2025.11.30 TURKEYING. Spiritual Lemons, blog post, Lyn G. Brakeman

According to writer and Orthodox Rabbi Avi Safran, the Hebrew word for “turkey” can be interpreted to be the same as the Hebrew word for “turkey" and possibly connect us with “thanksgiving.”  However, it has nothing to do with the fact that the bird itself, in all its magnificence, is traditionally part of American Thanksgiving feasts. That association is, rather, the result of Christopher Columbus’ famous blunder. You remember the one about discovering America, the “promised land” he reported to his monarchs, when all the time it was just a navigation error—alas! 

Such blundering or blunder-busting is inevitable. That’s why we pray and ask forgiveness so much. But don’t run away, and don’t overdo your explanatory confession. If you do  need to say it out loud, say it to yourself softly and just between you and your god. Or one simple sentence once, like I’m sorry I hurt you.

Forgivingness is the point of life, really. We all make blunders, which are mostly inevitable. No need to overdo it and shame yourself. As a slogan used in Twelve Step programs puts it:  Keep it simple, stupid. I say: Keep it simple, sweetie.  

2022.11.20 Tiny Graces—Thanks Given. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

One of my sons asked me recently what patriarchy was. He is fifty-five, smart and resilient, and yet he asked, possibly because I’ve often said that we (the world) are experiencing the death throes of patriarchy. 

I answered that patriarchy is a centuries old hierarchal system, the world over, of social organization and power that, simplistically, looks like this: God, man, woman, son, slave/servant, animals, natural life. Race, gender, role, and geography, were added. Death throes mean change. We must ALL respect each other and together save our Earth. 

One of these changes is to de-patriarchalize divinity. It hurts, disorients and re-creates. In  such times, I survive by noticing tiny graces that provide hope and evoke big thanks. 

*  *  *  *

-A very small boy in the supermarket insists on carrying the family turkey after it’s checked out. The child, maybe six, stands on tiptoes, stretches forward, hoists the good-sized, neatly packaged and trussed turkey off the check-out line and into his small arms. He staggers backwards then catches his balance and with a huge grin embraces the turkey with a hug and carries it out of the store, his mother probably praying as she watches this little family Thanksgiving hero. Maybe God occasionally upsizes human effort. 

-From our window I have watched a birds’ nest being carefully built, twig by twig, high in a tree whose leaves soon fell. The good-sized nest looks sturdy and a work of art. Before long I observe baby birds, small brown and unprepossessing, emerge. One after another they take flight—not far at first, then experimenting with longer flights, all perching on branches of a nearby tree. Each time, after some signal, they simultaneously fly back to home base. One morning I see them all—twenty to my count—swoop over and land on the barren ground across the driveway from their home. They peck and peck at the barren ground. What food could be there? Then, on hidden command, they simultaneously ascend and fly back home. Many human teens do the same. 

-A Tee shirt meme: “Hold on. Let me overthink this!”  I’ve done this.

-Then there’s the resiliently resistant raindrop that simply will not continue its flow down the windowpane even after the rain stops. It’s large. It reflects sunlight. It does not dry up. It winks at me—God’s tear I think.   

-Finally, a little bit of mischief with the fact of Jesus’s humanity, not something many Christians like to remember about the one we call Lord—fully human and fully divine, neither nature compromising the other. One Christmas I was preaching about the whole nativity scenario—a tender scene everyone loves to sing about, and no one would want to experience. I cautioned against over-romanticizing this narrative, denying all the pain and danger surrounding it. After all, I said, swaddling clothes were diapers. A woman shot up from her pew, turned tail, and stormed out, never to return. I was forgiven, not “fired.” 

-Sometimes in the pitch dark of night I reach for my beloved’s hand. It’s still warm. We’re in our eighties. Life feels more fragile. Our 36th wedding anniversary is this week.  

-In Corrie ten Boom’s holocaust memoir, The Hiding Place, she, a Dutch Christian, is tossed into prison—starved, freezing, alone, and facing death. In a barren cell, she spots a tiny ant crawling in from between cracks invisible to human eye. She is thrilled. She shares crumbs from her single piece of stale bread with the ant. Soon more ants appear, and she dines with them, praying with praise, “A relationship!” 

