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.  

 

2021.11.07 My "Racism"—Brief Anecdotal History. Part Twenty-four. Seasoning All Saints

Although an ordained priest for over ten years, I hardly felt like a pro. I had given parish ministry a try and found it not a fit for my gifts. I did not have the stamina, skill, or desire to manage a small business, let alone the politics and the stress of loneliness. I had wanted to be ordained priest of Word and Sacrament, not a manager of money, and of mostly all-male vestries. I was surprised, therefore, when the Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts, The Rt. Rev. Bud Cederholm, called me to ask if I’d be willing to mentor a new priest. I said yes. 

Scene LXVII.  My Little Mentee

I moved to Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1997 where Dick had accepted a position as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church. I would establish my pastoral counseling/spiritual direction practice in a neighboring UCC parish and serve as a non-stipendiary Sunday Priest Associate at St. John’s with regular opportunity to preside at Eucharist and preach. Perfect!  

Dick and I had tried to secure a joint rectorship in Connecticut, but no one was ready for that “heresy,” or for a divorced couple, the female, me, with a lingering reputation as a reject and possibly a seductress of innocent clergy. We both, however, had discovered after over ten years of marriage that the hardest thing about divorce was not overcoming the Episcopal Church’s attitudes, but the grief of missing the proximity of most of our growing children. Oh yes, everyone could visit, but you know it’s not the same. 

So we settled in a new diocese for a new start. Bishop Cederholm took office in Massachusetts in 2001. He decided that it would be a good idea for newly ordained diocesan clergy to have seasoned clergy mentors who would lend them support and counsel as they started out. I was invited to be a mentor. Hardly seasoned, I was about to be a mentor myself now. 

My mentee, the Rev. Stephanie Spellers, a young vigorous and gifted African American woman was ordained priest in 2006. Stephanie is a small woman. I called her “my little mentee.” I meant nothing racist by that. We both were small women. I had no idea why I was selected as her mentor, nor did she, but we hit it off. She lived in Boston and hopped on the train about once a month to come see me. I picked her up at the station. We would enjoy lunch together and have lively talks about heaven knows what. As I recall we had lots of laughs, a bit of serious ministry talk, discerning gifts and ambitions, and a shared passion for the Episcopal Church.  

Stephanie and I didn’t talk directly about racism, but I knew it had to be burbling under the surface in us both. I never felt uncomfortable with Stephanie, and I hope she felt the same with me. We would joke whenever we ran into each other at diocesan events about whether she had a boyfriend—no, the right boyfriend—yet.  

Then once at a diocesan gathering she showed me a picture of her guy, and we had a hug and a laugh. I do not think marriage is the only goal of anyone, but I do know Stephie wanted that. In fact, in her latest book, The Church Cracked Open. Disruption, Decline, and New Hope for Beloved Community, she wrote for him this acknowledgement: “To Albert DeGrasse, . . . patient, smart, kind, not woke-but-waking White guy who nodded as I read aloud (and loudly) from racist eighteenth vestry minutes, fed me fruit and veggies, did laundry and built fires like a boss. Yeah, you, the one out there teaching the Doctrine of Discovery to seventh graders. The one who put that ‘Beloved Community’ sign up over your classroom door. The one who agreed to marry me in the midst of this madness. You inspire me every day. Now let’s get after it.”   [The Doctrine of Discovery, a version of White Supremacy, was used for centuries to justify seizure of indigenous lands and subjugation of populations. It was in time repudiated by the United Nations.]  Stephanie and her beloved were on the same political and spiritual track to go forward together, to carry on as White teacher and African American priest, together.

 

I knew Stephanie was both talented and ambitious. She was on the road to happiness and a sterling career as a writer and a priest eager to lobby against racial injustice in her beloved Episcopal church. It wasn’t long before she became the priest for a ministry called The Crossing in Boston, a ministry for those who lacked access to adequate resources, including the liturgical ministrations of Christian liturgy. She wrote her first book called Radical Welcome, urging the Episcopal Church to be more hospitable—genuinely welcoming to all “sorts and conditions” of humanity as one of the confessional prayers in the Book of Common Prayers identifies all people.

I recalled my own experience, way back in the late 1960s in Alabama where my first husband and our three young children lived for a short time. The “uptown” Episcopal Church had a “warning” sign about its segregated status—Whites only. The downtown church welcomed black people, although their worship was more Baptist than Episcopal. I stayed home and wondered what White was—really. I guessed it had much to do with culture, geography, and varying styles of worship, each according to how their people saw God and proffered Jesus.

Stephanie Spellers brought her joy and zeal into her church, dancing her way and jumping through the hoops of the Episcopal Church’s political ecclesiology, while never losing sight of her vision. My “little mentee” now serves as Canon for Evangelism, Reconciliation and Creation, serving Episcopal Presiding Bishop, the Most Reverend Michael Curry, himself a spirited black man. (Stephanie’s charge as Canon is mighty spacious—just like her own soul and her God.) 

Canon Spellers has been my mentor-model for me as I hope I was for her. We both know what it takes to stay true to one’s own passion for justice, while hanging onto a broad vision written into Stephanie and Albert’s marriage covenant: “Life is short and love is precious”  

For me, the Church and seminary, oddly and despite obvious statistics, were not the first but the richest contexts in which I encountered racial diversity. Living too much of my life without black people has been, for this white woman, like living half a life, and certainly spiritually too shallow. 

Scene LXVIII. A Deep Conversation     

Usually when clergy get together at the annual clergy conference they want either to gossip among themselves, confront the bishop about some itch, or whine, sit in the bar for idol chit-chat, or maybe even a serious conversation. 

