2025.06.15 FATHERS ALL. HAPPY AND BLESSED DAY. Spiritual Lemons, Lyn G. Brakeman, blog post.

Just this week when my husband, Dick, and I were watching some humorous Brit television, I had a spontaneous thought: “I love your father!”   

I do not know exactly know where my thought came from, except that I trust spontaneous “blurts” like this, because they are always meaningful and always engage my heart. That’s why I love biblical stories, because they tell me something about Divinity, something about Love, and something about myself—all in one blurt!

In this moment I suppose I was thinking about Father’s Day as I glanced at a framed photo of Dick’s parents on their wedding day. I thought how elegant they looked, how much I love their son, and how I wished that I had known them better.  

Nevertheless! I followed my inspiration and recalled a couple of tiny Dad stories.

-When Dick was a young child of four he got a fever and the doctor said he had to be in bed, kept warm and immobile. The world was waiting for penicillin. His dad of course worried and felt the need to “do” something, so he braced the cold day and went out. He returned to his son’s bedside bringing with him a street Santa with a little bell and all the trimmings. It was all he could do as a dad who loved his small son. Santa Claus had no gifts except the magic of his message: Merry Christmas. Ho. Ho. Ho.  Soon the little child did get better. Miracle? Who knows and who cares. The child lived. The small spontaneous gesture was enough.

-Another remembered story was about when Dad as a young boy working part-time as a boy with a broom in some factory. They paid a pittance to sweep up the dust and dirt on the floors. In the process the boy overheard some men talking secretively about ways to sabotage the business. He sensed it was wrong and told others. Courage.

-Another story I loved to hear was that, although Dad was wary of flying, he agreed to a flight for the sake of his business. Before he boarded the plane, he went round the airport and put coins in every insurance-selling machine and addressed the payment slips to Dick’s mom. Tragically, and NOT by divine design as some people think, the plane crashed killing everyone on that flight, including this dad. Dick was a junior in college. Faculty and friends helped him get a flight back home to where his mom was. Within a month all those insurance checks arrived, all of them valid and honored. These monies in time helped to pay for Dick’s children’s college tuitions. It was a tragic accident not organized by Divinity. It is humanity with the freedom given at Creation, that can turn such evil into good.  

-Just today I saw a father and son. Dad was helping the child to learn golf. Finally, this wee toddler, after several futile swings with his small club, connected with the ball, and whacked it good. Dad gave him a big hug. The child toddled on down the hill to the waiting golf cart where he stayed while Dad hit his own ball with a whack. It was a win for both of them. How do I know?  I simply felt its truth in my heart. 

A miracle is something Divinity does for you that you cannot do for yourself, and yet, ironically, it often bears unexpected good fruit.  Silly small things that matter big.   

2019.06.16 Knocking Off THE Father and Loving the Daddy

Happy Father’s Day. Happy Trinity Sunday.

Many Christians claim to understand the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity, yet no one does. How can the one God be partitioned—thrice holy? In church we pray to OUR FATHER. We bless and anoint in the name of THE FATHER. Adding HIS only son and a holy spirit, we lustily sing Holy, Holy, Holy. We proclaim, praise, and triple-bind ourselves into this girdle of holiness and name it One God. Now who really does not secretly know that the real head of this sweet holy trio is THE FATHER? 

I’m a woman, also a mother. My preferred pronouns are she, her, hers. I’m not named as one of these major God parts. I’m not bitter, because my spiritual experience tells me I’m holy, and that the Trinity really means that the One Father God’s holiness is innumerable—not three or even three zillion. God has no preferred pronouns. God is not my father. 

Most days I adored my father. I used to think he was like God and imagined him in grandiose ways. One day though I did discover that he really was the bravest man in the universe.

Daddy was a city man—reserved, handsome, advertising executive. As a child I longed to capture his attention. My strategies, chiefly cuteness, incessant questions, and begging for one more book, bore little fruit—except in the summer when left the city and spent time on a farm up-state. Daddy commuted but took lots of vacation time. We got to explore the near-sacred mysteries of life on a farm.

We’d read picture books about farm animals, so we’d practiced neighs, brays, moos, cackles, and oinks. On the farm our book-animals leapt alive. We bonded over barnyard sights, sounds, and smells, especially freshly mown hay, pigs wallowing in mud, and cows. I was scared but Daddy was brave. Watching a cow give birth terrified me. The mother cow struggled and bellowed. Daddy told me to wait, luckily refraining from a lesson in sex education. I held my hands over my eyes, but peeked. When the calf finally emerged my heart jumped. How had it fit inside? This led us to the bull—a daddy to avoid, Daddy said.

