2024.02.11 Transfigured of Transfixed? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

The very idea, or image, of myself permanently wheelchair-bound at first transfixed me. Stunned, I could not get the image out of my mind. This mental preoccupation drained me of energy, as any good anxious obsession would. Prayer became circular and boring until one day a story from Scripture popped into my mind. A very contrary story. Christians came to call this the Transfiguration. We celebrate it on the last Sunday after the Epiphany, as a preview of resurrection AND as its verification. 

Some days you feel upside-downed.

First of all, let me be clear, this story was witnessed by a few of Jesus’s closest disciples who saw it happen to Jesus, not me. What those disciples saw was a completely different Jesus, not the man with whom they traveled on the dusty roads. This Jesus was in prayer on the top of a high mountain—not an unusual practice, also one during which his three closest disciples would inevitably fall asleep. This time, however, they stayed awake long enough to see Jesus’s face and clothing suddenly shine with dazzling bright light. Then they saw Moses and Elijah, prophetic liberator and prophet of Israel. The blinding revelation did not last long before it was obscured by a cloud cover.  From the cloud they heard a voice saying, “This is my beloved. Listen to this One.”

Peter, utterly stunned as always, advised them to quickly build three booths, one for each faith hero, as if such brilliance could be confined or contained. The experience did not last long, and Peter was left unsure about what they were supposed to do with this revelatory vision.  The earthly Jesus rose from prayer and directed them back down the mountain to continue their mission of healing and preaching the gospel of Love. It was like a dream or a vision. It left them with more questions than ever. And it still does.

-We need more proof, clarification.

-Who is this Jesus?

-And which of the others mentioned should we listen to? 

-Was this a miracle or the beginning of a new religion? 

-And which of God’s apparent “beloveds” was THE chosen?

Unable to contain themselves, they asked Jesus as they stumbled after him down the mountain. Why Elijah? Because Elijah was here first. And Moses? Well, Moses restored the “Promised Land.”  

Today in Israel on the site identified as The Mount of Transfiguration there is a church called The Church of the Transfiguration. It is lovely to visit.

Well, well, well. There is more than one chosen.  

I saw no bright lights but I will tell you that I became— paradoxically— more motivated to strengthen my leg muscles for walking. 

You could say that my shift in perspective TRANSFIGURED my mood as my TRANSFIXED attachment to the wheelchair image vanished. 

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.

2017.12.31 Threats With Promises

Threats in world many. Each carries promise. Indulge year-end blogger rant in headlines. Bless you.

1. Drugs: far more abundant with cheap choices and more omnipresently aggressive in their demands for attention. It’s hard to say no.
     YET many do, and many heal from addictive disease through medication and therapy, and from love, faith and hope—three unconditional spiritual values. Yes, unconditional.

2. Venomous American political conversation: escalates to violence, government paralyzed, guns more available to more people than ever—and considered indispensable to some. To inject sanity and, godde forbid, love for all, into this environment risky as hell.
    YET good people, political and priestly, keep praying and working for good gun control legislation and an end to violence in speech and action. They are the blood donors, the organs our culture needs.

3. Sex, as in practice thereof and orientation therein: acceptance, no, expectation, that sexual behavior, yes, intercourse, is the normative even for teens, common—and competitive. When did you have your first lay—or get laid? When did you lose your virginity first? When did you have your first smoke, beer, snort—gun? Kiss feared old-fashioned. It may have lost its supremacy as a sign of young, tenderly-cautious, physical attraction-towards-love.
    YET older teens and twenties are engaging in less sex than past generations. No one knows why. Possibly choosing to explore getting-to-know-you love first? Psychological data: females depend on mutually supportive relationships for their well-being. So do men, GLBQIS. Dating around, sleeping around, hooking up, one-nighters can’t satisfy the deep longing for relationship; nor can erections and orgasms.