At such a conference in 2019 we gathered to listen to the dynamic black woman priest, the Rev. Canon Kelly Brown Douglas, theologian and president of Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) at Union Theological Seminary, New York, and Canon Theologian of Washington National Cathedral, who told us many wise and true things about racism in the institutional Church. What I remember most was her anguish about her growing son’s safety, even thinking fearfully about sending him away somewhere. Would he be safe? Would he stay alive? Such questions I have worried about as well, mostly in relation to alcohol abuse. I have felt frightened for a son who nearly died after surgeries. But I never had to say: “Will my son be shot to death?” 

During the afternoon break, Dick and I decided to engage two black clergy friends over lunch and through the break time. It felt urgent to get serious about personal experiences with racism. Each of us shared out personal experiences with racism. I spoke about Carol Lee and the racist decision I had made as a child and still remembered. Each of us shared a unique experience and emotions to go with it. I learned how hard it is to be brown thanks to mixed parentage, and how difficult it is to be able to “pass” for either color—but not really. And what it means to be definitely dark black and originally from another country where color consciousness was an issue, only because whites stood out as different. I learned how hard it was to have trust and closeness to black friends whom your parents know by name only—until the time comes for your parents to meet/see your dear friends. Our deep conversation was fruitful for us all, and we stayed friends over some time and met for more lunches filled with wit and soul. 

I was invited to preach at St. Cyprian’s in Boston where one of these friends was the Rector and the other the Deacon. It was a scarily thrilling experience for me to look out upon a large congregational gathering and see no white faces. I focused on the Gospel’s awareness of justice for all peoples and spoke directly to the growing concern about voting injustices. My sermon was punctuated by a few “say it, sisters” and “amens”—so supportive. When I concluded the whole congregation burst into applause. I asked the Deacon “Do they always do this.” He shook his head from side to side and grinned. I think I flew all the way home with sure and certain knowledge that the Episcopal liturgy and ritual could be a force for uniting the races. 

Scene LXVIX.  Blessing All Saints

When I presided at the Eucharist, I would touch each child’s head gently as I used a paraphrase of ancient biblical words to offer each one a blessing at the altar rail. They kept their small heads bowed, humbly obedient to their parents’ wishes that they not receive Holy Communion until they were confirmed. One Sunday, a very small saint, standing and white-knuckling the altar rail so as not to topple over backwards, tilted her head up to give me a broad grin and a giggle. A blessing.

May God bless you and keep you

May the face of God shine upon you

—and from within you—

This day and always.  (Numbers 6:24, YHWH to Moses, paraphrased)  

AMEN.  

(and please!)

2020.08.09. This Very Morning, We..............

This very Sunday morning, my priest-spouse and I were con-celebrating a COVID mass, aka Eucharist with pre-consecrated wafers and no wine. In the middle of this holiness we had a fight. Yes, on this very morning, we fought.

Mercifully, there was no congregation to detain us so we just stopped our homiletic reflections and duked it out until we both felt settled—not right or wrong but settled. 

The gospel reading was the famous story about Peter’s heading out to walk across stormy lake waters—yes, the lake of Galilee, like a sea, is subject to switching currents and frequent wild storms. Jesus, aware that the boat was floundering and that his friends were in trouble, walked onto the waters and calmed the storm with the sound of his voice alone. The faithful had panicked but Jesus reassured them. Peter demanded proof so Jesus beckoned him: “Come.”  Peter trusted Jesus’s authority over that of the lake and excitedly stepped out onto the water. Up whipped a wind, and Peter, fearing he would drown, freaked out: “Lord, save me!”

Now you see, I just did in writing a demo of how Dick and I got ourselves into our spat. Notice my side comment above about the lake/sea of Galilee. I assume my punctuation—em-dashes— will alert the reader that this is an aside, worth noting before moving on to the point about Peter. And now I’m doing it again. You probably want to hear what Dick and I spatted about, right?  It wasn’t those dashes! 

Dick was pensively reflecting at some length about the storm at sea when he swerved to reference his own anxieties about our upcoming move—only a week from Wednesday! To hear the closeness of that date broke my serenity, so I voiced an aside, something like, “Oh no, that’s so close  . . .”   This interruption caused him to stop cold, forget what he was going to say, and shut down. I said it wasn’t important and to go on. Alas, too late. We sat in silent lock-horns fashion for a time. Then the silly back and forth broke the silence: you always do this to me; you always react and then stop, so why can’t you just go on; I lose my train of thought and feel like a jerk; I don’t mean to hurt you; well, this isn’t a conversation; well, I didn’t think it was a proper sermon, for god’s sake—what would you do in a black church where everyone calls out?


More silence. Inner thoughts, maybe a prayer, then we reach across the table, grasp hands, laugh, and each take a wafer. We forget the Lord’s Prayer but he adds it in, and we close with this:

O loving Eternal god,
who gathered us here around the table with Christ
to share this meal with the whole household of God:
in that new world where you reveal the fullness of your peace,
gather people of every race and language
    to share in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.
 

Let us bless the Lord.
Thanks be to God

This very morning, the grace of God saved us from drowning just as Jesus did when he reached into the waters for Peter’s hand—yes, saved hm. I told Dick the story of how I had once nearly—not quite—drowned when I was about twelve and swimming in the ocean. [Where was that and how old were you? he interrupted. Maybe Westhampton beach, and about 12. What difference does that make?]  I continued: I didn’t think I was drowning, but the lifeguard, who had superior oversight and training, thought I was in danger of drowning. He raced across the beach, dramatically dove into the waters, swam fast, caught me in a vice grip and swam back to shore with me in tow. He rescued me. I was humiliated— sure I was not drowning.

What a great story, Dick said.
That’s how I do scripture, I said.
Yeah, I know, but I just wanted to make the point that Matthew’s Jesus was too self-righteous—        scolding Peter for “little faith.” Then of course the wind died down and everyone worshipped Jesus as Son of God. Really!
Good point. I agree, I said. Not like Jesus to be snarky and toot his own horn.
I’m happy you didn’t drown.
Me too.
Smooch.

