2022.03.27 A Prodigal Homecoming. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 3/27/22

This wonderful drawing by Tim O’Brien on the cover of the winter, 2021-2022 magazine, Columbia momentarily brought me home to my self, my soul, and divine omnipresence. 

I have so many memories of walking/trudging through all kinds of weather to night classes to earn my Masters degree in Spanish Language and Literature at Columbia. I used to wave and practically genuflect at the majestic steps leading into the halls of academe. I would have knelt before a statue like this one—to pray that I wouldn’t flunk out, or end up divorced before I even figured out what marriage was,  not to mention sex and procreation. 

I was newly married to Bill Brakeman in 1961 after a trip to Spain and a year of teaching Spanish to Smith students. We spent our first year in a small, one-room apartment on Claremont Avenue, on N.Y.’s upper west side. After eating dinner, prepared by this new “bride” who had ordered groceries delivered from a small local store and cooked one of five basic options, (chicken in some form, smothered in some soup, ham steak, pork chops, hamburger patties or meatloaf, minute steaks).  Then we went to bed, such as it was. We rolled into one another on a small pullout sofa bed and parted early each morning with a hug and a kiss. Bill would commute out to Connecticut to his engineering job, while I studied myself into oblivion, then walked over to campus for evening classes. I mean, after all, they awarded me a Danforth grant to get this degree, so I could teach Spanish. I’d better perform.  

We newlyweds must have had some conversations, but most of what I remember is exhaustion from studying, fretting over my distinctly inadequate culinary skills, and wondering if I was doing the right thing. I mean shouldn’t I be married AND pregnant by now, like it’s  supposed to happen? Be a mother?  A proper wife? Also can one get pregnant without orgasms?

Even now as I remember, I close my eyes tight and imagine myself into this wintry scene, transporting myself backwards into total student mood, a favorite fallback over the years. I wanted children, and what if my uterus suddenly aged too fast? Worrying was another fallback mood, as you can tell. Essentially, I felt pretty small and lonely and scared, like the bird—a Cardinal no less—on this cover art for the issue devoted to climate change. My imagination flew me into the wintry scene where I met my own Cardinal. 

 

Well, hello big guy.  Watcha doing?

Silence

Oh, your reading your texts or something, right?  I wish I had a phone like yours. Hey, I’m talking to you. 

Hmph

Thinking up a storm, I see. 

Little bird, little bird, do shut up. You’re casting a shadow on my phone. 

It’s snowing you see, and I just need a perch. Also, I’m lonely and bored out here.

Why won’t you talk to me? I’m pretty much of a standout feature in my flashy red suit. Like it?

I’m thinking. 

About?

Are you a Cardinal?

Yup, none other, or so they say. What other guy do you know who has such a handsome coxcomb? Hey, smile why don’t you, Mr. serious guy. What could be more fun than a conversation with another proud male in the snow on a moonlit evening in the midst of academia’s crowning jewel itself? Hey, are you grinning? 

Little Bird, little Bird where were you when I took myself so seriously, almost lost my way, or drowned in my own mind?

I was here, you just couldn’t see me. I am your imagination. I open you to create wonder and spy on God, to whom I introduced you to when you were a small child. Remember? You thought I was prodigal. But I was never wanton or wallowing in extravagance. I, like you, was just  explorative—searching out, crying out, longing, reaching—and sinning along the way.   

Cheerleading life itself, eh?  Well, thanks for the company out here in the snowy cold. 

Sure thing. I travel well. In Christian lore, I’m a symbol of vitality, sometimes a messenger. Church Cardinals dress all in red, strut their stuff, get stuffy. I do that too. So do you. Now cheer up. You can do this, even though you’re just pregnant. 

What? 

Oh, you didn’t know? Hit those books. Keep on going and next winter you’ll be trudging to the big city to take your comprehensive examinations here—great with child. I’ll be with you. 

So that was how I got through, got pregnant, received a Masters degree, and relied on my comprehensive imagination in its latest incarnation—a red male prodigal bird-angel—to remind me, once again, even now, to trust this Omnipresent One.   

2020.09.06 My "Racism"—Brief Anecdotal History. Part Nine. Independence?

Chapter XXIII. Marriage and Family

My first love, Bill Brakeman, and I married in June of 1962 after I returned from Spain and taught classroom Spanish at Smith College for a year. Bill was in college at Rensselaer Polytechnic. He pursued his natural gift for electronics and I pursued mine for languages—words strung together for communication and beauty.  

I hated the traditional way languages were taught, but I wasn’t trained enough to change it. While teaching Spanish boringly at Smith I also took intensive French with Mme. Cattanés. From her I learned how one teaches a language: you speak it. Students learn just the way children do—by imitation and pointing and asking. I also took a year of Russian with Mr. Kolosoff. That was more difficult because the alphabet was—foreign-er than Greek. He too spoke Russian to us, but we also had to memorize a lot of words and phrases. He was a humorous man who wore a boot-shoe for a club foot. We could hear him coming a mile away.  

