2022.04.03 A Humanitarian Politics. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, 4/3/22

 

How sad and defeated I feel when something I prayed for and wanted so much to come about does not. Yet sometimes, I discover that God, or the powers of Mystery alone, or whatever strikes your fancy to call a Power Greater Than Yourself, has a broader vision than mine—a healing vision. 

What all this means is  that I am profoundly disappointed in my political party. I am profoundly disappointed in the other political party in our two-party system, and in the rigidly bipartisan structure of American democracy.  

So I have made a decision to stop believing in politics in its currently polarized condition. Politics is simply the way we the people choose to interact for the sake of sane governance and to legislate laws for the sake of good order. Politics, however, is not God or even godlike. 

I do believe in a political process, but I no longer believe in parties. I call my politics  Humanitarian. I will continue as a registered Democrat, so I can vote in local primaries and preserve the vision of a government that helps the people treat everyone with respect. I will always vote in national elections, because it is my privilege to do so, but I never again will automatically pull a party lever to vote for all the candidates in one party. This means that I will have to educate myself about the people who run for office, rather than  to react to, or assume, anything about their integrity from their party affiliation—one way or another. 

Blue AND red remain my favorite colors; together they make purple or scarlet. I am also proud of how our current president is heroically managing the mess he was handed. I blame no one, not even one party, for this current situation of systemic disorder. 

Because I do believe in systems theory, in which the whole is not simply the sum of its parts, but more— just as a poem is more than the list of the words in it. I seek a vision of the whole. I seek an image for a politics of the human, not the partisan. 

So what does the whole human system look like to me? What is the vision behind the particulars?  Here is one image, called “Motherland” by Spanish artist Ana Juan. It is set against a background of weaponry, soldiers, violence, and flames of war, meant to re-present the 2022 Russian assault of Ukraine. It is female, but not sexist or feminist. Everyone can mother. Mothering matters. Every mothering relationship must include wisdom, encouragement, nurture, and freedom. No one, and nothing, embodies this image perfectly. I see God in this image—God of soul, not denomination. God manifest in all religions, not a single religion. God of love embodied/intimate, not almighty/ascendant. 

I took this photo of  The New Yorker magazine cover, 3/21/22. I wrote to the artist, requesting permission to use her illustration for my blog: “I am an Episcopal priest, spiritual director, and author, retired and living now in Connecticut, USA. I am also a mother of four adult children and grandmother to three boys and three girls. I write to request permission to use your image, Motherland” on my blog of 4/3/22. 

I see it as one of many different possible of the Divine—this one most beautifully female though not feminist, imaging a God of love embodied. My blog appears weekly with the theme that sometimes what the world sees as sour and ugly, God may see as beautiful. I spent a graduate summer (1960) with families in Spain, Madrid and Santander. I’ve forgotten most everything except my great love for this country. Mil gracias. Lyn G. Brakeman”

Ms. Juan responded in this lovely way: “Of course, you have the right of using my image“Motherland” for your Blog of 4/3/22. I wish this image will be like the hug we all need in these dark times.  Warm regards from Spain.  Ana.” 

2021.05.30 Becoming Forever

Today is Trinity Sunday—Creator/Christ/HolySpirit all becoming one at once.

Can you see how becoming this intricate, intimate, impossible, confused, and tangled doctrine is? It is quite unbecoming, in fact. It simply does not fit into any of our compartments of theological understanding. Nor does it lend itself to appropriation into the safe comfort zone of being spiritual but not religious. Not much soul-breeching Mystery does, does it? After all, how many voices, dark and bright, silent or aloud, thrum about in your own mind, blow out from your own mouth, and pulse away in your own heart all at once?

Becoming

What greater joy can there be
    than to be becoming?

My mother always used to say,
    “Oh darling, that dress becomes you.”
The coat I bought you is so becoming.”
And my father would say,
    “How much was it?”

But what’s more becoming than
    to become yourself,
And so to know that God becomes you?