He is my loving map, calendar, fact-checker, and historian—the Sitz im Leben (setting) guy.
I am his loving nuisance, pulling for the big picture, the vision—the theology gal.
                                       *  *  *  *

I will be taking a break from my Sunday blogging for the next two weeks—unless I cheat. We are moving to Connecticut to a retirement community. I now recall, thanks to Dick’s homily, that movers arrive in a mere 10 days. I plan to resume blogging with the My “Racism” series after we are settled. 

For now, know your sitz and where God sits in it with you.
 

2020.07.26 My "Racism"—Brief Anecdotal HIstory, Part Seven, Rights, Duties, A Rite

Chapter XVIII. Social Disorganization. My Rights?

I signed up for a college course, Social Disorganization, because I loved the title of it. It promised stimulation—something different. The professor Mr. Neal DeNood didn’t stride in and slowly approach the podium with professorial dignity, but rather bounced in and hopped upon the dais. I liked him instantly. He had zip, was extraordinarily handsome, and sported a small upper-lip mustache. Most all the other male professors were clean shaven. I’d heard someone in the religion department use the word charisma—sparkling with charm, maybe from God. Mr. De Nood was that.

“There are no rights without duties,” DeNood began the first class, paused, then repeated his dictum. I wrote it down twice. De Nood elaborated on his premise until it was embarrassing—humiliating. I had never thought of this equation. I had assumed my rights were legal, eternally guaranteed, personal, and secured by our constitution. I never thought of them as dependent on someone else’s duty to honor them.

Social DISorganization happened as a result of too much unevenness. It meant revolution, sometimes war, sometimes riots and crimes, even assassinations. It happened when basic human rights to things like housing, education, healthcare, and economic security were not supported by appropriate legal, economic, medical, and economic structures and policies, accessible to all members of that society. In a democratic society the people have a say in such policies, and politicians work to assure them.

I pondered about private schools and public schools. I’d started in private and switched to public. I was glad, thinking it would be less snobby/preppy. Smith was private and costly. Students earned their place by academic merit—and money. Wealth or merit?  Which?

Was my privilege my right? my duty? both? neither?  How much did it depend on money? This might have been the first time my own color—white—dimly occurred to me as a factor.

Neal De Nood was a full professor in 1958. He’d started his teaching career at Smith in 1937-38, the year I was born. Safe to say he was too old for me, but you can see how handsome he was in this archival photo. He is in the right hand photo, second from left. Perky, huh? The archivist wrote: De Nood “startled his colleagues and undergraduates with his prowess as a lecturer, his unorthodox views, and his penchant for the sensational.”


I never forgot that no rights without duties wisdom. It was inspirational—meant to tantalize us smart young people to go out into the world and take up our duty: make sure that every American is able at least to exercise her or his right to a good education of their choice.

De Nood’s equation floundered in American society. The duty half of it too often crashed like a seesaw.

Chapter XIX.  The Chaplain

I gave a glancing thought to God, the one I’d met under a table as a young child, the one in my book, the one sitting in a garden listening and loving every sight and sound on earth, the one who listened to me when I chattered on and on about the injustice of my parent’s nasty cocktail hour, the God I’d lost track of. But I remembered the Bible and bits about Jesus—all into rights and duties and justice and peace, but they killed him.

The next best option was the college chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Richard Unsworth—another crushingly handsome object for my affection. Still, I thought he might have some ideas about my rights and duty questions. He agreed about Jesus. He also listened to my yearnings for religious ritual—sort of Catholic but not. Listening was God-like. He suggested I try the Episcopal church—the very last thing I thought would help.

I’d grown up in the Presbyterian Church which in the 1940’s and ’50’s was dry as parchment. I had tried those Catholics that Betty Singer sang about and discovered at Mass, a Mystery called Eucharist which held me in its grip, even in Latin. BUT, the Roman Catholic priest I talked to was a bust. He did okay about racism (not a godly thing) but he failed at sexism (women were ungodly, except Mary-in-concrete). So now I would try this Episcopal Church, thanks to this gorgeous chaplain who wasn’t even an Episcopalian.

While driving my mind nuts thinking about rights, I found a rite—a ritual, a sacramental meal that required no thinking at all and engaged my body—kneel, bow, cross my chest with Christ, eat, bend a knee but not in protest. What struck me about this holy meal was that everyone was welcome at the altar table. No one was turned away. Of course you had to be Christian, but I brushed that requirement aside, because it looked like everyone had a right to come and be fed. This church fulfilled its duty. This Eucharist was a meal my mind could not comprehend but could love. 

Intuitively, I realized that this meal could not be racist if it tried—unless of course the Church and its control issues mucked it up.

The Episcopal Church and I bonded. While still in college I was confirmed.


Chapter XX.  A Psych. Test

I thought to major in English, because I love literature. I thought to major in Religion, because I love God. I thought to major in Spanish, because I love languages, could roll my R’s, and my favorite Spanish professor, a poet from Spain, no less, was one of my crushees. I thought to major in Psychology, because I needed clues to the inner workings of, well, everyone. Spanish poetry won out, in large part because the department was small and I thought I could shine.

While I was cogitating all this I took several psychology courses. One of them included some kind of a personality test, not Myers Briggs or MMPI. It was designed to identify personality types. I answered everything, hid nothing. I had a lot to hide, but I didn’t know it yet. The test revealed my personality type: RELIGIOUS. I was astonished. I’d hoped for something like adored-by-all or destined for literary fame. But religious?

Curiously, what the religious personality type defined was someone who tended to see things in wholes, who looked for and saw the larger picture, valuing it, in spite of contradictory details. I already knew I wasn’t practical, and now I knew I’d always be doomed to seek balance, this equity that is impossibly possible, dependent as it is on rights and duties.  

