2025.06.22 Tragicomedies or Simply Life—Both. Lyn Brakeman Spiritual Lemons, blog post

Who cares, and yet everyone cares—enough to laugh and weep together with every passing sigh or groan? Yes?  YES!

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Any abrupt and sudden death is shocking. We rarely understand it, and yet, our grief is deeper than it would be if we’d known all about it, if we understood. And too, we do not know exactly what to do or say. What is most important I believe is to gather and talk with those who are also shocked. No, you will not figure it out, never fully understand it, but yes, you may embrace each other anew and weep together before you leap back into life and doings. Sometimes it is helpful to ask the immediately bereaved what would help them.

I recall one such situation when the only thing the bereaved said was: “Please just sit with me and don’t talk.” 

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In 1979, my youngest sister died suddenly post surgery. She was 35. I suddenly could not breathe, literally gasped and gulped. I guess my body could not take in the shock. My mind, despite medical explanations, could not make sense of this death, could not find someone or something to blame. Time and people in sight, at hand but silently, held me in a net of caring, until my lungs gulped air, and a medical professional diagnosed and treated my asthma. “Probably dormant,” the doctor said. 

*  *  * *

Remember the small scene in the biblical New Testament when Jesus, accompanied by his close friends, looked out over the land, his beloved Jerusalem, and he wept?  He’d just heard that his best friend Lazarus had died.  Dominus flevit. means The Lord wept. 

And here in Israel today stands a small church shaped like a teardrop. It honors Jesus’s tears, his grief. Simply so.   

2024.03.24 Stethoscopic Listening, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

If you want to hear the pulse of the universe, you have to BE a stethoscope, listening not just hearing. Turn off your urges, your longing for security. Move out of the eager parade, such as the one so many Christians try to reenact on Palm Sunday, the tragic walk towards what everyone imagines will bring ultimate satisfaction to that longing to belong. Surely it will become obvious—atop a mountain, in a procession of Palm-waving, by Easter for sure? Surely. 

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Once upon a time a very old— ancient by any measure—snake called Rock-Dweller was born in my imagination at a writers’ retreat at a very holy monastery, when this very famous spiritual director named Madeleine told us all: Think of someone in Holy Scripture who was angry and write about it.  The snake in Genesis popped up. She was furious, asking: “Why do women hate snakes? Why, for that matter, does God?” Was there no grace for the snake? My snake prayed fervently, doubted even her own doubt, discovered her own secret shame, and laughed at divine folly. Eventually, my snake dozed on her “sun-warmed, soul-soaked rock”. (Spiritual Lemons. Biblical Women, Irreverent Laughter and Righteous Rage. Augsburg edition, 2005.) 

One recent morning, I did not want to wake up and face another day of what is called aging-in-place. I missed my get-up-and-go self. I felt angry and helpless, damning all self-help baloney, including my own. I lay still and listened stethoscopically—underground, beneath my heart’s resistance, my mind’s curse. 

“It has to be Qoheleth!” I finally said to my slowly-awakening spouse who groaned. 

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Qoheleth is the Hebrew translation for the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. The name translates as teacher/preacher/messenger, sometimes collector of sayings. Ecclesiastes was written after the exile (450BCE) at a time of tremendous economic growth accompanied by the politics of, let’s say, acquisition of wealth for its own sake and its attendant temptations. Much like today, the poor got poorer while the rich got richer—and the gift of divine grace got, well, undermined, taken for granted, forgotten. In this socioeconomic situation Qoheleth struggled to find God. He asked: Is everything vain, futile, spiritually bankrupt?   “What’s the point?” 

“What’s the point?”was my own father’s deathbed question in 1983. We stood, my sister and I, on either side of his bed as he groaned out his last breaths. Dad was only 71! 

There is never a clear answer to such a question or quest. Qoheleth stayed open-ended—wise enough to continue to question himself, his world, life itself, and the divine intention. Also wise enough to be reverent and skeptical at once. I aspire to do likewise—with my imaginary stethoscope. 

For everything, the inquisitive one concluded, there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven—birth/death, hate/love, mourn/laugh, silence/speech, war/peace. 

 

 

2024.03.10 Heartbeat. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

I once had the opportunity to hear what an en-wombed embryo would hear while slowly growing inside a mother’s womb. I recall vividly my own feeling as I listened to this sound—something like woosh/woosh/woosh—steady, regular and astoundingly comforting. 

No wonder babies wail so fiercely when they are pulled out of the womb, forced into the world of bright light, and then spanked. It is not the sudden elevation and medical inspection that calms them, nor the tight swaddling, nor the joyful cries of family. No, they do not return to calm until they hear again the faint yet familiar sound— woosh, woosh, woosh— as they are placed on their mother’s chest and hear again her heartbeat. 

I think we never stop listening for that sound, seeking it even, coming through a stethoscope. No wonder we use heart language to speak about Love, and especially about divine Love. It’s what we all seek and crave. It is what spiritual religious traditions tell us to seek and serve in ourselves and in all Creation.  Woosh woosh woosh.  

