2026.04.19 AH, SUCH FOOLS WE CAN BE! Spiritual Lemons, blog post

Do we live now in an age in which the search for authority figures to help us thrive happens in a world almost too swiftly changing to read? 

*  * *  *

The Holy Bible, frankly, remains my own best source of truth, imaginative or factual. It has been around for centuries, and has many writers and multiple ideas, and many translations, revisions.  It starts: “In the beginning……” and I hold my breath. Do I want a version of truth or do I want a vision of possible truth?  Or am I just too old at 87  and a retired Episcopal priest? My husband loves me but he has all the same quests and questions, as do my relatives and colleagues. Tears blur my eyes and, yes, clutch at my heart.

Without reason or thought, the prophet Ezekiel comes vividly to my mind. I’ve always loved those elderly, aka ageless, prophets who speak with fierce authority. I imagine an ancient old guy in flowing robes who stands in the wind and rants. He’s a lunatic everyone says, and yet crowds gather, just to see, in case. . .  

Ezekiel talks about a valley of bones, brittle, dry and useless in death. But this prophet remained sure that all these dry bones would suddenly spring into life. I listen into the silence of my imagination. I stand up and grab my walker, walk about the room, look out the window. Everywhere there is no one. Suddenly the ranting of the prophet tells their bones to live. Is he also talking to my osteoporotic old bones? 

It doesn’t matter. I’m crying. I feel my elbows, my knuckles, wrists, fingers, on down to my ankles, feet and toes. I’m too old to kneel but I do kneel anyway, right down in front of my home altar table. I’m facing an aging crucifix. Jesus is on a cross, just hanging there like a jerk, one hand gone, the other limp. Nevertheless, Ezekiel’s words ring loud, screeching. My tears fall, until I sob. Save me.

*  *  *  *

Years ago when I went regularly on silent retreats at Mercy Center, I would visit their chapel late at night. I would kneel there, pour out my heart-prayers, and stare up at a large non-traditional crucifix created over twenty years ago by Sister of Mercy, Mary Daly. Instead of the drooping crucified dead body of Jesus, there is a huge and beautiful rose. How lovely, and loving, and beautiful.

*  *  *  * 

Time shifts and I’m back at my computer. I glance upward and there, taped to the wall, my own version of that crucified rose—thorns of my own life’s journey and all my hopes in one image with one message: I am a rose. You are too. We two rise.

 

2026.01.04 WHAT'S NEW? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

The National Geographic honors this season and this new year, 2026, by paying attention to one central question: What do all our usual, even cherished, expectations and traditions mean in the midst of what I’d call just the right amount of excessive CHANGE? 

It is not enough to rebuild everything to get it all back the way it was, especially in the face of soul-shattering events like mass murders, raging rampant fires, wars waged in the name of PEACE, murders of young children in schools, and the politics of racism in the name of divine LOVE?  

We have to build back better using community resilience and, yes, simple lovingkindness, a word I learned as a very young child in my Sunday School class. This combined with exciting stories in the Bible, a book all about people getting into trouble and other people helping them out for no reason except lovingkindness. There was no “principal’s office” to send me to, so lovingkindness stuck to my soul—and stayed.  

*  * * *  

The Rev. Grace Park, associate pastor of Pacific Palisades Presbyterian church, lauds the faithfulness of her congregation. In spite of the destructive fire that destroyed their entire building, they stayed together. Where to meet? They borrowed other people’s buildings and Lo! Divinity was still there, like any good traveling salesperson should be.

Still, what does it mean to be church when you do not have your own building? That is what The Pacific Palisades people kept asking. To rebuild would cost $20 million. This sum was unmanageable. They kept talking and worrying about the future. In the rubble was a photograph, taken by Gideon Mendel, of a bible fallen open, to the Book of Job.

Church is about people, not pews and books and a script, not even a proper denominational title to claim as a name. It is about people gathered together to focus on lovingkindness—everywhere, for everyone, at all times, no matter what!!!  

We Voted. WE.

