Easter Six.How To Be We. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 5/22/22

It’s important to notice that the accounts of Jesus’s postmortem appearances to his close disciples remember the message as Peace! Peace is what the risen Christ offers, not Love but Peace, because Peace is the only way we will love each other as God does.

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For many years I have sent small and consistent donations to a group called Listening Hearts Ministries. This project, founded in 1987 by Suzanne Farnham, believes that listening well is the key practice to assure goodness and peace in the world. 

That’s a big statement. I believe it, because listening happened to and for and through me when I was a small child of three under a large dining room table with a cloth to the floor and four fat legs connected by flattened cross beams on which I would place my food supply, five Ritz crackers, while I sat cross-legged and talked to God—who listened without interruption or commentary to all my chatter—my every small and large thought and feeling. In time I called this practice prayer. 

God didn’t do a thing I asked; nor did God tell me precisely what to do. God just listened. Thus I learned that I mattered. I also learned that God did not fix the world according to my specs, which were, I thought, quite honest and righteous and right. 

Suzanne Farnham, trustee and founder of Listening Hearts, was married to an Episcopal priest, the late Rev. Barny Farnham. She is the author of many books on this kind of quiet listening prayer. 

We listen for God in the way God listens for us. I have no way to prove the divine presence; I just trust it. However, I do know that the churches and the world could use more listening right now. Listening builds community anywhere, from small family units to large congregations, governments and societies. Here are some guidelines to listening conversations or meetings anywhere for any reason. (Parenthesized comments are mine.)

-Take time to settle, sit down and shut up. (How many times do you rush into a meeting of any kind breathless?) 

-Listen to others with your whole being. (Sometimes, I just surface listen. It helps to take notes, so I do not miss the point entirely.)  

-Do not interrupt. (An impulse I often have, and too often fail to respect, especially if someone else non-stop blats)  

-Pause between speakers. (Impossible but try for a breath or two.) 

-Do not formulate what you what you want to say next while someone else is speaking. (Laughably impossible. Helps to jot one-word reminders.)

-Speak for yourself only—your own thoughts and feelings. Avoid being hypothetical or generalizing. (Sometimes hard to avoid phrases like, “I read somewhere that . . . OR Well, everyone says . . . )

-Do not challenge what others say. (Keep thoughts, such as, ‘What a jerk!’ to yourself.) 

-Listen to the group as a whole—to those who have not spoken as well as to those who have. (I do this well, occasionally asking what the silent one thinks or feels.)

-Generally, leave space for anyone who may want to speak for the first time before speaking a second time yourself. (Yikes!)

-Hold your thoughts and opinions, even your convictions—lightly. (How lightly!?) 

All these guidelines are excellent for effective decision-making, soothing family tensions, and group discernment. They are heavily used in churches and religious organizations, because most spiritual people know that God’s peaceful, loving presence is more likely to be clearly felt in contexts in which we deeply and respectfully listen to each other. 

This is how we can move from the omnipotent “I” to the even more potent “WE”. 

2022.01.30 Holy Scripture—How Holy and Whose? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 1/30/22

I do not believe that Holy Scripture should be taken literally, as if everything that is in it happened just the way it was/is written, as if there is no room for interpretations and ongoing scholarly research, study, and prayerful discernment. 

How can one embrace something called “Holy” without acknowledging as well the grandly attracting Mystery, not for me to attain but for me to receive, love, and appreciate like the rays of the Sun. 

Having said all that, I do take Holy Scripture, which for me is the testaments of the Holy Bible, seriously. In fact, I take it too seriously to take it literally. I love it too much to demean its depths and flexibility, by insisting that there is only one single way to understand its various parts. I value divine spiritual mobility too much to limits its wisdom to a single holy document, no matter how canonized it may be. I also respect Holy Scripture too much to make it the single measure of my faith in God.  

And yet, I take Holy Scripture too seriously to take it, or any portion of it, as THE Word of God, as if God dictated it word for word, while some speedy ancient stenographer/scribe wrote it all down, or as if its contents and revelations were static, the sole source of divine holy Word to faithful communities.

Still, every Sunday in many Christian churches, worshippers hear the lector say, The Word of God, to which they all respond, Thanks be to God after a biblical reading from anywhere in the whole Bible. Is this word the only holy one?  Or is it just for now? I’m grateful that alternative, more flexible options are offered in our Episcopal tradition, so a reader can say, Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people, to which we respond, Thanks be to God. 

Fulsome holiness, praise, and thanks, are reserved for the portion of the Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ from Mark, Matthew, Luke or John, read each Sunday. The gospel gives a special shout out to Jesus the Christ whose story is, well, gospel. Most preachers focus on the Gospel in the sermon. This top billing makes sense, because Jesus is, to Christians, Lord, Savior, Son of God—our raison d’être. But this story is not considered holy for those outside the Christian tradition. Holiness is not just Christians. Jesus was Jewish. Many others have holy stories. 

I am not unique in my thoughts and queries, although I have wondered if I am a sinner, maybe a heretic, fooling myself for the sake of my own egotistical meanderings, ideas that energize and revitalize me. I conclude each time of self-doubt and recrimination by returning to the roots of my own childhood story. My mother read me The Little Book About God by Lauren Ford when I was 3 2/3. (I’m sure of my age, because my sister wasn’t born yet). Mom also told me I was a miracle and a gift from God. I was already inquisitive to the point of annoyance. Hence, when this book and my mother’s own joy collided with my natural curiosity, I just had to meet this God. I found the necessary  privacy for my monumental quest under our large dining room table with a cloth to the floor. There I set up a child’s inquisition for God—something like, I’m here and I want my parents to pay more attention to me, but what I really want to know is who are you? I got no answers, only the sound of my own imagination pounding silently away at God’s absence. God never said a word, nor did God grant any of my several wishes, such as banishing my mortal enemy, the martini glass. What God did do was to listen without advice. This way I learned that I mattered.  

