CREATING AN IMPRESSIONIST PAINTING. Lyn G. Brakeman, blog post, spirituallemons.blogspot.com

WHO? Some 50 “painters” of varying ages from 50 to 99. Some in wheelchairs, others on their own feet, all seated, all with bright eyes awake, alert.  I was privileged enough to moderate this process—lightly.  The principal “painter” was a daughter. 

WHAT?  A portrait of one woman named Ikey who had recently died, one we all knew and loved in our different ways, familial and professional. She had resided in all the different areas of care here. Some of us knew her well and some only a little. STILL, if you ever met her even just once, you came away with a brilliant multi-sensory portrait behind your own mind’s eye, of the clear tones of her standout laughter ringing in your ears, perhaps the scent of her last meal, and definitely the vibrations of her whole lively personality stirring each and all into life.

WHERE?  In the Chapel, a beautiful mid-campus space used spottily by varying groups from outside. OUR group were all insiders, some by residence and some by familial ties or through friendships. 

WHEN? From 10:45-11:45 a.m. Imagine creating such a painting in such little time. COLLECTIVELY!  AND ACCURATELY!

WHY? Because we all knew and loved Ikey.  And because it was NOT a religious, church-sponsored event, even though I moderated it, BUT NOT from a pulpit and NOT in a clerical collar. 

*  *  *  *

I know this is hard to believe, and yet I promise it happened!! It could be like pointillism, the method of impressionist painters, like George-Pierre Seurat and Paul Signac, who did NOT mix their oils on the palette first, as was customary, but instead dotted the canvas with distinctly colored dots—until slowly, slowly the apparently meaningless dots formed an image—dots formed by unmixed oil colors—unmixed! When applied, the dots are separate. BUT soon an image emerges from the array of dots. LO and BEHOLD.

This we did today as we gathered to remember our friend’s vibrancy. I told about the hilarity of going shopping with Ikey at the cheapest places we could find and returning with new earrings, or a new sweatshirt or some other cheesy “treasure”.  Also the time we snuck out for pizza following a craving and breaking curfew rules. We brought Ikey back LATE 8 p.m.to face a very annoyed  nurse who came to open the door to let Ikey in. I laughed hysterically recalling college days when we all had to be back in our dorms by curfew or else! I understand the need of such rules. I also laugh uproariously at such rigor at the age of 100! OK I know all about liability. Laughing is more fun. 

Who would have thought that this small community of Ikey fans could share so many varied impressions of her and come up with a perfect portrait in an hour!!!???

May we all always walk together in peace, bound together in LOVE, the only universal force strong enough to hold us—all at once. 

DESIGNER BLOG, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, 10/19/2024

Now if only we had such a courteous and particular candidate for anything anywhere we’d be Drafty AND Daffy AND Properly Powered.      LOVE!

It's the birthday of the man who designed St. Paul's Cathedral in London, architect Christopher Wren, born in East Knoyle, England (1632). In addition to his accomplishments as an architect, he knew Latin, he could draw, he did work in medicine and mechanics, he was a brilliant mathematician and astronomer, and a philosopher, too.

And he had impeccable manners. He particularly disliked swearing. When he was overseeing the construction of St. Paul's, he issued this official order: "Whereas, among laborers, etc., that ungodly custom of swearing is too frequently heard, to the dishonor of God, and contempt of authority; and to the end, therefore, that such impiety may be utterly banished from these works, intended for the service of God, and the honor of religion. It is ordered, that customary swearing shall be a sufficient crime to dismiss any laborer that comes to the call; and the clerk of the works, upon sufficient proof, shall dismiss them accordingly. And if any master, working by task, shall not, upon admonition, reform this profanation among his apprentices, servants, and laborers, it shall be construed his fault; and he shall be liable to be censured by the commissioners.”

Not so the perfectly designed hot god on a bun. 

 

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. 

*  *  *  *

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.”  