WE, this United States of America,  just voted on its next President, former vice president Joe Biden. We have voted in record numbers—yes, to a man, no, to another man/incumbent; yes, to a Democrat, no to a Republican; yes to the first woman/first black/first daughter of immigrants as vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, no, to an arch-conservative evangelical Christian vice-president/incumbent; yes, to a measured inclusive style of leadership, no to an authoritarian leader of excess. The voting went smoothly and deliberately. Every single vote was counted with care, efficiency, and I’d say with love for democratic process.

This is a lot of change at once—qualitative change. It’s easy to analyze the many whys and evaluate the numbers according to partisan politics and differing cultures. It’s easy to observe all the celebratory festivities on television screens, and easy to feel the general mood of those gathered to celebrate—HAPPY, simply happy. Fringes of discontent were likely present but went unnoticed. It is less easy to discern the larger picture—the deeper meaning of this historic vote—after all the minute statistical details that have provided exactitude are cleared away.

President-elect Joe Biden praised the cheering crowds, saying, as former President Obama did, “Yes, we can!” He added his hope for America now: “Lead by the power of our example not by the example of our power.”  

Further: We are the united States, not the red and blue states. Let us put away harsh rhetoric, marshal the forces of decency. Everyone needs a fair shot, just a fair shot. Let the moral arc of the universe move towards justice. It is now a time to heal, to mend, to love, as the biblical Ecclesiastes says.  Biden promised to be a unifier. He has the experience, the intelligence, the character and the personality to keep that promise. Specific plans are in the works to create teamwork and conversation.  This man knows how to cross the aisles. Good thing, because this was a close election in which Republicans did well and Democrats did well. Good for the whole.

Some of my own thoughts about broader, deeper meanings, especially those with racial implications:  
    -Partisanship itself is racist, because whites historically identify with one party, Republican, and blacks with the other, Democrat. I am not a blue person, and my favorite color is red. Blacks voted in high numbers this year. HOPE.
    -Whites are blind to the racial implications of party politics, mostly because they are concerned with what is happening with their money, taxes, and their classist lifestyle, safely bound to “whiteism”. Paying taxes is one way I contribute to that “fair shot” for all .
    -COVID is also racially tinged, mostly because black people suffer more from poverty and limited access to adequate healthcare benefits or good insurance benefits. This President-elect will immediately set up a diverse task force  just to focus on the best ways to eliminate a killer virus that knows no politics, no race, no gender, no creed.  
    -Reliance by the media on polls that assess political opinion and predict outcomes can also be racially tinged, because white college educated people respond to polls bringing their own biases, and black people are often not poll-responsive. Poll-driven statistics demand instant responses i.e., pick a detail, ask a question, and then expect a brief response.
    -American culture, it has been said, is anti-intellectual. This doesn’t mean that people are not intelligent, but that they are conditioned—by advertising, social media, i-phones, and many social media devices that provide instant stimulation and instant communications—to expect, if not demand, instantaneity. Deep and broad thinking accompanied by much conversation, listening, and exchange of ideas, is not a high cultural value. We live in a Skinnerian world of stimulus and response.
    -Religious fundamentalism contributes to this mindset. It is very selective about which texts one should live by in order to please God—and the local congregation. It discourages individual spirituality and exploration of biblical texts through prayer and the gentle guidance of spiritual direction.

The late Dorothy Day (1897-1980), convert to Roman Catholicism, activist, and founder of The Catholic Worker Movement, speaks of a politics for going forward in this Beatitude Kingdom we here call the United States of America. Day in 1934.

 

“What we would like to do is change the world — make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute — the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words — we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever-widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.”

Dorothy Day admired America's efforts to take responsibility through the government, but ultimately felt that charitable works were personal decisions that needed the warmth of an individual. I’d say we need the best of both at work together. Day said: “My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the Psalms.”

So does my own. Today’s morning prayer Psalm 96 (translated by Pamela Greenberg) begins:

“Sing out to God a new song
sing to God, all the earth.

And ends:

You will judge all people of the world justly,
all nations with steadfast truth.

