

Is it a Resurrection story?   

*  *  * *

Jesus went on his way to preach and to heal. Before long he encountered the sisters of his best friend, Lazarus. They were angry because Jesus wasn’t there when Lazarus fell ill and died. To them, Jesus could have prevented the death. A moving scene then played out in which Jesus openly wept over his friend’s death.  

Much has been made of this open expression of emotion. It tells me that we human beings have strong and, even holy, feelings, even when we simultaneously have faith that God’s grace is also always present. Jesus’ tears remind me that Jesus was fully human. Did he weep over Lazarus’s death or because he wasn’t there when the sisters needed him? I don’t know. The story tells us that Jesus went to the tomb of Lazarus and called the dead Lazarus to come forth from the tomb. Lazarus is raised from the dead.

I am far less impressed by this miracle than I am by the tears of Jesus.  

The Lazarus story, however, is a crucial building block in the Christian story. It’s a springboard for theological statements about Resurrection—not as doctrine but as experience as viable as Jesus’ tears. Resurrection stories abound, and all of them create emotional intelligence that is missing in doctrinal interpretations. 

Today, I saw the first Robin redbreast strutting about on the dry un-flowered earth. Resurrection.

Today, I got a message that an old friend had suddenly died. I felt tears well up, then remembered this friend’s robust humor—her regaling clergy at a somber clergy conference with a joke about a poor guy with a highly communicable disease who had to be isolated/quarantined and fed a strict diet of flounder only. Q: Why flounder? A: It’s the only thing flat enough to fit under the door of your room. In itself, this  joke is only mildly worthy of a grin, but when this friend told it, her laughter was robust and contagious. It filled the air with sudden joy as we all fell into peels of laughter. Resurrection.  

Today, I heard from a friend in a nursing home who is a steadfast atheist. She called to tell me that she was no longer an atheist. “I’ve moved to agnostic!” We laughed together. Resurrection. 

If our Constitution were amended to include the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)?  Resurrection. 

So let’s get out there, each with our own abilities, gifts, and personalities, and let’s resurrect, revivify whoever, wherever, however. 

RESURRECTION IS  NOW. 

2023.03.19 Blindness Of One and Of Many, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

 

I never forget journalist Betty Friedan, the woman who in 1963, the year my oldest daughter was born, published her first book The Feminine Mystique. It begins:  "The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night — she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — 'Is this all?'" 

That question sparked a second wave of feminism in the United States, after the first one led by Suffragettes in the early 20th century under the banner “Votes for Women” brought the painful truth of political lop-sidedness into American life.  Is that all?  Of course not. Friedan’s book would permanently transform the American social fabric and inaugurate a pioneering moment in American history as one of the most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century. For me, I wanted my own self-honesty and freedom, and I wanted to stay close to my children and theirs—at once.  

*  *  *  *

I’m in the 21st century now, and with conversations much has healed in my family, and I still have blind spots. I wonder why God is still clad in masculine gender. Is this all? 

What about larger questions? What about all our warrior language about peace? Do we make war for peace? Do we “battle” cancer? Do we call domestic violence, abuse? Do we “hate” or “demonize” or “fear” people in a political party not our own? Is this all?

Just today an anonymous person delivered a package we had ordered to our door. It meant we didn’t have to travel down to the first floor to get it. It was toothpaste! We laughed. Such a small gesture felt so silly and small and wonderful. This is all. 

May we be courageous enough to be open-minded not single-minded. More dependent than independent?

Jesus and a Samaritan woman, as well as Jesus and a man born blind, had conversations that changed both of them, both perspectives, and left both to ponder. Me too.  Is this all?  YES. 

Patiently Impatient? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, 2023.03.12

Some years back my priest-spouse, Dick Simeone, and I performed a dialogue homily using a script I’d written about a midrashic (interpretative) conversation between Jesus and a Woman from Samaria (John 4). In our drama, these two protagonists meet at the well to which she is coming to draw water, and Jesus, an inimical intruder on her territory, shows up and rudely demands that she give him a drink from her well. She refuses, thinking him arrogant. He confronts her with a few rude questions about her sexual behavior, her bad rep. What business is that of his? Hmph. 

The gospel writer, John, goes on to proclaim that Jesus forgives her, gives her “magic” water, and preaches about eternal life. In our dramatization, however, the woman stands her ground; Jesus sasses back but he listens; and we all wonder who converts whom in the story? Is this a story about her bad rep (sin) or her bad rap (sexism)?  Is it about the cultural/religious enmity between Samaritans and Jews? Is it about the humanity of Jesus? Or is it about ancient feminism emergent?  

Familiar, right? What’s a woman to do? What’s a Jew to do? What’s an immigrant to do? What’s a man on a sacred mission to do? How do we heal our tug-of-war politics in church and state? How do we reconcile one with another? Perhaps we have to let go of “winning” or being “right.” “Shaming” or being “wrong.” What?

*  *  *  *

Talk. Get honest. Allow what we think with our minds, what we feel in our hearts, and what we do with our bodies to align—yes align. 

Such honesty is reached through the doorway of grief and loss. We get vulnerable about our fears and our own dishonesties, failures, dreams, truths we do not want to hear, unhealed wounds and memories. “We” means all of us in this drama called Life, with whatever biases we hold, according to whatever religion, culture, or nation we hallow, and through whatever prayers we pray.  

*  *  *  *

I remember a very anxious young client to whom, after much back-and-forth/dead-end counseling, I said: “In your vulnerability is your power.” She hopped up, ran out and slammed the door. I never saw her again. Later I heard she got a job. 

What about my own frustrated passion to liberate gender from the gender harness?  I keep talking about it. I read wise books. I “zoom” with women friends. I blog. I make friends. I talk with my spouse. I tell God to soften hearts hardened by fear. I know it’s not all my fault or my responsibility. I also know it matters. I feel impatient. I keep on writing. Then I remember biblical heroes like Jesus and the Samaritan woman who kept on being patiently impatient.  

2023.03.05 Dirge With Hope, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

As one whose years are ebbing, I’m grateful that I do NOT have to huddle and fold up, wintry in soul, even though I could receive, if I wished, receive daily ashes to remind me to be humble daily. Soul does not age. Soul simply unfolds. And the dusty path stretches on before me. 

I know people who are struggling to let go of life. It is a life-long natural inclination to grasp for life always. Consider the tiny flowers that manage to grow up against all odds between the concrete seams in a sidewalk or path. I too can be born again and again. 

I pray that God, as Burns suggests, will “assist me to resign” when it is time for me to relinquish this life I have known and still cling to. I will resist. I will weep. I will pray.  I will hug and cling. And I will trust,  just like the birds who awaken me each day as they start their song in the darkness before the sun rises.

WINTER DIRGE   by Robert Burns    

The wintry west extends his blast,
And hail and rain does blaw;
Or, the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw:
While tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
And roars frae bank to brae;
And bird and beast in covert rest,
And pass the heartless day.

The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,
The joyless winter-day,
Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:
The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join;
The leafless trees my fancy please,
Their fate resembles mine!

Thou Pow’r Supreme, whose mighty scheme
These woes of mine fulfil,
Here, firm, I rest, they must be best,
Because they are Thy will!
Then all I want (O, do Thou grant
This one request of mine!)
Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,

Assist me to resign.