2021.11.21 Whose King Are You?

Today marks the liturgical anniversary of our marriage on November 23, 1986. We were married on Christ the King Sunday during the morning Eucharist in the parish church, Trinity in Collinsville, Connecticut, where Dick had served as the rector for eight years, and I had been on the Search committee that elected him to serve. 

So why all this introduction? Well, because this small parish had supported us both through more than difficult times for us and them. It isn’t easy to divorce and remarry when you are clergy, but this little place had seen us both through vulnerable times and stayed loving towards us both. That is why we wanted to celebrate the sacrament of our marriage within this context at Trinity—our spiritual home, not just his job.  

While planning our service, we fussed over the hymn chosen for the day: “Crown Him with Many Crowns.” It was the obvious choice for this Sunday before the season of Advent begins and hurls us— willingly or reluctantly, depending on one’s ability to play mental gymnastics with the ordering of events in time—towards Christmas when this “king” was crowned just four weeks prior to his birth. Either a very short pregnancy, or a very premature baby, or possibly an act only Divinity could, or would, pull off. None of that mattered much to me, but I did not want to walk down the aisle with my about-to-be new marriage partner, singing about “HIS” triumphal crowning. 

Of course I am overdoing my sarcasm here, but the truth is we did debate the hymn choice for that day—the  diademata, “Crown Him With Many Crowns.” I lost that battle; the long liturgical tradition won; Christ (not He) got crowned; we married each other. When we said our vows I had a small grief seizure—tears flowed down my cheeks. Dick’s mustache quivered with alarm. It was crazy and incongruent— unless you know something about grief and it’s odd inexplicably unpredictable timing. I did not regret my first marriage, nor did I regret the divorce, but I did grieve both and occasionally still do in spurts. 

Anything or anyone that has been such a significant part of your life, will always need to be grieved, even in cases when divorce has meant a sad but inevitable end to a marriage. 

*  *  *  * 

See what we marriage partners are doing now after 35 years of happy marriage!  It’s Halloween, 2021, at a party for the retirement community where we now live in Connecticut. A party and fun was just what we all needed—a time to laugh, enjoy hors d’oeuvres and cocktails, and show off costumes. Dick and I went as Good Brother Monk and the Beloved Monastery Cat. I dressed all in black, including mask and hat, and Dick wore his hooded alb. (Someone asked where he got his costume. It’s his liturgical vestment, the one he wore when he presided at the altar.) Ms. Cat  was saved by Good Brother Monk after she lost her tail on a coyote trail. He fed her lots of fish and milk in a dish. I made plenty of mewling, howling, and purring sounds. Good Brother Monk, who prays all day and all night, closed our routine with a somewhat edited, and slightly ribald Irish blessing, ending with Latin (illegitimi non carborundum) and final praise for the monastery pussy. 

Everyone laughed heartily and we won a prize—a large beautiful woven quilt to keep us warm in winter months. Meeeowwwpurrrr. Amen. 

   

2021.10.31 HALLOWEEN WONDERMENTS

Whatever Hallowed Eve is, it’s at least a time to have fun, to dress up in funny or scary costumes, to say BOO, to eat mountains of Candy Corn (a horrifyingly bad candy), and most of all to laugh with and at ourselves. As the poet says, so it goes. 

HALLOWED EVENING

Do the beloved dead

come back

this night

to sit in their favorite

easy chairs

and breathe in

the earthly fragrances

they once knew

  so well?

Do we believe

that heaven is so 

ailing

that the beloved dead

would not be 

infinitely happy

there and would need

a trip back to earth

to fill their hearts?

Best allow

the commercial

takeover of this night

to erase all thoughts

of this bizarre idea,

and to enjoy the dark.

Best just open the door

and hand out candy

to kids in costumes. 

by Carole Jean Smith, poet, Watertown MA., Into The Wild

As well we should!—because, according to Western Christian tradition, the next day, November 1, is declared Holy: All Saints Day, all Hallows Day, as in “Hallowed be thy name.”  It is a day to honor all saints who are deemed to have attained heaven. Silly, right? Because who knows who is in heaven?  Sainthood is not about points for good deeds or for martyrdom, a vocation to which few are called. It is safe to assume that it is God’s gracious loving desire that everyone be heavenbound. If you want to know who a saint is, look in the mirror—and grin! 