4. Marriage: uncertain and faraway goal for many. In olden days girls pushed and shoved into it by the fear, no terror, of getting pregnant. Currently, more choice. Birth control seen as  protective, except for STDs, but the safety it provides can hinder long-term relationship security aka marriage.
    YET emotional commitment, whatever one’s orientation, is, yes, still nourishes mind, heart, body, and soul—if nothing else to practice the sanctity of marriage should one choose it in the future.   

5. Technology: broad range of options, bordering on omniscience (Google) and omnipresence (i-phones actually text you to let you know your parents are tracking your whereabouts—true), and omnipotence (Amazon Prime.) These attributes used to belong to God (by whatever name) aka divine Mystery. They still do. Technology unable to provide flesh-and-blood love, unconditional beneficence, or shared audible visible embodied rich laughter. Easy to hide behind emojis.
    YET social media technology does give people a community of understanding, support, advice, accompaniment, and safety.

6. Religion: weak in the northeast; humanism, atheism, secularism viable options; religions fail at apologetics. What does this or that religion mean? Who or what really is God? Christ? Moses? Is there spirituality beyond morality and rules of conduct? Is it enough to be a good person?       
Researcher at Harvard Divinity School, Angie Thurston, calls millennial generation “religiously homeless” in opinion piece by Zachary Davis:“Has Secularism Gone Too Far?”  (Boston Globe, Ideas, 12/24/17) Response letters (12/31/17) unanimously—tellingly— defensive, angry.
    YET secularism thought too rational, pessimistic. Davis identified a mismatch between the job religion is supposed to do and society’s floundering search for that job to be done. The job? Not the preaching of morality, but the steady inspiration of hope, not just in afterlife but now: “. . . a hope that goes beyond reason—to give us the strength to pursue a world beyond reasonable expectations.”  Religion stretches the possible.  Granddaughter asks, with an edge: “Grammy, why do you pray?” “I pray because I love. And because my love is not enough.”

7. Public education: public schools forbidden to teach religion as a cultural phenomenon, as the spawn of great works of philosophy and literature, even some biblical literature and moral principles. Something missing. Separation of church and state necessary good. Still, young seekers in public settings unable to study every blooming thing they wonder about. “Wisdom begins in wonder.” Socrates.  But not in our public schools. Religion not even an elective. Religion condemned as proselytizing to fill its coffers. Good teaching never proselytizes.
    YET  . . . slowly religion and wonderments sneak in and silently infect and inform many curious hearts. The same granddaughter searches on line, not in school. Tries pantheism, atheism, agnostic theism, and many things. Trust God will find her and she will find the Love therein that she seeks.

8. Theology/God: how we think and speak about divinity, factor in sociological analysis. Religions consistently allow one image to dominate, a theological stereotype, a superpower deity who is almighty, transcendent, masculine, and interventionist. Image idolatrous. Limits divinity; limits human spirituality.
    YET traditional theology has always proclaimed God as equally immanent. God lives and moves deep within flesh, strengthening, encouraging and empowering love us to love—no matter what. In this God I trust. In this God possible to love, live, move and have being. For this Christians, this is God Jesus died for—to die and so to live.

8. Spirituality: name for what all humanity deeply craves and often does not find in society or church.
    YET Love discovered available in ditches and trenches, in pews and sewers, on streets and in mansions, in life and in death, and in one’s own lonely unlovely flesh. A woman, struggling for years to create/enhance her own self-esteem, suddenly hugs a friend and sobs:“I’ve just discovered that there is a little piece of God in all of us, and in me, too”
    YET God is Mystery—beyond our words—and small enough to adore them.

9. Personal: beloved husband and wife born on same day three years apart. Wife has seniority. Today both alive and well, bloated with gratitude—also fret, spat and grieve changes and terrors that seem to take away church and country. 
     YET  . . . they can still laugh and hug
    YET . . .  one day both will die and leave this beautiful place and all the people they love.
    YET . . .  there is something more Godde has in mind, they hope. Creation never stops.

2013.06.16 Stuck With God? OK, But Not Godde's Pronouns

We may have thrown the baby out with the bath water. In this case the “baby” is God. The bath water I suppose is all the dirty sins—against God and humanity— of the many patriarchal religions.

