2025.07.20 THE GOLDEN RULE? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

 

Back in the 1970s I was in seminary at Yale Divinity School, hoping to get ordained a priest in the Episcopal church. The very first required course was Old Testament. I took copious notes. I only wondered why the “Golden Rule” was standard for all good Christian people to obey when it came from the Old Testament. I thought Jesus invented it.  And yet here it was in the Old Testament. 

Of course I learned all the linguistics, the differing versions, who wrote what and why. All this and my four children at home riding bikes to school while their parents worked, dad to make money and mom to study God and get ordained priest. I was young, well, midlife. I aspired to just about everything and anything that caught my zealous eye. 

One question lingered and nagged. I knew the academic answer, the scholarly one, and yet………..I was embarrassed to ask, let’s say, to admit I didn’t know: how come Jesus’ own rule, the one we called “golden” was in the Old Testament first? We weren’t told exactly, or I hadn’t listened well enough, or I just needed an expert.

One day I spotted the campus rabbi and impulsively ran after him. He moved very fast, like a rabbit on the run, and I pursued and cornered him as he went into his office where he sat down. He did not invite me in but I went in, myself quite breathless by now. I stood facing the rabbi, and of course had no idea what exactly I wanted, so I stammered: What is the Golden Rule and why is it golden?

I waited, imagining that I would miss or be late for my next class, because he of course would have a longer speech than all of Job. 

“I can tell you the whole thing while I stand on one foot,” the rabbi grinned. I laughed and relaxed. Then he stood on one foot and clearly recited, yes, The Golden Rule.

WHAT YOU HATE DO NOT DO TO ANYONE ELSE. 

IT’S GOLD BECAUSE IT HAS THE HIGHEST VALUE IN ALL EARTH OR HEAVEN, NEVER TARNISHES, AND LASTS FOREVER FOR EVERYONE.  

I thanked him. As he stood, he reached for my hand with both of his, he winked and said: "All that includes animals and plants, by the way." 

2025.02.29 WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN. Lyn G.Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

Oh yes, we know. Or do we? 

What we Christians call THE ASCENSION of Christ is a sign of the holiness of Jesus the Christ heading on home to Pop, and etc. Lovely idea, I suppose, and yet………

Think of space travel. I remember praying and worrying about the delayed return of the male and female “astronauts” in space for so long. I  know they were busy, and yet I wondered if they made love in some ways. Honestly, the traffic in my imagination is entertaining! Nevertheless, I can’t imagine ascending sperm, not to mention one of those enormous helium balloons of Jesus on parade. How can he leave them, us? But never fear, he quickly returned for a cookout on the beach, wanting something to eat no less. 

*  *  *  *

What you hate do not do to yourself or your neighbor.

*  *  *  *

Only ONE rule!  The first part is easy..   BUT……………..I feel resistance arising, and exceptions, etc. You get it. Getting literal about certain “neighbors” is easy. But ALL? Even rats? You get the point. 

I just re-read the story of Joan of Arc, and finally could see why they sainted her. Despite threats and tortures and, yes, also some praise and worship, AND death threats, AND contemporary speculations about her transgender status, this girl never abandoned her vision. Never. Never.

She died to be born to stay alive.  

04/13/25 Shall We Dance or Flee, March or Sleep, Simply Wait In Hope? Lyn G. Brakeman, blog post

I remember a time when I was standing in line at a sizable department store waiting to return /exchange a gift that didn’t fit.  A woman behind me smiled at me and said: “My dear, the meek shall inherit the world.”  I felt a flash of anger, imagining myself to be a weak wimp, without the guts to shove and push or curse.   

When I got home I looked up “meek” and discovered it meant “quiet, gentle, submissive”!! Wow, no way did I want to be meek! But Jesus blessed the meek, didn’t he? I might inherit the earth. I took my returnable item home and donated it to the parish church fair for the “white elephant” table. Wait! Elephants are huge, fierce only when necessary, faithful to their pack, and protective of their young—meekly powerful or powerfully meek!  