2018.06.10 Funeral For a Chapel

This week we went to a Holy Eucharist and Secularization of St. John’s Memorial Chapel on the Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) campus. I wondered anew about the distinction between secular and sacred—maybe not so binary. It was sad and somehow defiantly hopeful as the spire pierced the bright blue sky as if to say: I will always be here even when I’m not visible.

There are many better photos but here is the one I took the day of the memorial.

It seems odd to me that I had so much feeling. I was not alone. Memory sobbed in the air. This 1967 statue of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, sculpted by Walker Hancock in 1966 in memory of Jonathan Myrick Daniels, EDS student who would have been graduated from EDS in 1966 had he not been assassinated in Alabama while trying to shield young Ruby Sales, said it all: a beloved school is closed for reasons uncertain. Now the chapel will find another use. Christ grieves with us.

I am not a graduate of EDS, though I took a couple of courses there and visited when I was exploring seminary education back in the 1970s. I chose Yale Divinity School mostly because I could commute from my home, and too, because I preferred a non-denominational seminary. I missed my Anglicanization, but my beloved priest, later my spouse, taught me everything I needed to know and gave me Mass classes too.

Dick is a lifer—50 years as a priest in full-time parish ministry. He survived well in part because he didn’t need everyone to like him. Appalling! “You gotta be border-line hated to exert good leadership.” There’s wisdom in that statement. Dick was a cookie cutter Episcopalian from childhood. Openness to change is the secret of survival. Episcopalians evolve—some kicking and screaming, some joyfully, and some in the Resurrection.

The Chapel Eucharist was followed by the deconsecration of the chapel. Deconsecration isn’t the best word, because this space will never not be holy, although it will probably be used for other than religious purposes. Bishop Alan Gates suggested the word “decommissioning” as a way to understand the process. It was first commissioned as a place of worship in 1869.

We began with shared reflections and remembered stories. One of my favorites was one the bishop told. He was an EDS student when one of the more august and wry professors took him into the chapel and pointed to the stained glass window in the apse. “Do you see that?” he asked. “Yes,” Gates said. “The panel with our Lord” the professor said.  Gates pointed to the one he thought the professor meant. “No, I mean that one of our Lord in the middle.”  “Oh yes.”  “What color is that robe?” “Red.” "Yes, and what is our Lord saying?"  Gates was stumped, fearing there might be some obvious liturgical answer he should know. “ Our Lord is saying, ‘Hey How do you like my new red dress?’”

There was humor and reverent irreverence, the spirit of EDS.  The liturgy soared. There was perhaps an over-abundance of music—just the right amount of too many Magnificats. Still, it was a time for singing, weeping, and remembering. I particularly liked the way the Prayers of the People were sung—a cantor offering biddings, followed by voices from the congregation with particular concerns, the refrainic antiphon, all of it underscored by soft humming of choir and congregation. For once words didn’t dominate and collective prayers did rise and surround us like incense.

The Rt. Rev. Carol Gallagher, the first woman of American Indian (Cherokee) heritage consecrated bishop in the Episcopal Church in 2001, and EDS graduate 1989, gave the homily. It was humorous and full of memories of worship in this chapel.

Bp. Gallagher reminded us: “Any place we make too sacred can destroy us. Move on.” It hurt to hear and it is the call of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Move on. She closed her homily singing a hymn “It is well with my soul.” We joined in. Gifts we have received here do not die; they change the world.

The memorial chapel of St. John’s was erected by Robert Means Mason for the school in 1895. One of its closest neighbors was the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow who sang its praises.

I stand beneath the tree, whose branches shade
    Thy western window, Chapel of St. John!
    And hear its leaves repeat their benison
On him, whose hand thy stones memorial laid;
    Then I remember one of whom was said
In the world’s darkest hour, “Behold my son!”
     And see him living still, and wandering on
     And waiting for the advent long delayed.
     Not only tongues of the apostles teach
Lessons of love and light, but these expanding
And sheltering boughs with all their leaves implore,
      And say in language clear as human speech,
“The peace of God, that passeth understanding,
      Be and abide with you forevermore!”

Benison means blessing. Not every blessing must be sung except in the heart, and not every blessing must be spoken by human tongue. No blessing ever fades away.
 
 

2018.03.25 Why Wave Palms? Fake News?

We wave palms for the same reason we wave placards and posters and signs: to protest massive political and spiritual indifference to the needs of the smallest among us—our children.


In 1988, I was ordained priest, on March 25th. Thirty years ago my day as was the Feast of the Annunciation: Mary’s big day. She is remembered in biblical tradition and in the hearts of women of faith for her decision to listen to God’s request for help. Her assent destined her to a life of agonizing pain, heart-wrenching sorrow, and love.  She is often remembered with roses.  On my day roses adorned the sanctuary.

This year in 2018 her day and mine, March 25, is Jesus’s big day: Palm or Passion Sunday, often called The Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. We wave palms—green, supple, fresh—and shout Hosannas. Like Mary’s day, this day was for Jesus his willingness to risk his life to confront  political and spiritual indifference to the needs of the least among us, especially children. His decision would mean spiritual betrayal, wrenching disappointment, and agonizing death.

On the surface, all three days were celebratory, triumphal. Great victories were cheered: Mary’s safe birthing and rearing of a Messiah; Jesus’s entering Jerusalem to confront the imperial powers with the need for justice and peace; my ordination after eleven years of rejections, in part because of my being a woman—in the wrong place at the wrong time. Each apparent victory was incomplete, shadowed by ambiguity at best—how monumentally paradoxical:  The less triumphal we act the more triumphant we are.  Or, the more triumphal we act the less triumphant we really are.