It is to this God that I still pray. This God I followed to the church altar—not to be a bride but to become a priest at the altar. This God I discovered in the Holy Bible, a collection of stories about people to whom God spoke, and to whom God listened.  And it is this God who in time finally spoke to me with the simplest and dumbest question imaginable: Why are you doing this? (I was just baking chocolate chip cookies for my children who loved them.) 

Yet this question awakened me with words I knew were not my own, words that stunned me, words whose meaning I felt compelled to explore, words that brought me up short, that forced me to, well, check out my depressed mood with a therapist. From this God, I learned that not only can God listen to little girls, but God can ask dumb questions, and is no bully. In fact, God waited over ten years for me to address just this one “dumb” question—to wrestle an answer out of myself. I felt as if I were writing my own scripture, maybe not so holy, but my best effort.  

This God is why I believe that small stories of deep meaning come to each one of us, in all religions and all spiritualities, ancient and modern. From such inaudibly audible communications come stories, both tender and fierce, mobilized by Love. This is how I first knew that I mattered, and this is how I still know that all living things in heaven and on earth live, and move, and have their being in God. (Acts 17:28) 

Here’s a story, told about the late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a man to whom God spoke in deeply holy ways, ways that engaged his own emotions and questions, ways that shaped Heschel as a theologian who told stories about God as an intimate presence. Both Heschel’s spirituality and his social-justice activism grew from prayer within this intimate God’s presence. There was no separation between Heschel’s religious faith rituals and his politics. To me, Heschel is a spiritual giant, although he was aman short in height.  

In 1968, Heschel was engaged in protest marches and demonstrations against the Vietnam War. One Sabbath his brother protesters and friends, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., came to Heschel’s apartment and were greeted with this welcoming exuberance: “You are just in time for the last bit of disengagement from the world we have to change . . .  Shabbat!”  Heschel let Coffin hold the ritual spices and King the candle while they chanted the prayers, smelling the spice box and collectively drinking a sip of wine. Then Heschel told Coffin and King the story of the wise men of Chelm who deliberated over whether people grew from the feet up or from the head down. The answer was neither. Quoting the va-yetel el echav, he said that individuals grow from within and eventually move beyond their own egos towards other people. “Here’s to the world’s outgrowth of selfishness towards the humanities . . . L’Hayim!”  The Rev. Daniel Berrigan a Roman Catholic priest, called Heschel’s practice of uniting prayers and social action for justice “an ecumenism I could take seriously.” (p.195 Abraham Joshua Heschel. A Life of Radical Amazement, biography by Julian Zelizer, 2021)

Holiness belongs to everyone everywhere always. 

It grow from within. You’ll recognize it. 

2019.02.03 Images To Love By, And Live By

As everyone by now knows, I love words. They’re my thing. I also love pictures. Images can spark uplifting feelings, laughter, and often memories. They nourish my soul. Here are a few.

1) In Blackers, a Kosher bakery in Newton, MA., I spotted this amazing sight: a huge (4.2" diameter) cupcake modeled after the small ones we used to love to eat daily for lunch in school: Hostess Cupcakes with the cute squiggles on top. They came two in a package. Inside the cake there is white creamy filling—a temptation too great to avoid, diet or weight paranoia or not. This bakery must have a memory too. They have packaged this giant treat—twice its the original size—by twos in a box.  We bought them. We loved them together. (We split them in half—wisely, then ate both halves.)


2) Just outside our front door there is an upside-down icicle. The heating pipe outlet that shoots out from the side of the house emits steam, and water drips down from it. In the freeze of winter the drips don't melt; they create quite an erection. 😂😂



3) On FaceBook I saw this wondrous image. (Thanks to trindlesandread.com) It tells a universal truth, and it tells my truth. I have always been a reader, voraciously so. As soon as I could get rid of the Dick and Jane series that taught me to read but did not stimulate my creative imagination, I plunged into the world of books. Books made me wonder, laugh, quiver, and love. Books made me want to be a writer of books myself. How many favorite characters can you recognize? I imagine God on top, not Santa. Nuts, huh?


4) Here is one of my favorite pictures from an old scrapbook. It pictures (l.to r.) Amanda, John, and Rob. They are cousins about 7, 3 and 6. They are playing dress-ups, donning old hats, scarves, ties, purses, and pretending, for a moment, to be grown up. Dress-ups is a game kids don’t play any more, but I used to love it and so did my kids.  Now kids play video games. I miss dress-ups. John, in the middle, is looking a bit smug; he has kept ahold of his Pooh Bear. Smart kid. Don’t these kids look delighted with life and themselves?  It fills my heart with joy.


5) Lest I forget, my favorite image of Jesus in good humor. He must have laughed if he was human, which he was in every way.

People don’t like such images I know, but I think they add to the Spirit of religion, keep it honest. After all, no one knows what Jesus looked like, and most images are deadly serious and stern, or too pious for their own good. My current favorite image for Jesus is Danny DeVito—short, swarthy, stocky, a bullet of energy, walking fast with a slight side-to-side gait, gesticulating wildly and flinging forth words as he goes—gospel words. Many follow him, trying to grab and grasp something—just something. Just something to feed their ravenous appetite for Hope.We're still doing this.



 6) Last but not least, old and faded photos of my four children when they were young. They sit today on my home altar. No, I do not worship them, but yes, I did and do adore them. I am profoundly grateful for their presence in my life. (Jill, 5, Bev, 7. Below: Rob, 6 and John, 3, on right.)
 


 

7) OK, two more I love. They also have a place at my home altar—not for worship but for love.
 