I left the line, went home, wept, and found a therapist who offered bioenergetic therapy. There I met my body and ALL its muscles, some weak and some strong—inner armor, forever meek AND blessed.

*  *  *  *

Life is full of varying muscles, varieties of prayers and hopes and fears. On this Sunday,  called Palm we Christians re-enact the dramatic biblical story of Jesus’s journey into Jerusalem to confront Rome’s antisemitism while crowds follow waving palms. 

We all knew how this bold confrontation turned out. BUT in the meantime we brandished our palms to wave in a parade. Boys turned palms into spears to fight duels. Others saved palms to create palm crosses. Clergy saved some palms to burn to make ashes to anoint our foreheads next Ash Wednesday.

One lone palm remained lying in the center aisle—all alone. I picked it up and gave it a kiss of hope, also kissing the palms of my own hands—open and ready.  

*  *  *  *  

Hope, Pope Francis tells us, “means believing that history does not end with our mistakes, our violence and injustice, or the sin that crucifies Love.”    

FIGS ALMIGHTY. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 3/23/25

Have you ever eaten a fig?  I have, and honestly, it wasn’t very delicious—too sweet. overloaded with seeds and with a tough consistency, not unlike the skin of an aging person, like me. Downright seedy!  (Luke 13:1-13)

I pinched the skin on the top of my hand  just to test this figgy metaphor, and LO!—my skin did NOT pop right back to smoothness. It actually waited in an ornery way for me to move my hand or touch it to make it smooth again. With horror, I imagined a day when I might not be able to re-smooth my aging hand, and it would be figgy and seedy forever.

Irritated with Jesus and his dumb parabolic analogies, I repeated my skin-pinching several times. It just made me annoyed, furious, to be honest. I felt like the disciples might have felt. They were committed to following him, because he just might be THE Messiah God promised Jews and everyone. Raw deal! Damn!  

I didn’t get the parabolic lesson. I hated it! What the bejesus IS the point anyway? I pinched my hands until they hurt, so I kissed them. Only then did my tears squeeze out. 

How beautiful is the fig tree that ripens and bears fruit in its time—in its time. Annoyed as it gets me, I do love the subtle wisdom of Jesus’s pace in life—steady and sure and patient all the way to Jerusalem, trial, death, and risen life. I always want to push it, hurry it. 

When I do I usually “trip”.   

I ALWAYS THOUGHT. . .BUT Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 01/19/2025

I think too much sometimes. It could be obsessing, as in racy mind, or it could be careful concern about some important topic, such as why am I so old, or am I just too old even to think about being old? My wise mind wondered whether Jesus performed miracles. Or was he a phony? Was all this adoration/adulation a hoax? 

Today I am obsessing, gently of course, about the utter foolishness of the adolescent Jesus proudly showing off his divine gift as a “miracle” worker. There had been rumors in this messiah-driven culture. Who would God send? Could this gifted boy be Messiah? Save Israel? Perform magic? Do something no one else could to make Israel shine?  Such a messiah, they all knew, might also threaten their own security—social and political, not to mention spiritual. By spiritual I mean their own deep-down feelings of absolute security, superiority. Being Messiah would do it.

*  *  *  *

The Reverend Professor Dr. Kamal Farah led our tour in Israel in 2012. He surprised all of us who were hungry-for-truth as literal as possible to secure Divinity-on-earth: who, why, where, what, how and whose? 

The professor asked what this story was about deep down? We held our breath. This story is about Mary, the mother of Jesus. What? Our collective and well trained patriarchal egos stiffened, ready to dispute this atrocity. My natural curiosity perked up. 

According to the social etiquette of first century Palestine, the host or hostess of the party was responsible for its organization, its etiquette and its manners. Mary was a mother who, like any mother, wanted her son Jesus to shine. She knew him well. When he failed to comply she drew him aside and told him the proper behavior for a would-be messiah. BINGO!  He turned to his mother, offered some resistance, as in “Come on, Mama, I don’t wanna do it!” Mama prevailed however and obedient son turned about, told the wine caterer of this party that the host, his Mama, was upset because they were about to run out of WINE. Jesus called for more wine, and presto the wine kegs filled up—plenty for all. 

