2024.03.31 EASTERING, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

Way back in 1964 I gave birth to my second daughter  on 3/31/1964. She, I had hoped, would be born on Easter Day but that year Easter was later. It didn’t matter really, because her birth was so smooth, so quick and quite pain-free, her weight nicely moderate at under 8 pounds. I rejoice on this day as Jill turns 60—ON Easter Day this year, 2024. Alleluia! Here are Jill's beloved pugs, Olive and Jaelee, sitting in her office chair. 

I should I suppose on Easter be cheering for Christ’s resurrection but……………well, that is God’s work to do after we die. “Passed away” sounds weak and inaccurate. Yes, I realize “passed” may soften the harsh reality and finality of death, or it may postpone grief’s sting. Still, the mystery we call Resurrection is God’s business after death—a dead body its prerequisite. This is also why the most difficult death to grieve is MIA (missing in action). It is also why some people have pain at Easter, because they know they must celebrate Resurrection but their hearts are still in Good Friday. So if you have a Good Friday heart for Jesus, or anyone else, let it sorrow without judgment. The most authentic things in life always have mixed feelings anyway.  

*  *  *  *  

For myself, I grieve the almost daily pileup of weaknesses, great and small, as I age. I get medical help and attention for which I’m grateful, and I also try to carry on as best I can. Humor helps when it pops up, and so do friends and family who love you no matter what, as does our being able to take my almost-born-on-Easter daughter and her husband, Lee, out for a sumptuous lunch full of laughs and love.

For years I would always have to be presiding or preaching in a parish Church, but now I am retired and free. I do miss some communal worship and hymns. I do not miss going out to church. I do not miss my alarm clock. I do not miss the stiff white collar I lusted for in the 1970s. Now it makes my aging chin double up. And I do not miss having to cheer when I have a Good Friday heart, so I mutter, “Alleluia Anyhow.” (the late Bishop Barbara C. Harris’ favorite wisdom and the title of her memoir.) 

I rejoice that my spouse and I can celebrate a Eucharist together at our dining table. We sing hymns off key, and wear casual clothes. We can say things when we preach to each other that we could never say to a congregation. AND we have no pulpits to ascend. 

Some people bring their own internalized “porta-pulpits” where’er they go. But we aren’t traveling evangelicals. We laugh and we cry and we argue. No one wins. Then we eat M&M’s, not jelly beans.

Our home Holy Eucharist and prayers continue to nourish us both—casually, eloquently, perfectly. 

2024.03.24 Stethoscopic Listening, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

If you want to hear the pulse of the universe, you have to BE a stethoscope, listening not just hearing. Turn off your urges, your longing for security. Move out of the eager parade, such as the one so many Christians try to reenact on Palm Sunday, the tragic walk towards what everyone imagines will bring ultimate satisfaction to that longing to belong. Surely it will become obvious—atop a mountain, in a procession of Palm-waving, by Easter for sure? Surely. 

                            *  *  *  *

Once upon a time a very old— ancient by any measure—snake called Rock-Dweller was born in my imagination at a writers’ retreat at a very holy monastery, when this very famous spiritual director named Madeleine told us all: Think of someone in Holy Scripture who was angry and write about it.  The snake in Genesis popped up. She was furious, asking: “Why do women hate snakes? Why, for that matter, does God?” Was there no grace for the snake? My snake prayed fervently, doubted even her own doubt, discovered her own secret shame, and laughed at divine folly. Eventually, my snake dozed on her “sun-warmed, soul-soaked rock”. (Spiritual Lemons. Biblical Women, Irreverent Laughter and Righteous Rage. Augsburg edition, 2005.) 

One recent morning, I did not want to wake up and face another day of what is called aging-in-place. I missed my get-up-and-go self. I felt angry and helpless, damning all self-help baloney, including my own. I lay still and listened stethoscopically—underground, beneath my heart’s resistance, my mind’s curse. 

“It has to be Qoheleth!” I finally said to my slowly-awakening spouse who groaned. 

                                *  *  *  *

Qoheleth is the Hebrew translation for the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. The name translates as teacher/preacher/messenger, sometimes collector of sayings. Ecclesiastes was written after the exile (450BCE) at a time of tremendous economic growth accompanied by the politics of, let’s say, acquisition of wealth for its own sake and its attendant temptations. Much like today, the poor got poorer while the rich got richer—and the gift of divine grace got, well, undermined, taken for granted, forgotten. In this socioeconomic situation Qoheleth struggled to find God. He asked: Is everything vain, futile, spiritually bankrupt?   “What’s the point?” 

“What’s the point?”was my own father’s deathbed question in 1983. We stood, my sister and I, on either side of his bed as he groaned out his last breaths. Dad was only 71! 

