2024.01.07 Let There Be Light and Let There Be Darkness. Lyn G. Brakeman,Spiritual Lemons, blog post

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and called all of it good.

What is wrong in a country, in a world, in any society that prays for Peace all the time and has no idea what makes peace happen?

What is wrong with a country that calls itself a Democracy, a United states, establishes a Bill of Rights/Freedoms for all its citizens, and then silences some of these citizens from telling or writing the truth about themselves in an honest way? As a citizen I protest.

Is this moral? Is this ungodly?  Is this a violation of the freedom of every citizen to practice his/her/their own religious faith? Does this corruption, this lie promote holocaust, exile, soul-murder, evil, the censorship of truth itself?  That you can be stoned for being who you are, that you can be exiled for being who you are, that you can be lynched, jailed, buried alive, murdered, butchered, burned, bludgeoned, maimed, scalped, terrorized, banished, humiliated, deformed from foot-binding, censored, crucified, and shamed for being who you are and for writing, publishing, telling your own story about who you are.   

*  *  *  *

Why am I so passionate about all this? Well, because I am a reader who has read about campaigns to ban books that MIGHT be offensive to young minds. And because I’m a writer who remembers Holden Caulfield!

American writer J.D. Salinger, born in New York City (1919) is one of the most famous living authors in America even though he hasn't published anything since 1965, and he lived reclusively until his death in 2010. He’s best known for his novel The Catcher in the Rye, about a boy named Holden Caulfield who gets expelled from his boarding school and spends the next few days wandering around New York City, trying to figure out why people have to grow older, why everyone is so phony, and where the ducks go when the pond in Central Park freezes over.

The Catcher in the Rye started out as a short story called "Slight Rebellion Off Madison," and it was the first story that Salinger managed to sell to The New Yorker. The New Yorker bought the story in November of 1941, and planned to run it in their Christmas issue. That December, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and Salinger's story was put on hold, considered too trivial in a time of war. Salinger writes from within the mental musings of a young teenager, gawky, curious, sexually awkward—unforgettable.  

Salinger expanded the story into the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, which came out in 1951 when I was 13.  The New York Times ran a review, titled "Aw, the World's a Crumby Place.” The children in it were unbelievably intelligent, and the style of the novel was too "showoffy." What adolescent is not?  Within two weeks Catcher made the best seller list. 

Who can forget Holden Caulfield, Jane Eyre, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Ebenezer Scrooge, Oz, Bambi, Christopher Robin, Pooh and Piglet, Mrs. Dalloway, Peter Rabbit, Cinderella, Grumpy, Moses, Cruella Deville—and more? 

Every tale and every character embodies good and evil, sorrow and joy, love and hate, light and darkness, heaven and hell, life and death—together. 

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth and called all of it Good. 

O, light of the world, let your bright star stand over the place where the poor have to live; lead our sages to wisdom and our rulers to reverence. Hear this prayer for your love’s sake. Amen.  (from The New Zealand Prayer Book) 

2020.04.26 Up, Down, and All Around

As a child, my eyes were trained upward, peering through the jagged line of city skyscrapers, trying to get a glimpse of God on high. I saw many clouds and sun and rain. As an adult, I look downward for glimpses of God in my own heart, in the faces and actions of people on earth. I see smiles, and kindness, and tears—signs of what Jesus called the Kingdom of God, the dear truth of a holy society envisioned here on earth.

For centuries many have prayed:  “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Do we expect that all this will happen without our help?

According to Vida D. Scudder in her book, Social Teachings of the Christian Year. Lectures Delivered at the Cambridge Conference, 1918, republished in 2015, the appointed Scriptures in Eastertide “keep us strictly to earth, at her homeliest and most difficult. The Risen Lord with the marks of His Passion on Him, moves among His own in old scenes, in the familiar ways. As they tread dusty roads, as they eat their suppers, as they ply their trades; in rooms where they were wont to gather, or by the lake whose waters have known the tread of His holy Feet, suddenly He is with them.”

Suddenly, someone verifiably dead appears—not in a dream but in a vision, earthbound in a sensory way and often with a life-changing message. Some of us have had such visionary experiences of someone to whom we’ve been very close. These are mostly personal and private. We are afraid we’re crazy, so we don’t tell anyone. But a child will always tell. A child I knew once announced: “Daddy called today.” Daddy was dead. Mommy argued truth, but the most she could get from the child was an agreement that she would not to tell anyone else. Such things just do not fit into rational boxes. Jesus’s followers were just as blown away as we are.