I love such impudence and Mary’s firm maternal authority. No mention of God the Father. I don't care much about the water-to-wine miracle, but rather about the greater miracle that this adolescent boy listened to his mother and obeyed. To be true to the laws of proper hospitality, guests come first. This was a woman’s clarity and triumph. The church tradition thinks of it as Jesus’s miracle.  

It is about nothing more, or less, than honoring hospitality for its own gracious sake. Divine. 

2015.09.15 FOLLOW? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

I love traveling along with Jesus in Mark’s gospel, the first one written. Mark gets excited easily as he sees and hears and learns new things. He moves along fast, hopping from place to place. His astonishment is catching. Jesus is going where? Saying what? OMG!  Why does Jesus tell them not to tell?  It’s almost as if Jesus himself hardly knows what he’s doing or exactly why? Some leaders love crowds. Not this one! He’s a follower himself. 

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Notice the comeuppance the Syrophoenician woman received when she begged him for healing. He has neither time nor inclination NOR divine commission to do this.Why? Because this woman is NOT one of his people, those with whom he is affiliated, those to whom he has been sent.  

He sends her away, saying, “Let the children of the household satisfy themselves at table first. It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” 

She counters: “Yes, Rabbi, but even the the dogs under the table eat the family’s scraps.” 

Jesus replies: "For saying this, you may go home happy; the demon has left your daughter.” When she got home, she found the daughter in bed and the demon gone.” 

*  *  *  *

Jesus moves along and is hard to follow. But you’re a reporter! He’s news! BUT there’s no travel plan, no AAA. Why here? Why now? Does he know what he’s doing?  It’s impossible NOT to follow and just as impossible to follow. What do you do?  I’d follow.

    Pretty soon some others brought a man deaf and with speech impediments to him for healing if possible. This time Jesus did much more than place his hands on the deaf man, though first he took the man aside and away from the crowd, placed his fingers into the deaf ears, spat and then touched the mute’s tongue with his saliva.  Then Jesus looked up to heaven and, with a deep sigh, said Ephphatha!—that is, “Be opened.”  At once the deaf ears were opened and the impediment cured; the one who had been healed began to speak plainly. 

   

Why did Jesus move away from the crowds?  Did he know what he was doing? What if it didn’t work? His healing gesture was so radical, so intimate, even dangerous. He looks to heaven and “sighs” deeply. Is he looking to his Abba for an assist? Assurance? Help? Ephphatha!  Jesus “ordered” them to tell no one. They raced home to tell. Wouldn’t you? 

2024.08.04 CORRUPTION? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

I became so corrupted by constant discussions and varying definitions, not to mention accusations, of corruption charges tossed about, I had to look up the word in the most faithful source of accurate information I know: The New Oxford American Dictionary (laboriously edited and regularly updated by word freaks and accuracy demons like myself.)  

I don’t know if I’m right but it’s a good bet that this dictionary, over time, has as many revisions, additions, and updates as the Bible itself. Both of these resources most people trust and hold quite sacred. They evolve as we do. 

*  *  *  *

It's worth considering the original roots of the verb CORRUPT (to break altogether altogether) It means to cause to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain, to cause to become depraved for money, that is, not simply to make unintentional errors by true and correctable mistake, but rather to  CAUSE ERROR/ERRORS TO APPEAR ON A BROAD DATABASE—WITH INTENTION.  

*  *  *  *

Can the Arts save us from corruption?  During the Black Power movement in the 1960s, I wondered what made power, or music, or poetry black. Poet Robert Hayden wrote about the experience of black people, just as I wrote about the experience of myself as a white woman lobbying for the ordination of women in the Episcopal Church, and about the spiritual necessity of liberating Divinity from being corrupted by the exclusive use of masculine pronouns. 

