2021.02.21 COMPASSIONTIDE, Retreat with Martin Smith

It’s time!!  Go!

I’ve been restless, irritable, uneven of soul. It’s not the virus or hermetic ways, not even the bombardment online of a million glamorous offerings to deepen everything from your spirituality to your drain pipe flow. Something was missing. What?

RETREAT!  It’s been over two years since we’d been on retreat—out of town to a quiet place of contemplative solitude-in-community where you make friends with yourself and your God.

What is contemplative about Zoomed distance watching? Still, I need for my nerves a retreat, darling. So we sign up for a retreat, Compassiontide, at Holy Cross Monastery with Martin Smith, our favorite ex-monastic-now-married Episcopal monk-priest.

Retreat Silence  

An infuriating irony about retreat silence: the more you concentrate your focus outward on icons, images sculpture, artwork, natural scenery, a speaker, the more your inner focus sharpens.

Retreat prep 

I re-read Martin Smith’s Lenten classic A Season for the Spirit. I noticed the noble dedication by the then Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie who commissioned a book for Lent, 1991. “It still comes as a surprise to many people that there are monks and nuns who belong to the churches of the Anglican Communion.  .  .  . This book is not a substitute for prayer itself. Instead it leads us into the experience of prayer.  .  .  .  Martin Smith has written a practical book.   .  .  .   I have much confidence that it will be found a rich quarry for Christians of varying traditions seeking to come closer to God in prayer, and also for those just beginning the journey of faith.”   

I have so many underlinings in this little book that it makes me laugh. I’ve internalized it and now imagine it to be my own clever theology. There really is nothing new under the sun. Good!

Typos 

I notice with a laugh that on pages 12 and 21 there are typos—the same word misspelled twice: INdentification.    
    In the chapter, “The Wind In The Wilderness,” Martin Smith describes the biblical story of Jesus being driven into the wilderness by the Spirit to discern his vocation. How could, or would, Jesus be human and divine at once? “If he is the Holy One of God, the Only-begotten, what becomes of his sense of INdentification with weak mortals?”
    In the chapter, “The Anaesthetic Begins To Wear Off,” Jesus wrestles with how to reconcile a broken world into the divine embrace of God. “The Spirit of Jesus moves us, as it moved him, to INdentify ourselves with a broken world AND to bring it within the reconciling embrace of God.”
    
I will  INdentify. Honestly, I slip-slide around, flop to one side or the other, and pray a lot to keep balance and be compassionate with my blundering. I’m a failure. But I’m awake. I go for more.  

Retreat Meditations In Small Bits    

God is an Overflowing Never-ending Immensity of Compassion—a Niagara. We can resonate with this flow, as a piece of paper lying on the strings inside a piano would when that note is twanged. The paper suddenly rises with the vibration. That’s how we RESONATE with divine Compassion—seeking more. The MORE is always available. I go with the flow.

The mystical password to enter the Gospel Mystery is ADORATION, not obedience. Adoration is loving God with the brakes off. A brain-damaged child would butt his head on the TV screen. He was aroused and gestured that he wanted MORE. He wanted IN, into the action. How adore-able. Me too!

Christianity is the only religion that puts passion back into compassion. Our God suffers. The hands that hold us in existence are pierced with unimaginable nails. The Cross, therefore, is a judgment, not because it is violent, but because it brings human cruelty into the light. I see!  One of Jesus’s hand on my home altar crucifix is missing. I cover its absence with a tiny white shell.  I shiver.

Martin has a small lamb tattooed on the inside of his arm. “The Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world; the sins of the world do not take away the Lamb.”  I see that silly lamb with new eyes—no longer ridiculing but with gently tenderness.

Compassion for others is an unstable idea. What? Justice is very popular for good reason today, but it is not the Gospel of Christ. What?  Justice offers equality, giving all of us just what we all, by rights, deserve. Mercy, however, is not just. It gives us all what we do not deserve, have not earned. Say again? Consider the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. Some worked hard all day, and some worked an hour only. They all got the same pay. Equal pay for equal work? Nope, not the way of God.

