2023.07.30 Leavening The Soul, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

Sometimes, the smallest seemingly insignificant acts implant the most enormous transformations in the least expected places.  

According to Andrew McGowan, Dean of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, parables are not what they seem, and words changed to fit the modern ear may not evoke the spiritual power that Jesus desired. The word “yeast” used in the story of the woman who baked bread is better translated as it would have been in the ancient times, as leaven. Leaven is a sourdough starter. McGowan suggests that we read this parable when we’re actually hungry. Even as I write this my mouth waters and I check the clock to see if it’s dinner time yet? And too, I feel my heart pumping with eager hope. 

Take the story of the woman who leavens her bread with a pinch, and it suddenly swells, enough to feed not only the body but the family, and the soul. Well, I bet if you read these little stories of Jesus when you’re really hungry, any reference to good food, not gourmet or fancy but basic, makes your mouth water, and your heart leap with hope. 

Think of this tiny rising as a prayer, and remember that the outsized God we often envision comes most often in very small pinches of joy and truth—leaven for the soul.

                                        *  *  *  *

I just listened to the the Smith College 2023 commencement speech by Rashma Saujani, younger than my youngest child, attorney, author, politician. She leavens the huge gathering of female grads and guests. She says that there is no such thing as “imposter syndrome” because women are not imposters. 

And furthermore, the strong ongoing resistance to our equality is “not because there’s something wrong with us, it’s because there’s NOT.” 

Now that’s good leaven!

Here’s a tiny story about leaven that happened in my own kitchen over 50 years ago. I remember it as if it were yesterday. It still leavens my heart. When my youngest son was about three, he and his cousin decided to create a “wedding” in front of our house. For authenticity, they bit off all the newly risen tulips and strewed the petals all over the lawn. Such a wedding!!  

I knew that we parents had labored hard to plant and nurture these tulip bulbs to adorn our barren hillside. When they came up we were thrilled.“Daddy” would be furious when he came home that evening and found the tulip disaster. I’d reprimanded our son already and, like any good mother would, put extra wads of night diapers on him as we awaited the father’s homecoming. 

When Dad came in the door, already fuming, his tiny youngest son ran (waddle-toddled) to meet him. He stood, hesitated, and looked up at his father with the sweetest look I’ve ever seen, and said. “I love my daddy.”   

Even the weeniest leavening softens the heart, and signals the presence of God. 

2023.07.23 Weeds and Wheat Together, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

There is always so much more to a Jesus parable than the surface meaning. The story of the weeds and the wheat is classic. It forces us all to think about much larger social issues than the farmer’s plantings.  A few queries:

- The writers of Matthew’s gospel consistently over-explain Jesus’s meaning. Beware and simplify to get the point. Is it God’s point?  

-Check to see whether this parable is reported by other gospel writers. It is NOT. It is unique to Matthew. This is significant, largely because Matthew is the gospel with the strongest agenda about “selling” Jesus’ ideas to Jews.

-Focus on the primary words attributed to Jesus—the basics, not the explanatory elaborations directed to the disciples alone in private. This story is told as an image of the Kingdom of Heaven—God’s territory and charge, that is not the “heaven” we speak of after death. It is NOW. 

-Think economics: farm workers (laborers) who work for a “Boss” aka God who is in charge of this kingdom. They naturally worry about the wellbeing of the seeds they plant, the crops that represent their livelihood (Business)

-Heroes of story = farmers (suppliers/supply) and good wheat (product in demand)  Think Ukrainian imports in 2023. Think starvation as a looming worldwide threat in 2023. 

-Villains = weeds that grow up alongside the wheat, quite a natural process. 

-Questions posed: what do we do about the evil weed, evil deeds? It is THEY (humanity not God) who think a secret “enemy” has sowed weeds among their wheat. THEY are sure that THEY should pull up and destroy these weeds as evil enemies.

-Jesus says STOP. Let this unholy mess grow together until the harvest when God will do the decision-making—not us. 

What is the central wisdom this parable conveys?  The simple NO from Jesus to so many of our human assumptions about morality: what and who is good, and what and who is evil, then creating an EITHER/OR tension—not to mention foolhardy assumptions that any one person or any one group or religion knows God’s will. 

Therefore: Biblical Wisdom is not based in morality alone; it is spiritual, mobile, blessed, known alone to its Creator. Our work is to watch the signs and pray. 

  *  *  *  *

Right now the EARTH is crying for Mercy. According to a plea from the 7/23 newsletter from the Sisters of Mercy: “Perhaps this is a time to turn our attention, our spiritual attention to Earth, to acknowledge that Earth is a living being that has given us life. We are part of one living being we call Earth. Will we hear its cry, sense its suffering? Earth desperately needs our love and attention, our prayer.” 

2023.07.16 Dying or What?, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

Readiness cannot be known. 