-Christians move into both Christmas and Easter, with the same Bible story: Jesus about to face the trial of his life, leading to his hideous death. In this highly symbolic and historic story there is a stunningly tiny detail: he rides into town on an ass—a donkey! 

There is no place that God is not. Hear the psalmist sing: “Your presence is known through all who help me; with them I can look danger squarely in the face.” (Psalm 118, Greenberg) And I say, Thank you. 

 

2021.11.29 Thanksgiving Poem

THANKSGIVING POEM

Another report from overseas

in the day’s news about

a jailed reporter

of some government’s opposition.

Someone on a street corner

hauled off by the police.

The weather there in that country

on that day was beautiful.

So it looked

in the picture. Here

where I am it is dusk, raw

and drizzly from the day’s rain.

The group of us 

in the town square

hold up our placards and wave

to the rush-hour traffic.

Whether our candidate 

wins or not is only slightly

more important than the fact

that here we are

and that when we are done

we will each go home,

change out of our damp clothes,

and have a little warm supper. 

© Carole-Jean Smith

Does this brief poem depress you, or does it give you hope? I don’t know exactly, other  than I just like this poem and its down-to-earth solidity. It seems so obvious and true that we each and all do whatever we can do, where we are, for causes and candidates—and it is enough.  The one consistent inner activity is prayer—daily conversations with God all day long—heaved forth like energetic blasts of hope. 

2017.11.26 Thanksgiving—A Love Sabbatical

On Thanksgiving day this year we celebrated our 31st wedding anniversary. That’s not such a big deal, but it’s not bad mileage for a second marriage, or for two Leos living under one roof roaring.

Today is Christ in Majesty (aka Christ the King, but that's too limiting) Sunday. We were married on this Sunday in our parish church during the Eucharistic liturgy, November 23, 1986.

We celebrate our anniversary and Thanksgiving every year in southern Maine. But isn’t that family time? Yes, and the gift we chose to give ourselves was some time just for us—time away from professional duties, home, and yes, from our very large extended blended exuberant family. 

Yes, we miss them, and yes we love them all. And yes, we always call them all. And yes we (I) have felt guilty. They in turn are relieved of having to manage the holiday to include one more family— besides their own, their in-laws’ and that of former spouses, not to mention any aunts, uncles or cousins— in the Thanksgiving rituals.

To ease my guilt about breaking tradition, being selfish or abandoning, or thusly accused, I told myself for years that it was good for our progeny that they didn’t have to worry about us—including us, or not, or where. Thanksgiving after all is only one day, not an easily moveable feast. That was my assumption, not necessarily their desire or convenience.

But this year I tell the truth without excuses. This love sabbatical from the beginning has been our choice, a mutual choice made, only in part to escape family chaos, but mostly for our own benefit. Oh, yes, we are retired now. And yes, we aren’t living geographically on top of most of our offspring. And yes, we are able to see some old friends living in Maine. And no, this isn’t where we honeymooned. And no, this sojourn is not a glamorous vacation or getaway. Our choice has little to do with these factors.

So why do we do this?

We do it because we like coastal Maine and wintry sea, and the little humble unglamorous Seaside Inn bed-and-breakfast with large rooms and teeny bathrooms, we have stayed at for years. We do it for quiet, to catch up on reading, to avoid the temptation of over-checking emails, texts, phone calls. We do it for memories. Mostly—truly, deeply, really— we do it for love. We do it so we can enjoy each other’s company—just the two of us. We do it so we can stay in love. I am grateful we have enough health and resources to nourish our love and marriage this way.

As always the poet best captures the value, both ultimate and temporal, of love.

THAT I DID ALWAYS LOVE

That I did always love
I bring thee Proof
That till I loved
I never lived - Enough -
That I shall love alway -
I argue thee
That love is life -
And life hath Immortality -
This - dost thou doubt - Sweet -
Then have I
Nothing to show
But Calvary -
        Emily Dickinson

2016.11.20 Gratitude

As this Thanksgiving week begins, I use this blog space to thank all of you who have read this blog over the years since I started writing it in October, 2008.  Whether you have commented or sent feedback or not, your presence is so very much appreciated—essentially invisible and boldly omnipresent at once. Thank you.

