2019.11.17 Transforming God

The age of anxiety is upon us—globally.

What DO we teach and tell our children? They are not immune to the talk and the worry in the air, on the air, all over the internet, in the corridors of locked-up-for-security schools. Civics courses teach the history and structure of government. They and are good and returning to classrooms, but what are we doing in religious settings? What are we hearing from pulpits? I hear good hope and Advent spirituality of light. Still we are in darkness nationally and internationally. I say and think to myself, “Fear not.”  Then I hear myself say, “Too late!” Then I laugh. It helps.

According to Mary Hunt, co-director of WATER (Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual): "Finally, since so many roots in injustice can be traced to a judging God, a Ruler King, lordship and dominance, we encourage a wholesale overhaul of religious images and symbols. Resistance to that work is the measure of its necessity. Imagine if common language about the divine were gender inclusive, better, not anthropomorphic at all. Consider what a creation story that puts plants and animals on the same plane as people would do for ecology. Think about ways to teach children that diversity and difference, not sameness and dominance are to be celebrated.” 

YES!

For my part, I write and nag and preach when I can about the God I have known and remember always, not just in church. Many people say they do not believe in God anymore. I ask them to tell me about the God they do not believe in. Answers vary, but mostly they use language like Mary Hunt has described above: THE ONE Almighty, King, Ruler, Judge, Sky-King, Super-Man, Lord-of-Lords, and the like. I do not think of chipmunks with such images. Nor do I think of the God I know, present in small wonders, silly memories, and laughter.

I go upstairs to give my beloved a quick hug. He has baked chocolate chip cookies. They are cooling on the countertop and smell deliciously delectably deliriously holy. Why holy? I remember that the voice of God sprouted within me while I was baking chocolate chip cookies for my children back in the 1970s and feeling Stepford-dead. God-in-me asked: “Why are you doing this?" I didn’t know. I laughed. I still don’t know. I remember. It helps.

My husband the chef points to a reunion notice from my college and says: “Hey, it’s your 70th reunion in 2020!” He’s excited. “Look, Lyn, look.”  I look and see that it says the 70th reunion for the Class of 1950 is 2020. I graduated in 1960. “How old do you think I am?”  We laugh. It helps.

Opening the mail to throw out most of it, I spot just one envelope addressed to me. Envelopes marked first class are rare. It’s an invitation with a festive wreath on it. It’s pretty. It’s a YDS (Yale Divinity School) Christmas party, December 6th. That would be my late maternal grandmother’s 147th birthday. I remember. It helps. The invitation has promise. I show it to my husband who says: “Why don’t they have it up here where you live? We could go.” We laugh. It helps. I snitch a cookie, and only then notice that the bottom side is black. I laugh. It’s good anyway.

Today a small grandchild, five, exuberantly tells me two things on the phone, immediately after saying "Hi": 1) “I WILL be stronger than Phoebe (his older sister). Yup, I will.”  2) “For Christmas I want Transformers. I build them myself. They come in a kit, Grammy.” I laugh. I tell him okay. He laughs. It helps.

Children—even the ones most deprived, most alienated, most discarded, most depressed—still, even at the youngest ages, have dreams and hopes and aspirations and memories.

Who or what made you feel loved, even just for a moment or in a small way? 

I google Transformers, toy. Sure enough they are build-your-own whatever. If you can figure it out, feel free. It’s harder to build-your-own anything when you’re 80 than when you’re 5 and building your whole life in a toy you know is a robot. I laugh. I remember. It helps. Here is a Transformer transformed.




Maybe we can rebuild God?  God, we are told, transforms things, even the worst of things like injustice, inhumanity, evil, collective anxiety—maybe even the climate. But can we transform our ideas and images of God?  Will we?

Yup, we will.

2014.03.16 Stalling Out?

I feel stalled out. Maybe it’s winter blues, or world and church systems run amok. More likely it’s personal disappointment because my consistent, persistent, persevering,very good efforts to get my little memoir published have not born fruit—yet. Plus, it's Saturday with nothing to do.

Thus, I feel like Alexander having his “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day” (1972 book by Judith Viorst)  I’m not a fourth grader like Alexander, therefore I’m having not one but a series of such days. Perfectly age-appropriate, no doubt, yet clever rationalization doesn’t get me out of the stall.

You know what it feels like when your car stalls out, right?  Suddenly you lose your GO-power. The stalling out phenomenon is worse in an airplane. I learned about it when, back in the 70s, I took a pinch-hitter course, learning how to fly a small plane. My then-husband was a pilot and owned a Piper Cub. He was an excellent and safe pilot, and I was confident I’d never have to pinch hit. The real reason I took the course was to write about the experience, and also get a photo of myself standing at the wing of a small aircraft—grinning. Those were my Brenda Starr Girl Reporter days on staff for a small local weekly newspaper—my first paid job ever.

My instructor talked a lot about stalling out, especially while taking off. I know little of aerodynamics but a stall on take off, he said, was more dangerous than a nose-down stall that could cause a tailspin.

Technically, a stall can be described thus:  Sufficient airspeed must be maintained in flight to produce enough lift to support the airplane without requiring too large an angle of attack. At a specific angle of attack, called the critical angle of attack, air going over a wing will separate from the wing or "burble" causing the wing to lose its lift (stall).

When the plane stalls on takeoff it feels as if it starts to slide backwards, hovering there, threatening to descend tail first.  In this image, the lower plane is in stall—like me just now.

A skilled pilot knows how to get out of a stall. My ultra-calm instructor was my co-pilot making sure I didn’t overdo the power trip, a big temptation, and stall out. I loved powering up—rising into the air. In a small plane you really feel, well, as if you yourself are a huge bird. 

But how do you "pilot" your life when a stall happens? I have no idea really. I hovered around for a while, doing nothing purposeful, moping. I gave God my worries, but not my aspirations. Were they too high? I had no idea.

So here’s what I did: I mopped the disgusting bathroom floor covered with winter grit; I went for a walk in 50 degree weather; I met a friend for lunch. She felt blah too, so we ordered pizza, one for each of us. I ate some bread before my pizza arrived. Really!  My friend was more sensible and restrained. We laughed a lot. Back home I ordered some new skinny jeans from a catalog because I’d punctured a small hole with my pointy fingernail in the ones I got for $20 at CVS. I called another friend who wondered if I were "too attached". I told her no, I’m sleeping and eating fine. I’ll detach tomorrow—maybe.

I marvel that the high point of days like this is enjoying a glass of wine in the evening with my husband and watching a British soap, like "Doc Martin"—the local doc in a tiny town in Cornwall.  Martin is perpetually ill-mannered and grumpy as hell—and we love him.

Writing about my stall-days helps. Godde knows why but I feel better just getting it out and onto a page.  Feel free to take it all on yourself but don’t feel too sorry for me. Hope and energy return slowly, like wind on wings. I remember this from other stall times in my life when I didn’t crash.

Behold!  The psalm reading for evening prayer was Psalm 138. I use Pamela Greenberg's translation. Verse 8 flew off the page and into my heart. The psalmist prays: If I walk into the thick of my sorrows, you keep me alive—against the wrath of my fears.

End of slumpy stall for today. I'm alive. Sadness and fear can't kill Soul.