My ordination procession looked and sounded triumphal but . . .  I was scared witless and a bit numb—worried that the bishop, who strode behind me with his huge long crozier (ersatz shepherd’s crook), would reach out, crook my neck, and toss me out of the fold. My other worry was that the bishop might have to leave suddenly because he had a ghastly, sniffly cold. Would he sneeze in the middle of his crucial lines, without which I would not be a priest: “Therefore Father, through Jesus Christ, your Son, give your Holy Spirit to Lyn; fill her with grace and power, and make her a priest in your Church.”

I’d struggled through a long, hard, painful process to get to this day. The personal triumph was that I had not given up when I felt defeated. I had stayed the course against significant odds—my own flaws and the church’s prejudices.

I never blamed God. In fact I felt that God’s Spirit was present in the slow ongoing process of healing and reconciliation between my broken heart and the Church’s broken rules.

The less triumphal we act the more triumphant we are.

Did Jesus feel triumphal as he entered Jerusalem? He knew that his vision had stirred up crowds. He knew this was a life-threatening protest with a small number of believers. He knew this was a public political protest punishable by execution. Was it divinely ordained?  God does not desire the death of anyone. Jesus’s death was nothing to wax triumphal about. So where’s the triumph and when?

It would be an act of sheer Divinity that Mary’s motherhood would be remembered, lauded and written into holy scriptures as  a miracle to reverence. It would be an act of sheer Divinity, one that took many restless years to take root in the hearts of crestfallen followers, to turn Jesus’s actions into a triumph, a miracle of truth called Resurrection.

And my ordination? It made me a priest.

It also began a process of many restless years—discerning the fullness of my priesthood, with God’s help. The traditional track for priests, to be a parish rector, was not the way for me to be a priest. Rather, I was to be a non-stipendiary Sunday-only priest of Word and Sacrament in parishes. This sacramental ministry remained central.

But full triumph?  I continued to feel like a failed priest, as if my whole vocation was “fake news” until I saw that I was a priest at the altar and in my office. The three sacramental functions of a priest —bless, consecrate, absolve—transferred easily, sometimes formally, into people’s ordinary lives through my profession as a pastoral counselor, spiritual director, and writer. Occasionally, the traditional route for priests feels alluringly triumphal, but not the realized triumph.

May the triumphal massive March For Our Lives, led by teens all over the world, come to full triumph in unlocking the prideful partisan resistance of adults that we all may work together for life-saving change. Will this be an act of sheer humanity/divinity miracle?  I pray so.  Amen.

2017.12.03 Advent of Sexual Harassment?—Always in Season

In the midst of this avalanche of allegations about sexual harassment, I asked my beloved priest spouse: Have you ever sexually harassed anyone?

Answer: Besides you?

What I keep on recalling, not as excuse but as cultural history, is that sexual harassment has been acceptable behavior for centuries. It was almost expected, and both men and women learned to live with it, their roles and rules clear: men pinch and comment; women demure, blush and dodge.  Feelings about it weren’t important.

So had I ever been sexually harassed in my work place, which was in the church? That includes volunteer work.

Once a priest commented on the movement of my body as I turned the drum of one of those old mimeograph machines. He liked to watch it, my butt not the machine. God forbid, I was flattered. I also felt uncomfortable. That was mostly because I worried that my behind was too fat or too flat, or whatever other idiotic body judgment I imposed on my body. Really? Yes.

What I experienced a lot was something I’d call attitudinal harassment. A bishop once towered over me and queried: “And WHO will take care of the children?” It wasn’t exactly harassment but it was shriveling and left little room for my perspective, let alone my answer. His assumption was that I couldn’t leave home. Mine was that my children would benefit from less not more parenting as they grew.  

My role in the church was limited to set up, clean up, ogle the altar, and in time, administer the chalice at the communion rail (a much trickier maneuver than passing out the bread/wafer), read from scripture on a Sunday, and serve on the vestry. I shoved my way along toward more and more leadership roles, ending up as Dean of our regional deanery, until finally the Church voted in 1976 that women could be ordained priests. Full acceptance of women in leadership is a work-in-progress.

Context is important—always. Some of this ongoing mess we’re in is a matter of interpretation, according to different times and different circumstances…and just plain evolution. My dad, for example, was a “mad man” in the 1950s. He had an affair with his secretary. Maybe more, though he was penitent and confessed his dalliance to my mother. What startled me most was that she told us daughters about it. Was that hostile? To whom?

In high school in a Connecticut shore town famous for gentlemen’s agreements (antisemitism in real estate, Christian/white elitism), I observed that lots of flirting went on amidst the cocktail party set. My mother wasn’t innocent. I learned from her that flirting was power—dangerous power. But my mother flirted with style. Is flirting sexual harassment of a sort?  What about flirting in the work place?

But these were the rules back then in the 1950s: men got handsy not just at parties but in work places. Women were supposed to overlook it or find clever ways to avoid office rape. It was a predator/prey culture, the assumption being that boys and men couldn’t help it—all that testosterone you know. Women had to work around it. These have been the rules over centuries, and they remained the rules.

Until 2017?  Well, we’ll see.

The point I want to make is that I still loved my dad and saw other good things in him. He never sexually harassed me with comments or looks. I felt proud when he retired early because advertising was becoming unethical, he thought ie. false advertising.

Plenty of great artists (Picasso for one, Woody Allen for another) have treated women in abusive exploitive ways. Does that discredit their art, their gifts?  How do we separate and sift all this while at the same time reshaping our collective mores/morality for the common good? Gawd, look at most all our presidents! Not to mention many saints and bishops!! Does their behavior toward women discredit their skills and accomplishment?

I’m a big-picture, person, for better or worse, so I see that it is increasingly incumbent on ALL of us to work together to end the abuses across the board born within a deeply entrenched, centuries-old patriarchal system of social organization. What was overlooked by everyone, men and women alike, really is now impossible to overlook. Or is it? American politics, religion, economics, morality across the boards, has been corrupted/contaminated by a silent consensus to ignore or deny unconscionable behaviors. Most painful to me is the fact that all this has as its underpinning the strong belief that women are not people, I mean not really people! 