2022.01.09 Epiphanytide, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 1/09/22

Let There Be Light

At this time of winter solstice

In the nadir of the night,

Let us turn to one another

And appreciate the light.

Share the light of loving laughter

In the company of friends,

Light of dawning understanding

After nights of fear and doubt,

Light of simple, precious pleasures,

Newborn’s smile or kitten’s purr,

Lights on trees or light of candles

In our homes where families gather

Celebrating and sustaining

Mutuality of love.

For all in deprivation,

Let us strive to bring relief

Let the light of hope restore us

Lead us on the paths toward peace.

May the light provide us comfort,

Health, and safety through the year,

And the blessings of the season

To all those whom we hold dear. 

©PeterDalNegro

This beautiful poem was written by a friend who is a poet far too modest to boast. So someone needs to shed light on his work for him. That is I, by self-appointment. Thank you, Peter. 

Now of course, because I am one who presses to see all sides of people places and things, I seek the darkness alongside the light. The bible says we “walk by faith not by sight.” (II Cor. 5:7) It also says that the darkness, called Night, is not overcome by the Light, called Day. They coexist. Now that’s wise, and yet possibly annoying/angering to anyone who has lost their eyesight or is losing it. How many stories are there in the “Good Book” about blind people being healed by the touch of God through Jesus the Christ? Countless, I bet. But not everyone who asks receives what s/he/they desires. I don’t know why. 

I also remember the Magi or the Wise Men, seers, in pageants. My kids, and others over the years, having argued vociferously about who would get to wear the biggest crown, and who carried gold, because Myrrh was stoopid, and Frankincense was not pronounceable. The eager children jostled into position to march proudly up ( or is it down?) the aisle while the congregation sang the carol, “We Three Kings of Orient Are.”  The procession of these three came AFTER the "dumb angels,”  because the last is really the first, they'd heard. I also recall some fuss about the huge star on a stick that was carried in by an older child, a girl, or even a female Sunday School teacher, and without whose great light no one, apparently, went anywhere at all. That was how it went. And "almighty" God felt less "almighty" than usual—but more in love than ever. 

The loss of any of the five senses often causes one to lose faith in God, if such faith was ever there in the first place. Many still ask the classic unanswerable question we all keep on asking—secretly in the dark or out loud in the fury of light. 

Q: Why would a good God create evil and crime, and murderous weather, and blindness, and on and on. A: God didn’t. We did. Q: But why doesn’t God step in? A: I don’t know.

God only created Love. How useless is that?  And yet which would you prefer when you are in pain, or great fear, or all-consuming anxiety, or guilt/shame— a loving ear to listen to you all day and all night, a warm hand to touch yours, a medication that relieves pain and calms nerves, a gentle word of compassion OR the silent darkness of being alone?   

The best love poem I ever read is one by Emily Dickinson, written in a time when she was 56 and near death from disability, possibly epilepsy. Her poem, “Possibility”, tells it all. Why? Because she tells the truth: there is no clear answer, so we live with possibility. 

I dwell in Possibility --

by Emily Dickinson

I dwell in Possibility—

A fairer House than Prose—

More numerous of Windows—

Superior—for Doors—

Of Chambers as the Cedars—

Impregnable of Eye—

And for an Everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky—

Of Visitors—the fairest—

For Occupation—This—

The spreading wide of narrow Hands

To gather Paradise—

Possibility, or potentiation, is a gift of the Heart, the pulse of life within, and it keeps us alive in spite of our gloom, our darkness, our deafness, our blindness, or our disease. Still, we cannot see it, touch it, make it happen. All we can do is ask for it. And wait.  

for the light

for the hands

for the insight

for the grace of God alive within.  

2021.10.04 Is Love Many-Splendored, Divine, Human, or Both?

"Love is more than a feeling. Love is a form of sweet labor: fierce, bloody, imperfect, and life-giving—a choice we make over and over again. If love is sweet labor, love can be taught, modeled, and practiced. This labor engages all our emotions. Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price of love. Anger protects that which s loved. And when we think we have reached our limit, wonder is the act that reminds us to love."  