When you love deeply it’s not the same as caring lots and lots. It is much more painful, full as it is of the ache of longing—not for more but for more of the same. Laying aside partisanship for the sake of companionship to the end. The end of what? Love of, and for, and with, and upon this Earth our island home—fragile and beloved at once. The painful struggle for control is enough to make the whole planet sob. Weeping clouds neither our eyes can see, nor our ears hear, nor our fingers touch. Yet we recognize that Wooshing. 

 

 

Last week we listened to President Biden’s State of the Union speech. It was firm and authentic, even defiant. Why always a fight? Is that the heartbeat of our nation? 

The visuals of the assembled congress showed a grim assembly, completely split—one side cheering and hooting with applause, the other side sitting, arms crossed over chests, grimly stern-faced. Even the two behind Biden at the podium of power, the Vice President on the left, popping up and down to applaud as her current “boss” spoke for her political party, her own aspirations. Simultaneously, the man on the right, Speaker of the House of Representatives, sat resolutely planted on his butt, while looking desperate to stand and join the applause. Once he did stand for something idly non-partisan. 

*  *  *  * 

I could not help but think of Jesus resolutely hiking toward the seat of power, Jerusalem, to confront the authority of his time with a higher vision. All of it doomed to die of exhaustion. Yet there was a heartbeat thumping still alive. There was that ancient steady sound— woosh, woosh, woosh.  Did you hear it?  This future of hope for the American vision, unable to be embodied—yet.

The art of hearing heartbeats is upon us, as close as your own heart. Ask to listen through your doctor's stethoscope. Find a child to play the game of heart-listening with you. 

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I suspect the assembly heard the humming and thumping beneath the crowded chaos. Biden was eager to echo it. He is 81, old enough to hear that faint echo beating beneath the despair, and young enough at heart to tell us that our nation still has a heartbeat:   “A future based on the core values that have defined America. Honesty. Decency. Dignity. Equality. To respect everyone. To give everyone a fair shot. To give hate no safe harbor.” 

As evidence, Biden included “Moscow” in his list of places where his inclusive vision would be realized. It just slipped out. At first he corrected it, then quickly reinstated it: “Yes, Moscow, too.”  

2023.07.16 Dying or What?, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

Readiness cannot be known. 

As a trained pastoral counselor and chaplain I worked in hospitals where the hurried and busy medical staff knew all the answers and had all the cures and all the medications. I felt useless because all I could do was listen and stay present. I learned two things. First, I was very much needed when a family or patient was sitting by terrified and knowing nothing. I could listen, and that presence counted alongside all the data.  

Next, I learned about humility. It is not self-abasement as if I were worthless. Nor was it self-aggrandizement as if I were the only true healer around. 

Humility is being right-sized—not too big and not too small. 

All I could do before, after, and sometimes during a dying was: Be present, pray a little, respect whatever cultural traditions families or religions kept, keep silence, listen, and wait. Yes, touch is the last sense to go when anyone dies, so, if you are the only one present, gently touch (not grasp and hold onto) a hand. You will know when to let go. There may or may not be any last words. 

Thou shalt never say: “I know just how you feel.”

You do not know how anyone feels even if you have been in similar circumstances. You do not know. It is emotionally intelligent not to assume or judge any feelings correct or incorrect.  

Nor do you know exactly when a person will die or how. Some people prefer to die alone. It’s okay to ask. Many people stay alive to take care of their loved one whom they assume will be devastated by their death.  They will. And they will be all right. 

Many people die just as they have lived. It’s a matter of personality, the way you are. My mother put on a fresh coat of lipstick, turned on her side, and said to her granddaughter: “This won’t take long, darling.” 

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I have laughed at the parable story Jesus tells about the Sower who sows seeds wherever he goes. The seed falls on many kinds of soil. Some of it bears fruit, some not so much. The Sower keep on sowing anyway. So resist getting all mixed up in discerning what kind of soil you might be. 

In Israel, most of the soil is rough and unfriendly anyway. The anawin (peasants and poor people) had the worst soil to plant, the least likely soil to bear fruit to sustain and provide food for the hungry. This parable has an economic meaning. It is written to the poor, encouraging them that God, the Sower, is still sowing no matter what. It is also an admonishment to the wealthy to be humble, share and not hoard. 

How can you be a sower? 

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You never know as much as you are sure you know. Be humble. Listen. Hope against hope. Assume nothing. Dying remains a mystery and readiness unknowable.

Honest to God, I once sat with a man who was dying. The family had said their farewells. It appeared as if this man was waiting for something  more. I asked. He said: “I had to wait for the priest to come anoint me. I can’t die until he gets here.” I nodded and I will not tell you my thoughts. We waited. Finally, the priest came running down the hall. I could hear his steps, his panting breath. He rushed into the room, fished a stole from his pocket along with a small vial full of anointing oil.  The patient was tightly blanketed lying in his bed. The priest fumbled to loosen the blanket at the bottom of the bed, reached under and, honest to God, anointed the man’s big toe with and the proper Latin words.  The man sighed with contentment and died.   Honest to God.

How little we know—how very very little.