As a trained pastoral counselor and chaplain I worked in hospitals where the hurried and busy medical staff knew all the answers and had all the cures and all the medications. I felt useless because all I could do was listen and stay present. I learned two things. First, I was very much needed when a family or patient was sitting by terrified and knowing nothing. I could listen, and that presence counted alongside all the data.  

Next, I learned about humility. It is not self-abasement as if I were worthless. Nor was it self-aggrandizement as if I were the only true healer around. 

Humility is being right-sized—not too big and not too small. 

All I could do before, after, and sometimes during a dying was: Be present, pray a little, respect whatever cultural traditions families or religions kept, keep silence, listen, and wait. Yes, touch is the last sense to go when anyone dies, so, if you are the only one present, gently touch (not grasp and hold onto) a hand. You will know when to let go. There may or may not be any last words. 

Thou shalt never say: “I know just how you feel.”

You do not know how anyone feels even if you have been in similar circumstances. You do not know. It is emotionally intelligent not to assume or judge any feelings correct or incorrect.  

Nor do you know exactly when a person will die or how. Some people prefer to die alone. It’s okay to ask. Many people stay alive to take care of their loved one whom they assume will be devastated by their death.  They will. And they will be all right. 

Many people die just as they have lived. It’s a matter of personality, the way you are. My mother put on a fresh coat of lipstick, turned on her side, and said to her granddaughter: “This won’t take long, darling.” 

*  *  *  *

I have laughed at the parable story Jesus tells about the Sower who sows seeds wherever he goes. The seed falls on many kinds of soil. Some of it bears fruit, some not so much. The Sower keep on sowing anyway. So resist getting all mixed up in discerning what kind of soil you might be. 

In Israel, most of the soil is rough and unfriendly anyway. The anawin (peasants and poor people) had the worst soil to plant, the least likely soil to bear fruit to sustain and provide food for the hungry. This parable has an economic meaning. It is written to the poor, encouraging them that God, the Sower, is still sowing no matter what. It is also an admonishment to the wealthy to be humble, share and not hoard. 

How can you be a sower? 

                               *  *  *  *

You never know as much as you are sure you know. Be humble. Listen. Hope against hope. Assume nothing. Dying remains a mystery and readiness unknowable.

Honest to God, I once sat with a man who was dying. The family had said their farewells. It appeared as if this man was waiting for something  more. I asked. He said: “I had to wait for the priest to come anoint me. I can’t die until he gets here.” I nodded and I will not tell you my thoughts. We waited. Finally, the priest came running down the hall. I could hear his steps, his panting breath. He rushed into the room, fished a stole from his pocket along with a small vial full of anointing oil.  The patient was tightly blanketed lying in his bed. The priest fumbled to loosen the blanket at the bottom of the bed, reached under and, honest to God, anointed the man’s big toe with and the proper Latin words.  The man sighed with contentment and died.   Honest to God.

How little we know—how very very little.   

2023.07.09 Is Freedom Wisdom or Folly? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

I do not think one can be truly free unless one knows how also to be wise, how to practice  the loving-kindness most religions advocate, and most religions fail to practice. 

I know that sounds harsh. May I suggest a good book called Religion Gone Astray. What we Found at the Heart of Interfaith by Pastor Don Mackenzie, Rabbi Ted Falcon, and Imam Jamal Rahman. It was published in 2011, dedicated to  the memory of M.K. Gandhi who continues to illuminate the path to peace in a pluralistic world. 

These three men have honest and eye-opening conversations. They admit to great discomfort with patriarchal stances in all religions and their scriptures. Yet they together conclude  “As we awaken to our spiritual identity, it is simply obvious that equality is already real, even if not yet reflected in the world we share.”  Their egos flush with success as many people in interfaith gatherings nod agreement hearing their message that spiritual equality is already extant. The sweet odor of success soured at one such gathering of about 250 people, when a young woman raised her hand, spoke into the mike that was passed to her, and said “in a tone that carried as much as her words did,  Why isn’t one of you a woman? The energy in the room shifted. Our euphoria evaporated.”  (p. 107)

Of course interfaith spirituality is wise. Is it foolish to share it?  No. It might be foolish, however, to assume that the world of Religions today is ready to hear such a unitive message. On the one hand, the escalation of our present Armageddon-like world culture looks like a sign of disaster. On the other hand, it might  be a sign that the more we actually do begin to listen, to help each other on the streets and in our homes and with our international politicking, then the more people’s hearts are moved. It might, in fact, be unwise today to assume divisiveness is a sign of the end, when Wisdom points elsewhere—new jobs, new love for our Democracy, new respect for the iconic Lady Liberty Herself with her torch still ablaze and calling—not only y’all come, but y’all let your hearts be transformed.

  

According to Dean Andrew McGowan of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, true Wisdom is not an “it,” a body of knowledge to be acquired and manipulated, but a person, whose nature is revealed by his practice, and by extension our relationship with that person and our following him—or her.  Many will know that this divine Wisdom with which Jesus identifies himself was not only personified (see Proverbs 9), but that in both Hebrew and Greek was feminine in gender. This becomes the basis, both in scripture and tradition, of imagining Her as a generous host whose hospitality is offered to those who seek Her.  