When you are helpless establish a sheltering heart in prayer. I pray with a young man of 25 whose acquaintance I have only recently made through his grandmother. He had a normal accident for a teenager who at 17 climbed a tree, lost balance, and fell to the hard ground—flat on his back. He is now 25 and quadriplegic. His grandmother left the church long ago, in disgust about rules that hurt people. I’d told her I was going on a retreat—virtually. We laughed. She knew what a retreat was, and the next day asked me if I’d pray for her grandson on my retreat.  I do. I am. No brakes on.
 

Practice promiscuous empathy. OK, I’ve tried promiscuity in other ways, but this is much harder. Screech go my brakes. They still work—in case.

The Holy Spirit invites compassionate experimentation: Try this. See this. Ask this. Wonder this. Pray this. The Spirit tugs gently at your heart and gives it clues. For example, imagine that the person whose behavior you deplore may have an unhealed wound hiding behind mean behavior. In prayer, recall your own wounds, and Compassion will soften your heart. That’s God—madly soft-hearted.

Last Laughs

I asked my usual question about the lumbering pace of the Church in eliminating gendered language to find a more expansive and compassionate vocabulary for God. Martin grinned and said he knew who had asked that question. I’m that much of a pest, yes. He said he was not adept in this area, offered “Loving Parent,” and admitted that, although Church rhetoric is hard-edged to change, it is still locked into a masculine distanced God. (He didn’t add white. I forgave him immediately.)  After all, most of the quotes and images he used were from women.

Hilarious irony: the theological language question about which I am the most passionate, I have never prayed about, never directly consulted God in prayer about. Have I assumed that God already agreed with me?  Oh God, forgive me and help the Church loosen up and change traditional theological imagery. Thanks.
 

All Saints, 11.01.2020

Today in the Christian Church we celebrate All Saints Day, which immediately confronts us with the very practical challenging question: Who is a saint? What does a saint do, or not do?  Why?

Most preachers in Christian churches will elaborate about the higher values of the kingdom of heaven of which we are citizens and whose values we live by.  YES, BUT how does this Transcendent Kingdom connect with Earthed Kingdom?  I can only think of one acceptable answer: God doesn’t stay in “Heaven.” Simply so.

I was struck with the ever-so-familiar—even trite Scripture—THE Beatitudes.These are hard blessings. Each divine blessing presumes its polar opposite: poverty of spirit, mercilessness, grief enough to suffocate a soul, persecution, torture, evil, unrequited justice, and the absence of peace. For each and all of these blessings God offers its opposite but not its elimination. In other words, dearly beloved, this kingdom of Saints is neither all good nor all bad. It’s both.  

On my home altar sits a small scallop shell. It was hinged but spread open when I first spotted it years ago on an ocean beach. The shell has traveled with me, in pockets and on altars and through a few geographic moves. Hence, the tiny hinge that held the two halves of shell together, enabling it to yawn open and clamp shut for the sake of the tiny critter within, broke. Now I have just the shell in two halves. They look exactly the same, but notice. The outsides of each half are quite distinct.

BUT when the shell is open the insides of both halves are exactly the same.

 Such is the all-blessed image of the Kingdom of God—all residents different one from another externally and all the same internally.  Beatified.



Today I remember a human saint who embodied these beatitudes of inclusion. I first met the Rev. Roy Parker at Holy Cross Monastery while on retreat. He was my spiritual director for a time. Monthly I drove over to Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, New York, where he listened well to all my palaver. I felt soothed by his presence, until one day I stopped talking and looked over to see Roy sound asleep. I woke him and we laughed, followed by my strict instruction that he see a therapist for possible depression.We laughed—together. He still laughs I believe.