Poet Robert Hayden, born Asa Bundy Sheffey in Detroit (1913) wrote about the experience in such poems as "John Brown's Body" and "Middle Passage," about the slave trade. He said:  “There’s no such thing as black literature. There's good literature and there's bad. And that's all!”  

When Louis Armstrong, a trumpet player of jazz, was asked what black jazz was, he replied, “Good Lord, man, if you have to ask that you don’t even know what jazz is!”

*  *  *  *

There’s no such thing as black or white, male or female preaching. There are just good, lively sermons and flat boring ones. Good Lord, people, Jesus wasn’t a Jew who converted, corrupted his own religion, or started a new religion. He was simply a wise itinerant Jew exposing an already present Loving Divinity. We are to act accordingly. 

 

2024.07.28 "Daft. Desperate. Undaunted" Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

 

The phrase "daft, desperate, undaunted" popped into my mind as I talked with a poet/friend about the chaos of my own struggles trying to “ease” my swollen legs into compression stockings. Such things are spoken of with casual confidence by professional surgeons and nurses who do not live inside the ugly bulged up skin of my lower legs? They call such swellings  seromas. Write, said the poet.

Nurse friends suggested that I should tackle this problem BEFORE I arose from my supine position in the morning. Perfect! But what about my equally pressing need to urinate, not to mention the disruption I’d cause my sleeping-beauty spouse. To toss or to turn that was the question. I wet my "dependables" and went back to sleep. Daft. 

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Do you think this might be exactly how the followers of Jesus felt when he popped onto the scene beckoning them to drop everything and follow him? What? Why? What’s in it for me? Are not these the questions most of us would ask when confronted with what looks like an impossible situation?  Would we not laugh?  Would we not judge this stranger daft and desperate? That’s what I thought when my vascular surgeon advised me to bind up the bulbous swelling underneath the skin of my lower legs where fluid had re-accumulated, even after the surgeon had already pierced and drained them. And even when these stockings were so stiff I couldn’t even insert my toes into them without herculean effort and the strength of my nurse/spouse.  

The obvious response would be to say, NO I’m outta here. I grabbed my walker, followed my beloved spouse to dinner, and ate my fill of everything in sight. Desperate.

*  *  *  *

In the morning we got the compression stockings out to stretch them. They are actually now on my legs by dint of will power, humor, loving camaraderie, and downright orneriness. Also, by adding one word to my repertoire: undaunted. 

 

I have more energy. No wonder! It’s all driven from my lower legs straight up to my whirling brain, the one that daily dabbles in mystical cogitations.   

“Apprehend God in all things.” Meister Eckhart (1894-1963), a German mystic and teacher interested in the commonness of things, was considered dangerous in his day. Apprehend means to capture, arrest, grasp in order to appreciate, not as a prisoner but as an object of affection, adoration, and yes, some hesitancy of apprehension.   

Today I will imagine myself apprehending God, catching the tailwind of divine energy.  

2024.07.14 Me and Charles Dickens and Mr. Adams. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post.

It is not hard to imagine how scared, mad, and abandoned Jesus’s eager followers felt when he announced his plans to turn and head to Jerusalem, leaving them to continue the mission. They went from followers to leaders, just like that!

*  *  *  * 

A Tale of Two Cities begins, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way …"

This is why I love, loved and still love the world of the crotchedy old master, Charles Dickens. I was hesitant, critical, not impulsive—yet deeply, shyly, compassionately in love with every morsel of Life, no matter its status.

This was why Mr. Adams, my favorite English teacher in high school, challenged us to think and write true/new thoughts. To every senior who made it into his English class, he assigned a writer for our final research paper. Mine was Charles Dickens. Did he want me to write about Ebenezer Scrooge or Tiny Tim or both at once? I wrote about myself, my own great expectations as a girl, about Miss Havisham raging and raving in her torn wedding dress, and, accidentally, about God or Jesus or some such. How did Mr. Adams know?  

