2019.05.19 Invigoration

Last week I had two invigorating experiences—speaking experiences that sparked my soul and brought light to my eyes, and fire to my heart. I was tired when I went in all prepared and—my armor—but when I came out I was alive, awake, fired up not burned out. I was the principle speaker. But I was the speaker in words only.  My listeners supplied the heft, the spiritual energy, and the authentic Word. (I capitalize that to mean that I think God/Spirit was present in the connection—not the whole cause of it, but the true essence.)

Part I  The Young

On Tuesday I visited a college class,The Psychology of Spirituality, at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven. My oldest Granddaughter, Gillian Colbath, a SCSU graduate, had loved this class. The professor, Dr. Jessica Suckle-Nelson, aka Dr. S., had told me the class loved my talk last year, so I invited myself back. The seventeen twenty-something students wandered and straddled and finally assembled. They all sat along the edges or in the back of the classroom at lab table desks. I began: “This looks like church. Everyone sits way in the back or lines up along the side—as if you couldn’t be seen.” Everyone laughed. At ease.

Introductions with name, place, and serial number are always dry and boringly necessary. I invited each one to say something interesting about him or herself and simultaneously guaranteed that I wouldn’t remember any of their names. We laughed. Interesting things included being born with no pinkie knuckles, living in Greece for a year, playing three musical instruments well, feeling lost from a connection with religion or God, being agnostic but curious, and more. My own thing was: I am a wannabe Catholic, one-time Presbyterian, turned Episcopal priest—happily ever after, so far. I watched each face light up as each shared a mere snippet of what made them—them. No one balked. Analogically, I felt as if we all were baptized together in the gentle waters of the divine womb—all born together not of years, but by Soul.

I then invited them to go deep with apologias, not as an apology or regret, but as a way to say more about what mattered to them. Blank faces looked as if I were crazy. I even told them I had read the famous tract Apologia Pro Vita Sua written in 1864 by John Henry Cardinal Newman who converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism. Handsome sage, no?

Newman's work was like a spiritual memoir in defense of his controversial choice. His contemporaries freaked out, as people do when you push an already tight envelop wide enough to split its seams. I told the students I struggled through Newman’s famous work and didn’t understand a word. I did, however, get the idea that it was good to know what I was doing and why. And hey, Newman’s tract raised such a fuss it became a best-seller, is still in print, and  in time qualified him for sainthood. Don’t be afraid of yourself and the depth dimension of life, I suggested. There’s wisdom to be found. Newman's lasting goodies include:
    To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often
    Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a                 beginning.
    Growth is the only evidence of life.

I felt invigorated by the openness and curiosity of these young people, even though I did most of the talking and had to be reminded that I’d just gone over the magic hour of class dismissal. Graciously, they applauded and left. I hope the time was as nourishing for them as it was for me. Perhaps the greatest joy of the day was getting hugs and grins from Gillian, a beloved first granddaughter with the loveliest smile and personality I think I have ever seen.

Part II The Older

On Thursday I spoke to a group of about twenty older women on the topic: “Am I My Sister’s Keeper?". They are part of Women Explore, a group that has been meeting since 1953 to hear speakers and each other on the sacred dimensions of a woman’s life. Men were admitted so I brought my faithful beloved chauffeur/husband. He is my personal GPS without whom, well, I get lost.

With this group I had as much fun. They were all white proper Bostonians mostly from Cambridge, so I began with my own apologia: I am white, elite, went to elite schools, privileged, and cis-gendered. I’m also religious—not a very politically correct marker these days. I am also sick of being labeled and typed. I’m not consistently aware of my privileges, but I try, and trying is divine. I use my privileges for those closest to me in love, and I use them for larger causes like social justice. But I’m sick of being stereotyped for my labels. So add that I’m a woman impatiently aging and pissed. I swear this country would elect a newt or a dishrag before it would elect a woman as our president!  

Again, humor eased us all into a loaded topic. 

A focus speaker talked about her personal experience with the topic. She said she devoted herself to caring for others and posed questions about how much "is too much." She was trying to figure out the difficult answers on her own, a strategy that rarely works. She apparently had left herself off the list of those who also need her caring compassion.