Once some years later —in the mid 80s—Roy was on a meditation trip with a nun as his companion. Dick and I offered them a place to spend the night along their way. We served them a delicious dinner and gave them each one of our three spare bedrooms available at the rectory and laughed about sharing such a delightful evening with a monk and a nun.  Our two travel buddies left with deep gratitude for our hospitality. A lot of funny stuff can happen under the sign of the Cross.

We stayed friends with Roy, and I consider him still an exemplar of true sainthood. He was present at my ordination to the priesthood in 1988. We’ve enjoyed his humor whenever we’ve visited the monastery. Once he sidled up to Dick on the way to lunch and whispered: “You know this aging stuff is not for sissies!” Roy’s work hangs on the monastery walls heading toward the chapel.

 

Roy calligraphed the cover for  my ordination bulletin. The larger version of the wisdom of St. Irenaeus of Lyons also hangs above the bed where we sleep. 

Our favorite image of Roy’s calligraphy is a quote from the work of the late mystic and beatitude type, Thomas Merton, American Trappist monk. He wrote if you can't read it: "Dance in the sun, you tepid idiot. Wake up and dance in the clarity of perfect contradiction." I gave it to Dick because it, well, reminded me of him.  We will never ever reframe this to get rid of the crack in the glass!

Roy Parker died of a paralytic laryngeal disease in 2020. The disease took away his voice entirely and then his life. Just before he went silent, he did this last calligraphy.

 

 

Roy is a saint in good standing in the beatitudinal kingdom of all saints. My heart can’t help but be lifted, my cup filled to the brim, my soul drenched in the generous faithfulness of God when I remember Roy.    

2019.09.01 Stealth Quilt In the Sacristy

On Monday July 1, a time when no one in his/her right mind is in church, including God some would say, a beautiful quilt, hung in the sacristy of St John’s Episcopal Church, Charlestown, suddenly appeared. A photo of the quilt and an explanatory e-note, reminding me that the placement of this creation had been my idea, arrived soon.  Here's the installed quilt.

I nearly forgot I’d cooked up this scheme with professional artist, quilter, and parishioner, Kathleen McCormick. She had agreed some time ago to create a quilt from one of her designs I loved. It was to adorn the barren wall in the newly completed sacristy. And then the quilt just appeared—a quiet annunciation of God’s beauty. My God, it’s more beautiful than I imagined it would be!

Co-incidentally I received a blog post, from Fashionista, of all things, about the “knitting monk,” Brother Aidan Owen of the Order of the Holy Cross in West Park New York. Aidan has taken up knitting as a spiritual practice and has developed his craft through the internet, falling with other enthusiasts into what he calls “the black hole of knitting online.”  With help from the “slow fashion” movement’s emphasis on treating people and the planet with care, Brother Aidan found confluence: “I had my Christian spirituality, I had the ecological stuff, and then I had creativity and making things. And it all came together in knitting because you're literally clothing yourself with stuff from the earth."

The confluence of fabric arts and spirituality is familiar to Kathleen McCormick as well. She sent me some “quilty” notes:  “I grew up near the Amish in Reading Pennsylvania, started sewing when I was young, and made many of my clothes during high school and college. I always went to see the quilts that the Amish made but not until after graduate school, did I find time, a store, and nearby classes. Due in part to the celebration of the bicentennial in the mid 70s quilting was revived; books, classes and new quilts were appearing, and with it my own vocation. Handpiecing and handquilting was where I started and what I loved. The handwork made me feel as though I was a piece of the quilt—the joining of the front, the batting in the center, and the backing.”

Now that Kathleen designs quilt patterns on her own, often for family and friends or, let’s say, for a church sacristy, the creative process is even more intense. “I am putting myself into the quilt—all my particular thoughts and prayers.” [Brother Aidan does the same as he knits—each stitch a kind of prayer.]  “Original design work has helped me to grow both as a quilter and an artist, something that I never thought I’d call myself. In finding something that speaks to me, I find myself having to be honest about what I love about quilting and what my style is—traditional with a modern twist.”  