By this I remember to honor each day with a new song—or mood—and to remember that there is only ONE JUST JUDGE—and it’s not me, or you, or even us.

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

2017.09.10 On Change—A Wee Parable

In between aimless transportations of soul— letting myself get lost in the vast expanse of sea, sky, and white sparkling sand of summer— I ground myself in reading. I’ve been reading Richard Holloway’s A Little History of Religion. It is structured in short chapters organized to present, one by one, the story of all the world's religions in historical order. How little I knew. My favorite chapter is our Anglican one of course, “The Middle Way”—how England’s church reorganized itself after the Reformation.

Holloway, former primus of the Church of Scotland now retired and admittedly disillusioned with religion, offers some wisdom, gleaned as a young student from a church history lecturer who began his course with a parable. 

“You have a wee son and he’s been out playing with his pals. When he comes home at bedtime his face is filthy, covered in mud from the fields he’s seen playing in all day. When you see the state he’s in, what should you do? You have three options. You can send him to bed as he is and lay his dirty wee head down on your clean pillow case. You can chop off his head. This would get rid of the mud certainly, but you’d kill him in the process and no longer have a son. Or you could give him a bath and clean him up before tucking him in for the night.”

These three choices signal: continuity with no change; change with no continuity; or continuity with some change. The16th century English church chose option three— not to get rid of the established Church altogether, but simply to wash its face, clean up the grime, and go forward with a new Book of Common Prayer and a broader view of authority i.e. no Pope.

In the wake of a successful effort to raise capital in our local parish, there is money, and with money comes opportunity and many decisions—all meaning change. Change could mean change in attitude, change in priorities, change in traditional ways of making decisions, both personal and communal, change in personnel as needed, change of heart, and God forbid, a change in theology, the way we understand God, including words we use to speak about God.  Shivers!

No wonder most of us fear change. Today many of us fear continuity about as much as change.

I have chosen to be an Episcopalian, choosing the "middle way" as much as I can and embracing brave change with some continuity. It’s always messy and always a blessing at once. But this kind of change, ironically, grounds me more deeply in continuity.

Raimundo Panikar ( 1918-2010) Spanish Roman Catholic priest, scholar of comparative religion, and proponent of inter-religious dialogue, puts it the way:  “I left Europe for India as a Christian, and I discovered I was a Hindu and returned as a Buddhist without ever having ceased to be Christian.”

2016.07.03 All Things New

It seems fitting that on this weekend when we celebrate the anniversary of the birth of our nation, we should celebrate all things new–and the possibility thereof. Our country calls for e pluribus unum. We keep losing sight of either the unum or the pluribus. Does our religion?

In our present world we are challenged to integrate the pluribus as we adjust to pluralism, now the  norm of oneness—for both cultures and religions. How to keep the old and integrate the new to make a new whole? 

Change is upon us, nation and church. So is fear. Still, what sets us free will also make us whole—especially if it hurts everyone along the way.

There’s nothing wrong with Christianity’s essential vision of goodness in the whole. Do you need to go to church to live good and loving lives, to see divinity in everything? Do you need to believe in God to live these values? Apparently not. Apparently.
   
Some things I know from experience about change and making things new:
      It hurts. You can’t change without contention, conflict.
      You can’t change by staying within a rigid status, or by silent striving in prayer.
      Change doesn’t happen by staring at our own reflection, like Narcissus. Outside perspectives are necessary, even if it means  systemic stress.That’s how the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team found new energy to expose the deeply-rooted scandal of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. The team was embedded in that culture and couldn’t see far enough beyond it to question it enough. A new editor could see the whole. They followed his lead. Jesus wasn’t new to his culture and religion; nor were the prophets of Israel. They just sounded new because they issued a recall which led them back to the basics: what you hate do not do to your neighbor—any neighbor.    
      Change requires new thinking, deep reflection by a core group who work together to make plans, get honest, and listen to outside voices.
      Change requires patience, hope, humor, prayer, true grit, and the grace of God.
      Change requires recognition that what we believe reflects what we pray as much as what we pray reflects what we believe.
      Change awakens minds, hearts and actions. Why change? To live.
      Change requires a mantra of encouragement, such as that spoken about the biblical Esther by Massachusetts Bishop Barbara C. Harris:
                           She used what she had to do what she had to do.