On top is Richard John Simeone, my beloved husband Dick at age four, delivering his first ever "sermon" to a watering can. Gramps is in the background. Some things start early and keep on going.  Below, Dick again as a boy chorister at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Harrisburg, PA.—now more serious and with an official vestment and glasses. Too cool!

Whatever your images are, follow them with passion and laughter and good soul. For heaven’s sake do not indulge in too much piety—unless it's authentic enough to connect heaven and earth.  

2019.01.13 Birthday Baptismal Day

Today is my oldest daughter’s birthday. She is fifty-six years young, looks beautiful as always, and is filled with vigor and passion for justice for all people.

Today is also the day the Christian church remembers the Baptism of Jesus at the hand of his cousin John the Baptizer. Baptism is the day one becomes a Christian—nothing to do with denomination or any particular community. Baptism is belonging to Christ, becoming an initiated followers of Jesus the Christ. When anyone is baptized they are welcomed into a community of faith with powerful promises, some water, the Holy Spirit and a passionate sentence of chrismation, anointing the forehead with oil, saying their name and “. . . you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”  This sacramental ritual carries the weight of thousands of years of tradition, the biblical mandate, a whole community of prayer and support, and just plain sacred beauty. When you are baptized you work for Jesus Christ in whatever you do.

The baptismal job is no cushy or high-paying job. It’s lifelong, serious, risky and grace-filled.    In addition, who wouldn’t want to work for a boss who had a great sense of humor, cried real tears, never gave up on the vision, knew he could not do this alone, and looked roughly like this?

Baptized when she was about five months old, Bev wore a long white, sweeping, dress—elegant. Her small head, covered with heaps of very dark hair, stood out amidst billows of white lace. There is a photo of her in that baptismal dress, somewhere in the annals of years of scrapbooks. I wish I could share it, because it is etched in the eye of my heart.

Bev is fulfilling her baptismal vows. She might laugh at this, since she does not attend church; nor, is she at all certain about God or Christianity. She has, however, always followed the ways of Jesus. She is kind and compassionate and a devoted mother of two daughters. She has navigated painful ups and down in her life with dignity. She works, in every job she has ever had, for justice for all people, gender equality, the rights of the poor, and the working classes.

In my lingo, Bev is most baptismal in her involvement with politics, making sure that the values of the “kingdom” Christ proclaimed are secured on earth as they are in heaven. Why would Jesus speak so strongly and consistently about working to bring about the kingdom of God, if he were not a politician?  “Kingdom” is a political term, lest we forget. The spirit of this kingdom is not constrained by partisan politics, binary absolutes, sexual identity, wealth, religious affiliations, or territorial boundaries. This kingdom calls for us to drop our precious identity labels and work together for the good of the whole. That is good politics. That is also good religion.

I got a clue to Bev’s direction in life from baseball. She wasn’t particularly interested in baseball, but she was interested in being the first girl admitted to play on a local Little League team. She made the team. I went to the games. Bev’s batting skills were sporadic. She struck out, or lucked out with a bad pitcher and walked. But she could run like crazy. Sitting with other gabbing parents, paying attention only when their kids were up, I was startled one evening by the sound of a loud CRACK. It was Bev’s bat. She hit a home run—out of the ball park, as they say. She was so stunned she forgot to run until the coach yelled: RUN!!  There was much applause, cheering, and kudos. I can’t remember if her team won, but that day she won. I cried. I thought then that she’d hit a home run for women’s equality and inclusion. I also learned that she approached life with a combination of curiosity, desire, and caution in about equal proportion—always summoning courage to try new things and keep on swinging. Baseball is a team sport. So is Jesus-work.

Bev’s personality exhibited both toughness and softness—tough on herself and soft on others. Her intelligence and passion for good causes even at a young age remains contagious, likewise her robust sense of humor and agility. Swimming became her sport of choice. Not only is she an excellent swimmer, but swimming has spiritual consolations—trusting the water’s buoyancy to hold you up, and letting it support you.

Bev might say I am imposing my perspective onto her life, and perhaps I am. It would be nice if she joined a Christian church community, I suppose. Nevertheless, I see the fruits of baptismal spirituality in her, and I dare say that one does not have to be Christian to be a christ. 

Advent III—What Then Should We do?

Biblical characters are frequently demanding and commanding in the name of God, even to the point of name-calling, like John the Baptist’s indictment of the crowds seeking baptism: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Trees that do not bear good fruit will be thrown into the fire and burned up. This is harsh. John the Baptist would never win any popularity contests. And yet he sheds glaring, revelatory light on human behavior. What you do matters to you, to your neighbors, and to God.

Does God judge? Yes. Does God condemn forever? No. Does God call for repentance and change? Yes. Does God love with zeal equal to the zeal with which God judges? Yes.

“What then should we do?” the crowds asked John. They, like us, wonder about this kind of God, and feel threatened, a little scared.  

The Baptist’s answers are inconvenient but quite clear: give away one of your several coats; do not extort money falsely; no usury or threats of violence; be content with your own wages. Someone more powerful than I am is coming.

Ah, good: our Jesus Christ is coming with the Holy Spirit in tow. Good news! Whew!

Not so fast. This Christ, whom we think is our Christmassy Jesus, has a winnowing fork and bears exactly the same message as the Baptist delivered. The harsh light of judgment exposes us all, inside and out. It hurts. Certainly no one would dare be silly and sentimental about the power of this Word, this Christ, this God who calls for right behavior.

What then should we do?

The first thing to do is to scrutinize your own greedy habits. The second thing to do is to realize you can’t blame the OLD testament for this one. It is in our NEW testament. Then resist the temptation to blame, even yourself. Historically and today, one of the first reactions when we feel afraid, challenged, insecure, and powerless is to defend self by blaming others, rather than taking into account our own behavior.