The bull had his own stall. We peeked in. The bull snorted and had sharp piercing eyes—angry. One day the farmer asked Daddy to help get the bull up a ramp and onto the trailer for transport. The bull was secured by ropes tied to a halter. I watched, shivering with fear. Some men tugged the lead on the halter and pulled. Others poked with pitchforks from the rear. The raging bull jerked his head and took a quick turn toward Daddy. The farmer yelled: “Jump aside quick!” I held my breath till the bull galloped up the ramp onto the truck. Daddy was saved.

Driving home, I asked softly: “Daddy, were you scared?”

“You bet I was Lynnie,” he said.  

At that moment I knew my father really was the bravest man in the universe.

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy—God also of course and in case.

2016.06.09 Grace Is A Verb

Many alphabets of grace have been created. That’s because grace is both a divine mystery and something everyone experiences, sometimes daily. Usually grace is used as a noun, but it can be a verb, as in “The Queen graced us with her presence.” Or the Pope, or Jesus, or the President, or the one you’d always dreamed would fall head over heels in love with you. 

In seminary my favorite New Testament professor defined grace in an experiential way. I’ve never forgotten his definition and hold it true today. Grace is the experience of being known and loved— at the same time. That sounds passive, and it is because this kind of grace is a gift. When you feel known, through and through to your core—AND AT THE SAME TIME— loved, through and through to the core, you explode. No longer can you say, “They know me but they don’t like me.” Or, “They love me all right, but if they really knew me, they wouldn’t.”  You see what I mean. Grace is a package, and it is divine when it happens to you. Only the verb form can express this explosion of truth in your soul. Like this:

Here is my alphabet:

A  aerate
B   burst
C   clap
D   drop-kick, delve, dazzle
E   eulogize, effervesce
F   fly
G   God/Godde
H   hallow
I    irrigate
J   jolt
K  know
L   lift, love
M  mourn, marry
N   notarize
O   own
P   potentiate
Q   query
R   reconstitute
S   sanitize
T   thank
U   undergird
V   vivify
W   wonder
X   xylophonize
Y   Yes!
Z   zest

My father when he was alive gave me grace when he completely knew and loved me at once, which wasn’t consistent, by the way, but when he did I glowed through and through. Like the time I, hesitantly, told him I wanted to be a priest and launched into a messy and awkward explanation. I didn’t think he would disapprove; I just thought he might think it silly and laugh. Instead, he said, “I understand, Lynda.” (He called me by my full name when he got seriously angry—or graced me with his full presence. )

Here’s Dad the day he married Mom 82 years ago June. Handsome dude! I got his nose and his hair.

2015.06.21 Addiction Awareness

I dedicate this post to all fathers, especially those in our family, who are clean and sober and a blessing, including my own dear dad, in heaven I'm sure.  Thank you. Happy Father's Day.

I also dedicate this post to the nine people who on June 17, 2015 were shot and killed in Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. in a senseless act of terrorism. I don’t know if drugs were involved in this act, but I’m am beginning to believe that our American-dream culture is addicted to guns and the power they represent.

                                                               
“What I am about to say will make some people angry.”

Bob Stutman, an experienced DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) agent for over 25 years, now a consultant on the issue, said the above sentence more than once during a talk he gave recently in Boston. His warning felt almost like a threat. He was right. At almost everything he said, some heads bobbed assent and some heads swiveled negation. No one was neutral—a clear sign of the importance of this issue.

I chuckled inwardly, thinking about Paul the apostle’s preaching in Athens. Paul gave these men, and they were all men, no such warning when he harangued about this Holy One God in whom “we live and move and have our being; as even some of your poets have said.” (Acts 17:28) Some men felt angry, some hopeful, none neutral about such divine encompassment.

Do we think we can keep Divinity transcendent and conveniently far away?

Clergy were invited to attend Stutman's talk, because the current addiction crisis affects all stakeholders, and churches have a stake in the common good. I too have a stake, both personal and professional.  I grew up with alcoholism. I worked as a chaplain in an alcohol/drug rehabilitation center for six years: inpatient for 4 weeks, followed by several weeks of partial hospital aftercare. Such luxury today is costly and rare. It needs resurrection.

Why?  Addiction is of epidemic proportions; first-use age is 12, and 4th grade is the grade most at risk for recreational alcohol use; the latest killer drugs are opioids (synthetic drugs prescribed by medical doctors for pain,) and  kids get them out of the medicine chest at home, not from drug traffickers! The only thing that made me feel angry was this: WE DON’T TALK ABOUT IT. Drug addiction is a disease. Our silence is a sin. 