Out, out damn sins, but save the "baby."  I’m stuck with God. I just can’t find a way around God. I’ve tried to use other names and  alternative spelling like Godde. I’ve experimented with various alternatives like Upholder, Source of Life, Creator, Shepherd, Holy One, Light, even Love— but these are all descriptives, not names.

I need a name! God is a name, not a gender.

There is something unrelinquishable about a name!—if you’re going to be calling on someone or addressing them as if they count. And God knows we call on God enough!—just in case if nothing else. Naming is an important tradition in families, in the Bible, and in religions. G-d names people.

The other issue for me is plain courtesy.  I was first introduced to divinity as God. I wouldn’t normally change the name I first knew anyone by, would I? Not. 

My one time Jesuit spiritual director once suggested I find a name for God that was a term of endearment, something like I'd use with my spouse—when I found him endearing. But hon just didn’t do it. 

I am a woman who fought passionately to get ordained a priest. As a woman, feminist, and priest I lobby for my conviction: God is not a boy's name.

Lots of Latino boys are named Jesus, Jewish boys named Moses, Muslim boys, Mohammed, but really! . . . Do you know anyone named God?  Can you imagine it?  “Mom, Dad, I’d like you to meet the man I love and plan to marry. His name is God.”  It’s more traumatic than, “Guess who’s coming to dinner?”

When I was a child I thought of God as an old bearded man in the sky full of winks and wonders. and love for every ounce of creation. Then I was violated by an old man with a long white beard like God’s and after that I was pretty sure God was no man, even though the Church, all the prayers, the Bible, and everyone I knew called God He, Him, His, Himself.

I notice that traditional gendered language about God traps God in manhood and holy manhood at that—patriarchal images and theologies of omnipotence.  Language that deifies transcendent manhood is a constant thorn in the side of the freedom of God to be God. It’s God-abuse! 

It's also not good for us humans. We waste time and energy on gender-bound argumentation, all the while knowing that Divinity is not tied to a gender. It’s exhausting and personally it makes me furious and want to gnash my teeth. I do not feel loved and included in God who is only He. I'm a She. Divinity consistently clothed in such garb is NOT good for women, period.

So can keep God's name and get rid of the darn pronouns? It's possible.

At a retreat homily for seminarians I thought would be, well, liberal,  I suggested that, although Jesus the earthly man of Nazareth, was a man, Christ taken up into the godhead was a messianic title that no longer required masculinization. And further, the Incarnation was not restricted to Jesus’ flesh but was for all flesh, over half of it female.  N.B. The male seminarians freaked out; the women seminarians were moved and excited—but secretly.  One calling me a "trailblazer."

Why couldn’t we say in our liturgy, “By Christ and with Christ and in Christ” instead of him when we elevate the elements?   We have easily changed “It is right to give him thanks and praise” to  “It is right to give God (or our) thanks and praise.”  It’s not hard and it’s about Love.

Christians say God is unconditional love. Then why do we set conditions on that love by giving it a gender?

For Godde’s sake, literally, and before we know it some boy will be named God.  Poor kid.



 

2013.05.30 Fuck Off ?!

Well, I guess if the inimitable and great British artist Helen Mirren can tell a bunch of gay drummers on parade in London to “fuck off” then the lid’s off, no?

Mirren, earlier this month, was playing Her Majesty the Queen in a delicate play called The Audience.

Her F-outburst had merit, considering that London theaters are right on the street and the furious enthusiasm of a parade of drummers was interfering with both the actors’ concentration and the theater-goers’ ability to hear their lines. So Mirren swept out into the street at Intermission and in full regalia told the blighters,“Shut the fuck up. People have paid fucking a hundred pounds for their theater tickets.”

How politically incorrect can it get? But it was a parade-stopper. Mirren said she felt badly. AND:  “Something had to be done.”  Good on! commented a gay friend and Mirren fan.

Helen Mirren, according to my beloved spouse, somewhat of an amateur actor himself, is sort of a “fishwife”—not a woman who sells fish. But is there such a characterization for a man who might tell his female wife, his female nurse, his female secretary, et al. to fuck off several times a day?  Who’s ever heard of a fishhusband?