Just like the crowd the Baptist warned, we are in disarray, not centered, unclear about what to do, how to behave. Our values are askew, so we blame: Republicans, Democrats, climate-deniers, the media, the atheists, the theists, God godself, science, the White House, the northeast, the southwest, the midwest, Catholics, Muslims, Sikhs, the law, religion, the Bible, the police, car salesmen, LGBTQI  people, THE Institution—on and on. Add your favorite blamee—even shaming yourself neurotically counts. All of this gets us off the hook. Face it: we might just be a brood of vipers who need to get honest.

Throughout history, the preferred blamee has always been the Jews. NOTE: John the Baptist, Jesus, Mary, Paul, the gospel writers, all of our beloved biblical forebears, were Jews.

I worry about this die-hard and deadly habit of blaming the Jews. All -isms are on the rise in our confused world, and anti-semitism is too. It’s always the Jews, or the OT, which is to say the same thing in disguise. Why is that? Cynthia Ozick proffers an answer in her essay “Hep! Hep! Hep!”, published in A Sense of Wonder (2016).

H.E.P. was the call of the Christian Crusades in 1099. It stood for Hierosolyma est perdita (Jerusalem is destroyed.) Hep! Hep! Hep!—a raging marching song, a Christian cry, a Nazi cry, an anti-Zionist cry. It’s the cry of blamers and haters anywhere. If you listen carefully to your deep inner self you might hear the impulse to cry Hep! when you feel frustrated, angry, wanting to vilify another and declare yourself absolutely right. Toddlers do this well.

Such impasses happen everywhere and any time to any society and people, so why do Jews bear more of the brunt than other groups? Ozick suggests it has much to do with: “. . . the forceful powerful resistance to what Jewish civilization represents—the standard of ethical monotheism and its demands on personal and social conscience.”

We’re right back to the Baptist’s cry, to Jesus’s winnowing fork—calling us to high standards of morality. We plain don’t like it. Think Ten Commandments—foundational divine expectations, the manifesto of the Jews.

I think the worldwide symptom of this resistance is that we are stuck in fight mode—spewing toxic, hostile energy, and humor that falls short of being prophetic, into the midst, rather than enough respectful intelligence to open up relationships with and any and all putative blamees.
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Still: are we less divided than we think we are, or than we are told we are? As long as we think we have to fight we will have to blame. The space between us will remain contaminated, and that space is where commonly held values live—gasping for air.

Think tug of war. If each of only two teams dropped the rope and abandoned the fighting spirit, the passion to win and to be right, the dust would settle. Could we then see clearly and hear each other clearly? Is this the baptism of the Holy Spirit and cleansing water? 

Is this then what we should do?

2018.11.18 There Is a Time For Everything—Everything

One of my favorite books of the Bible is Ecclesiastes. That’s odd because it is many people’s least loved book. It’s in the Christian Old Testament and, according to apocryphal story, became the subject of great controversy and was nearly dropped from the Canon of Scripture.

When I was in seminary back in the 1980s, a humorous audiotape circulated among us about Ecclesiastes’s author, Qoheleth, the wise preacher. Many male voices argued vociferously, over-shouting one another, about its qualifications. Was it genuine? Was it holy enough to qualify for holiness? Did a book so cynical, even fatalistic in its approach, belong in a collection of authoritative sacred works? The din of their fervor made us all laugh, and also proved, to me at least, that this earthen wisdom was indeed sacred.

Wisdom and righteousness are elusively mysterious, yet both are essential for the embodied soul. There is a time to struggle against the way things are and a time to let go. Everything belongs. This message was so depressing that scriptural scribal editors added a very small Epilogue, almost apologizing for this nutty sage, assuring us that in the end God will make it all okay. Such dilution! Such lopsided heresy.

Here are Qoheleth’s well known biblical lines: dated between 450-350BCE—perhaps. There is no scholarly consensus about dating, possibly a sign of this book’s ultimate worth.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. (Ecclus 3: 1-8)

You will also recognize Qoheleth’s ancient voice in the popular song written by Pete Seeger in the 1950s: “Turn, Turn Turn.”  Seeger wrote it as a plea for peace, adding a line at the end, “. . . a time for peace, I swear it’s not too late.”

Members of an  an EfM seminar group recently listened to a reading from Ecclesiastes and pondered their own responses. As I listened I thought the struggle to have things be one way or the other way, in a kind of binary mentality, was very true to lived experience and a particularly tempting attitude just now. Many scary, even violent things are happening—massacres, bombs sent to political figures, abnormal weather events, and more. There is a time to hate, and a time to love; a time to fear and a time to trust. 

NOTE: Qoheleth does not say either/or; he says both/and. One woman wondered aloud: "How long does a “time” last? " Will this era pass soon?  What about the confusion of trying to land on righteousness—from whose point of view?

I don’t know.

Then I remembered one of Jesus’s parables, a favorite of mine: the parable of the wheat and the weeds growing together in a field. (Matt. 13:24-30) The slaves (slaves no less!) come nattering and nagging about how these weeds got into a pure wheat field. Should they rush in and rip out all the nasty weeds? An enemy is blamed; assumptions are made that the kingdom of heaven must be pure; and self-righteousness takes hold. Final answer to slaves?  No, let them grow together until the final harvest. A warning is issued that in pulling out weeds any human action might pull out wheat as well. Let go and let God.

There is a time for wheat and a time for weeds. Obviously, the parable tells us that we are NOT qualified to identify and separate good from evil individuals. This is not ours to do, not ours to judge, not ours to execute. This parable is only in Matthew, and Matthew has a heavy moral agenda, appropriate for his time, but perhaps not forever and ever amen.

This is a time in our nation when we are living with wheat and weeds and fighting about who is which, making assumptions about the true nature of each.

