2020.01.12 The God Between Us. A Spirituality of Relationships

I had this idea some years ago: we think that the space in between us is empty, but it is really crackling with energy. That energy pulls for connection. That energy is the one Christians call Holy Spirit. That energy is like an electric current. I call it the God Between, pulling for healing, healing with which we can cooperate should we chose to trust it. I wrote about my idea.

The God Between connects us through Word and Sacrament, through a tiny blade of green grass, through the grin of a child, over distances our bodies cannot traverse but for which our souls deeply yearn.  

When I met with couples for counseling, I invited them to focus on their relationship, the space between them, the space we called their relationship, a relationship on which each depends for spiritual nourishment  How do they take care of its life, tend it?  I’d tell them: “Your relationship is the client/patient here. We are here together to examine the relationship." They’d either flee, thinking me insane, or become creatively involved, with me and their trust in God, in examining what each one brought to the shared space between them: regular rage? icy cubes? nothing?A relationship into which each one dumps constant anger, for example, begins to look like roadkill—malnutritious, if not downright toxic to all parties.

To my delight, my current publisher has just brought my out-of-print 2001 book, The God Between Us. A Spirituality of Relationships, back into circulation. It contains midrash stories based on biblical relationships. It is available on Amazon or from publisher, Wipf and Stock. What others said:

""This work is absolutely unique, and potentially radically transformative for any reader who takes its premise to heart. Rev. Brakeman proposes a way of listening to biblical narrative. . . that brings the contemplative reader a fresh awareness of how the divine is present to us in the 'between' of vital human relationships."" --John McDargh, PhD, Boston College, Department of Theology
 
""A skilled weaver of stories, Lyn Brakeman offers a creative and challenging approach to the Great Mystery of divine and human love. Her use of words is lively and disarming. . .her refreshing perspective on familiar biblical stories draws the reader into unexpected depths. There is much in this book for prayer and pondering."" —Margaret Guenther, author of The Practice of Prayer
 
""Lyn Brakeman is without a peer as an imaginative wordsmith in making biblical characters come alive in the fullness of their humanity while wrestling with powerful issues that are of contemporary concern. By her poetic description and beautifully crafted dialogue, she captures the loving truths of interpersonal relationships and human struggles amidst the presence of the God Between Us.”"—Merle Jordan, ThD, AAPC Diplomate, Emeritus Professor of Pastoral Psychology at Boston University School of Theology, Author of Reclaiming Your Story: Family History and Spiritual Growth. (Sadly, Professor Jordan died in 2018)

2016.04.24 The Ultimate Value of Memory

When an old shipwrecked memory emerges to shove its prow into my mind without warning, my heart leaps in recognition. A rush of thoughts and feelings follow.

I’ve wondered if this process was the same for biblical writers. The Bible is one of the most complex, diverse, and complicated memoirs I’ve ever read. All the authors of the New Testament must each have experienced strong and insistent memories—over and over— of being in Jesus’s presence. Then they had collective experiences that swept them off their feet. I’m sure they compared and debated and shared. It took them over 20 years of talking and remembering, and talking some more, selecting, and praying to get Jesus Christ written into gospel form.

My memoir over all took about that long to compile and write and revise and edit—over and over. The structuring process itself was transformative, especially deciding what to leave in and what to leave out, and why, or why not. Written or not written, the memories keep on coming.

Like today, I was sewing a button on my winter coat and my maternal grandmother surfaced. I saw her clearly, her mouth filled with straight pins clinging to her lips for dear life. (The sharp end faced in!) Both her hands were occupied fussing to smooth the fabric, readying it for her straight pins.When she had it plumb and flattened to her satisfaction, she held it down with one hand and with the other plucked a pin from between her lips and inserted it into the fabric to hold her seam in place. She repeated this action many times over—swiftly.

I watched in awe, fearful that one day she would surely swallow a pin. Mesmerized and held in the grip of this dangerous drama, I didn’t move a muscle, though I was itching to ask how she did this? Terrified to interrupt her for fear she would swallow a pin, or several pins, or all the pins, and then we’d have to rush off to the hospital. She might even die—and somehow it would be my foolish fault, or it might be so adjudged.