There is never a clear answer to such a question or quest. Qoheleth stayed open-ended—wise enough to continue to question himself, his world, life itself, and the divine intention. Also wise enough to be reverent and skeptical at once. I aspire to do likewise—with my imaginary stethoscope. 

For everything, the inquisitive one concluded, there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven—birth/death, hate/love, mourn/laugh, silence/speech, war/peace. 

 

 

2024.03.17 Potentiation. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, 3/17/24, blog post

 

Above is my home altar, a great messy array of memories and images—all iconic to me.

Most everything you ever wanted to know about God is in Genesis, anyway. It’s the beginning of a very long story in a book called The Holy Bible—ancient and still a best seller. It’s not “holy” because it’s so old.  It’s not even holy because the Christian Jesus is in there, or the Jewish Moses, or even big bang theories. No, it is holy because your story is in there, too.

*  *  *  *

It was 1978, my first day as a student at Yale Divinity School. I sat in a huge lecture hall, loaded with tumultuous emotions—guilt, fear, joy, anxiety—great expectations!  I was supposed to be a traditional stay-at-home mother, not a forty-year-old woman in a huge lecture hall, wondering about having an affair, or who Jesus was, really, really, or who God might be, when suddenly a loud deep voice from the podium announced: “In the beginning (pregnant pause) God potentiated . . .” 

Potentiated?  

I wrote that word down. It was not the word the professor used; nor does it appear anywhere in Genesis or anywhere in the Bible. It was the word I heard. 

Where did this word come from? I didn’t know then, I don’t know now. Nor did I know just how potent it would become in my life, or just how painful it could be, or just how much personal truth it held for me. God or not God, potentiation exploded inside me. I sat up straight and listened.

I’m tech-savvy now so I “Googled” this word. It has to do with the potency of Being itself, whether it is found in material or spiritual beings. Courtesy of Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle of course.  

I’m aging. I talk to God all the time as I always have. I don’t expect “answers.” I just watch for potentiation—tiny or huge bursts of Being itself. It just happens. It’s an experience, not to be evangelized from any single point of view.

*  *  *  *

I live in a retirement community. A young woman, CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) specializes in shower assistance as needed. Nothing fancy, but when you can’t get about without a walker, and when the shower seat is “miles” away from the water source, and when you’re stark naked and shivering, well, you need expert help. 

My shower was refreshing and lovely. I memorized the process and taught my live-in help/spouse. 

The after-shower conversation I had with my CNA, however, brought mutual potentiation.  After the shower I “walkered” into my office to my comfortable swivel chair.  She followed and sat on a small rocker from which we removed two stuffed owls and a stuffed pink “valentine cupcake” of sorts. She wrote her official notes and I swiveled round in my computer chair.  We sat facing my home altar at which I hope to kneel again sometime. It was designed and hand-carved, a gift from one of my daughters and her husband, a professional wood-worker. It is carved from good maple wood, about the measurements of a door lying flat, and it is polished to a sheen. On it rests my entire prayer life. Underneath it is written a date, and an inscription of love from my daughter and the artist, Pete. 

“What are these?” my shower aide asked, pointing to two small multi-colored striped triangle-shaped pins. They symbolize support for the Pride movement, celebrating the many different expressions of human sexuality GLBTQI.  

“Oh. We don’t allow that where I come from.”  

I chuckled. My altar array represents my family, my church, my culture, my favorite images of God, a crucifix, and most of my sins. All holy. I then  asked her if she thought the great and loving Creator of all of us cared equally for all of us, even with our differences?  She pondered a bit then shook her head Yes. YES!

In that small moment we potentiated the image of God.    

2024.03.10 Heartbeat. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

I once had the opportunity to hear what an en-wombed embryo would hear while slowly growing inside a mother’s womb. I recall vividly my own feeling as I listened to this sound—something like woosh/woosh/woosh—steady, regular and astoundingly comforting. 

No wonder babies wail so fiercely when they are pulled out of the womb, forced into the world of bright light, and then spanked. It is not the sudden elevation and medical inspection that calms them, nor the tight swaddling, nor the joyful cries of family. No, they do not return to calm until they hear again the faint yet familiar sound— woosh, woosh, woosh— as they are placed on their mother’s chest and hear again her heartbeat. 

I think we never stop listening for that sound, seeking it even, coming through a stethoscope. No wonder we use heart language to speak about Love, and especially about divine Love. It’s what we all seek and crave. It is what spiritual religious traditions tell us to seek and serve in ourselves and in all Creation.  Woosh woosh woosh.  