It is a time to let things grow together, because they will anyway. After all, both wheat and weed do grow and flourish in the same fertile field. God have mercy, this is hard wisdom!

2018.05.13 Sanctifying Prayers on Mothers' Day

Over 100 years after Jesus had died his followers remembered that he prayed for them. He must have prayed aloud or they wouldn’t have remembered and carried it on. Jesus’s intercession must have made a huge impression on them. Over 2000 years later it still makes an impression on me.

I can’t imagine a more awesome feeling than knowing, feeling, that you are being prayed for, aloud and in people’s hearts. Today is officially Mother’s Day. This day is complicated for obvious reasons.

To honor my motherhood I want to free up the word “mother” from confinements like gender, biology, anatomy, sexual preference. Mothering energy is a gift we all have. It is the spiritual capacity to make things holy, sanctify them, with the sweet energy of wisdom, encouragement, and nurture. This to me is how God “mothers”and what I pray for every single day. This seems to be what Jesus the Christ brought—so strongly that the English mystic Julian of Norwich called Jesus “ . . .  our beloved mother who feeds us with his most precious body and blood.”

This is what Jesus the Christ is remembered as doing when he prayed passionately for himself as he faced inevitable death, and when he prayed for his followers as they faced the enormous task of carrying on with wisdom, encouragement, and nurture in a hostile chaotic, plain stubborn world—just like ours right now.

This is what I saw just last week in the park near our house. I stopped to watch two small girls, maybe four years old, as they sat cross-legged on the ground and took turns brushing the hair on a stuffed critter of mysterious identity. They shared the brush, the critter, and their own sheer delight—together. Wondrous! It looked to me like an embodied prayer with an action attached to it.

I come from a long line of praying mothers and grandmothers, so my own praying career began early. It was almost upended by the Church—ironically because I was a MOTHER!

I’d felt drawn to priesthood by the church’s sacramental life. I thought them very motherly: wash, cleanse, bleed, heal, touch, feed—all about bodies. No wonder the Church is called Mother.

But the Church told me I could not be a mother and a priest. By then I had four children, and I needed a mother!

That was back in the 1980s but even today motherhood threatens to upset the ecclesial workplace. Mother Church cannot decided whether it wants women ordained before children, after children, or during children. There is scant provision for maternity leave or time off for child care, and there is an ongoing significant gender pay gap, and attitudinal patriarchy prevails. I remember a male priest angrily saying to me: “I can’t imagine a pregnant woman at the altar.”  I couldn’t imagine a pregnant woman NOT at the altar, NOT in the pulpit, NOT at the font—banned.

I vowed to be active for equality for women and all people. I vowed as well never to let anyone call me Mother, except my own children. I’m not sure the parental model is so good for men either, or even for the image of God. Jesus grew up. We too grow up. I see myself as “beloved” of God, maybe daughter, but not child of God. My Godde, there’s too much very adult work to be done in the church, and especially beyond the church, for us to be sheep or children, even metaphorically. We have our whole Earth to pray about and care for—Mother Earth, no less.

Also, I vowed never ever to stop praying with and for all our children, my own and my present husband’s, just as Jesus prayed for his followers. We all need the prayers of others—all the time. I’m grateful that Christ prays for me, sanctifies himself to God that I too may be sanctified in the truth.

The little girls in the park right now are my icon: giggling with soulful abandon, brushing a ridiculously hairless unidentifiable stuffed critter—sharing critter and brush in turn with utterly untrammeled joy. Together they care for their beloved critter with tenderness, efficiency, and delight. They were mothering. They were prayer in action. Go thou and do likewise.

HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY TO YOU ALL.

2017.12.21 A Death At Christmas

When someone dies near Christmas time people take it harder than at other times of year. Why is that? I suppose it creates an inner emotional conflict between joy and sorrow, between bright red and grey-blue. You know what I mean. We just have to feel both. God carries it all in one sacred heart, and good friends are friends or family who do not try to talk you in or out of your true feelings.

Christmas colors are bright red, gold, green. Christmas colors are also blue and black and gray. Simply so.

Today on the liturgical calendar is a day set aside to remember the apostle Thomas, one of Jesus’s disciples. He’s known for being a doubter, but that’s poppycock. All he asked for was the facts, please. And Jesus, with deep respect, honored Thomas’s request. Simply so. Death is like that.

On December 18th, a friend of many years died. Everyone called her Glo. Some of her grandchildren called her GoGo. Her full name was Gloria Masterson Richardson. She had more than her share of tragedy in her 90 years of earthly life, and yet she remained cussedly independent, no, obdurate, yet never lost her faith in Jesus Christ and herself, and kept her sense of humor, which was epic!  As she was going in and out of her dying she quipped to me over the phone which the good nurse held to her ear: “Better stick around for the damn carolers!” That was Glo. She was a poet, a mentor, a sister in faith, and my first official writing teacher, not to mention heavy duty cheerleader.   

Glo had three wishes she hoped would come true before she died:
    -that she would be able to attend her grandson’s wedding;
    - that she would live to see her dear friend Catherine admitted as a Companion to the Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross, a “community of women, Christ's disciples, called by God to a life of prayer, transformation and reconciliation within ourselves, within our Companionship, within our faith communities, and within the whole creation” of which Glo was a member;   
    -that she would live to see her first book, a collection of her fine poetry, published.

All three happened—no miracle just the facts and lots of loving help . . .
    Glo attended the wedding in a beautiful blue dress, which Catherine helped her buy—a comic adventure that ended in beauty. (Where is the bathroom in a huge department store—ever?)
    Catherine McGeary was admitted as a Companion on September 16, 2016. 
    Glo’s book of poetry, Currents, was placed into her dying hands by Catherine less than 24 hours before she died. Did she know it? Dying or not, no one misses the feel of a first book.