To speak theologically, which I can’t resist: Sin is a condition that develops when anyone or ones become disconnected from the goodness in themselves, God, and their neighbors. And there you have it. Sin is always in our reach, which is why the system murdered Jesus for not recanting his politics and his image of God rich in compassion for the poor, the sick, the needful, the preyed upon, the underbelly of society—and women. Sin is endemic and inevitable, which is why all of us need to try to be Christ-like, to understand what that means, and to remember that every week in Eucharist we are re-Christified.

Will it be different now, or is it really going to be different now with all the latest revelations and fierce confessions?  I hope so. I pray so. You know my death throes of patriarchy theory. Godde knows!

2016.11.13 I Was Hoping

In the pre-Nicene period of Christian history, the times were much like our own. Christians were tense, fearful, still grasping for theological meaning a couple hundred years after their painful loss of Jesus Christ and their own messianic expectations. They were groping to understand, to right themselves. Resurrection was not an instant and obvious solace for many, its meaning uncertain. They shared a simple meal—over and over, as they had with Jesus.

Later a Creed would emerge. The Nicene Creed (325 C.E.) stabilized them, for better or worse. It’s always good to have something to recite in public, in community, whether you swallow every word whole or not.

On election eve, 2016, at 11 p.m., I went to bed, mildly, not wildly, confident that Hillary Clinton would be our next president, our first woman president. I slept. I awoke at 7. Dick was sitting up on his side of the bed. I knew he was reading the news on his tablet. I knew. I knew Donald Trump had been elected, because Dick did not turn to me with his big irresistible grin. 

I got up slowly and went to the window, a lookout point from our third floor. I saw a familiar sight: an elderly couple of Asian extraction with their equally aging large dog. They were walking—slowly, very slowly—all three apace. The couple held hands. That’s all. Only then did I cry—for Hillary, for myself, for women, and for all people I love, and many I have never met, whose rights might be endangered, for American diversity, not to mention the glass ceiling I’d hoped would be shattered at last. And I wept for my country, which had elected a man whose rhetoric was misogynistic, abusive, and inciting of violence. Not my guy.

My mind, odd as it can be, went to the Eucharist—steady, sturdy, usually on time, a foxhole as well as a cathedral ritual of radical intimacy, inclusivity, hospitality, and hope. All the things Mr.Trump had trumpeted against.

We, like our forebears, return first to the Eucharist, remembering its power—power to which we bring, like they did, all our hopes, dreams, prayers, sorrows and joys.

Gratefully, Dick and I were scheduled to preside at a Eucharist for a small Education for Ministry (EfM) group at our parish church that evening. They were using one of the Church’s earliest Eucharistic liturgies—pre-Nicene in fact. It was brief, humble, unelaborated, contained all the traditional ingredients. Together this small group broke honest-to-goodness sweet-smelling bakery bread and shared wine from a chalice. These basic elements of nourishment for body and soul were consecrated by words spoken by a presiding priest, and equally by the presence of each of us around the altar table. Then we ate, including olives and cheese, which the early Christians would have brought to the table. We do what Christians do.

I was at peace and slept well that night. My calm did not last, of course, as the fullness of the shock settled into my bones. I talked with friends and family. My son wondered what he could say to his young son and daughter. I felt in a haze. I turned to prayer, asking God for a word—say something!! In quiet, and even in anxiety, I heard this: Don’t stand out. Stand up. It’s one of those things God often says inside me that is wiser than any words of my own.

In fact, I have been trying to “stand out” a bit as I work to promote my new book, a memoir. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, but I hear God calling me to stand up. Stand up and be counted. Keep on working for  justice and equality for women and for all the progressive values you cherish. Stand up, anyway. Even in my incredulity and my grief, I can stand up.

I turned to Scripture, needing just one more leg to stand on. I opened my small bedside table Bible and thumbed aimlessly through. This image fell out. I looked for a long time at the faces of these two disciples of Jesus, Peter and John, as they are pictured by artist Burnand—running, running, running toward the tomb, just in case what the women had reported about the missing corpse might be true. 

I stared at these faces for some time. They mirrored exactly my own post-election feelings. What has happened? What can happen? What now? I might not run so well, but I can still stand up—for common goodness and common good.

                              Eugene Burnand (1850-1921) Swiss artist.

2014.11.16 Stretching for Age in Gratitude

It seems odd to be grateful for aging, yet I am, because aging calls me to do things I might not have done, oh, even ten years ago.

What stretches me, quite literally, is my yoga practice.We are instructed to stretch our bodies to our "edge," but not beyond, not to create pain. Now, what a temptation such instruction wards off! (This lovely image is called Dancer's Pose. It's not me. I can do the pose but I sure don't look like this:0)

My culture would tell me to push—do more, be more. My ego would say, show off.  I’ve done this most of my life. Push. Push. Push. This is what my Lord’s prayer warns me against, the temptation I pray God will lead me away from. All my life I’ve prayed this, and all my life I’ve pretty much failed to heed its wisdom. Aging, however helps. It forces mindfulness; it makes me listen.

My attitude, mind you, isn’t greatly transformed. It’s my body. She talks back to me now. Living in a older body that can be crotchety, keeps me mindful of my “edge.” The yogic instruction is good body wisdom. It is also good spiritual wisdom. 

When I stretch my body, I also stretch my soul. We work together more closely now. We don't go over the edge. If it weren’t for the gentle reminders of aging, I’d push the edge.