In the last parish where Dick and I concelebrated Holy Eucharist we used the ancient Hebrew words of blessing and occasionally held up the consecrated elements of bread and wine to invite people to come and share, using these expansive welcoming words in the Wisdom tradition of the Bible: 

Come, eat of my bread,

and drink of the wine I have mixed

(Proverbs 9: 5)

Was that wise? I don’t know, but I know that as soon as the next priest came it was eliminated. Did people miss it? I don’t know, but I do know that some remember, and some hearts were moved. Speed isn’t always wise. It is always sure.  

 

2023.07.02 NO! Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

A child, about six or seven, once asked me after church, after hearing the grim story in Genesis 22 of Abraham preparing to make a burnt offering of his only beloved son, Isaac.

“Did this really happen?”

“No,” I answered.

“Then why do we read it in church?”

“The biblical readings are meant to teach us something about God.”

“I learned that God was a really bad Dad.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t you listen? God told Abraham to burn up his own son.

“But Abraham didn’t do it, did he?”

“No, but it was close.”

“Why didn’t Abraham do it?” I asked this delightfully inquisitive child. 

I waited and wondered what the child would say next. There was a long, long pause. I stayed quiet. The child was waiting for me to solve this problem for him. I waited. Maybe five minutes passed before the child said anything. He looked up at me before he finally said.

“Because God finally said NO Way?

I nodded.

“Still it took God waaaay too long, right?”

“Yes,” I said.  

*  *  *  *

Back in the late 1980s, it took me a long time to say NO to significant pressure I thought was from God but which really was from the diocesan bishop’s expectation that, after ordination, I would go into full-time parish ministry to help with the shortage of parish clergy. I tried. The parishes I served were authentically appreciative of my ministry with them. I wasn’t bad at the task of managing a small business on volunteer giving the Church calls “stewardship.” I felt as if every sermon secretly functioned like a report card. Whether that was true or not, I knew parish ministry was not for me. I only wanted to be a priest of Word and Sacrament, not a rector. So I said NO. When I left that parish and parish ministry, they presented me with a white stole, hand sewn and delicately embroidered with dates and gratitude for my ministry with them and blessings for my future. 

*  *  *  *

When you go against traditional expectations as Charles Darwin did, you take huge risks. Darwin published his 1859 book On The Origin of Species, saying NO to scientific and religious declarations about his sanity, and NO to the theology of his day that insisted on the omnipotence of God, Creation being the evidence of the same. Darwin went as an unpaid companion on an expedition with Robert Fitzroy, Captain of the HMS Beagle. On the journey to South America, they landed in Rio and stayed till June, 1832. Darwin became ill in sweltering 103-degree temperatures in the tropics but was cured by “cinnamon and port wine.”  This remedy still works I’m told!

On the trip he sampled all kinds of animals, even iguanas, armadillos and agouti rodents, proving that his species could survive and evolve, alongside all kinds of others evolving by natural selection. Darwin’s theory has been misconstrued to mean the survival of the fittest, but he wrote about naturally evolved ingenuity, the development of new traits, and the willingness of the human species to ask questions, take chances, observe closely, and realize that the ONE God created and blessed ALL of it to co-exist. (I confess to swatting mosquitoes, trapping mice, and squishing some wee crawling bugs. I notice they all seem to increase and multiply anyway.)   

When Darwin came across a parasitic wasp laying eggs inside a live caterpillar, to be eaten alive by the grubs after hatching, the event alone challenged his belief in God. He wrote:  “There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the [parasitic wasp] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars.” 

So Darwin said NO to this omnipotent Divinity and YES to the God who chooses Love over Control. Darwin risked prison time when his theory was published. Was it denying God as THE Creator? NO, it advocated the growth of ALL creation. I, centuries later as a 21st century woman, believe that the one God delights in the evolving of all Life including its risks and uncertainties.  

Apparently, so did the Buddha. Hermann Hesse, born in Calw, Germany, in 1877, took a trip in 1911 to India and started studying Eastern religions, and ancient Hindu and Chinese cultures. His travels inspired his novel Siddhartha, about the early life of Gautama Buddha. It became popular among the counterculture movement of the 1960s, more than 40 years after it was published. He wrote: "The world is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment, every sin already carries grace in it.”  I said YES.

As a parent I learned this lesson early. If I prevented every fall a toddler took while she or he was learning to walk, he or she would never have learned to walk or how to fall and then get up. I also learned how hard it is to love and let go, hard to say NO. I made many mistakes trying to balance the two. I often erred on the side of permissiveness. In time, I said NO to over-mothering, did plenty of under-mothering and exercised my own God-given freedom to evolve.

*  *  *  *

P.S. No God in His Almighty right mind OR heart, would ever authorize the kind of stupid parenting Abraham tried to exercise by sacrificing Isaac. 

God said NO!