Here is one of Glo’s poems—a prayer of wisdom and serenity and courage.
   
PRAYER
    by Gloria Masterson Richardson

Open my heart, Lord,
so that I can be strong enough,
brave enough to surrender
to your healing love.
When I cannot say the words,
speak for me;
cannot trust, hold me;
cannot cry, weep for me;
cannot help, reach out for me;
cannot see the path, light my way.
Amen.

And here is a poem I wrote for her as she lay dying.

Helplessly Hopeful at 90
    by Lyn G. Brakeman

The old lady poet
—never a poetess—
is dying,
wasting away before my eyes
and ears,
her voice stiffens
her chuckle flutters
her cheeks sag and pouch
her faith mellows.
She is dimming—
only a poem brightens her day,
engages her mind
delights her soul—
a poem or heaven
the same to her.

“I’m just moving on through it,”
she tells me.
No not yet, I think, and cry.

If I were God I’d say to her:
Gloria, you are a poem
               Mine.
   

2017.09.24 I'M THE FAVORITE!

With the innocent arrogance of a small child chatting away to God under a table I imagined myself to be God’s favorite, then spent much of my life trying to undo my shameful fantasy.

According to everything I heard in church about Jesus Christ being, not only the single favorite but the most beloved favorite of God, my inflated spirituality was errant, impious—and worse misgendered. I was proud, sinful, and a girl!!

Over time of course I’ve forgiven myself, know God forgives me, and have fallen in love with this Christ. Still, the melody of my original “sin” lingers on.

However, today in tiny Christ Episcopal Church, Bethel, Vermont, I heard this Word in a sermon delivered by my cousin, the Rev’d David Gillespie who boomed:

                            WE ARE ALL GOD’S FAVORITES!!

This message was, for me, the punch line in the sermon on one of Jesus’s most difficult and contrary parables—the laborers in the vineyard. The owner of the vineyard, meant to be an image of God, paid ALL the laborers the exact same wage. Fine and fair, right? Here’s the hitch, as there usually is in Jesus’s parables: some laborers worked the whole darn day and some only labored for the last half hour of the day—ALL for the same wage. So much for the equal pay for equal work ethic I so love, given my feminism. God in this story, however, is unjust and appears to play favorites.

But  Lo! I recognized the God I’d met as a child, the God who’d let me know I mattered. Me, a girl!  I felt as if I were right back under that table as God’s favorite. But this time I wasn’t
God’s one and only favorite. I had to share that status with everyone, just as Jesus did. This was not my idea, but God’s.

                            WE ARE ALL GOD’S FAVORITES!!

David opened with distress at all the crises of human suffering affecting our nation, some caused by humans. “It shocks me that we humans adapt to dangerous environments, both natural and political. This has us accepting hateful standards for living. The slow creep of hate is enveloping us. We are lulled into complacency.”

Then, with great skill David unpacked all the usual protestations about the world’s ills and sufferings being God’s fault or idea or desire. He left all these platitudes empty of their force. God does not desire, cause, or prevent the world’s sufferings. God only responds to them with compassion. This was my experience as a child and continues to be my faith, as I am able.

Yet today this message meant more to me, because it was delivered by my first cousin David Gillespie—not just any old preacher, but my very own cousin, only once removed. The personal connection made the gospel message intimate—not more true but more intimate.

Thanks to the ministrations of a good friend with a home in Vermont, I connected  years ago with David  and his beautifully feminist wife Jo. David is dear because he is my dad’s first cousin, but just being a relative isn’t enough. David is a Gillespie. I too am a Gillespie. Not all of us are extroverts like David—myself and his wife Jo, for example. But we share the family charism—vainglory charged by big-heartedness. And we marry in kind. 

This photo is David and Jo with my extroverted spouse Dick Simeone and me behind, all of us in front of the Restrooms sign. No messages at all in that!

                                 WE ALL ARE GOD’S FAVORITES!!

2017.04.16 Easter Morning: Choose Life!

Easter Morning
    by William Stafford.

Maybe someone comes to the door and says,
"Repent," and you say, "Come on in," and it's
Jesus. That's when all you ever did, or said,
or even thought, suddenly wakes up again and
sings out, "I'm still here," and you know it's true.
You just shiver alive and are left standing
there suddenly brought to account: saved.

Except, maybe that someone says, "I've got a deal
for you." And you listen because that's how
you're trained––they told you, "Always hear both sides."
So then the slick voice can sell you anything, even
Hell, which is what you're getting by listening.
Well, what should you do? I'd say always go to
the door; yes, but keep the screen locked. Then,
while you hold the Bible in one hand, lean forward
and say carefully, “Jesus?”


A friend of mine, some years ago, opened his door on a Sunday morning to face a young man standing there holding up a Bible and his pointer finger, saying: “Repent!” My friend was suffering the pain of a serious hangover and was horrified. He slammed the door in the man’s face, and then made jokes about it for a few years, most of them mocking this stupid Bible-thumper. In time, my friend did “repent” in the way he needed to. He stopped drinking and joined AA.

The poet who wrote about Easter morning is William Stafford (1914-1993). He was poet laureate of both Oregon and the United States. He wrote relentlessly honest notes, in part gleaned from his own experience as a conscientious objector in WWII. During that war, Stafford worked in Civilian Public Service camps in several states. He wrote and spoke quietly about the sanity of nonviolence and the madness of violence. He did not fight for the sake of his country, as everyone thought was the highest value. He chose not to fight—for the sake of his country.

Personally, I think the choice NOT to fight for the sake of his country was a courageous one. What could happen if everyone in the world chose likewise? Seems like kind of an Easter choice to me.