I know this because when we first retired we moved into a city. I grew up in a big city, New York. I was thrilled to get back to city sidewalks and storefronts to gaze into, watching for my reflection and checking out the wares. There is a lovely 55-acre park near where we live, so I have plenty of opportunity to walk in nature and watch the garb of each season unfold in its course. It’s a perfect balance.

Then I fell, not once but thrice, and apparently for no reason, though I blamed the heaving sidewalks.

But I know I didn’t trip. I was lucky and only suffered black eyes and bruises, but I felt afraid. Medical tests revealed that nothing was wrong with my brain or bones. So? Aging? Yes, brains age along with everything else. My elderly brain let me know that it could no longer stretch itself to walk and daydream at the same time. I would have to be mindful of my steps.

Grateful for these little salvations, I developed a body-soul practice: Every day before my feet hit the floor, I thank God that I can walk. Every day that I take my first morning stretch and breathe, I thank God for my aging lungs that still inhale and exhale, like a bellows to keep me going. Every day I bless my body and give it a word of thanks for accompanying my wild and wandering mind and my roaming spirit—just not over the edge.

With each step I take, I say this mantra to the rhythm of my pace: pick up your feet and fear not. The first part is my own reminder to my feet, and the second I got from Jesus and Mary.

I also thank Godde for the blessing of marriage and a good man (also full of gripes about THE church!) Also, lots of good friends and good Mercy sisters where I am an associate. And for the Holy Eucharist that feeds me daily with grace. If God can stuff grace into that tasteless old wafer we call “bread,” then Christ can surely get some grace into me—and you and you and you, aka everyone who reaches for it.

2014.08.03 What Is A "First?"

I was the first child my parents ever had. Actually that’s not quite true. There were three before me who never made it. I set no precedents, yet I felt first-ish, and so, I'm sure, did my parents. As a "first" I was a cause célèbre and a bête noir.

“There is nothing new under the sun.” So says Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes). So how can there by any true firsts under the sun—or the moon?

There can't of course, yet we earthlings need to categorize, rank, and order things, and whoever says we don’t do that is probably a liar, because we all do it. Even so, it is good to remember that, spiritually, you are never first or last or new. You are only precious.

The first group of women, in collaboration with a few good men, to defy Episcopal church canon law in 1974 and be ordained priests, were historic "firsts." They were icons to some and iconoclasts to others.

To honor these women, I offer this “first”: the Rev. Elizabeth Alfred, the first woman priest to celebrate Holy Communion on her 100th birthday, January, 10, 2014, in Melbourne, Australia.

According to Muriel Porter, reporting for the diocese of Melbourne, Alfred was the first woman ordained priest in Melbourne December 13, 1992, when Archbishop Keith Rayner ordained 12 women in a long-awaited historic ceremony. She was 78, well beyond retirement age, but Archbishop Rayner had promised this significant pioneer that age would not prevent her ordination—when it finally became possible. She waited in the wings for some time.
       1944, ordained deaconess at 30
       1944-1986, in-waiting, 30-72
       1986, ordained deacon at the first diaconal ordination of women in 1986, age 72
       1986-1992, in-waiting as deacon, age 72-78
       1992, ordained priest with twelve other women, at 78
       2014, celebrated her birthday Eucharist, at 100

Alfred's centenary birthday Eucharist was, most appropriately, back at St James’, Dandenong, where she had ministered as a deaconess, and where she did much of her waiting and dreaming of presiding on her 100th birthday. The church was packed. The preacher, former St James’ vicar the Rev'd Alan Baker, pondered whether this was another "first": has any other woman ministered in the same place as deaconess, deacon, and priest?

Family members, friends, parishioners and clergy colleagues, some of whom had traveled considerable distances, burst into sustained spontaneous applause as Alfred entered the church, vested in a chasuble. Frail after some weeks of illness that she had feared might abort her long-held dream of presiding on her 100th birthday, she needed the assistance of a wheeled walker to get to the altar. Parish clergy helped and stood by.

But when this centenarian "first" spoke – to absolve, consecrate and bless – her voice was clear and strong. There was no doubt who was presiding at this special Eucharist.

At the end of the service, after numbers of people had offered greetings, congratulations, and gifts,  Alfred spoke briefly. During her recent illness, she said, she had been upheld by the prayers of all her friends, and “the knowledge that Jesus was always beside me”.  And, she added, “at least I didn’t have to come today in a wheelchair!” (But you know she would have if necessary.)

There are no firsts in God's eyes; all souls are equal. But I bet if there are angels, they applauded and trumpeted alleluias anyway. They know we earthlings need to remember "firsts" so we can keep going—on earth as it is in heaven. 

2013.12.01 Wait-and-See Advent

Outside the church we are already commercially and spiritually focused on Christmas and its trappings. In this age of instant everything many of us are conditioned NOT to wait.  I get cross with my computer if it doesn’t pop into action at my touch. I can’t wait.

The comic strip, “Heart of the City,” features a kicky little girl who protests to a local store owner about Christmas paraphernalia on display even before Thanksgiving arrives. Heart carries placards, bravely pickets the store, and argues with its owner. She loses the battle to commerce, but wins the war. Few miss the point:

In our haste to get to the “good part” are we not missing the “best part?”

I remember my anticipation as a child. The baited breath suspense of Advent was as full of new life as Nativity. Waiting built up the Spirit, made Santa Claus, also Jesus,  all the more wondrous, and gifts all the more delightful when they came, even if they weren’t exactly what we wanted. 

Advent was the best part simply because as its days grew shorter and darker the world around lit up. Both darkness and light happened simultaneously. At the same time!  It made my eyes pop with awe.  I awaited the dark with as much eagerness as I did the light.

I feel it as an adult too. I don’t complain when days get dark early, unless it’s just to join the chorus of grumbling I hear all around me. But deep inside me I feel oddly comforted when we pull shades before 5 pm and turn on lights, maybe slide the thermostat up a tiny bit.  It’s cozy; it’s hearth; it’s holing in for the evening.