    -Valerie Kaur, author of See No Stranger. A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love 

I was always enchanted by the golden, romantic goo of the 1950s American film and song,"Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing." I suppose it was my own deep longing for a love beyond love, a kind of love that wouldn't shoot me into the dreary, but also romantically alluring slops of the Elvis Presley song, "Heartbreak Hotel" we teenage girls swooned and wailed over in junior high school. We all wanted the basics: boobs and boyfriends, but what we really wanted was the kind of love that reassured us of our ultimate worth, and assured us our safety—forever.  

God? 

2021.05.16 Spring Forth

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –         
   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;         
   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush         
   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush         
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.         

What is all this juice and all this joy?         
   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,         
   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,         
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,         
   Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.         

                   Gerard Manley Hopkins

Hopkins was a short-lived (1844-1889) and short-of-stature Jesuit priest and English poet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He suffered with various depressive disorders, I’d dare call serious right-brainism. He struggled with what he thought was the conflict between his poetic expansiveness and the rigors of humility he felt his religious vocation demanded. Although his life in years was short, his poetry made up for it with a long, if not eternal, lifespan.                

                                 *  *  *  *  

Nothing is so cruel as the brevity of Spring.  As soon as its luxuriant blossoms have burst in full—a feast, a pallet worthy of only one divine Creator’s artistry—they fall to the ground. Rakes, efficient and painful, dispose and depose.

It’s a short reign this precious lifetime—with plenty of sin and sadness, crime and punishment. Choose it all—one tiny bright effulgent blossom at a time. Live it all—one tick of a second hand, one thump-thump of a heartbeat, one tear drop, one death, one breath, deep pure or wheezy raspy—one, one, one, one day at a time.  

I am privileged, being white, middle-wealthy and all, but my privilege is not what makes me happy. I am happy because there is Godde and prayer, and because I love. Love sighs, reaches fingertips, and heaves beside me in bed. Love cracks bold jokes, remembers my dusty pink voice, rages with me at institutional torpor and bad theology, argues vociferously as well.

Love is also within a short drive’s distance, forgiving and passing on more love, all the way down the line to a small boy who makes sure his daddy knows that learning to read is “just not interesting,” and besides, interrupts his play time. Furthermore, he asserts that he did talk in class despite no-talk rules, because, after all, if someone talks to you, you should talk back, right, Daddy?   

Passing on life to life to life to life. That is privilege. That is love. That is Godde. That is One— + one + one+ one—forever and forever. 

TO LOVE OR TO FIGHT? That Is the Question.

Today is Valentines Day, a day on which we deeply honor the eternal value of LOVE, a word as difficult to define as Divinity, and as essential to the well-being of every living thing as food and water.

I am completely persuaded,  as I have been for years, that language matters. The words we use advertise what we value most, who we are, and how we see ourselves and others. Words tell the truth about whatever dominates the mind and heart of an individual, a culture, a society, a nation, a country, a world. 

 Today, and for centuries, the word-of-choice to indicate our highest values, has been FIGHT.  (Fight has Germanic origin and relates loosely to fencing, a sport that is lethal, potentially death-dealing, yet requires great skill with movements that look like a graceful dance.)

We FIGHT. It’s the behavior of choice. We FIGHT for and against. Wars are the preferred solutions to sin, cruelty, discrimination, and injustice. FIGHT is the strategy and the ironic path to peace.

We FIGHT cancer and depression or mental illness, and if we lose such “fights” we die, which means we’ve LOST the FIGHT.   

FIGHT is the way small boys on a playground prove their mettle, gain acceptance and popularity.  Young girls also learn to FIGHT—underhandedly. And just look at the video games our young children play, most all are about war and FIGHTS.