I advocated for collective spiritual keepership and focused directly on the biblical story about two brothers, Cain and Abel, and the poignant extremes of sibling rivalry leading to the first murder + cover-up in the Bible. What we notice—when we wake up—is that God knows what Cain has done, is not pleased, exiles Cain, and then gives him a “mark” assuring him of God’s presence and his survival. Look always for the last word! Simply so.

The Bible remains, mysteriously, a best seller, because there is every human problem imaginable in it. Believe me: your own story is in there. The wonder of it is that there is a consistent relationship pattern of connection/disconnection/reconnection. Astonishingly, the people and God reconnect even after the worst possible messes. Often God initiates the reconnection, though sometimes we do in our prayers and with the graces of forgiveness, advocated by all spiritual gurus. 

Collective spiritual keepership means that we all are keepers of one another. Benefits include: non-partisan politics, fuel for our prayers, healing collective shame, efficient action, awareness enough to build mutual relationships, commitment to organizing for the common good, justice, equity, truth-telling, peace, energy enough to save our drowning planet, Mother Earth.

We live in a tragic time of renewed holocaust mentality: burnt offerings—guns burn, fires burn religious structures, kids in schools burn, tiny children burn with loss and terror. With the resurgence of white supremacy comes the supremacy of terrorism and holocaust as strategies of choice.

The women asked many questions. They burned with the fuel of longing for change, and for a new way of being people together. The young burned with the same energy. Such inner burning is not holocaustal. It is the fire of spirituality, burning within us. It is strong. It is alive. It is available. It is what connected the nuns and the “nones”, both fueled by the same activist energy, now working together for change. It is what fires up all religions. It’s what inspires Goodness, what Creator God started in the beginning. In today’s gospel Jesus re-reminds us to Love each other. Yes, and while you’re at it love yourself.

You may not believe in God, yet you can believe in the fire within you, and you can act with Love as its fuel. Love is the only fire vigorous and hot enough to burn out destruction by holocaust fires. Love will save us and our drowning planet. And, for Christians, it is the ONLY mission Jesus fired up.

And so may we try. 

2017.02.19 HIstory on Trial

Recently we watched an intriguing—also superbly well done—movie called “Denial.”  It sounds as if it’s about addiction or the common and dangerous psycho-emotional defense called denial, however that is only true secondarily. 

“Denial” in a 2015 film about a legal trial which took place in the UK in 1996 in which David Irving, an historical writer filed a libel suit against American history professor (Emory University) Deborah Lipstadt and her British publisher Penguin Books for publishing the British edition of Lipstadt’s book Denying the Holocaust, first published in the US in 1993. Lipstadt called Irving a Holocaust denier, falsifier and bigot, and said that he manipulated and distorted real documents. Irving fought back with the libel suit.

The fascinating dynamics of this trial are the subject of the movie. We have watched it twice, each time marveling at the intricacies of the British legal system in which the accused is guilty until proven innocent. In our American legal system the accused is innocent till proven guilty. This assumption has always seemed ethically right-minded to me, yet seeing another system work justice from such a different starting point kept me riveted—in awe and admiration really, especially watching the attorney and an on-high judge in all those top heavy white wigs.

Another difference is that the UK court has two attorneys, specialists, simultaneously at work representing one defendant. The solicitor is the attorney who, with a team of able trainees, researches the data on the case, gathering relevant data to use to prepare the case. The other attorney is the barrister—the one who actually tries the case in court. This latter is the one with sharp legal skills, a steel trap mind, eloquence and calm persuasive presence under stress.

These differences alone make this movie worth watching. What is on display at all times is the value of teamwork, each member, including the defendant herself, bringing individual gifts and passions to the same case for one purpose alone: to win.

Some of the questions raised seemed eccentric but are tragically relevant today: what IS a fact anyway? What IS history anyway?  What kind of data helps most to make a case without direct witness testimony? What is on trial in this movie is the integrity of history itself. How do we tell the truth, swear on Bibles to speak the facts and nothing but the facts, without slant? Is that even possible? What about perspective? What about perception? How do you prove that something happened you know happened but for which evidence, except human testimony, is scant if not absent?

David Irving, the plaintiff, claims to be a Hitler historian, having invested much effort in exculpating Hitler. Annoyed by Lipstadt’s book and her accusations against his manipulations of facts, Irving represents himself, claiming the Holocaust never happened.” He goes on to say: “Why more people died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy’s car in Chappaquidick than ever were killed in the Holocaust.”  He calls attention to the arrangement: he—as “David” (chosen of God of course)—stands alone, while she is surrounded by her team—the mighty Goliath. The visual is telling. The solicitor at one point quotes Goethe: “The coward only threatens when he feels secure.”