I also pursued my Spanish under the supervision of Smith Professor Whitmore. She pushed me hard, assigning me a thesis in Spanish on any topic I wanted. I chose to write about the role of the priest in the 19th century Spanish novel. How telling my choice was I had no idea at the time, but I had noticed what a dominant role the priest, (Roman Catholic of course) played in fiction. He was dominant, authoritative about morality and everything else, inserting himself into the family scene—not always graciously. It made me laugh and shiver. I felt attracted and resistant all at once.

It struck me that immersing oneself in a new language was like marriage—a commitment which does not thrive on love and attraction alone. I remember the thrill that rushed through my whole body when I suddenly realized I was reading in Spanish without the middle step of translating words into English. I’d loved the language and now I was committed to it, married to it—in love, not just feeling love.

An integrative process like this is difficult between humans. It requires attentiveness to self and other. But I thought I wanted independence. Could I have my freedom and still be married at once—share vulnerability, desire, inside of plain mystery? It occurred to me that each partner devotes the same kind of commitment and intimacy you’d devote to learning a new language—making it your own. Bill and I had children whom we adored, yet we could not rely on them to complete our wholeness. We pursued our own goals and visions. We did not talk and listen with enough honest mutual attention. Instead we talked over wine, and our love lost its roots. Neither of us was independent, because we both feared dependency. For me it felt stifling. Both of us I suspect were too independent to know how to be healthfully dependent.

I was learning that the kind of deep personal engagement required for marriage or foreign language mastery could also heal racism. It was a deliciously enticing idea—this  inherently far-fetched interlocking of love and commitment. It was fleeting, unattainable, and something I knew I wanted and needed.  I’d relished tantalizing glimpses of its near-mystical potency, yes, even as a child with Carol Lee. When would I meet a Carol Lee? It would be years. Glimpses kept coming.

Chapter XXIV.  Ether

"What’s that?" my small and curious oldest daughter, Bev, asked, pointing her finger at the black woman who answered the door at a neighbor’s house. I knew we were in trouble. I could explain who this was to my four-year-old, but it never occurred to me that her innocent amazement might be racist. How to explain blackness without stereotyping it as being the “maid”?  

At about that time my parents who lived one street away from us hired a woman to clean their house. She was black. Her name was Ethel, but the way she said her name made it sound like “Etha”. She came to be called Ether. I thought I could introduce Bev to her, but how awkward would that be—taking Bev over to introduce her on whatever day Ether came to clean, as if she were a specimen or a phenomenon? And Bev, being Bev, would have a million embarrassing questions such as: How come your skin is so black?  Strategic avoidance was my strategy, although I couldn’t avoid the “maid” issue. Bev was too young for much more anyway. Was my choice racist?  I had no idea, although the question tugged at my worrying heart.

I did not know this then, but our young family would soon be moving to Alabama. Surely there I would meet black people on their own terms, wouldn’t I?

2013.02.24 BIG FAT UNMANAGEABLE THEOLOGICAL WORDS

Most people today palaver on about our tendency to use too many words, especially in the Church.  It’s true. We do.

Talk is cheap but words are precious—and remain our primary symbol system for communication and formation.

Words are also spiritual. I love languages, even Latin, and majored in Spanish. I clearly recall the moment when I suddenly realized that I was actually reading Spanish words in my head without first translating them into English.  You wouldn’t call my feeling ecstasy, but you would call it awe.

Christians use a lot of loaded words. But we have lost the meaning and truth of many of our words. Rather than throw our ancient words out, perhaps we need to reclaim and re-understand, our precious vocabulary. Here is an invitation to join me as you wish.

BIG FAT UNMANAGEABLE THEOLOGICAL WORDS—BROUGHT TO HEART

Saturday March 16, 2013, 10 to 3, a quiet retreat day offered by Episcopal priest, author and spiritual director, the Rev Lyn G. Brakeman, at Miramar Retreat Center in Duxbury, Massachusetts.  Retreatants will be invited to explore, through meditations, conversations, journaling, and personal prayer, some basic Christian vocabulary, words we often use without really knowing what they mean in lived experience. Little things like grace, sin, salvation, the holy are not cereal brands, but rooted in ancient and biblical contexts. What do they mean to you?  Individual spiritual direction will be offered for anyone who desires it. The goal is to enrich and enliven Christian spirituality in a beautiful space with lots of places to rest in God and pray, and enjoy a good warm lunch.

You may register on line at Miramarretreat.org, email at miramarma@aol.com, call 781-585-2460. Check website for more information.  Fee is $39 with a deposit of $15.