Still, let’s remember that the very first person to “tell” about such a strong vision had never seen Jesus alive, but only after he was dead in a vision with a message to TELL the world. That person was Paul, persecutor-in-chief of Christians. He was so radically converted by this vision that, once he digested what had happened to him, he never shut up. So we ought never dare dismiss such an experience as “just a vision.”  The child knew the sound of Daddy’s voice and heard it through the phone—so strong was the sensory memory backed up by the truth of Daddy’s love still in her heart. This was true for the gospel writers—and for us as well.

What’s odd is that these extraordinary spiritual experiences happened in mundane ways and were nothing new. As Scudder puts it, Jesus was “still bent on training his followers to create the Beloved Community.”

This Lord/Christ—alive, dead, resurrected—was/is consistent and insistent. With few exceptions, this Jesus addressed them when they were gathered in a group.

Today we are the group. Some have interpreted these appearance visions to include instructions to organize the Church to be the Kingdom. Scudder warns, with wry humor that “there is scant evidence of this in the Bible and the idea of the Kingdom is belittled when confined to the partial and imperfect expression in the Church visible here below. The Church is doubtless the natural, the appointed instrument of the Kingdom, but it would take an inveterate optimism to identify the two.”  

This vision, this message, this God, was to be proclaimed up and down and all around, all at once, and not restricted to any one religion, including Christianity. 

I find this limitless spirituality helpful today when we are all of us together yet trapped in solitary confinement because of a lethal virus sweeping the globe. We are caught in a paradox we cannot, and are not supposed to unravel: the more alone we are the more together we become.

Can anything good come out of this crisis?  I believe that a cultural shift of massive proportions will occur to move us from global selfie-ism to a god’s-eye-view perspective—up and down and  all around— in every major institution: arts, business and commerce, religion, politics, science, medicine, education, social organization.

Why so? Because we have lived with solitary confinement; we have lived surrounded by death; we have lived in the throes of collective angst and hope, death-in-life. And we will grieve and live to begin anew in a catastrophically changed and strengthened world. Oh yes, we will live with the cruel bruises of this pandemic on our souls and bodies, and we will write new bibles, work to love and heal our Earth, tell old and new stories, sing new songs, never forget.

                                 All changed, changed utterly
                                    A terrible beauty is born.
                                                                 -W. B. Yeats

2018.04.29 Memorial Homily: a Letter, February, 2018

May I speak to you in the name of the God who inspired St. Ignatius of Loyola to say: “We are created to live in God’s love and life for all eternity.”

Dear Pierre,

I am honored to be here today speaking your praises. I can hear your voice now in my ear: “Pffft non, non, non. It is the Lord, not me.” For all your adorable arrogance, Pierre, you were truly humble.

Still, I will speak.

I knew you'd choose scriptures that affirmed Ignatius’s wisdom:
    -From Isaiah, a message deeply personal and universal:  Do not fear for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are precious in my sight and honored and I love you.
    -Psalm 23, of course. I picture you now beside tranquil waters in lush meadows—these could be French meadows, possibly resembling Marseilles, or Wallingford, Connecticut, where you lived with your beloved Mary. 
    -From  I John: Beloved let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us . . .” (I John 4: 4-10a)
    - Gospel of Matthew: Jesus recited Beatitudes, blessing the beauty and messiness of life all together—in terse inclusive phrases, a little blunt, like you, Monsieur.  Your beatitude? Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.  Thank you for your courage, Pierre. You took risks where others feared to tread.

For you it was always about Love and Jesus the Christ, the one you called “that guy.”  If on a directed retreat I didn’t see Jesus on the horizon as I prayed on the beach at Mercy Center, something was missing. You would question, not scold, but with intensity ask: “Leen, do you see the Lord, the guy? I squinted as I looked out to sea from the beach. No Jesus-guy.

In time I learned to see the Lord through my beeg eemaginashun, as you would say. I sat on this bench.

And too, Pierre, you would say when I came to visit in your latter days: “Hey, where is the guy?” You meant my guy, Dick Simeone, my beloved priest spouse. He is right here today, offering your praises and remembering with me.

Through your ministry, Pierre, especially the Spiritual Exercises of your genius-saint-guy, Ignatius, I discovered that you would never not be a Jesuit. You can take the guy out of the Order but you can’t take the Order out of the guy. Getting to know this Jesus-guy in my own flesh was the best spiritual gift I ever received. Merci Monsieur, merci beaucoup.