Does this not sound like Creator God creating a “quilty” world, sewing the divine soul itself into every unique patch and stitch of life? I think so. Just as God Creator never stops creating, sewing divinity into every new soul, and rejoicing in the unfolding wonders, Kathleen creates new patterns and designs from the beginning to the end. “My vision is to instill joy in the process and help quilters who need some help finding a great technique or the inspiration to finish a project or try something new. I have taught quilting for many years and love sharing my quilting knowledge.”

Kathleen now is an ambassador for Island Batik, a fabric company which sends fabric and monthly challenges.  While on  Peaks Island in Maine where she and her husband Jonathan will soon retire, she responds to each monthly challenge with new quilts and designs. Jonathan “edits” her stitches with praise and hung the sacristy quilt with pride. This quilt is one of Kathleen’s favorite designs that she made for an ambassador challenge. It, just like all evolving life, has many variations. “I fell in love with the design at first sight,” she told me. It is part of a series of Super Nova quilts, born during an online class on the intricacies of quilt design. “Its center is a traditional sort of star, but the extra rays are different from many other stars I have seen. The design spoke to me. I tried it in many different colors, but the hot yellow/orange/reds kept inspiring me.”

The sacristy quilt is Super Nova # 2. Its beauty is undeniable as is the obvious labor behind Kathleen’s artistry and craft. Spiritually, it suggests the cosmos in all its glory and reminds me that Divinity reigns far beyond narrow religious confines. As a Christian, I see here the glory of Resurrection, and frankly, the wild rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar.

I thought this quilt should hang in the sacristy, because there it shines on the unsung labors of the many who serve on the Altar Guild, making sure behind the scenes that preparations for Holy Eucharist are done well and with meditative respect. The quilt also reflects a portion of the parish mission statement: Hear the Spirit. See God’s Beauty. Act in love. 

Thank you, Kathleen. I think your quilts are your “McMemoir.”
 
Kathleen can be reached at: kathleenquilts@gmail.com  Her blog is :   https://www.kathleenmcmusing.com

2018.11.25 Christ in Majesty. Us In High Hilarity

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

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

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

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

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

2017.10.01 A Turnaround—A "Baby" Found

I’m recently home from Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY where Dick and I led a retreat on my pet passion and peeve: the inadequacy of theological language as we use it to define—confine—the image of God.

Attendance was dismally small (6) and the participants were all superbly introverted. No one disagreed with the language inadequacy issue though. So what’s not to like? Nothing!  

After the second day we felt discouraged however, because the solution that presented itself as the most attractive to resolve disgruntlement with a sexist institution was to jump ship ie. leave the church. Negativity was up and tolerance was weak. Most felt conflicted.

We had provided some resources and some explanations. It was clear that everyone had come to this retreat seeking hope. No one wanted to “throw the baby out with the bath water.”

The question loomed large: What is the “baby” you do not want to throw out?

The morning of the final day of retreat and our last group meeting, I woke up, turned to Dick and announced: “It’s a bomb!”  He replied: “Let me wake up first, for god’s sake.” 

Just like the biblical Jacob, lying on his stone pillow dreaming of hope, restless, and later engaging in a wrestling match in the dark with the invisible “man-angel” in whom he recognized God, our retreatants wrestled through the night.  Each one lost sleep. Each one seriously contended with her or his doubts and sought right words.

Isn’t this how it happened for the early Christ-followers?  

A whole lot of wrestling with theological concepts and finding the best words to make them intelligible to the average faith-seeker, was the rule of the day for the early Church as it struggled to get established, even institutionalized. Even people on the street and in markets were wondering and gossiping about the nature of Christ. Imagine!! Everyone felt desire. Everyone groped for clarity. Is it really so different today?

Faith happens in the dark.