I am especially aware this year as the National Day of Thanksgiving approaches, how uneven the national mood is. That's not a new state of affairs, but it is our state of affairs right now, and frankly, does not lend itself to much open-hearted gratitude from any perspective—any at all.  

I invite you to join with me in a simple spiritual practice. Make a gratitude list. It is private and silent like a prayer, and yet it is potent like prayer, sending waves of uplifting energy out into the universe.

Your list can be simple or complex, elaborated or not, but get it going. The only suggestion is that your items be sincere. Add regularly to your list throughout the holiday season up to January 1, 2017—and beyond. The habit will grow in your soul, enriching you from within as it grows.

The voice of God is written in the heart of a prayer, psalm #50. When we give thanks we enter the soul of God.

     The only sacrifice I need is your gratitude . . .                    (Pam Greenberg translation)
     Whoever offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me . . . (Book of Common Prayer translation)

2015.11.29 What Moms Are For—Sometimes

Mom, how in hell do you do this?

Do what?  (A million anxious possibilities flooded my mind)

This wedding stuff. They don't want anything about God, or any of that stuff.

Well, you can pray without mentioning God. (A loosey goosey Anglican response if I ever heard one!) 
Check in with your Higher Power.

I’m calling you, Mom!  I looked at the profile of the two of us he'd put on my cell phone and laughed.

My son, Rob, had obtained his short-term, priest-for-a-day license to officiate at his wife’s brother’s wedding in California. He was legally all set, and suddenly that didn’t seem enough. I have to admit I grinned. What Mom "does" is not disrespected, though not easily grasped, by her four children, who are all smart enough to tell me that they only like church the way “you and Sim (their stepfather, my second husband and brother priest) do it.” But now Rob was faced with doing something churchy himself.

I listened, decided that, bidden or not, God would be there, gave him a few ideas he didn’t need, and invoked the contemporary credo: you can be spiritual and not religious.

Within a few days he sent me a text with his proposed service.  “Mom, Please review and pray for your son that he doesn’t flub this or fall off the cliff.”

(So now I could envision the romantic cliff-hanger wedding setting and my son on a windy bluff feeling nervous/shaky—a mother's dream!)

I’m proud to share the marriage liturgy he put togeher: the idea to call it a marriage liturgy came from me, adding an official-sounding descriptor.
                                                     * * * * * * *

Mark Twain said: “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the things you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover”

A lasting marriage will be one where you Explore, Dream and discover together!  My wife and I believe that a lasting marriage is also about laughter and friendship. Laugh at yourselves and each other often.

Be friends. Nietzsche said: "It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”

This is just a short poem I wrote for you about friendship, love and marriage.
                                   
You

You
who is always there
next to me in my
breathing space
gentle like precious and pure diaphanous lace.
    You
who holds me when I’m weakest
who congratulates me when
I’m strongest
You raise me up
and let the world know
I’m in the star you think is brightest
It is you I yearn to laugh with
to sit by the fire with
on those cool San Francisco nights
It is your profile I want to see
through the gap
in the kitchen door
in the twilight of evening
as you prepare supper
    You
It is you who will adventure with
me near and far
running the coast down beach
by beach
spending the day in wet swim suits
forgetting where our shoes are
    This is love.
    This is friendship
You who calls me randomly to
say hi, to say hello
I will forever be there to make you laugh
to make you smile as best I can
to quietly listen
when you vent or cry
to say thank you
    You
My dearest friend
                          
         © June, 2015, Rob Brakeman (robbrakemanpoetry.com)


"Pastor" Rob called after it was over, also sent a photo on iPhone of the happy couple, and himself looking appropriately pious, bowed head—and with a triumphant Rob grin: "I did it!"

I texted back: I love you. He replied: Thanks, Mom.

Is there a better mutual blessing than that to be thankful for?