Now look about and say to the tree, the tiny bud,
    the bunny, your stuffy, your neighbor:
God is so becoming to you.
            by the Rev.Lyn G. Brakeman


Healer

The healer seeks the venues of the harmed,
The stressed, the victims of the brunt
Of inhumanity unchecked,
Of those who have been plunged into
A porridge of unmitigated pain.

The hands of unobstructed love,
With time and patient, gentle skill,
Bestow a sense of healing peace,
And send the reassurance that
Goodness lives and can be found
In the embrace of a true Friend.
            by Peter L. Dal Negro


Tell Me My Tears

Tell my my tears,
I asked the gull.
Ratcheting her head
One moist eye beaded mine
She waddled—away.

Tell me my tears,
I asked the sun.
Ducking under some clouds,
He winked, a bold flirt
Then dried them—all.

Tell me my tears,
I asked the wind.
Combing my hair
With gusto and purpose
She blew them all over my face.

Tell my my tears,
I asked the sand.
Warm granules, cozy toe blankets
A single grain
stuck in a teardrop.

Tell me my tears,
I asked the sea.
Curlicued tides, looping, lost
Salty to heal
Between coming and going.

Tell me my tears,
I asked my Beloved—
and waited.
        by the Rev. Lyn G. Brakeman

 

Left Out Of The Bible

What Adam said to Eve
As they lay in the dark
Honey, what’s making
That dog out there bark?
        by Charles Simic

What Eve said to Adam
As they lay in the dark
Honey,  just noticed
Not ticklish anymore.
        by Lyn G. Brakeman

 

Last Prayer

Dear Coherent Mercy: Thanks. Best life ever.

Personally, I never thought a cool woman would come close to understanding me, let alone understanding me but liking me anyway, but that happened!
    And You and I both remember that doctor in Boston saying polite but businesslike that we would not have children but then came three children fast and furious!
    And no man ever had better friends, and no man ever had a happier childhood and wilder brothers and a sweeter sister, and I was that rare guy who not only loved but liked his parents and loved sitting and drinking tea and listening to them!
    And You let me write some books that weren’t half bad, and I got to have a career that no kidding helped some kids wake up to their best selves, and no one ever laughed more at the ocean of hilarious things in this world, or gaped more in astonishment at the wealth of miracles everywhere every moment.
    I could complain a little here about the long years of back pain and the occasional awful heartbreak, but Lord those things were infinitesimal against the slather of gifts You gave mere me, a muddle of a man, so often selfish and small. But no man was ever more grateful for Your profligate generosity, and here at the very end, here in my last lines, I close my eyes and weep with joy that I was alive, and blessed beyond measure, and might well be headed back home to the incomprehensible Love from which I came, mewling, many years ago.
    But hey, listen, can I ask you one last favor? If I am sent back for another life, can I meet my lovely bride again? In whatever form? Could we be hawks, or otters maybe? And can we have the same kids again if possible? And if I get one friend again, can I have my buddy Pete? He was a huge guy in this life—make him the biggest otter ever and I’ll know him right away, okay?
    Thanks, Boss. Thanks from the bottom of my heart. See You soon.
    Remember—otters. Otters rule. And so:amen.
          by Brian Doyle

 

2021.04.11 Doubtless?

We are in Easter season, a time to rejoice over a Mystery most cannot comprehend, fully grasp and hold. Death, grief, murder, doubt, fear, and despair we get. We know these realities all too intimately—personally and globally. We expect them. But when confronted with no body, with Resurrection, well, it’s unexpected, not easy to believe at all, except to say that by faith we love, trust, and adore a God who brings life out of death, even ultimate biological death.

This poem is about an experience of abuse I had when I was eight years old at the hands of a stranger who happened to look just like the traditional bearded image of God. For a time this experience dimmed, but did not obliterate, the strong connection I’d experienced with God from early childhood. Writing puts it out onto the page where it has less power over me.