In the morning our group met for our last time. One member had to leave to be with her sick husband. I was prepared to throw more consoling crap around. Instead we listened—and probably threw out a few prayers like yikes and help.

Someone arose early and wrote—in purple— on our newsprint:
                      
       “The glory of God is the human person fully alive!!” 

Irenaeus of Lyons, a bishop of the church, had said this. A trip to the library revealed that Irenaeus said this in the second century, not the 13th, as this person supposed. “That long ago he summed up what we are saying in this retreat.”

Someone else snuck down to the fruit baskets in the night to get a banana for nourishment before sitting down to wrestle with the Nicene Creed. By morning a personal creed had been written. “At least I know exactly what I believe!”  This kind of activity gives one a strong spiritual anchor to overcome temptations to obsess about things one does not believe any more.

Another retreatant went to the official Episcopal Church website and discovered, with amazement, that the institution she found so offensively sexist was actually wrestling with the same issues as we were. "The institution cares about what I care about."
   
And one remembered words a cursillo friend once said: “Look into my eyes so I can see Christ in yours.” These unforgettable words came from someone whose Christian language system was so utterly different it threatened to interfere with the relationship. “Our language is so different, yet I knew he really cared about me.”

There were no clichés, no blue ribbon packaged solutions, no perfect clarity, just openings. Wow!

The Spirit came through and gave birth to some “babies” for these night wrestlers. It made us both very happy. See?

Thanks!

2017.09.17 Holy Cross Monastery Retreat

A lot of funny stuff can happen under the sign of the Cross.

We, Dick and I, have just spent six days on retreat—and on the seventh day we do not rest, but drive home, chatting and full of unquiet zeal. 

The rhythm of retreat is sturdy and steady: eat, pray, sleep, pray, love, pray, laugh, pray, eat some more. There were three groups meeting with different focuses. Ours was on theological language, my pet peeve and passion. We all, monks and guests alike, are our prayer to God.

 Communal prayer is so regular it heals spiritual atrial fibrillation and provides rhythm—a beat to match each heart’s, no matter how erratic, unsteady, or broken. It’s astounding how the regular marking of time makes time seem shorter. I always plan to catch up on my reading, yet— mysteriously— there’s so much time there’s not enough time.

Prayers in the chapel are not compulsory for guests. No one has to go to prayer or pray. It is, however, a bit hard to abstain, because the chapel bell gongs—more than once— ten minutes before each prayer time: Matins, 7 am, Eucharist, 9 am, Diurnum, noon, Vespers, 5pm, Compline, 8.  The bell tones are beautiful and dutiful. The bell tolls for me and thee. So I go.

You’d think that, being drenched in so much piety, these brothers would be stern and boring and stiff. You’d think that so many aging voices would be off key or cracked. You’d think you’d fall asleep to the lull of so much chanting. But these monks are alive, happy monks—ready and able to grin, crack jokes, laugh, and sing with gusto for deep joy, even in silence—even in prayer. 

Everything here, including the majestic strip of the Hudson River at the foot of the long green hill on which the monastery is perched, is an invitation to love God more deeply— and yourself in God.

Here’s how they let you know there’s no smoking:
   

Then there’s always plenty of another substance available on tap as advertised:

These signs are calligraphed by the Rev. Roy Parker, OHC. Each is framed and hung on the wall heading toward the chapel. They are funny. My heart can’t help but be lifted, my cup filled to the brim, my soul drenched in the generous faithfulness of God.

As we prepared to leave we felt a gentle sadness. While waiting for the vintage monastery elevator, really a single person lift, we chatted with a black woman here for a visit with a group from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.  She said: “I'm always a bit sad when I leave. I love this place. I’ve told the brothers that I want to be one of them. That’s been my prayer for years. So far though, they haven't figured it out, and I’m running out of time.”  

A retreatant in our group summed up the charism of this community, using ancient words of St. Irenaeus of Lyons, second-century bishop in the early Church. “Long ago someone, even a bishop or other, was saying just what we are doing today."