 Bullets
    -Opioids, such as oxycontin, are synthetic drugs. Opiates, such as heroin, are natural drugs. 
    -The leading cause of death by accident, automobile accidents, is now #2, replaced by death by overdoses of pharmaceutical drugs.
    -Don’t blame pharmaceutical companies and don’t blame the drugs themselves. Think regulated medical marijuana. For the biblically savvy, don’t blame the snake in Eden either! It’s us!
    -Kids say things like: “Hey dude, this s..t’s gotta be safe. It was prescribed by a nice doctor for dad (or mom.) I got it from our medicine cabinet!”
    -The feeling you get from an opiode is not a high, a charge. A man described it as: “being held in my mother’s arms.” Warmth and safety—primal.  
    -Any pharmaceutical drug is abusable. Pills get crushed. Imagine snorting all those extended release granules of a stimulant, like Adderall or Ritalin, prescribed and effective for some conditions, but also abusable. Stutman said: “You may know and trust your teen, but do you know her or his friends?”
    -We are winning the overall drug war, because drug use is down.
    -We are losing the drug war, because drug dependency and death from overdose are up.
    -WHY? Age of first use is lower than it was in 2007 when the stats for overall U.S. drug use went down by 30% 
    -68% of high schoolers interviewed described their “biggest stress” as DRUGS. It wasn’t drugs they feared; it was being approached to use, and being unable to say no. DARE, a police program of drug resistance education, has had little impact.
    -College drug use combines often with alcohol. Every day (all 365) a college student goes from campus to an emergency room because of a drug-related incident:alcohol poisoning or drug overdose, not to mention rape.
    -NO ONE CAN IDENTIFY AN OPIODE ADDICT!  Stutman, an expert undercover agent, could, on observation, pick out addicts, but not opioid addicts.They are successful in traditional ways. Rush Limbaugh, for instance, admitted to being oxycontin-dependent for 5 years. All that time he had a regular radio show. Never mind his politics, his condition was drug-impaired. No one knew.
    - White teens use 2-3 times more drugs than black kids. Think medicine chest.
    -Urban problem? Alaska and Montana have the highest percentages of drug addiction.
    - Sports are not a safe shelter, team sports being the most vulnerable, football the worst.
    -“WE (name any group, Jews, Catholics, Swedes, abstainers, etc.) don’t do drugs.” ALL kids are at risk.
   -The U.S. prescribes more opioides for pain than any other country in the world. #2 is Denmark.    
   -Pain responds just as well to other non-narcotic medications, such as physician-recommended combinations of acetaminophine and ibuprofen every 3 hours.
    -AA and other 12-step groups are support groups for the disease of addiction, NOT treatment. There are now medications that help control symptoms, like cravings, and even death by overdose. 

A dramatic story: Stutpen received a request from a woman in Florida who asked if she could deliver a very short message after his talk to parents. He checked her credentials and said yes. She had six sentences, with props.

1)   My name is XXX and I live in XXX, a wealthy suburban area.
2)   This is a photo of my son, XX, a 2001 graduate of Brown University.
3)   This is his law degree from Harvard University.
4)   This is his MBA degree from the University of Chicago.
5)   This is an empty bottle of oxycontin, his drug of choice in 2009.
6)   This is an urn containing his ashes, 2010.

A final story: The President of Marquette University in Milwaukee, a Jesuit institution, organized an evening talk on addiction and invited all parents. The invitation threatened parents:  RSVP required. If you can’t come to this evening we are recording it and will send you a video. If you don’t respond, your student will show up for classes and will not be admitted until we have a word from you. Amen!

What to do?

     Pray for people in bondage to addiction, out loud! —whether you know one or not. And don't let "those poor people"just meet in your church basements or be confined to your own innermost disdain. Bring the upstairs and the downstairs together. Bring the inside and the outside together.
     Understand your own codependent behaviors. Listen to your kids. Don't just talk to them.
     Read about what the Gloucester, Massachusetts Police Department’s initiative NOT to charge any individual who comes to the police department for help with addiction. Police Chief, Leonard Campanello, introduced the initiative in June, 2015  with a question: What is one life worth to you?

“Law enforcement,” Campanello wrote, does not have the right to judge that life. We believe in second chances, and third chances, and in starting over. Addiction is not a crime.” His site has over one million hits and counting.
    There have been many addicts who have responded; they have been assessed and treated, using any and all available resources. The people and the politicians are behind this effort.
    Connect with other citizens in your communities to have an evening discussion on this issue.

Chief Campanello is married and is a father. He has adopted many new "sons" and "daughters" thanks to this non-traditional, gracious, and, yes, godly, innovation. Happy Father's Day, Chief. 

 





   
   

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.