I was recently inspired by an approach to change and making things new from the secular world. Matthew Teitelbaum, the new director of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, offers a vision for the future and a practice of quiet innovation—gradual change without operatic drama. Teitelbaum is a Canadian art historian, born in 1956 in Toronto. His vision for the MFA is one of diversification in funding and audience. (See “The Art of Innovating Quietly” by Malcolm Gay, Boston Globe, June 26, 2016.)
Many Christian churches are facing change and innovation for the sake of a lively future. Survival is not enough. Here are a few things to consider from Teitelbaum’s approach.

    Experiment. Just try something new. For example Teitelbaum, instructed his curator to “Put the Monet here.” Usually the most famous of impressionist painters would get his own gallery, be showcased as the prize. The newly installed Monet gallery is a “preposterously gorgeous space that radiates with the collective glow of some 20 freshly hung works.” It covers the artist’s whole career in its historical context. Works are installed in a gallery with other artifacts of the era, furniture, other impressionist paintings and sculptures on pedestals that make them all at eye level. All of it together tells the story of one artist’s evolution and an era. We knew something was different; some things had been put together that would not traditionally be juxtaposed. The expansive effect was praiseworthy.
This is what diversity accomplishes. It’s also what divinity accomplishes as we evolve.
    Look, no, examine, everything the museum does: admissions, hours, café menu prices, food served, exhibits, permanent collection and passing exhibits and their interface.  EVERYTHING.  Why? To discern what makes all kinds of people feel welcome. The church must do the same. What can be done differently? What will we vary in our liturgy? Our theology? Do we tell the whole story? Jesus didn’t just die for us.There’s more to the story.
    Diversify.  The demographic of the MFA is diverse, but its audience is mostly educated white people. In our recent visit we observed this truth. But this is a museum for ALL Boston people and beyond. There is the art of the world here! Whom do we serve? It’s a crucial question. Can world and local demographic be served at once?        
   Afford.  “We have to diversify our revenue and our audience—the two are connected,” Teitelbaum said. Financial health and audience growth are primary.
    Ask. Do we retire debt quickly or fund it over a longer time? Debt must not be crippling or a balanced budget an idol.
    Risk. Discern what and why and how. The two most besetting problems for small churches now are stewardship and welcoming/attracting new people. Is a church too homogeneous? Who feels welcome here, as if they belong?—more than a smile and some food.  Is there something that speaks to the experience of diverse groups? Many churches are about as diverse as the museum, which is not diverse at all.
    Go beyond. Who lives beyond our doors? What do they value? What do they need? What do we have to give? In the church, deacons are ordained to help make these connections.
    Ask. Think. What MUST change? What must NOT change? And why?
    Refrain from rank-ordering gifts.  “  . . .the European work is not higher than the African work.”  Is that not a gospel value? Teitelbaum takes advantage of the museum’s whole collection, sparing none. His motto is: Bring it all on. Is it too much? Is it junky? Go see for yourself.
   
I return to the Monet collection. I love impressionist art, because the farther away you stand from the paintings the clearer the images become. It gives perspective. The same is true of an era, or a religion. Monet is the prize, showcasing depth in the midst of what is temporary. Is that not what we want to do with the unconditional grace Jesus embodied?—permanence, eternality in the midst of what is passing—and all of it lives together in the one gallery, just as all living things thrive in one cosmos. Is that not what makes scripture holy: that the divine Word is embedded in the many human words and voices, so the whole reflects the divine image? Does God not love it all deeply and equally? It’s humanity that labels things good and bad, of God and not of God.

Teitelbaum is helping the MFA create a brilliant and engaging mix. Can the church of Jesus Christ do the same? Put Christ here and here and here. How many stories are in Christ’s? Everywhere you turn there is the face of Christ when we make all things new within the old.