What needs to be proved is that Irving manipulated data that proved that Auschwitz was “a killing machine.” And further, that he did not make honest mistakes of commission or omission in his own case against the historicity of the Holocaust, but that he deliberately falsified data in support of his own antisemitic bias. Freedom of speech is a human right. Lying is not. Neither, for that matter, is hate speech.

Lipstadt is aware throughout of her intense desire to have a voice, to exercise her conscience. It is all she has besides her own scholarly research. She is an historian, a Jew, and a woman in pursuit of justice. She wants the voice of suffering to be heard. She wants this hearing desperately, desperately, but not enough to go insane. She keeps her stability in part by running. She runs a regular route through the city, stopping before a large statue of Boadicea—both to lament and to thank. Boadicea was a woman who led a Celtic tribal uprising against Roman occupation in the middle of the first century in the British isles.  Lipstadt could be a modern Boodicea—well, an American one. 

It was painful for me, as a woman with a Jewish grandfather, to watch Lipstadt’s silencing. It made me cry, as well, to see the tender sensitivity with which the older barrister persuaded  her that silence was the best strategy: “Stay seated. Button your lips. Win by an act of self-denial. What feels good is not always what works best,” he tells her.

And then he persuades her that Irving would relentlessly mock the testimony of survivors and outdo the intelligence of jurors unschooled in their history. This case will be decided by a single judge, another piece of a brilliant strategy.  Lipstadt’s superior intelligence kicks in and she knows her lawyer is right. It helps that he is also kind and humble, because one needs these qualities to cement relational trust and hold it secure. 

There is no gore or grim torturous scenario with screams in this movie. It is silent horror. The view of miles and miles, or so it looked, of millions of shoes gathered and left in caged enclosures at Auschwitz, was witness enough. A necessary visit to Auschwitz was part of the barrister's investigation. He had never been there. He carefully walks the bounds and stands to stare at the empty chambers. “This is what I do,” he says. “It’s forensics. How could Auschwitz be just another brief.”

Small details, which are many and carefully orchestrated, make this case. It is often said that the devil is in the details. I think it is more often that God is in the details. “We will box him in with the truth.”

Dick and I were very silent watching this film—twice. Gratefully so in fact. No one got up to get more cookies. We were stunned into awe—not a bad thing at all. It’s not as if we needed the outcome which was obvious really. But we needed the process, the process of viewing history on display and watching its integrity speak for itself by the skill and passion and yes, appetite for good, that motivated the principals.

Oh, did I not relive the trial of Jesus as it is told in the New Testament gospels? I know it by heart and I do not know it at all. The elements were all there in this trial: loud and quickly changing crowds, glacial deliberations, clever questioning, prayers, terror, a clear portrayal of injustice, and then the pungent question right in the middle of it all posed by Pilate to Jesus: What is truth? 

I think I have always wondered about Jesus’s silence, saying I understood it, refusing to accept any stupid ideas that God planned it this way, but really not fully understanding it at all. Seeing such a precarious legal strategy, which could as easily have failed as succeeded,  in which a people’s integrity was at stake, was daunting. Would the discipline of history done honestly prevail? 

2012.06.24 Israel With Love

The Anglican College of St. George’s in E. Jerusalem organized this pilgrimage according to themes from Jesus’ live as recorded in the New Testament and many Old Testament stories related to biblical sites and history as well.

It is hard to separate, if one even should or can, culture from religion.

Because of the pace of things, on the move non-stop every day, and the overwhelming range and amount of input, read stimulation, I have no time even to know what I have seen. 

It gives me an idea what it must have been like for Jesus, on the go and in the rush of his important mission to change the hearts and minds of his people. As a radical god-man confronting the establishment he must have imagined he’d have little time before authorities would silence him forever— or not.

There are 18 “pilgrims” on this course, The Palestine of Jesus.  We come from USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.  Most are clergy.  The few laypeople, however, are more fervent:)  We are men and women about equally.  We are on the older side, therefore representative of the progressive Christian church in general.   We do have our token male seminarian who is in his 20s and who receives a bit too much mothering I’d say :)

It will be no surprise to most of you that Dick and I are out of step, not quite embracing the same brand of Christianity and theology as others.  But we are here!