Advent is the interior season, the safe-and-warm-inside season— prayer, softness, dim glow, the color purple-blue, quiet womb, wait 'n see.

Yet in Advent I always think more about homeless people in this season. I don’t wait for Christmas to see Jesus in church pageants.  I see christs on the streets slumped against buildings, huddled in blankets, asleep on benches, sometimes mumbling thank you.  I can’t make them cozy or warm.

As a young child in the city I’d beg my mother for a nickel to throw in a cup or the bucket of a bell ringer.  Clink!  I’d ask: Why are they sleeping? It’s too cold to sleep outside. Don’t they have beds?  My questions were childish—or were they?  I couldn’t make them cozy and warm.

The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts has an active street ministry and employs a street priest to celebrate Sunday Eucharist outside on Boston Common and organize pastoral care. This church is called Common Cathedral. Some of my church “taxes”go to the diocese to support this ministry. 

I’ve visited this outside cathedral  and once gave my scarf to a man who looked cold. I admit I felt awkward, guilty, not wanting to be perceived as Lady Bountiful—but also a little scared. I wish I could be brave and easy like street priests, lay and ordained, but I’m not. I wish I could be more externalized, more of an activist, but I’m an indoor priest. I wait, watch and hope with every “advent” bone in my body, through prayer and Christ’s Eucharist meal, that others with more vocational will and guts will take such generosity outside with them. 

There is hope. I just read (Boston Globe 11/29/13) about blanket ministry, administered in part by our Cathedral Church of St. Paul but the brainchild of Boston’s homeless community.  Some foolish christ asked them what they needed. Blankets, they said!! The blankets are folded to the size of a deck of playing cards in a small pouch. They are silver Mylar space blankets—extremely lightweight and very warm, the kind worn by astronauts and marathoners after a race. Inexpensive too!

You need something warm while you wait outside for a home inside.

The precious blankets are not distributed from shelters or agencies but by volunteers who have been homeless on and off themselves. Over 8000 blankets have been purchased and sent to St. Paul’s. The homeless christ-priests recognize their own on the streets, pull a small blanket pouch out of their backpack, and hand it out—sort of like Eucharist, a tiny wafer on the tongue or in the hand, blessed, as are the blanket pouches, and distributed. Neither solves life’s many problems nor fills an empty belly, but each helps. Oh, each helps as we wait.

To me the whole city world begins, metaphorically, to look eucharistic, open-hearted giving and receiving —wafers inside, blankets outside—as we wait together, but not precisely for Christ for christ is here in the heart of the city. 



 



 

2013.06.19 Dear Dad

My father, McDonald Gillespie, grew up in Morristown NJ. After college Dad moved to New York City and went into advertising. Yes, he was a “Mad Man.” I watched the popular contemporary soap of that name, twice and never again. It was all too familiar: the 3-martini lunches, the mutual flirtations with secretaries, a shallow and competitive culture with rigid gender roles: Dad went to his office and advertised soups and Mom stayed home and advertised me. Their generation was full of anxious men and women using all their smarts to make money and ward off fearful memories of the 1929 depression.

My father imbibed his share of martinis, had one flirtation (I learned this from my mother) and also worked hard and with integrity at what he did. He never represented a product he didn’t believe in and use himself. We ate plenty of Campbell’s Soup (especially the tomato, so MmmMmmgood) and we never drank Coca Cola, only Pepsi.  Dad, naturally, smoked Lucky Strikes for a bullseye.

Dad rose to executive VP status in spite of it all. He didn’t like the exaggerated advertising trend, embellishments to sell the product for profit. In fact, when television ads came in, he fumed when his agency decided to put marbles in the bowl of Campbell’s vegetable soup to make it look rich in edibles. Marbles didn’t sink to the bottom like all the real veggies and pasta products. My father thought that was dishonest and unnecessary.  It was. He was a very honest man whose natural reserve commanded respect—well deserved.  I loved him and never said it enough. So..................

Dear Dad,

2013 marks the 30th anniversary of your death at 71, an age far too young for the length of our love.

We first met when I was born of course and you named me. Naming is a big deal you know, at least it is in the biblical tradition where God names people and gives them gifts. You weren’t God, although sometimes I thought Mom thought so, but you named me Lynda, with a “y” to call me Lyn. You gave me your good looks, your serious-sided personality, and your appreciation for sacramental liturgy. Or did I give you that? 

Two memories stand out for me, Dad. They’re not martini memories though I have a few of those too. As I grew up and got to know you I knew that you drank to relieve the silent soft ache of shyness. I have it too. And we both overdid the drinking, or let it overdo us—until we both stopped, you because of pancreatitis, and me because I came to myself.

My childhood stand-out memory is a summer one. We spent time on a farm in upstate NY  and every so often we’d go on riding breakfasts with Farmer Kurtie and his daughter Bella. Remember? This was a special father/daughter adventure, just for the oldest daughters, before we hit our teens. We packed food and headed out into the open country at pre-dawn. The image engraved on my heart is this: In the pre-dawn we sat still and quiet, I on my small pony and you on your big horse, which is to say we were together like one, our souls riveted as we watched the globe of orange sun rise and take over the earth for a new day. After that we ate breakfast sandwiches made of bacon slathered with mayo and maybe lettuce too— unhealthfully delicious.

My adult memory of you was your last Christmas. You’d had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from your esophagus. You had a feeding tube for nutrition but couldn’t eat or drink. You mustered all your strength and all your soul to make it in your wheelchair to the family table for the Christmas meal, which you couldn’t eat. You lifted a cup of coffee, took a deep whiff but no sip, grinned and toasted, “Merry Christmas everyone.”

You did it for us and you did it for Christmas. It was the most beautiful “eucharist” I’d ever seen.

Thanks Dad.