Religions FIGHT against each other. They FIGHT for their own God. FIGHT(ing) images projected onto Divinity in sacred texts are more numerous than images of LOVE.

Sports have become FIGHTS. We sing FIGHT songs. We make FIGHTER jets and train FIGHTER  pilots. Politicians FIGHT for votes. We FIGHT for healthcare and the right to freedom and relief from poverty. Why not work for such things? We even FIGHT for peace.

The news throughout the 2021 impeachment trial cited the word FIGHT countless times. It was used to prove the ex-President innocent of charges that his FIGHT language incited acts of domestic terrorism. It was used also to demonstrate that all politicians, even those who leveled FIGHT-charges against the president, use FIGHT.

FIGHT was the word used to convict, and FIGHT the word to assure innocence.

FIGHT is such common parlance in the world of politics, medicine, religion, social discourse, business, entertainment, education, and family life that FIGHT has become benign. That is tragic, if not fatal. That assures that LOVE cannot and does not win. Even when we do fight FOR love, like in wars or duels, it is not very successful, because our goal is to win, not to love.  

                                         *  *  *  * 
And yet there is just one day—today—in the year dedicated to LOVE and to the value of coupling and relationships that enhance goodness in self and other. Rituals that surround LOVE on this one day, which happens to fall on Sunday this year, are costly (flowers, cards, jewelry, pricey chocolates)—icons of LOVE.

Valentine’s Day has many roots from ancient times, yet it is universally dedicated to LOVE, and falls on the same day each year. We will not forget it, even if it can make us sad. That’s because Valentine’s Day is a collective ritual, not unlike the sacraments of worship, always the same day, always in the bleak mid winter, always celebrating the same value, and acted out not just by human couples but by loving families and creatures—even pets or stuffed teddy bear confidants—who know about LOVE, affection, listening, compassion, care, loneliness, and yes, God.  

Why the heart shape? Well, because without a beating heart there IS no life, no pulse. On this day we try very, very hard not to fight. On this day we recognize the invaluable beauty of LOVE. It is only by LOVE that this planet will survive and thrive.  
 
My prayer to God is to LOVE those with whom I passionately disagree and/or of whom I’m afraid aka “enemies,” because I cannot yet. The divine goal and purpose is always LOVE not fight. Choose LOVE—every day just a little bit. Make every day Valentine's Day.

2020.10.25 Scared Sinless

We "Whities" seized dominance with vigor, vengeance, veracity
We consumed everything within our reaches—and more.
We—voraciously and stingily— gobbled up
    all land
    all healthcare
    all money
    all goodly resources
    all power—and made it male
           
At first our status gave us
    pride, joy, glory
Then denial, ignorance, lassitude.

Now we are dying
    in droves,
        droves.

The Beauty of the Earth
    dims
    blurs
    dwindles.

We are quick to say wild animals—some human—have invaded,
        BUT
It is we—we—who have invaded their living space. We. Us.

We are scared to death
    ashen.
On knees we pray, and pray, with all that makes quiver our minds.

There is only one solution—one.
    Forgiveness?
    Too slippy slippery

No, we must actually love our neighbors as ourselves.

This cannot be lame lip service, a nod to Biblical aspirations.
    NO.
It must run deep into the veins of our heart.
We must get to know, not just love, our neighbors.

Known and unknown,
    always the one commandment.
        
Bidden or not, neighbors are here.

Moses legislated the politics
Jesus summarized the vision
Paul made it unconditional
Parental figures taught the young
   repeatedly taught and told and taught
the only one—just one behavior
    crucial
        necessary
            indispensable
            
               SHARE.

2019.11.17 Transforming God

The age of anxiety is upon us—globally.

What DO we teach and tell our children? They are not immune to the talk and the worry in the air, on the air, all over the internet, in the corridors of locked-up-for-security schools. Civics courses teach the history and structure of government. They and are good and returning to classrooms, but what are we doing in religious settings? What are we hearing from pulpits? I hear good hope and Advent spirituality of light. Still we are in darkness nationally and internationally. I say and think to myself, “Fear not.”  Then I hear myself say, “Too late!” Then I laugh. It helps.