When you love deeply it’s not the same as caring lots and lots. It is much more painful, full as it is of the ache of longing—not for more but for more of the same. Laying aside partisanship for the sake of companionship to the end. The end of what? Love of, and for, and with, and upon this Earth our island home—fragile and beloved at once. The painful struggle for control is enough to make the whole planet sob. Weeping clouds neither our eyes can see, nor our ears hear, nor our fingers touch. Yet we recognize that Wooshing. 

 

 

Last week we listened to President Biden’s State of the Union speech. It was firm and authentic, even defiant. Why always a fight? Is that the heartbeat of our nation? 

The visuals of the assembled congress showed a grim assembly, completely split—one side cheering and hooting with applause, the other side sitting, arms crossed over chests, grimly stern-faced. Even the two behind Biden at the podium of power, the Vice President on the left, popping up and down to applaud as her current “boss” spoke for her political party, her own aspirations. Simultaneously, the man on the right, Speaker of the House of Representatives, sat resolutely planted on his butt, while looking desperate to stand and join the applause. Once he did stand for something idly non-partisan. 

*  *  *  * 

I could not help but think of Jesus resolutely hiking toward the seat of power, Jerusalem, to confront the authority of his time with a higher vision. All of it doomed to die of exhaustion. Yet there was a heartbeat thumping still alive. There was that ancient steady sound— woosh, woosh, woosh.  Did you hear it?  This future of hope for the American vision, unable to be embodied—yet.

The art of hearing heartbeats is upon us, as close as your own heart. Ask to listen through your doctor's stethoscope. Find a child to play the game of heart-listening with you. 

*  *  *  *

I suspect the assembly heard the humming and thumping beneath the crowded chaos. Biden was eager to echo it. He is 81, old enough to hear that faint echo beating beneath the despair, and young enough at heart to tell us that our nation still has a heartbeat:   “A future based on the core values that have defined America. Honesty. Decency. Dignity. Equality. To respect everyone. To give everyone a fair shot. To give hate no safe harbor.” 

As evidence, Biden included “Moscow” in his list of places where his inclusive vision would be realized. It just slipped out. At first he corrected it, then quickly reinstated it: “Yes, Moscow, too.”  

2024.03.03 Troubling/Troubled/Troublesome? Let's Talk. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

   

        .     “Don’t look away.

• "Don't allow hatred to enter into your language when speaking about the conflict."

• "Practice Radical Empathy, particularly with those with whom you struggle in this conflict."

• "Christian hope is founded on God's love and presence with us in the midst of brutal realities with no immediate causes for optimism."

• "There is a buoying power in prayer."

• "The power of the love of fellowship of God's family is so important —We're not going through this alone.”

Dean Richard Sewell of St. George’s College, Jerusalem, with The Rev. Barkley Thompson, President of the North American Committee for St. George’s, recently offered online conversation about the painful war-torn situation—obviously threatening to everyone who lives in Israel, everyone who has ever visited the college, and all of us, near and far who, yes, care deeply. 

Whether we call Israel “holy land”, recall singing hymns about Jerusalem in churches, are Jewish, have messianic expectations, follow Jesus of Nazareth, or, prayerfully and powerlessly, desire an end to war-making for the sake of peace-making, we must talk.   

Recent conversations at St. George’s were described by leaders as “honest, raw, real, spiritual, moving, humane and hopeful.” There was no evaluative judgment, blame, partisanship, denial of Divinity, or even politics. Now that’s a miracle!  

The College provided this rare opportunity for the family of God to gather— authentically in prayer together in the midst of terror. 

*  *  * *

Many of us would be quick to deny the existence of God, to wonder why “he” does not intervene to eliminate such chaos and pain and death, especially when it is inflicted on the innocent. 

Good god! Do we not know by now that, IF there is a Creator, and IF there is evolution that insures humanity with ongoing conscience and will and heart, and IF our own fear blinds our own kindness and breeds insanity, revenge, and war disguised as peace-making, THEN we will continue powerless, make enemies at will, and blame or shame, whichever comes first. Any parent knows that. I think very little of transcendent anything, and even less of divine will or some idea that we can, by sheer will, eliminate pain and error. 

What we can do is get honest, have conversations not harangues, listen, pray simply to let ourselves in on our own truthful thoughts and feelings, grieve together, establish enough kindness to intervene with courage when we can. This is how to take the long hard path toward mutuality—your need is as important as mine, so let’s talk—and listen. 

*  *  *  *

P.S. When Jesus is remembered in the Bible as having a temper tantrum about the desecration of holy ground in the Jerusalem Temple with merchandise, usurious practices and greed, may we also remember his temper didn’t work to stop greed—but it did leave us a story we never forget.  And gave us permission to roar when necessary.