And how in the world did she manage always to have just the right number of pins in her mouth By the time she decided to use the Singer, invented in 1850 by Isaac Singer, and mass-produced by 1863 so it could be sold to housewives for $10. My grandmother was already an accomplished seamstress. The Singer was the first machine able to sew continuously and also around curves, revolutionizing the art of sewing—but not real stitching, my grandmother said. When she stitched by hand she looked to my young admiring eye to be faster than the machine.

This grandmother, whom I'd named Ga when I was a child, was very close to my mother, her youngest and fourth child, and our family. Ga grew up Marguerite Gordon Hall in Medford, Massachusetts. She eloped at eighteen with her beloved, Avon Franklin Adams, a Jewish impresario, whom she married in New York City in 1891. The Halls of Medford did not approve of this marriage. Nevertheless, the couple settled in Manhattan and had a family.

I can’t say I was fond of Ga, although I coveted her attention. When my younger sister Laurie was born Ga made it a project to make sure Laurie got enough attention, fearing that my mother would favor me. Result: Ga favored Laurie and I was the one who felt slighted. Ah, dynamics!

Ga gave me two miraculous gifts:
     1) She created an entire wardrobe for my doll Lucille, must of it meticulously hand-stitched, including a Queen of Hearts costume, just like the one she made for me to wear to a costume party. The costume exactly replicated the playing card. I was small and shy and far from queenly, but the costume pulled it off for me that day. I won first prize for the most original costume.
    2) Watching Ga, I learned to sew and conquer my fears of being pricked or crunching a fabric beyond recognition.  She was not patient with my mistakes, like sewing a zipper perfectly—into the hemline of a skirt. But I learned, and in time I had as many pins in my mouth as she did. I made the bridesmaids dresses for my sister Jeanie’s wedding.  They were white velvet. Believe me, velvet is a fabric that shows no mercy to a seamstress.

Writing memoir is like piecework, as Ga called intricate stitching and piecing odd patterns of fabric together. That’s how I imagine the Bible was put together. There is only one purpose: to faithfully and honestly reveal the relationship between God and Godde’s creation, including the annoyingly persistent relational pattern of connecting, disconnecting and reconnecting, particularly endemic to humanity.  Some people call it sin and redemption. I call it the work of the Holy Spirit, whose energy works the between spaces in relationships pulling for healing.

The Mystery of this process is the re-connection. And with Godde it never fails.

2012.05.27 Darling, It's Pentecost!

My parents used to call each other “darling” all the time. I suppose each generation has its own terms of endearment.  Ours tends towards “Hon,”  or others too fierce to mention :)  One of my sons slipped and called me “Babe” once—what he calls his wife, and she him.  “Sweets” is another favorite. And I also like “Sweetie darling.” I picked that one up on the media.

My former French Jesuit spiritual director used to suggest that we use terms of intimacy for Godde.  I chose Beloved.  But I think Darling would work for the Holy Spirit, that expression of divine affection who is mobile, planting seeds of love, healing,  and connecting all hearts for goodness’ sake.

That's what Pentecost celebrates, the intimate affectionate travelocity of Godde. (I mean what good is a deity who doesn't get around?) The season of the Spirit is the longest one of the Christian church year.  

I wrote a book about this Spirit called The God Between Us. But I think another good title would be, “Here I Am, Darling.” 

A propos of darling, I read this story in the British actor Judi Dench's memoir "and furthermore."  She writes of a time when she, as a very young (early 20s) Shakespearean actor, was given the part of Juliet in R & J.  They played it at the Old Vic in London and her parents came to every performance, in fact came to all of her performances.  Judi as Juliet had a very poignant line in the context of feeling quite young and quite lost. She turned to her nurse and said, with great pathos, "Where are my parents, Nurse?"  And her own father overcome by it all called out loudly,  "Here we are, darling, in row H."

Good acting. Good dad. Good humor.  Good Spirit.

Dench adds that people don't believe her when she tells this story and writes:  "But I assure you it is quite true." Who could doubt?

Dontcha  just love the Spirit!! What a darling Great Connector.