According to Mary Hunt, co-director of WATER (Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual): "Finally, since so many roots in injustice can be traced to a judging God, a Ruler King, lordship and dominance, we encourage a wholesale overhaul of religious images and symbols. Resistance to that work is the measure of its necessity. Imagine if common language about the divine were gender inclusive, better, not anthropomorphic at all. Consider what a creation story that puts plants and animals on the same plane as people would do for ecology. Think about ways to teach children that diversity and difference, not sameness and dominance are to be celebrated.” 

YES!

For my part, I write and nag and preach when I can about the God I have known and remember always, not just in church. Many people say they do not believe in God anymore. I ask them to tell me about the God they do not believe in. Answers vary, but mostly they use language like Mary Hunt has described above: THE ONE Almighty, King, Ruler, Judge, Sky-King, Super-Man, Lord-of-Lords, and the like. I do not think of chipmunks with such images. Nor do I think of the God I know, present in small wonders, silly memories, and laughter.

I go upstairs to give my beloved a quick hug. He has baked chocolate chip cookies. They are cooling on the countertop and smell deliciously delectably deliriously holy. Why holy? I remember that the voice of God sprouted within me while I was baking chocolate chip cookies for my children back in the 1970s and feeling Stepford-dead. God-in-me asked: “Why are you doing this?" I didn’t know. I laughed. I still don’t know. I remember. It helps.

My husband the chef points to a reunion notice from my college and says: “Hey, it’s your 70th reunion in 2020!” He’s excited. “Look, Lyn, look.”  I look and see that it says the 70th reunion for the Class of 1950 is 2020. I graduated in 1960. “How old do you think I am?”  We laugh. It helps.

Opening the mail to throw out most of it, I spot just one envelope addressed to me. Envelopes marked first class are rare. It’s an invitation with a festive wreath on it. It’s pretty. It’s a YDS (Yale Divinity School) Christmas party, December 6th. That would be my late maternal grandmother’s 147th birthday. I remember. It helps. The invitation has promise. I show it to my husband who says: “Why don’t they have it up here where you live? We could go.” We laugh. It helps. I snitch a cookie, and only then notice that the bottom side is black. I laugh. It’s good anyway.

Today a small grandchild, five, exuberantly tells me two things on the phone, immediately after saying "Hi": 1) “I WILL be stronger than Phoebe (his older sister). Yup, I will.”  2) “For Christmas I want Transformers. I build them myself. They come in a kit, Grammy.” I laugh. I tell him okay. He laughs. It helps.

Children—even the ones most deprived, most alienated, most discarded, most depressed—still, even at the youngest ages, have dreams and hopes and aspirations and memories.

Who or what made you feel loved, even just for a moment or in a small way? 

I google Transformers, toy. Sure enough they are build-your-own whatever. If you can figure it out, feel free. It’s harder to build-your-own anything when you’re 80 than when you’re 5 and building your whole life in a toy you know is a robot. I laugh. I remember. It helps. Here is a Transformer transformed.




Maybe we can rebuild God?  God, we are told, transforms things, even the worst of things like injustice, inhumanity, evil, collective anxiety—maybe even the climate. But can we transform our ideas and images of God?  Will we?

Yup, we will.

2017.12.10 How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

"Sonnet 43: How do I love thee, let me count the ways" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Public domain.

“How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.”  This is an intimate marital joke. I invented it and it always makes us laugh. If we are in a snit about one thing or another, or even if only I am feeling impatient, largely because of something utterly inconsequential, such as he’s in my way as I traverse our small kitchen, I say: “How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.”

It’s impossible to laugh and snarl at the same time. The face won’t do it.

This is very far from romantic I know, but what is romance in 2017 in a world full of snark and public incivility even from the White House? Yet it is true that everyone has a love story—not always exotic but always authentic. 

Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning fell in love, and poetry was their language. Browning wrote: ”I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett ... and I love you too." She wrote a long letter in return, thanking him and asking him for ways she might improve her writing. Barrett was an invalid, and was reliant on morphine, and it was some months before Browning convinced her to meet him face to face. Barrett's father didn't like Browning, and viewed him as a fortune hunter. Love and poetry prevailed and the couple eloped in 1846—off to Italy. Where else? Barrett never saw her father again.

Every love of any kind comes with its shadow. In spiritual terms, cross and cradle remain inseparable—not for doom but for truth. We all crave solution and resolution, and we sentimentalize love to rid it of fear. Every prophet in every religion fiercely cries out against falling in love with illusory glitter. Yet we do. So? God is still falling in love, still ready to elope, still ready to be born and to die. 

I offer this wisdom at all costs and anyway: Tell the bold, bare, fierce truth about hate and sin and rage and outrage. Then keep going. Be John the Baptist. Be Jesus. Be both. Go where the love is and invest with courage. So what if it can’t last or be perfect? Go for it anyway. God does.

2017.05.07 Winged Words and Image

The Institute of Sacred Music at Yale Divinity School will host a conference, “Love Bade Me Welcome” on May 12-14, 2017.

It sounds by its title as if this conference is about social justice and supreme hospitality. So it is, of course, but its stated mission is to provide inspiration and practical guidance in the many uses of poetry for worship, liturgy, meditation, and education. “Our aim is to equip church leaders with the ‘winged words’ of poets as we seek to shape the minds and hearts of contemporary congregations.”

Here are the “winged words” of seventeenth century poet, George Herbert.

Love (III)

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
                              Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
                             From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
                             If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
                             Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
                             I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
                             Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
                             Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
                             My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
                             So I did sit and eat.

The conference planners recognize that “poetic sensibilities are always present within the Christian faith. From the remarkable poetry of the Psalms, Prophets, and Wisdom literature, to the splendid verse of Dante, Herbert, Milton, Dickinson, Hopkins, Levertov, and many others up to our contemporaries, poetry has brought life and light to the Church through the ages.  How, afresh, can poetry revitalize our worshiping communities today.”

Herbert’s poem is religious, yet its “winged words” take it far beyond religion. It thrills me to see such an effort undertaken on the campus of the school where I spent four of the most formative years of my life.

To Herbert, “Love” is God, welcoming him and noticing, with a “quick-eyed Love,” how much the guest doth protest all his sins and unworthiness. Love invites, welcomes without condition, then feeds the guest actual food while also bathing him with the grace of healing his fascination with his shame—now toxic. Are you secretly preoccupied with your inadequacy?

Jesus the Christ lived and taught that Love absorbed all such feelings. He was crucified for his efforts. It’s ironic that humankind has little tolerance for Love, especially the kind that does not demand excessive displays of repentance, the kind that’s Eternal, the kind that just plain bypasses the sin we allow to cling to our souls—so tightly, so tight. 

Like the rejection of a heart transplant, humankind rejects Love. We are simply not comfortable unless we have a way to atone. Atoning sacrifices give us a way to feel powerful, a way to take control over our salvation. Oh, for God’s sake let God do it!

Love, writes this poet, bids us welcome without atonement. There is no such phenomenon as Eternal disdain. Love is winged—too big to demand repayment for the sake of being bade welcome.

The music of Herbert’s words brought to my mind the Greek muse Polyhymnia, muse of sacred song—a winged art form if there ever was one. Polyhymnia has no wings, she is simply winged.

Artist Susan Sohl created this image of Polyhymnia, copyright, 2017.  In giving me permission to share her image, Susan told me a bit of her own story.  She wrote: “I look forward to reading this blog and seeing my "muse". I did the entire series of 9, and none of the originals remain in my possession. They found a variety of homes, and now I am ready to start on other icons from the ancient world.