WHO COOKS FOR YOU?

  

I call this critter a hooting owl fish. She, or he, was photographed by David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes in Night Life for National Graphic Magazine (10/21) in the darkest night-depths of the sea.  “The only way to know which way is up is to watch which direction the bubbles are going,” Doubilet says.

HINENI   (Hebrew for "Here I am"  pron. hee-NAY-nee)  

 

Here is the latest discovery in fossildom. Years ago, with a friend at a museum of natural history, looking at fossils, my friend announced: “There are no fossils.” I did not pursue her certitude, because I knew I would get a lecture on “creationism”—the idea that God created everything fully formed, that is, no room for evolutionary processes. But this little crab defies that notion. I call her/it/them/who knows “Buster in Yellow.” They are a fossil encased in hard plastic. She says: “hineni”.

CONVERSATION WITH A WASP

In a piece by Paul Hond, Columbia Alumni/ae Magazine, Fall, 2021, he quotes Michelle Ashkin, ’04 alumna: “Then a strange thing happened. My mother and I were looking at a wasp. It cocked its head, and my mother and I just stood there. Did you see that? We moved, and the wasp followed our movement. My mother and I looked at each other, and it was an ‘aha moment’ for both of us. This is a being. This being sees us, or sees something—recognizes it, and is aware of it. How in the world were we going to kill it? We couldn’t—it became a being, not a disposable, not ‘oh, we can kill it because there are hundreds more outside. So we found a cup, captured it and let it go.' ”   

I used to do the same for ants in the city of Cambridge. Then I’d unfasten the screen and put it on the window sill where it froze until it felt safe enough to bug off on its own.  Lady bugs —family signs of new life—get to stay in residence. 

We are human beings. All Creation is shared Being. So be it. 

THE MISSING TREE

She is bent but not broken. He is weary but not tired. 

They are old and alive, missing every tiny life, animate or inanimate, 

that ever was, or is, or is to be—without regret. 

WISDOM

“Lord increase my bewilderment.” That is the entirety of this Sufi Muslim prayer. 

“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”  Jesus, according to King James.Mt. 6:36

“Let go and let God.” Twelve Step Recovery (AA et. al.) slogan wisdom.

CRACKED CLARITY CONFUSED  

I’m going out

without a jacket

or a hat, only a mockingbird

for directions.          

Carole Jean Smith, Into the Wild. Poems in praise of the beauty of our imperiled world. 

©Lyn G. Brakeman, 2021

 

2012.10.31 Halloween

Do you remember your first Halloween costume? I don’t but I bet it looked like a princess, ballerina, fairy or angel with a sparkly mask if possible.   Later I “went” as Huck Finn, and a “hobo”— masculine versions of freedom.

I asked two of my granddaughters, What are you going to be at Halloween?  A hippy said the 16 year old. Just about anything would work. A zombie cat said the 12 year old, with big whiskers and a cape—all black.   The difference in their  age-related stances toward life. Both wanted to make a statement, possibly keep adults at bay for a day.

This Halloween, 2012, is special, because we can replace real fear with fake fear, real life with fantasy life. 

We’ve been terrified by a recent monster storm that left much damage in its wake. And we’ve been bombarded with the politics of a presidential election, each party terrorizing the other with negative ads and horrifying prediction. 

Halloween is fun. Some religionists think it’s celebrating magic and sorcery but I think it’s a very good way for all of us to let out our secret ghoulishness, be really fierce and scary or play the celebrity...... when no one know who you are, you think.  To be silly and spooky without embarrassment, maybe cheat by decorating a tree with toilet paper even when you got a treat.

So I’m OK with feigning horror at any masked child garbed in her/his latest fantasy, or playing a guessing game about who could this princess or fairy at my door really be, or what famous rock star I’ve never heard has come to ask me for candy?  I’m sad we don’t get any kids any more. Fear of  poison apples you know.  I do Halloween vicariously at a distance with photos like this.