2025.05.25 DID YOU KNOW? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

 

Did you know there are no fences in the fields of Divinity? There are no boundaries, only Presence. AND always a story. 

When I lived in Cambridge, a terrific small city under the wing of a big city called Boston, I used to walk downtown often passing by Harvard Yard, its huge iron gates open. Occasionally I’d wander about inside the Yard, absorbing the air of the Academy. Harvard, however, wasn’t academic or elite, just unlocked.

I learned all this from a street beggar named James. He sat in his wheel chair. He always smiled and muttered something unintelligible, as his trembling hands searched for his cup. At first I felt afraid of James. I passed him by. One day I stopped. I don’t know why, but James beckoned. I gave him a smile and a coin or two. He grinned. I walked on. All of this against the backdrop of the stately Harvard.

One day James motioned me closer and managed to tell me a story in his halting way. He told me that his wheelchair was stolen out from under him by some “hoodlums”.  He teared up. I braced myself. But then he pointed at the great gates of Harvard Yard and said “They saved me.” 

Some Harvard fraternity students had pooled their money and bought James a brand new wheel chair designed for someone with his palsied and mentally challenged condition. James could manage his new chair easily, and it did give his life work—begging—meaning. He lived in a special care home, and begging was his own chosen way of contributing. 

James and Harvard students also healed my habit of making judgmental assumptions about beggary without knowledge of the inside story and the truth. I gave James my last $20 and walked the rest of my way home, begging Divinity to inspire generosity and peace for healing the world over.  

2025.05.18 A WEE SNAKEY STORY ABOUT TRUTH-TELLING, Spiritual Lemons, Lyn G. Brakeman, blog post

I woke up one recent morning with a strange prayer running about in my mind: “Well, dear God, do you dare pray for yourself, or is such an idea preposterous?” I pray for myself. And also with you. Jesus prays for himself, but he’s not female. The Holy Spirit is up for grabs, so to me SHE is feminine. Perhaps SHE IS prayer.

So I guess that praying for oneself is a good practice of holiness, eh? 

These awakening thoughts propelled me first to the bathroom for self-emptying and then back to my warm bed, next to my dearly beloved sleeping spouse. He I know would say, “You think too much!” He is right of course, so I grin and go back to sleep. 

Such is me brief anecdotal story. Story, I conclude, is the building block of faith, not doctrine but true-of-heart story. It is the stories we all remember.

*  *  *  *

The Holy Bible is full of stories. In fact they are the glue, the connecting links. They are not forgettable. These stories are why people love to read memoirs—stories in the flesh. It’s important to notice what or who in a bible story wakes you up. 

When I read Genesis, for example, about the beginning of all Creation I notice, not Adam’s loneliness, nor God’s giving Adam a hot soulmate named Eve, nor the fruit of the tree, likely a pomegranate, because of course Israel is Middle Eastern, thus too hot for apples. 

I DO notice the little snake. I’m not afraid of snakes like my mother who taught me snakes were hostile and poisonous, a curse, especially to women. I did not believe her fear, but instead took note of the snake’s valuable role in this story. This snake curled and coiled around the tree trunk in Eden. This snake told the truth: You won’t die if you eat the forbidden fruit.   

Thus began my sin career. Thus as well began my love for this Creating God who created NOT rules and punishments but truth and freedom. This Divinity created even snakes for truth-telling. This snake made me laugh. She too was there in the beginning. She told the truth. I love this story, and I love the role of Ms. aging snake whose truth-telling is there in the beginning.  

 

2025.05.11 Letter To My Mother On Mothers Day, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

Dear Mom,

This, I know, is late in arriving, yet I hope, or rather I know, that the God we both trust will make sure this is delivered.  

I have learned over the years that mothering is the hardest job and/or vocation that exists in the whole created universe. 

It is not restricted to any one gender.  

It is not dependent on sexual intercourse, anatomical wombs or anatomical penises.

It is not dependent on marriage between a man and a woman.

It is not dependent on childbearing in any traditional way with all its moral baggage. 

It is not even dependent on perfection of character or catechetical behavior, from a rulebook. 

It does depend on LOVE, and love is of God by whatever name you give to Divinity.

*  *  *  *

All this preamble is to let you know that you were a good mother to me even though we both doubted it along the way. You embraced me as a “miracle” when I was born in 1938 after many miscarriages. Only now can I imagine how terrifying that must have been for you. Yet you gave me a definition of “miracle”—something God does for you that you cannot do for yourself.  Obvious perhaps, but very clear. And only now do I feel enough grace in myself to understand and to forgive and to love.

When, at the end of your life, you applied such mothering skills to all of your nine grandchildren, you go down in history as the best grandmother in the world, or better! 

Here is a quote from a Michael Hudson hymn text for Hymn # 306.   

There are no fences in the fields of God,

to come an go is an abiding choice;

but like the flock before we’ve come to trust

the supple tether of a shepherd’s voice.

Or perhaps, the supple tenor of a mother’s voice.

So, dear Mom of mine, from me to you wherever you are in the heavens of God, know that I love you dearly and thank you profoundly for being my mother, forever and ever AMEN.

 

HOPE. . .FULLY. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 5/04/25

2025.05.04    HOPE…FULLY

The Hebrew phrase, Ha tikvah, means “Have Hope”. 

It says a bit more than simply, ‘Be hopeful’ as if hope were focused on the future only.  No, we are to FILL ourselves with HOPE. Breathe it. 

Ha tikvah is an everyday present reality, not future. It makes me think of the phrase in the traditional service of Holy Matrimony. It used to be among the minor sacraments, that is, an outer sign of an inner holiness, or the Presence of Divinity.   

Marriage is still considered holy, and yet it has many variations, and is no longer “holy matrimony”—a sacrament in which Divinity is both present and bestowed. Something got lost in revisions. I cannot explain this loss adequately, yet I know marriage is  now a “pastoral office”. It still requires ha tikvah.

Couples of all sorts and conditions view their marriage in a holy way, anyway. Couples do honor their love with all its vicissitudes, its flaws, its drastic ups and down. Married life can feel like a rollercoaster: we climb, we reach a pinnacle, and then we race down, only to begin a new climb. Over and over as we age. Marriage is hope-in-process, rooted daily in ha tikvah.

Thus rooted I think is all of creation, as the psalmist sings:

 “Let everything that breathes praise God. 

  Shine forth your praises on God.” 

  

HOPE. . .FULLY.