Missing the Rockettes

The theater darkened
    slowly.
Chatter and patter died
    down.
A thin line of light
    blinked
        winked
From beneath the thick maroon velvet curtain
    hidden wonders glowed.

A small girl edged forward
    eager
         ready, ready.

Now music from the orchestra pit
    arose.
Now the curtain lifted slowly
    slowly
    
Exposed two stories
    the one
        flashing, daring, dashing dance
    the other
        untold, unclean, unseen, unbidden

As the old man’s withered hand
    crept lightly up the child’s thigh
        it stole the show. 
 

Healing, for me, was a process of resurrection. Like Thomas, it took me a while before I could touch my wound or trust my God.  
 

11.29.20 ADVENT FLASH

Every once in a while—requested or not, planned or not, expected or not, desired or not, rational or not, explicable or not—there come a flash of awakening.  It’s not like the slow sleepy arising in the morning. Nor is it the sudden kick in the gut of noticing the obvious for the first time, or the surprise of finding a lost earring peeking from under the edge of the bureau. This flash partakes of Mystery.

We live as everyone the world over is living in near-quarantine in this season of Covid-fear and masks and huglessness. In the midst of this the town where we just moved, Simsbury, Connecticut, had its 350th anniversary. How does one celebrate antisocially?  Town officials decided the best, perhaps only, way was to have fireworks. This phenomenon is bravely American and traditionally reserved to July 4th. The best place to set off the display was at a local golf course. Guess who lives right behind that golf course, bordering its well-pruned green expanses. WE DO!  

Last night Dick and I sat at our window and watched. The flashes came in succession, each one louder and more colorful than the last. In the parking lot below, cars gathered, one with a bunch of young children atop it and all around it. Sounds of their laughter and screams of delight accompanied the fireworks. 

Mysteriously, this 20-minute flash was better than any July 4th I’ve ever seen. It was far better than the costly displays with musical accompaniment, tailored for global viewing to advertise America’s brand of freedom. Now more than ever we need to learn how to live our brand of freedom—not as power but as joy, not as exclusive to us but as available to all living things in nature and human nature, not as dogma but as covenant.

As this flash subsided, I was suddenly suffused with tears—gratitude, inner warmth, hope, awe, and sheer Mystery.

PS.  Simsbury. Thanks for your wondrous fiscal irresponsibility!

2015.11.01 Seeing a Soul

We all have a soul, so we say, and we all know that it's something very deep and real within us. Some of us connect soul with God, or a greater spiritual power, or just plain Mystery, somehow intermingled with our own essential self. It's all quite divinely human. Think soul-food, soul-music, or soulful feelings, like love, the depths and quality of which you just can not describe. Visual images fall pathetically short. Some prayer words give us a glimmer.

"Have I not steadied and silenced my soul like a baby nursing upon its mother, as though a baby were nursing upon me?" (from Psalm 131, a prayer by David, transl. Pamela Greenberg)

Honest to the core is my soul—as close to my human flesh as she is to divine Being.

But how many of us really understand what a soul is? We only experience it. We fall back on Mystery. Mystery shows up when soul is involved. I think that soul is a meeting ground where I meet God with all of who I am: a goodly, godly groping girl who desires to know God,  and God meets me with all of who God is:unconditional grace and humble desire to know me truly, madly deeply.

Oh mush! Now I've gone and tried to define the ineffable. You all know what Soul is. And I know, too, when I feel soulless, deflated, and depressed—so saturated with grief I can't see beyond the tears, or so paralyzed by fear I can't, well, move! Yes, we know. We all know Soul by intuition. And often we can see Soul.

Here is a visual image, iconic of the internal presence of Soul. It is quite natural and physically integrated, and when I look at these markings, I know what makes horse horse. Look and see. 



And when I see an oceanic smile, a child's face in wonder, a bent old woman or man—walking anyway, I know what makes human human.