2014.03.15 Ashes to Ashes

It's a gray day, little vibrancy in the sky and little coloration on the ground. A boring noisy high-pitched dog yelps on in the neighbor's back yard. Her name is Eugenie, so glamorous. Nature portrays the mood of the day which for Christians is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.

A gray-as-ash day is very appropriate, although I often think Nature controls all things—such arbitrary governance! Still gray is good, because life happens most often in the gray areas, never black and white as would be easy. That is the case with this gray day when we turn to ourselves, our neighbors and our Godde to acknowledge that we have, well, blown it— in many small and big ways. Sin is no more pure than is righteousness. It's all gray like this day. 

Lent is NOT necessarily a time to give anything up, nor a time to TAKE anything new on. Rather, Lent is a time to reflect on how religious faith, prayer practices, and rituals in community enrich your spirituality, your soul's health. to 

Lent kicks off with a ritual by which we say prayers, praise the grace of God, and commit ourselves to a process of discernment and reflection about who we are, who God is for us, and how we walk with Jesus Christ in the way of compassion, even unto death, and beyond. We smear ashes on our foreheads to signify that we are mortal and, though very good, not perfect—ever. Just gray.

 Lent is serious but not depressing, not for soul-lashings. 

Just STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN. The hardest to keep of these three commands in this addictive, consumerist, rush of a culture is: STOP!!  Deep breathing might help.

Here are two offerings I will be leading to help get yourself in the gray:

ARE WOMEN GOOD FOR GOD?  The Rev. Lyn G. Brakeman will offer a quiet retreat day on Saturday March 15 at Miramar Retreat Center in Duxbury, MA. from 10a.m. to 3 p.m. Cost is $40.00 including lunch.This day is for women and any men interested in exploring the implications of the odd query above. Through meditations, quiet prayer time, journaling and spiritual direction with Lyn on request, we will focus on the biblical stories of Mary of Nazareth and the Syrophoenician Woman. What happens when a woman summons the courage to speak her mind directly, to confront Divinity, to challenge social and religious norms?  To register call Miramar at 781-585-2460 or email at miramar@aol.com.


THE ART AND CRAFT OF SPIRITUAL WRITING  The Rev. Lyn G. Brakeman will teach a course at Grub Street, Boylston St., Boston, on Saturday March 22, 10-5 p.m. Writers say that all good writing is spiritual, which is true when writing inspires us to engage our own deepest heart and mind. Yet there are nuances and particularities to focus on, especially if one uses religious content, vocabulary, symbols and ritual when it is appropriate to a character or to yourself, if it's memoir. We will talk about both differences and connections between religion and spirituality and encourage writers to be free from either/or thinking. Much of our time will be spent writing and looking at samples. To register go to www.grubstreet.org or call 617-695-0075.

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.