The humorous twist in the F-story is that she did this while in costume and make-up for the role she was engaged in as QEII.

The gracious twist to Mirren’s fishwifery is that Helen Mirren, not on stage but in real life, recently stood in for the Queen to answer the dying wish of a 10 year old Downs Syndrome boy beset with spine cancer. He wanted to go to Buckingham Palace and have tea with the Queen. Mirren took the boy and his family to the Gielgud Theater, a fine substitute for the palace, and afterwards took them back stage for tea and cakes and a visit with the corgis (see below) who had played their parts in the play.The boy was transported. Mirren played both herself and her royal role with grace.  Even the family admitted it was hard to tell the difference between Mirren and Her Majesty; the boy never knew—and, to that family, it did not matter. How fucking royal of Mirren!

What is most real is most spiritually correct, if not politically so.   

To tell you the truth, I love the explosive expressiveness of the F word and use it myself. I’ve never used it from the pulpit but there are times I’ve thought it might fit, even, or especially, from the lips of Jesus or Moses.

Some times political correctness or the rules of civil decorum, especially around the parameters of being a “lady,” might be chucked—or fucked.

HOWEVER, Helen Mirren isn't Dame Helen Mirren for naught. She attended a concert of the drummers a few days after she'd insulted them on the streets. She went to support them and their performance and to make amends  for her own "performance."

 

2012.10.14 Sprezzatura!

Picked up a new word. I love new words. And this one has glamor. Sprezzatura!

Doesn’t it sound like champagne popped open and poured? (No, not French. Sprezz... is Italian.)

It refers to feminine wiles, charm spiced with light flirtation, on the surface “all gossamer insouciance, spontaneity—an iron hand in a velvet and deftly stroking glove,” according to a July 30, 2012 piece in the British newspaper, The Guardian, in which  author Hannah Betts makes the case that feminism and flirtation are not necessarily unlikely bedfellows.

A certain amount of sex appeal, studied carelessness, can enhance and advance political and economic negotiations in the halls of government and business.  Betts uses Elizabeth I and Madeleine Albright as examples of how the “rules” of courtship, kept in balance with clear-headedness, can create a language of female authority in a patriarchal system where niceness is weakness.   Elizabeth the Virgin Queen could, for example, be paid court to as everybody’s mistress as well as everybody’s revered monarch.  That’s an art, not witchcraft.

I confess to some expertise in sprezzatura. I learned it from my mother who I thought was a shameless and embarrassing flirt, but then I went and copied her. Sprezzatura craftily employed made me feel powerful, and frankly, alive and attractive. 

It wasn’t very smart to experiment like this as an emotionally needful married woman in the context of the patriarchal Episcopal church with male clergy as my “prey.” I just wanted to be one of them.  My strategy was insane. Still, it felt inevitable. When awakening and radical liberation, from within and without, invites, you leap with little pause—and clean up later.

How do men assert this charm, or do they I wondered?  I see it in various charm-laden ways, none of them boastful — eyes, talk and tilt of head.  Sprezzatura in men reveals innocence, and in women it reveals power.

When our youngest son John was two he and his sweet cousin bit off at mid-stem all the just blossomed tulips that Dad had meticulously planted, a rare domestic endeavor. But Dad, enraged at the damage stood above tiny John breathing fire. John, outfitted by Mom in a double diaper, looked up, tilted his head, and smiled brightly, saying “I love my daddy.”  A lot of salvation both ways happened in that deft sweet stroke.

Sprezzatura isn’t gender-bound, but is a way to steady relationships. Straightforward and clear is best most all the time for both genders. Charm, however, assists, like a good field hockey wing. With it one can be both wily and innocent, a strategy Jesus advocated, for disciples out to transform.

“Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question.”  Camus wrote.

I’m sure the God of scriptures did a bit of charming for the sake of moving the vision forward. Think Moses who needed heavy courting.