Who knows how and when, or exactly why, our choices are made? Yet make them we do. In the Book of Deuteronomy the voice of God speaks to the people of Israel, saying: “See, I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live. . . ” (30:19)  I often remind myself: Choose life!

Every small choice, for better or worse, counts. Here’s one………

The Squirrel
    by Brian Doyle

Here you go. Here’s a moment to ponder carefully.
We think that there are greater and lesser moments
But how immensely and ridiculously wrong this is.
For here is a boy riding along the street in summer.
He is perhaps six years old. His bike is wildly blue.
He sees a smear of squirrel in the street. He pauses,
Using the heels of his sneakers as brakes. He looks,
He dismounts, he sets his kickstand, he looks down.
He kneels and gathers up the shredded creature and
Walks to the shady ravine where we saw the coyote
That time and he gives the squirrel to the tiny creek.
He washes in a muddy puddle and then he rides off.
I am the man who saw and testifieth of these things,
And what I say is true. I saw a boy bow before holy
Things, for all things are holy, and he reminded me,
And so now I remind you. Go thou and do likewise.

2016.11.27 Remember and Do LIkewise...........

The Gettysburg Address has a familiar ring. President Abraham Lincoln, November 19,1863 delivered it in a matter of minutes. Nice brief homily! Lincoln was a Republican. This beautiful speech was delivered to a divided nation at war with itself. It inspired hope and remembrance of who we are as a nation. Does it still?



Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.


Thank you, Mr. Lincoln. We, 1,153 years later, are also in the midst of civil strife in which much blood has been spilled, most of it senseless.

Many Christians believe that Jesus Christ shed blood to save us. I believe that Jesus’s death was a crime of epic proportions that occurred in a system in which all parts contributed to its happening, including those who loved him. But they did not forget what he stood for. They kept talking and remembering this brilliant life and this useless death—over and over until they derived hope in resurrection. Today, Christians remember this founding event regularly in order to call us back to God who created us equal—all of us—and whose desire it is that no more blood be spilled for Christ’s sake, or anyone else’s either. 

As we enter this liturgical season of Advent, we soon will say goodbye to Barack Obama, our president of eight years, and to his family, most handsome and bright. He is the president who ran on a platform of Hope. He is our first brown-skinned president. He is the president who entered office with dark brown hair and leaves with gray hair. He is part of what makes American great.

I hope we will remember all that he has stood for and all that he has accomplished on our behalf.

I hope we will encourage our new government to stop shedding invisible blood and take time to evaluate Obama’s reforms with care as changes are made.

I hope all of us Americans, citizens and  citizens-in-waiting, will make extra efforts to get to know each other's stories.

I hope we will be able to see each other beyond our politics, our skin colors, our genders, our religions, our physical or financial status, whether we were born here or not. I hope we will have respectful conversations, listen and talk with open hearts, rather than looking to convert anyone to one single point of view—our own. 

I hope we will honestly try to be true to our founding vision, the one we still dare to call these United States, a country in which ALL people who live here may dream and work and, yes, enjoy equal access without fear to all the many resources available—economic, social, educational, spiritual, agricultural, legal, cultural, natural—from sea to shining sea.    

We the people do not know who we are, nor who our neighbors are, so steeped are we in our own positions, fears, values, and judgments. We are not the land of the free until we can share that freedom—and help each other hope. 

I hope that if there is another speaker as eloquent as Lincoln that person will recall us to our founding values. 

The apostle Paul in his famous love letter to Love in the Bible (I Corinthians 13) declared the three top spiritual gifts to be faith, hope, and love. But alas, he then rank-ordered them to say that the greatest of these is love. In my experience, the three are of equal value, inseparable, and ceaselessly interacting. 

Hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5)

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

May the God of hope bless us, keep us, and shine upon and from within us, that we may abound in Hope, Faith and Love—this day and always.

2016.10.23 Dominus Flevit

As Christian women we are appalled by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's recorded remarks that disparage women and condone sexual assault. Such language cannot be dismissed as “locker room talk.” Mr. Trump must offer public contrition that fully acknowledges the seriousness and depravity of his actions.

The sin of misogyny has caused many of us to experience sexual assault or sexually abusive language that threatened our safety, dignity and well-being.

Christian leaders cannot condone such violent speech about women as a minor mistake or an innocent attempt to be “macho." These excuses teach our young people that such language is acceptable and do further harm to those who have been abused.

We urge all religious leaders to preach, teach and help their communities heal from the twin sins of sexual violence and misogyny. While we are disheartened by Mr. Trump's toxic words, we believe this moment presents an opportunity to teach our daughters and sons that they are loved, and to teach all Americans how to speak out against sexually violent language.
        -Rev Jennifer Butler, CEO, Faith in Public Life.


I signed this letter with little hesitation and then immediately wondered if I should have. Was it “Christian” to condemn another person? Oh well, I thought, it’s in line with the biblical prophetic tradition, and we all know that it’s okay to condemn the sin but not the sinner, don’t we?  Besides, I’m not Jesus.  Even as Lyn, I know that misogyny and the toxins it stokes—violence, rage, profound physical and spiritual pain, and social disorganization—are godless. 

One of the most poignant places we visited in 2012 when we went to Israel was the location at which Jesus is remembered in the New Testament as looking out over the beloved city Jerusalem and weeping. The site is a small chapel at the foot of the Mount of Olives with a dome shaped like a teardrop. Built in 1955 it's called Dominus Flevit: The Lord wept.

Luke’s gospel remembers it thus: “As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!”  This lament may reflect the historical destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. A great political mess of contending parties—Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, Tax Collectors, Samaritans, Zealots and Scribes—warred for primacy and authority in Jesus’s time. All of these spiritual and political streams buzzed in and about Jerusalem. Jesus was trying to recall their attention to God’s ways of justice, compassion and peace. No wonder he wept.

