2023.07.09 Is Freedom Wisdom or Folly? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

I do not think one can be truly free unless one knows how also to be wise, how to practice  the loving-kindness most religions advocate, and most religions fail to practice. 

I know that sounds harsh. May I suggest a good book called Religion Gone Astray. What we Found at the Heart of Interfaith by Pastor Don Mackenzie, Rabbi Ted Falcon, and Imam Jamal Rahman. It was published in 2011, dedicated to  the memory of M.K. Gandhi who continues to illuminate the path to peace in a pluralistic world. 

These three men have honest and eye-opening conversations. They admit to great discomfort with patriarchal stances in all religions and their scriptures. Yet they together conclude  “As we awaken to our spiritual identity, it is simply obvious that equality is already real, even if not yet reflected in the world we share.”  Their egos flush with success as many people in interfaith gatherings nod agreement hearing their message that spiritual equality is already extant. The sweet odor of success soured at one such gathering of about 250 people, when a young woman raised her hand, spoke into the mike that was passed to her, and said “in a tone that carried as much as her words did,  Why isn’t one of you a woman? The energy in the room shifted. Our euphoria evaporated.”  (p. 107)

Of course interfaith spirituality is wise. Is it foolish to share it?  No. It might be foolish, however, to assume that the world of Religions today is ready to hear such a unitive message. On the one hand, the escalation of our present Armageddon-like world culture looks like a sign of disaster. On the other hand, it might  be a sign that the more we actually do begin to listen, to help each other on the streets and in our homes and with our international politicking, then the more people’s hearts are moved. It might, in fact, be unwise today to assume divisiveness is a sign of the end, when Wisdom points elsewhere—new jobs, new love for our Democracy, new respect for the iconic Lady Liberty Herself with her torch still ablaze and calling—not only y’all come, but y’all let your hearts be transformed.

  

According to Dean Andrew McGowan of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, true Wisdom is not an “it,” a body of knowledge to be acquired and manipulated, but a person, whose nature is revealed by his practice, and by extension our relationship with that person and our following him—or her.  Many will know that this divine Wisdom with which Jesus identifies himself was not only personified (see Proverbs 9), but that in both Hebrew and Greek was feminine in gender. This becomes the basis, both in scripture and tradition, of imagining Her as a generous host whose hospitality is offered to those who seek Her.  

In the last parish where Dick and I concelebrated Holy Eucharist we used the ancient Hebrew words of blessing and occasionally held up the consecrated elements of bread and wine to invite people to come and share, using these expansive welcoming words in the Wisdom tradition of the Bible: 

Come, eat of my bread,

and drink of the wine I have mixed

(Proverbs 9: 5)

Was that wise? I don’t know, but I know that as soon as the next priest came it was eliminated. Did people miss it? I don’t know, but I do know that some remember, and some hearts were moved. Speed isn’t always wise. It is always sure.  

 

2016.06.26 Give Me Your Poor

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

"The New Colossus" poem by Emma Lazarus; lyrics for Irving Berlin musical, "Miss Liberty"

A friend recently told me that Emma Lazarus’s poem had been set to music by Irving Berlin. She said the women’s chorus of which she is a member sang it, and that I should check it out. It would make me weep, she said. It did.

In the context of the current skirmish over immigration and our highest court's split about whether President Obama’s proposal to allow 4 million immigrants to stay here and work here, Lazarus’s message rings sacred. Yes, I know it’s a vision, a dream—two words never to be prefaced by “only” or “just.”

My mother loved broadway musicals. Cole Porter and Irving Berlin were her two favorite idols. The information that Irving Berlin, composer and lyricist for “God Bless America,” first sung by Kate Smith in 1938, the year I was born, had written music for the Lazarus poem only added to my tears.

Mom died 18 years ago. I bet she never knew that music was the only source of income for Berlin, born Israel Isidore Baline (later Berlin, thanks to a typo) in 1888 in Belarus. Music was also the source of income for Mom’s own Jewish father. Berlin’s father had been a cantor in a synagogue. Through his father’s singing vocation Berlin learned to love music—for its spiritual power and its sheer beauty. I don’t know where my grandfather learned to love music, but he made a career of importing classical musical talent—most of it Jewish— from Europe to America.

                                                      Mr. Irving Berlin

With their music, my grandfather and Irving Berlin made this country rich. Neither would have come to America without the invitational hospitality of a Jewish poet named Emma and this country’s foundational principles. 

And neither man would  have come here without being ushered in by the inspired grandeur of the enormous Statue of Liberty, a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of America. She stands as a symbol of freedom and democracy. She holds a torch of welcome, stands 305’ 1” tall, and weighs in at 27,000 tons. Up close she represents one image of the soul of America.

As a child growing up in Manhattan, I looked up to her as if to a Goddess. I was also a little afraid of her, just because she was so huge and a bit stern looking.

For some of us today the message she carries is frightening. Whom shall we let in? Will we lose our rights, our identities, our properties if we share? Have we become so afraid of “pollutants” from without that we are going to create a toxic closed system within our borders—such that we will stifle—not grow, not evolve?

Lady Liberty, the one Berlin praised in song, in all her glory and her gospel, reflects the God I love and worship, the One who amorizes the whole cosmos, kindling love throughout.  

2015.07.05 Immigration Policy in Poetry, Sculpture, Religion, Politics—and Money

"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth." George Washington said this. It's also a biblical metaphor for the reign of God—true and a bit scary. How do we accommodate such growth?