The course is organized around different biblical themes and places each day:  The Holy City; Nativity with special emphasis on holy women; Living Waters (including float in Dead Sea, Jacob’s Well)—water is survival here in the desert and water is power; Qumran and Masada, the last painful gasp of the Jewish rebellion and attempt to hold onto their land and sovereignty; Galilean Ministry of Jesus, including ministry of Israel’s prophets; “Who am I for you?” Jesus asks along the way (some of us may be secretly as clueless as the first followers;) Golan Heights, West Bank, water sources for Jordan River ( not deep and wide); wade and renew our baptismal vows in Jordan; boat ride on Sea of Galilee; Mt. Tabor to be transfigured—does our divinity shine through as Jesus’ did?—dimly on occasion I guess; “Jesus Wept!”—spiritual and political streams in Jesus’ day and no wonder he wept, still weeps; Mt. Zion and Garden of Gethsemane; “ Am I my brother’s guardian!” Visit to Yad Vashem ( holocaust museum) in Jerusalem;  visits to Jewish “settlements” in West Bank, Bethlehem of Ephrata; visit to Palestinian refugee camp also outside Bethlehem; Patriarchs & Matriarchs” tombs in Hebron; and we will finish up as Jesus did, more or less, with Church of Resurrection, Holy Sepulchre and walking the way of the cross (stations established in approximate locations) down Mt. of Olives and into the temple area and Calvary where crucifixion took place. I hope that cross doesn't weigh too much!

AND FINALLY THE ROAD TO EMMAUS on which none of us would recognize Jesus with us I bet—unless of course we picked up a whiff or two of his presence in each other.

Having the topography that is approximate to Jesus’ travels is very helpful  There is little doubt among scholars that he was an historical figure and that his place of operations was Israel. The general areas where biblical events happened is known. The exact spot of each one is not known.   That is enough for me. I don’t need to know X marks the spot, only that X likely happened somewhere in this region. 

A few highlights:
    -Gethsemane, which means olive press, has olive trees that are 1880 years old—gnarled and bent they still yield fruit. Hope for aging.
    -open field near mikvah baths on Mt Zion used by Essenes who bathed twice daily for purification as the Sons of Light (no daughters) and  where Pentecost and Lord’s Supper might have taken place. There was no church in this area, hence……... no RC mass going on, no singing charismatic or pentecostal groups, no endlessly wordy Anglican prayers, and no gawking American tourists scantily clad, and no trash.
    -Quote on wall at Yad (remember) Vashem (names), holocaust museum:  “Now is the time to sanctify life, not the time to sanctify God’s name through death…” Ponder this. I forgot the rest as we could take nothing into the museum, but the sense of it was encouragement to Jews in holocaust to have hope in life and to choose it and not to glorify death, especially such a death as befell them—and many others throughout history. The deadly drumbeat of sin goes on and on. I thought of words of God to the people in Deuteronomy: I have set before you life and death , good and evil...choose life that you may live…”
    -Palestinian man , age 24, Hamse, spoke to us in the refugee camp where he was born. Conditions are miserable, yet the will to live lives on.  Hamse is studying psychology and social work in a university in the camp but he is afraid to graduate because where can he go?  Future thinking is dim but education brings some hope, and prayer.  “I’m afraid to die before to do something, to leave a print for me.”  God/Allah?  “I know Allah when inside myself I choose the good way and pray a lot.” 
    -a survivor of holocaust spoke of how at age 7 she crawled over dead bodies and got out of the pit (mass grave) she was supposed to be buried in.  “They shot. We were supposed to fall into the pit. They missed some of us.”
    -The new Dean of St. George's Cathedral here, Hasam Naoum, the first Palestinian Christian to fill this post, told us that, because of all the many and confused identities and fears of loss of identities in this land, it was a time to strive for justice and equality. BUT not to strive so hard for justice that you lose sight of mercy and compassion, two spiritual virtues that are even more necessary just now.

So........ how may people have died for us? Jesus is not alone. Many have died at the hands of others or by their own as martyrs or in despair.  They die. They are remembered as signs that we must work to help each other retrieve the spiritual side of our human nature.

Yad vashem. Remember a name.

Every day is “Jesus wept” day.