‘By the way, I am a survivor of lymphomic cancer, lupus (chemo forced it into remission), open-heart surgery, and two spinal surgeries. Painting and creating gave me the strength and will to never give up.  Now I teach and continue to paint, sharing my sense of color and love of movement with others. Thank you for wanting to offer one of my pieces to your readers, Susan.”

 Below is the artist with the winged soul.

Thank you Susan for your generosity. Obviously, Love bade you welcome and gave you strength to love back through your art and your spirit of persistence. Love inspires that kind of thing.

2016.12.25 Love Is The Gravity Of The Soul

"Love is the gravity of the soul."

This is wisdom from St. Bonaventure, Italian medieval Franciscan friar who died in 1221. To me it is perfectly attuned theology for a God who is ever-nearer and ever-greater at the same time and always.

If love is the gravity of the soul, then hope is its wings, and faith is its practice.

David Wilcox, 58, is a contemporary American folk singer and song writer captures this spirit. These lyrics are from his song “Show The Way.”

Show The Way

It is love who mixed the mortar


And its love who stacked these stones


And its love that made the stage here


Though it looks like we’re alone.


In this scene set in shadows


Like the night is here to stay


There is evil cast around us


But it’s love that wrote the play. 


In this darkness


Love can show the way.

As the psalmist prays, so we sing:  Shiru  l’Adonai, shir chadash.  Sing to the Lord a new song. It is time to sing many new songs, fresh songs, new words and new connections.

Merry Christmas to everyone. We hallow a tiny babe in a humble manger and call this God. What could more insane? What could more true? What could be more Eternal? What more holy?

May the Love of Christmas bless and keep you now and always.

2015.08.07 Birthday Love Letter

Dearly Beloved,

I was born on August 7th 1938, and three years later on that same day you were born. I’m your elder. We’ve been married as two priests—two Leos in one house with enough roar space for each of us—for almost 30 years. Your brain is sharper; mine is tackier. Now we are growing old together. But look how cute we still are.





When people get older they go down—settle like a house over the years settles into its foundation. They settle into habits, get “set” in their ways, maybe more opinionated, especially if they don’t remember what they did this morning or what their spouse told them she/he was doing today. Most of us also settle down emotionally, get less reactive and defensive—sometimes and for less length of time. For one thing we have less energy to invest in unsettledness. And often what we believe in gets set in stone—heavy metaphorical language, tomb-ish really. Dear Godde, we just don’t want change. Transformation is perhaps okay, but only because it’s a more spiritually desirable word, has a little more flex and grace about it.

You will say I speak for you. True. And don't you agree with my persiflage? Yes, dear, you say.

All this is based on some of my own experience as well as some of what “they” say will happen. But who are these “theys”?  No idea really! You? 

There is gravitational physical evidence of such settling, no? I mean there is the hanging flesh syndrome —not gardens like Babylon’s, but just hanging there ready for reclamation, or girdling, or mirror-avoidance syndrome. I tend to bind mine up a bit with tighter-than-I-should-wear pants. Dumb. But I have the slender legs to make up for it, as long as they stay upright. One of my daughters tactfully indicates that I am an apple shape, not a pear. You just let it all hang out, or down. I so admire your relaxed physicality. It's a women's issue.

But really, looking at myself naked in a mirror, as “they” recommend also to be a good idea to build self-esteem, or to practice loving what you see, is flawed advice. What I see is my own reflection, no getting around it. So just don’t look, and I won’t either. It’s all bullshit really. To just stand there flinging airless affirmations at your image, hoping that it will suddenly look like the preferred image for women of the day and your age group—svelt and athletic like Blythe Danner on Prolia!—is perfect asininity.

I am most grateful to be married to you, an equally aging husband. Thank god your brain is three years younger than mine. Nevertheless, it takes us some time just to leave the house intact. One of us is incontinent, the other impotent—slightly, occasionally, simultaneously, alternately. We rarely remember who is which when.  A comedic affair. We laugh—so not to weep, or worse argue.

