2018.11.25 Christ in Majesty. Us In High Hilarity

Here we are sitting on a wall under a huge tree at a monastery. Now how romantic is that? Not very—however, we are laughing.  Other than bad jokes or good jokes or church jokes, laughing for us is a way we make love and keep love alive. It's not derisive, just boldly out of line or unexpected. 

And we both know what is funny even when others don't see it. Jesus had a knack for that, which is probably why it is nowhere written that Jesus laughed. Once when reading the gospel portion in John, when the disciple were going nuts wondering how anyone could be born again, I inserted: Jesus laughed. Then he went on to elaborate a teaching. No one in the congregation laughed. Do people listen I wonder?

This photo was taken in the autumn of 1991. We were at Holy Cross Monastery on retreat. We were invited by the monastery p.r. monk to pose for this photo which was taken by a professional photographer.  They used it on the cover of a promotional brochure. We are laughing about suddenly being catapulted into fame as cover-couple contemplatives. I wish I could enlarge this cover more, but I guess you can discern that I am clearly making some big point to Dick who clearly appreciates my every word. This only happens on silent retreats.

Happy 32nd anniversary, my beloved marriage partner. We were married in 1986 on this Sunday when Christ is praised for rising triumphant above it all—sin, death, hate, politics. Together we have risen above lots of adversity and weathered lots of scorn, including a near-crucifixion for being "church criminals." (Seriously one man called us that when we got divorces and married, but he had a diagnosis.)  

I love your laughter, our laughter, and the humor we find in the most seriously righteous befuddlement. 

2017.11.26 Thanksgiving—A Love Sabbatical

On Thanksgiving day this year we celebrated our 31st wedding anniversary. That’s not such a big deal, but it’s not bad mileage for a second marriage, or for two Leos living under one roof roaring.

Today is Christ in Majesty (aka Christ the King, but that's too limiting) Sunday. We were married on this Sunday in our parish church during the Eucharistic liturgy, November 23, 1986.

We celebrate our anniversary and Thanksgiving every year in southern Maine. But isn’t that family time? Yes, and the gift we chose to give ourselves was some time just for us—time away from professional duties, home, and yes, from our very large extended blended exuberant family. 

Yes, we miss them, and yes we love them all. And yes, we always call them all. And yes we (I) have felt guilty. They in turn are relieved of having to manage the holiday to include one more family— besides their own, their in-laws’ and that of former spouses, not to mention any aunts, uncles or cousins— in the Thanksgiving rituals.

To ease my guilt about breaking tradition, being selfish or abandoning, or thusly accused, I told myself for years that it was good for our progeny that they didn’t have to worry about us—including us, or not, or where. Thanksgiving after all is only one day, not an easily moveable feast. That was my assumption, not necessarily their desire or convenience.

But this year I tell the truth without excuses. This love sabbatical from the beginning has been our choice, a mutual choice made, only in part to escape family chaos, but mostly for our own benefit. Oh, yes, we are retired now. And yes, we aren’t living geographically on top of most of our offspring. And yes, we are able to see some old friends living in Maine. And no, this isn’t where we honeymooned. And no, this sojourn is not a glamorous vacation or getaway. Our choice has little to do with these factors.

So why do we do this?

We do it because we like coastal Maine and wintry sea, and the little humble unglamorous Seaside Inn bed-and-breakfast with large rooms and teeny bathrooms, we have stayed at for years. We do it for quiet, to catch up on reading, to avoid the temptation of over-checking emails, texts, phone calls. We do it for memories. Mostly—truly, deeply, really— we do it for love. We do it so we can enjoy each other’s company—just the two of us. We do it so we can stay in love. I am grateful we have enough health and resources to nourish our love and marriage this way.

As always the poet best captures the value, both ultimate and temporal, of love.

THAT I DID ALWAYS LOVE

That I did always love
I bring thee Proof
That till I loved
I never lived - Enough -
That I shall love alway -
I argue thee
That love is life -
And life hath Immortality -
This - dost thou doubt - Sweet -
Then have I
Nothing to show
But Calvary -
        Emily Dickinson

2013.11.24 Christ in Majesty—Or Married

Officially, the church calendar designates this Sunday as Christ the King, a time for Christians to honor the ultimate reign of God in Christ, a way to remember that ours is a resurrection faith— bursting with hope, for now and for eternity.  (I'd change the masculine nomenclature  of course, but Christ the Queen is, well, maybe OK:0)

The Episcopal Sisters of St. Helena call this Sunday Christ in Majesty, mercifully avoiding exclusively gendered imagery for the risen Christ-Spirit who knows no gender. 

God/Godde is fully male and fully female, and everything in between. To be true to that truth, many things will have to die to clear the way for non-gendered Divinity. Many will be hurt yet many have already been hurt by exclusive language. That's what Christian life is all about: life/death/resurrected life. Death is in the equation.

Dick and I were married on Christ in Majesty Sunday in 1986, 27 years ago.  From the ashes of both of our painful divorces God,working deeply within each soul and all heart, raised up new life hope, another chance, and forgiveness.

We exchanged anniversary cards and messages and felt again how important married love can be.
His card said: "It's so wonderful to be growing and deepening together. Much love to my favorite author on our 27th anniversary." It came to me on line from the “Duke of Cambridge,” latest sobriquet Dick has chosen for himself. The card played jaunty music and showed a couple spatting, making up, sharing tears and lots of laughs as they deepened themselves. Did it make me a “Duchess?” No, but I felt like one.

My card to him congratulated us for winning the woodchuck tango, a flamboyant near-calisthenic dance that requires arithmetic grace we don’t have—nor do woodchucks. Nevertheless...on we go in clumsy majesty. I don't want it ever to die, but................

This Sunday is the last Sunday in the Church year, just before Advent begins and we await, once again, the birth of Jesus at Christmas, thank Godde with no biological pregnancy for me, too old. But we all will be pregnant with Christ. We know the story; we know the familiar cycle; we know the onset of the bleak midwinter darkness, yet each year we are expecting.

What will or must die? Out of what death will God bring new life? 

I’m getting older. I neither expect nor desire to die soon but my death seems more possible, closer.  At a spiritual writing course I recently taught at Grub Street in Boston, we experimented with writing beginnings, middles, and endings. I wrote this as an ending:

At the end of my life I will sit—no, I will probably lie—on a bed, maybe half of the king size bed I’ve shared with Dick. But I will be able to see, even if my eyes are morphine-dazed or cataract-dimmed. My breath will be minimal but present, the spaces between each breath growing shorter and shorter until I am breathed out.  I hope to see the faces of my four children and my grandchildren for a final viewing. I will not tell them not to cry for me. Such a silly commandment really. But I will behold them as I first did, their squished- up, blind-eyed little faces at birth. And maybe I will see Dick too if he is not already dead. I don’t know if I will see him in heaven, wherever that is—or isn’t. But I will end and I will silently sing the words of a hymn I rewrote to fit my lung disease—as a prayer.
    Breathe in me, breathe of God,
    for when my life is done
    and my sweet lungs lose all their power
    my last breath and yours are one.
(Oh, I know I could be struck down tomorrow by any means but this is my foolish little plan. It’s a hope and vision.)

By faith, God will bring some kind of majesty out of my death. I know God will make that new life beautiful, like my new sky-blue earrings—whirly/spinning and cosmic.