Contemporary theologian, the Rev. Brian McLaren, writes: ”Before Christianity was a rich and powerful religion, before it was associated with buildings, budgets, crusades, colonialism or televangelism, it began as a revolutionary nonviolent movement promoting a new kind of aliveness on the margins of society.” 

I bet it was as hard for Dickens to write his cranky critiques as it was for me to listen to the God/Holy Spirit buried deeply in my own soul. Dickens died in 1870. I’m still alive and writing in 2014, my latest upcoming book is: “My Racisms in Snapshots”. There are saving solutions and hope, despair and ruin all at once. 

*  *  *  *

When the novelist Charles Dickens died, he had a stroke and fell off his chair at the dinner table. Dickens asked to be buried "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," so even though he was buried in Westminster Abbey, it was a secret funeral, early in the morning, with only 12 mourners. But the grave was left open for a week and thousands of people, all types of people, came to throw in flowers for the man whose tomb is inscribed with these words: "He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world.”

AMEN. 

 

2024.07.07 Who DID Write the New Testament Anyway? Lyn G. Brakeman, blog post

When I read biblical readings about politics, the politics of St. Paul stand out! Paul  frantically wrote to fulfill his calling to spread the good news preached by Jesus of Nazareth, or Galilee, or Ephesus, or Corinth, or in your heart. Paul was a convert, not programmed to endear many, and admitting he was wrong—sometimes.   

I remember the omnipresent and ever-irritating examination question in the final exam for the course in New Testament at Yale Divinity School. Students knew it was coming. We had been well prepared. We knew our stuff, yet everyone quivered.

WAS there a “right” answer? 

The question:  Who wrote the New Testament, Jesus or Paul? 

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I plunged fearlessly in with every intention of making my case for Jesus. I ended up with Paul. Why? In short, my personality is just like Paul’s. Thanks to the patriarchal culture of  his day (mine as well!) it took time. This Jesus was not selling yet another religion, or himself as THE Messiah, but rather a gospel full of parabolic stories about people who broke rules for the sake of justice. It got Jesus crucified of course, but Paul picked up the roots and the wings by which ALL Creation could connect and live peacefully. 

The Great Commandment: Do NOT do to others what you would not have them do to you. God, how boldly simple that is?  To call it LOVE is dramatically misleading. You simply have to treat all living things (land, plants, animals, yourself, all neighbors) with compassion and respect, just as their Creator does.  

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In the 1970s in the Episcopal Church, I jumped into my own simmering desire to stand behind an altar as a priest of the Eucharist, rather than kneel at a rail, my hands up, my tongue extended, begging to be fed. I know “they” called such a posture humility, but I experienced it as humiliating. 

The Episcopal Church had its own hoops through which an aspirant would jump.The screening committee told me I would be embarking on a “dual vocation.” I could not be a mother AND a priest. I thought of Paul rushing about nagging anyone who would listen, grabbing himself a travel companion, revising his manuscript as he went, and traversing a huge desert called “holy.” I followed. 

It took me well over the expected time it took anyone to get ordained. I did not get tossed into prison like Paul, but if I had I’d have tried to sing hymns, as Paul did. Like Paul, I found friends and allies along my way. Also, I wrote letters to God who from the beginning had listened to my ramblings, dwelled in my heart, and taken me seriously. 

*  *  *  *

My memoir, God Is Not a Boy’s Name. Becoming Woman. Becoming Priest, was published in 2016. Like Paul, I’ve continued to hammer and chisel away at the patriarchal armor through which the expansive love of God continues to shine, no matter what. Like Paul, I trusted divine omnipresence more than divine omnipotence. Paul’s first letter to the squabbling new churches in Corinth felt familiar. “The Spirit searches everything—even the depths of God. . .” (I Cor. 2)

Paul never gave up, broke every law on the books, fiercely and naively insisted that divinity was greater than all our imaginings. He did not found any single church! WE did. 

*  *  *  *

So who did write the New Testament? Paul of course! Jesus didn’t have time to write!

Now I’m 85 years old. I’m still talking and writing without ceasing about that steadfast God Paul trusted. Me too.