Washington's portrait must, legally, always be on the U.S. $1 bill. But the $10 is now up for grabs with a plan to replace Alexander Hamilton's portrait, presently on the obverse side of our ten-spot, with a woman!!
 

How far has Lady Liberty come? How wide is her spread and how broad her embrace? Who shall this woman be?

In 1884, the cornerstone of the New York harbor's Statue of Liberty’s pedestal was laid. The French gave the statue, and the U.S. raised the money for its pedestal. We funded the foundations mostly by an auction of contributed art and literary works. Emma Lazarus, 34 years old at the time, donated a poem for the occasion, which she titled "The New Colossus."

Lazarus, a Jewish-American author, was born in 1849, the fourth child in a wealthy family of seven children. She grew up in New York city’s Union Square area and mingled with the literary elite. As a woman and a Jew Lazarus knew the sting of prejudice on both counts. She burned with passion for liberation and was devoted to the plight of Jewish immigrants. She had the experience of assimilation into this land of liberty, and longed for more. At the same time, she urged the Jewish people to organize for a homeland in response to rising antisemitism—well before the term Zionism came into use. Lazarus died young at 38, probably from cancer.

In 1903, 16 years after Lazarus’ death, her friends lobbied to have a bronze memorial tablet with Lazarus’ poem inscribed on it installed inside the entrance to Ms. Liberty’s pedestal. The poem reflected her soul’s words and immortalized a vision: there is hope for the “huddled masses.”

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

These fiery words recall to my mind the gospel vision of Jesus the Christ: "Come unto me all who travail and are heavy laden and I will refresh you." In one prayer book liturgical version, this phrase is the invitation to the table of Holy Communion. I said it every Sunday over my early years of being a parish priest and thought these the most authentic theological words I'd ever heard. There is true divinity in all such words, calling us still to compassion and justice. How, when, and to whom do you say them?

“The New Colossus” was the projection of a young woman’s own experience and hope onto a statue, a still-standing symbol of America’s beginning and her commitment to liberty and justice for all. Darn good spirituality! The poem did not just define the monument, but also envisioned the country's immigration policy. Who can forget the call of the Lady of the Harbor? I grew up waving to her, and was awestruck looking out from the top of her "crown" at what I thought must be the whole world. 

Hers is also the call of all religions and their holy scriptures—not to mention the divine gift and vision for Creation. Liberty and justice for all make peace for all.

Over centuries, many have followed the vision, yet without legal protocols in place. They longed to breathe free. Now we have a problem with our "promised land." It seems to be a tragic irony that now we are forced to create enslavement in order to to protect liberty. It's costly to imprison illegal immigrants, most of them women fleeing violence, so we track them down and shackle them with GPS detection devices, the kind people under house arrest must wear, until we can put them through the proper paces of legalization, a protocol we might have had in place with forethought. It is no surprise to me that a woman wrote the mighty vision, that a woman is encased in colossal statuary, and that it is mostly women who still have no safe harbor. 

What will the "land of the free and the home of the brave" do now?

Are Lazarus's words still enough to inspire and inform our current immigration policy?  Does this vision have clout and spirit enough to console those who live in fear of deportation, to motivate our citizenry and government? Is it enough to inspire religions to speak out? Is it enough to fill places of worship with the tired, poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free?  Might "expired" church buildings become affordable housing and enliven the vision?

I don’t know. But I nominate Emma Lazarus as a worthy candidate to be the first woman to grace an American greenback, the $10 bill.

I have no long-term answers, but I know Lazarus's vision is more expansive than it appears, and that liberty includes all humanity on all shores, as well as our endangered planet. The hope of this is worthy of prayer and hard political work.

For liberty we risk extinction unless we broaden our embrace and open wider our hearts.

2013.07.04 Happy 4th in the Home of the Free

Why do I tear up when the piccolos toodle “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and the cannons boom to the mighty 1812 Overture?

I suppose it’s this thing of aging—a salubrious combination of sentimentality and gradual letting go of fretting over girth or acting goofy-happy.

Last evening we watched a 1985 documentary about the erection (well not really but a fun thought nonetheless!) of the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. Ms Liberty was a gift from France to celebrate the centennial of American independence. The gift is significant, in part because the French knew how difficult it was to maintain the spirit of liberté egalité, fraternité against the pull of monarchy and other ills of control politics.

I grew up in NYC in the shadow of Lady Liberty, besides the Empire State Building. We used to go on Circle Line cruises and wave to her. What moves me most is that the statue is not a symbol or power, or even success, but rather a symbol of promise. America values independence, and freedom even more. The great statue’s torch, held so high and with such somber-faced dignity, reminds us not to forget our reason to be. Perhaps this is a bit like the sanctuary lamp that burns in churches remembers to us the promise of divine grace.

Boston strong turned into Boston nasty over the refusal to bury one of the Marathon bomber terrorists. Will Boston turn scared now as we face another mass celebration, ripe for bombs? I doubt it. We are patriotic, in spite of the Patriot Act.

Boston’s annual July 4th celebration this year will go on in its own spectacular way. The security will be tight,very. Some Bostonians will remember the pain and fear of bombings at another of Boston’s great traditions, the Boston Marathon on Patriots Day. Certain behaviors and items will not be permitted, including styrofoam coolers on wheels, non-transparent drink containers, trash cans, any homegrown fireworks, propane tanks for grills and NO BACKPACKS.  That's a lot of lifestyle change. I hope they let the kids have sparklers.

I’m proud to be an American and proud to be a Christian.  I weep for the joy and privilege of it.