Seriously, if you take life too seriously at these ages you’re doomed. Still, I admit to some settling into myself, physically, mentally and spiritually, as I age. Do you?

How I notice our settling as a couple, chiefly, is that every evening as the 6-7 hour approaches I look forward to you. I leave my computer where I write and find enlivenment in my words and ideas, while enjoying plenty of sedentary energy. I love it.  AND..... I also can’t wait to close up, lock up, back up, and head upstairs to join you, my beloved, in the evening we’ve planned, well, assumed: watching our soaps, viewing multiple murders, all solved by a brilliant male team of British DCIs, with whip-smart female sidekicks, always the sidekicks.  I’ve been your sidekick, too, but with pillow privileges.

Before the soaps there’s Jeopardy to prove we still have some mind left. We rejoice that each of us knows something, you in politics and history, me in literature and word-ness. We both know at least half the Bible clues, although we say, “I knew that one, I just didn’t say it.”

Then there's juicy stuff . . . a drama/trauma of serious family embroilments, none solved by anyone, but softened by love moments. Or . . . a medical drama where someone dies or doesn’t really die, or might die, or suffers and no one knows what to do, save one brilliant young student who has burned the midnight oil just to get a diagnosis like a needle in a haystack. Or . . . the mental illness/small town drama, like Doc Martin, brilliant physician/surgeon with no affect at all, practicing in a tiny Cornish village because he is hemophobic (fear of blood not gays). He’s likely a victim of PTSD, judging from glimpses of the parental drama in which he, amazingly, grew up. Others argue for a diagnosis of Autism or Aspergers, which the Brits pronounce as-PER-jers. Who the hell cares? You want him to be your diagnostician and your doctor. Just keep him away from your bedside. 

Oh, we don’t call all these soap operas, a studied no-no for professional people of intelligence and social savvy like us. Nevertheless, there’s always a wealthy white woman, or two, found dead somewhere every night—hopefully not under our own bed or in our nightmares. Or . . . an abandoned lover with a killing secret, powerful enough to murder for. Or . . . women prisoners trapped with sinister all-male guards, also trapped. Everyone horny and finding ways. Still, it’s not us, we say. It’s only a TV soap.

They say the prison one is true. This is a memoir after all. But what is memoir save someone’s spotty memory? Other eye-witnesses swear that it didn’t happen like that. Sounds like the biblical memoir to me. All perspective and perception—all valuable, none absolute. But so what? That means that every perception and perspective counts in the whole, which no one but God sees anyway.

What’s real in our house at our age is that the best, most anticipated, relaxing, fun, funny, sometimes over-cookied time of the day is when we convene as a couple to eat dinner, watch our soaps— and pretend they aren’t real, and not us. Until...........

Until we come across a display of the most consistent tangle of dysfunctional behavior ever dreamed up, and one of us says: “I did that.” Or one of us remembers when we actually ran off to make mad love in a field and got scared witless by an approaching cow who was merely curious, but big!  It would have been worse in the sacristy, an option we never considered, because an Altar Guild lady would have been much more dangerous than a big old cow. That’s when love was a high, not a settled state of being.

We did that, or did we really do that? As long as there is something to laugh or cry at, we’re okay with mixed memory and muddled chronology. 

We never murdered anyone, did we? NO, of course not. Still, there are ways to “murder” for love and the final seizure of your own happiness.

None of this is true, of course. It’s only a soap. But here is a factual miracle (miraculous fact?): the photos above are our 2015 passport photos—just in case we're not too settled for one more trip, like Italy. Or heaven, which we hope is no soap!

I’ve loved you for years for many things. Today I love you most for being alive—also for how much delight we enjoy together when both of us jump on a Jeopardy clue ahead of the contestant, or guess the murderer correctly among at least six very obviously guilty-looking suspects.

Happy Birthday, beloved.