I remember when we first met met in the early 1980s. I’d heard a Roman Catholic chaplain colleague rave and rave about knowing Jesus so well. I thought she was pretty nuts. I also felt insulted, as if I didn’t know Jesus very well, which I didn’t. But I was also entranced and intrigued. I asked her how she knew Jesus so well.
    “You have to have a Jesuit for that!” she announced.
    “Where do I get a Jesuit?” I asked.
She intimated, but stopped short of telling me, that I should become Roman Catholic. I did, however, have to sign up for a silent directed retreat at Mercy Center with Pierre Wolff, her Jesuit of choice.

I sat in a retreat room among several other quivering eager newbies, half expecting to see Jesus sweep in. But it was you, Pierre, announcing that we all would introduce ourselves—briefly. Very short, you said, and gave your own introduction: “Pierre Wolff. France.” Spit spat. I would soon learn that you had a big heart— and a snappy mouth.

There followed a bunch of paragraphs-long, mini-bios, none of them necessary, except to quell our nerves. Then came the seestairs, your three female minions who would assist you in directing us on this retreat: Judy Fortune, Mary Daly, Elaine Deasy, Sisters of Mercy. Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy.

Oh God, I thought, nuns! Maybe this is too Catholic for me. But I had harbored secret longings since junior high school, mostly because they had a woman up front in their churches. A woman, no less—a stone statue, but still . . .   I prayed I’d get one of these Mercies for my director. This Pierre-guy would not be warm and fuzzy! 

But I got my Jesuit. So began our fifteen-year relationship of spiritual director and directee. It was never a flirtation, although I had become quite expert in this strategy in my midlife. Pierre, you accompanied me, respected me, let me argue with you, even reprimand you, nursed me through the heartache of being rejected initially in the Episcopal ordination process, the grief of divorce, and the joy of remarriage, convincing me—over and over— that I was a good enough mother, and that God saw me as precious and honored and beloved, no matter what. When I’d get overwhelmed and freak out you’d say: doucement cherie, doucement. Take it easy.

You’d say: “Leen, you are my priest.” But no, Pierre, you were my priest. You taught me how not to fear. You taught me to be free—free! It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. (Galatians 5:1) The charism of the Jesuits is one of open-heartedness and open-mindedness—like you.

And you taught me how to hate. When I read and re-read your amazing small book, May I Hate God, I knew it wasn’t God I hated, but the Church—at least for a time. You weren’t so happy with your own Church, Pierre, all because of the dismissive ways women were treated.

You celebrated Eucharist  among us informally—people of all  traditions welcome. You knelt at a low table on which the bread and wine rested, awaiting words of consecration, yet already consecrated by our presence in God. This is still my favorite way to celebrate the sacrament. Free.

Still, imagine my shock when one day at work I received a call from you in your frenchified English talking about Mary and marry and getting married, and Mary again. Somehow I knew this was not the stone statue of Mary, but a woman of flesh and blood that you loved deeply. You wanted ME to officiate at your marriage to this Mary. I said yes with more aplomb than I felt, and before I knew what I was doing. I was hardly wet behind the ears, and this would be my first ever marriage liturgy: September 10, 1988, just six months after my ordination as a priest.

The requisite pre-marital counseling felt quite hilarious. Me, a baby priest, counseling you, Pierre, a larger-than-life authority figure to me. It was comical.

But you and your Mary were gracious and dear. I listened to you two talk about your relationship, your love, your desire to marry in the sight of your Lord. I said something lame. But then I just looked and listened to you both, and I knew: here was love that participated in Love Eternal; here was Easter Love that would nourish you two and everyone your lives touched; here was love that could sustain great grief as you, Pierre, left your country, your order, your faith of origin, your Roman Catholic priesthood in a short span of time. Blessed are you who mourn for you will be comforted.

All this for the love of a woman named Mary. That has a scriptural ring, no? And Mary: Blessed are you who mourn for you will be comforted.

I couldn’t be a Catholic priest because of my gender; I couldn’t be a Jesuit, wrong gender again, so I became an Anglo-Catholic priest and an Associate of the Religious Sisters of Mercy. And you, Pierre, became an Episcopal priest.

Merci, my French, Jesuit, priest, Jesus-freak, Episcopalian. Blessed are you, for you have lived and loved in God who is Love and who loved you first.

Merci, merci le bon dieu, adieu. Good bye. Amen.

Love,  
Lyn

Oh, and Pierre…….. doucement cheri, doucement.