I weep too scanning the national scenario in the USA right now. I also rage. I’m a woman, and, like most women, I know the sting of misogyny. So does the woman who is running against many currents to be elected our next president.

“As it turned out, Clinton, who began her campaign intent on breaking the last barrier—the glass ceiling—has found her most compelling rationale in her own role as a barrier, a bulwark against the impossible alternative. As I was leaving our interview, she smiled, looked me in the eyes and left me with a casual reminder. ‘As I’ve told people,’ she said, ‘I’m the last thing standing between you and the apocalypse.’ ” (Mark Leibovich, “Her Way”, NY Times Sunday Magazine, October 16, 2016.)

Is it that dire? I don’t know, but some days it feels that way as the delusional scenario of individuals and groups “building proud towers which shall not reach to heaven . . .” (Hymn #573, Laurence Housman) unfolds.

Still, I’m not one to sit around. I’m powerless, not helpless. SO: I sign petitions like the one above. I pray with specificity. I order books for grandkids. I write to steady my convictions in hope.  I remember I am a Christian and  I remember dominus flevit.  Tomorrow I will vote for Hillary and get my little oval “I voted early” sticker with the American flag on it.

I'm voting for her because she is practiced and practical. Second, I'm voting for her because she has stood her ground and managed to avoid serious head bleeds from glass ceiling shards as she pokes through a barrier that needs breaking. Finally, I am voting for her because I am not afraid of her.

I am voting for her, because I bet, that behind the necessary defenses, she weeps.

2015.07.26 St. Mary Magdalene, Alive and Well

The icon is painted by Robert Lentz. The inscription in Syriac reads: "Equal to the Apostles."

July 22 is the Feast of Mary Magdalene on church calendars. It rarely gets honored in parishes, except maybe in big Roman, Eastern, or Anglo Catholic ones where every feast and its subtitle makes the rota. Or in church communities named after the saint. Or where there is an uppity woman priest like me, nagging for its recognition, and incidentally, sleeping with the rector (married, don’t worry!)

Well, when the Feast of St. Mary Mag lands on a Sunday, it might get its due, but even then I wonder.

The reputation accrued to this gifted and faithful disciple of Jesus is worthy of vice-squad attention, despite the fact that it is not supported by biblical witness at all. It happened because of hierarchical resistance to lay preaching and patriarchal resistance to women leaders. Mary Magdalene, in a favorite story of mine in John 20,  stoops to peer into the empty tomb, weeping and looking for the body of Jesus, after the others had gone home. She turns away finally and has a direct mystical experience of Jesus the Christ. He tells her: noli me tangere (Latin for, don’t hold onto me.) This phrase was later interpreted to prove that Mary was a clingy and hysterical woman, and that therefore her testimony to the new vision a sham.

On a retreat, I prayed with the tomb scene, imagining myself as Mary and identifying with her grief. It sent me into fresh grief over the death of my father. He wasn't Jesus, of course, but in soul-talk such particularities don't matter.

It’s a miracle that Magdalene’s influence as a leader and teacher survived at all, and that the gospel she wrote has been translated and remains in print. There’s a great scene in it in which an angry (jealous?) Peter, incredulous that Jesus would have revealed so much to a woman, argues with her. (The Gospel of Mary, translated by Karen King is worthy of a read. The scriptural texts more kaleidoscopic and impressionistic, not news at 11. The more I read, the more I think, the more I want, the closer I feel to the Holy. All of it feeds my soul. King, btw, is a scriptural scholar at Harvard Divinity School and an Episcopalian.

Please note that Magdalene’s bad reputation did NOT follow her into the Eastern Orthodox tradition. So what’s with the West? Long story. Look it up. Think P for pope.

Consider this, should you doubt the veracity of ancient testimony: if women hadn’t already been functioning, historically, as leaders in the early church, their presence wouldn’t have been recorded in Scripture at all, now would it?  Mary Magdalene is alive and well. 

Every July 22nd for many years now, my feminist priest husband and I, have attended the Mary Magdalene Event at Boston College, School of Theology and Ministry.  The event is made possible by a woman of worth, both financial and spiritual, and the guest lecturers are always among the very best women scholars and theologians. This year we heard S. Mary Catherine Hilkert, O.P. of Notre Dame. Next year’s speaker will be Amy-Jill Levine, Jewish theologian and professor of New Testament theology and history at Vanderbilt. Every voice counts.

                             

I got to shake hands with one of my favorite feminist theologians, Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, professor at Fordham. I felt like a groupie. Imagine! Who runs after women theologians? She gave me a vigorous handshake, grinned, and, upon hearing that I was an Episcopal priest who’d had ordination struggles with the patriarchal church, said: “Well, we are all still working together on this one.”  I wanted to hug her— but opted for boundaries.

The event began with a liturgy at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola. The opening hymn, sung to the familiar tune, Old Hundredth (The Doxology) from the breviary of St. Helena's, an Episcopal Women’s Order, choked me up all the way through. I was expecting it. I knew it. I’d sung it. And yet I cried. 

 1. Out of the night where hope had died,
to tomb once sealed, now gaping wide,
the Magdalene made haste, to mourn
and bring her spices through the dawn.

2. She gazed in disbelief and pain
where Jesus in his death had lain,
until the radiant angel said,
Seek not the living with the dead.

3. Soon trusting love cast out her fears;
she rose and brushed away her tears.
As first apostle, Mary ran
to tell God's resurrection plan.

4.  Jesus is risen! Mary cries,
Lift up your hearts and dry your eyes,
Jesus is risen—come and see—
and goes before to Galilee.

5.  All glory be to God above,
for Mary's apostolic love,
all praise to God whom we adore
for ever and for evermore. Amen.