The oft forgotten second half of Irenaeus's famous quote is: "and the glory of the person is the contemplation of God."

In cas you think that being drenched in holy prayer is easy, it is. 

2017.06.25 A Retreat To Consider

Words Matter: A Conversation About Theological Language and its Impact

Tuesday September 12- Friday September 15
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, New York

Led by Rev. Lyn G. Brakeman and Rev. Richard J. Simeone

A young rabbinical student raised her hand, and the Rabbi gave her a nod. “Rabbi, does G-d have a gender?” Students laughed. The Rabbi answered respectfully: “No.” The student had more to ask: “Well then, if G-d has no gender why do we use only one gender when we talk about G-d?” To this the Rabbi had no answer. It’s not easy to stump a Rabbi. He could have said that the Hebrew noun for god was masculine, but that, he knew, was inadequate. The student had awakened the teacher. The Rabbi who told this story some years ago still ponders that question.

How does theological language and imagery shape the divine image? How does it shape our souls? What about all that familiar and beloved liturgical formulae? What about pronouns? What would you change? Why or why not? Is this simply a women’s issue? Is it an issue of spiritual formation of human souls? Is it just politics? Or is it a theological issue? What would Jesus do?

Cost: $ 350; deposit: $80

To Register, call the Guesthouse Office: 845.384.6660, ext 3002


Holy Cross Monastery is the mother house of the Episcopal order of brothers (yes, monks) The Order of Holy Cross. The Monastery, in West Park, New York, sits atop a sloping hill, often dotted with deer, overlooking the majestic Hudson River.

The house is comfortable (nice new bathrooms), the landscape alluring, the food near-divine. The regular worship in the monastery chapel led by the brothers gives rhythm and structure to the soul and peace of the mind. You can follow from the Book of Common Prayer easily, or you can sit and let the chanting of psalms and canticles flow over you.

The retreat will include meditations by the leaders with ample opportunity for conversation, questions, humor, experiential learning together.  There will also be plenty of time for quiet reflection and prayer on one’s own. It’s a chance to have fun together and relish a few days away from the pace of the world in silence, solitude and community.  The monastery website is:  www.holycrossmonastery.com

2012.12.09 Breathtaking/Breathgiving

Some things take your breath away. Could be death, danger—or awe.

One such "thing" is Jesus of Nazareth, a man who lived and taught the God of love so fiercely, with such boundless compassion, that they called him the Christ, a word whose root meaning is salve, a healing ointment. Think salvation.

The other is oxygen.

At a recent retreat at Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY,  I talked with  two brothers, both on oxygen. One of them I'd known about and one of them was newly encumbered.  I felt sad for them, and scared for me.  I have lung disease and dread one day having to drag around a tank and have tubes to force oxygen into and through my nose so I can breath. I'd been told things like: Avoid oxygen as long as you can. Resist it. Don't do it till the doctor threatens death.

But these brothers gave me hope.  Oxygen, they told me, rather than a death sentence oxygen meant new life. Oxygen was a beginning, not an end— metaphorically, a manger not a cross. Travel was possible, eating obviously was, as well as good humor, garrulousness, and a spritely step.

The way these monks spoke of their disability and their oxygen would've sounded counter-intuitive, or at least nuts, if it weren't so authentic— joyful not doleful. They weren't playing a pious role.

The click-clicking of the oxygen machines in the silence of chapel prayer suddenly sounded to me like applause. 
                                                               ********

I've prayed for years to the tune of a hymn,  Breathe On Me Breath Of God. I use my own text and prayed in hope, with fear in my heart. Now I can pray it in hope, with hope in my heart.

Breathe in me, breath of God,
healing my lungs disease,
so that I may in purist love
breathe in and breathe out with thee.

Breathe in me, breath of God,
for when my life is done
and my sweet lungs lose all their power,
my last breath and yours are one.