The Spirituality of Swimsuit Shopping for Seniors—Women

It all started when I noticed what I thought was a spot on my old black bathing suit, the one I'd had for I can’t remember how long, the one with the little diver on its lower left side.

This swim suit has no class. It's not sexy nor is it particularly flattering. It's black, a non-color supposed to be slimming but I doubt this fashion truism. At any rate its main purpose in life right now has been to help me avoid having to buy a new swim suit.

And now my old suit was failing me, had abandoned its mission.

The spot I noticed wasn't a spot. It did not succumb to soap and water laundering or serious scrubbing or soaking. I looked more closely, held the fabric up to the light and sure enough I could see through my little spot. It wasn’t transparent but more like a veil of the kind some brides wear that hints at what’s beneath its lithe folds; or like the veil Moses put over his face so the people would be shielded and not afraid of the divine glory that shone on his face.

(Basically the veil was meant to take the edge off the fullness of the divine presence which most of us couldn’t tolerate for seconds let alone a conversation. TMI as they say today.)

My spot wasn’t this romantic. It was out of place, not supposed to have turned from concealer into partial revealer. My spot was/is a stretch mark, not the silvery kind women get from childbirth but the kind that suddenly let me know truth: elasticized fabric was/is not eternal. It doesn't stay stretchy and snapping back forever—unlike Godde, angels or, as some believe, post mortem souls. My swim suit wasn't going to hold up. I knew the small spot would multiply and....

So now the torture of trying to find a new suit had to begin soon. I thought to get it over with so I snuck  into a large department store where no one would know me (we were traveling) and located the ladies swimwear department. The selection was meager. July. The fall clothing was already on display. but at least there was no one there.

I selected too many suits to carry, none of them very alluring but ones I thought would accomplish what I wanted: not let me swim like Esther Williams but hide the emergent hanging gardens of upper thigh flesh and lower upper arm flesh.

The suits I chose had little skirts or faux skirtlets that brought the base line just over the top of my thighs. The suits I chose looked as if they’d fit tight under the arms so the shoulder straps would allow space enough for my arm to get through but not enough for anything else to hang out.

The fitting room had its usual array of sadisms: mirrors that had no veils or subtlety, soiled carpet on the floor, and pull curtains that left significant gaps on each side for viewing the victim inside. Privacy was out. Luckily no nosy sales woman came to peek asking "How're we doing in there, OK?""

The first suit had a full skirt that made me, a short mostly waistless woman of 71 look about 80. The next one as well. The third one I pulled, no hoisted, up and suddenly my boobs popped out one through each arm hole.

Every suit I tried exposed the truth: my flesh isn’t wrinkle-proof and never will be again; I am getting old; my true shape is more like an inverted pear than an hourglass; my utter self-disgust was a sin against the Christian doctrine of God-in-the-flesh, an idea I love.

All of this ugliness tumbled out in tears. I vowed I’d never eat again. I thought of my dear husband and his patience as he sat for what felt like hours outside the ladies fitting rooms. I thought of how he loved my flesh. I thought of how often I had preached about the beauty of the flesh, a house fit for the indwelling divine presence. And now I was a hypocrite.

The Old Testament prophet Elijah suddenly popped into my head. Elijah, sitting alone sulking, feeling like a failure as a prophet, fearful for his life and probably secretly thinking God was all wet as he indulged in a bit of “poor me-itis” And God quietly inquired, “What are you doing here Elijah?”

Enough said.

I laughed through my tears. Godde had not been in my tears this time, though I did hope they might attract a little consolation. Godde hadn’t been in my exasperation, nor my hatred of this foolish store and the whole abusive fashion industry. Godde arrived in my laughter; its lilting generosity lifted me up.

What in the hell WAS I doing here mooning over aging flesh?

I gathered up all my failed suits, hung each one back on its own appropriate hanger, put my flesh back in my shorts and tee, retrieved my beloved, told him my tale, got a hug and a suggestion with a grin that we go back to the motel for a swim.

Honestly I was sleek enough to be a selkie in that little pool with my old black suit!