2025.10.26 I KNOW NOT WHAT TO SAY. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

One of my sons called yesterday to tell me that one of his frat brothers had just received a fatal diagnosis. Nothing to do? Nothing more to do? No more treatments?  No more specialists. 

Nothing? 

Nothing.

I lost my voice and envisioned my son with all his frat brothers gathered round their brother, all crying together. They got together every year to laugh and catch up. This year they cried. 

I called my husband to tell him, and we cried on each other's shoulders and remembered sleepless nights of worry. 

I remembered.

My son called back to say: "Mom, also pray— just in case. . . . ."

2025.04.06 Prayer Journaling. Lyn G. Brakman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

🙏🙏🙏

The writer Flannery O’Connor started a prayer journal when she was a young student about twenty. She began a journal of prayers, addressed to God. In it, she wrote: "I do not mean to deny the traditional prayers I have said all my life; but I have been saying them and not feeling them. My attention is always very fugitive. This way I have it every instant. I can feel a warmth of love heating me when I think & write this to You." 

She kept her prayer journal for two years, then dropped it, calling her Soul “stupid and slothful”. “Dear Lord please make me want You .”  “I am a cheese, make me a mystic immediately.  .  .  .  Her Soul  “wants the God who made heaven and earth, to be its Lover. Immediately.   .  .  .   She judges herself and her writing as a “sham” and ends up feeling “very far away from God. He might as well not have made me.  .  .  .  Today I have proved myself a glutton — for Scotch oatmeal cookies and erotic thought. There is nothing left to say of me." That was the end of the prayer journal.

Reading this was very sad. I too kept a prayer journal. When I was on a silent directed retreat I was able to let go of all judgments and, “egg up” (like puke) some coherent wisdom and deep emotions I had kept hidden.

The first time I took a weeklong silent retreat at a monastery in the 1980s, I felt like a religious hotshot. Solitude — no crockpot, no squabbles, no traffic — was mine. Within 24 hours, I became furious. Why was no one speaking to me? Why were they all so rude — monks, nuns, and everyone? Be patient. Wait for God? Baloney, I thought. 

I felt helpless and alone. I wrote letters of rage and sorrow to God. Slowly, a surge of safety and truth, wrapped in silence, rose up inside me. I met my self. 

Alone but not lonely. 

2024.11.24 CONFINING DIVINITY? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

Most spiritual/religious groups have naming ceremonies for those newly born or for those later choosing to be a member of that group. Naming rituals are usually celebratory and happy. They vary according to the customs of each group. BUT ALL of them matter because we all need to know we belong and that we matter. 

*  *  *  * 

NOW comes trouble! How dare we presume to name, and worse, describe and define Divinity? 

In my younger growing years I assumed God was Catholic. Later, I assumed God was Father, then Son, then Holy Spirit, then Catholic!  Each tradition establishes its own vocabulary to define, describe, and yes, confine/ imprison Divinity.  

Even Bill W. and Dr. Bob, the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous concluded that everyone needs a Higher Power. Every evolving life-form on Earth, except the horseshoe crab which has never evolved. But I bet every beach-goer has praised that graceful glide.

*  *  *  *

Consider this bison who, thought-to-be extinct, has, after 200 years, reappeared to roam the range in the European Carpathian mountains of Romania—to fertilize the habitat for other species. LIFE! 

In the 1980s I worked as a Chaplain in a treatment center for recovering addicts. I met a young man who puzzled over the concept of Higher Power. He had never heard of prayer either. I’d never met anyone who never even heard of God. We sat in silence. I debated various arguments, all dry and useless. I thought damn, then I silently swore, and then I thought help. Something came to me and I said to the young man: “Okay, have you ever sat alone in some open space like a field and loudly cried out HELP!”

“Oh yeah, lots of time,” he said.

“Well, who do you think you were calling out to?” I asked. 

The young man sat up straight. All he said was “Oh.”  And again, “Oh.” He grinned and then left my office.  He lives on in my heart-prayers.

 

2024.11.10 WHAT'S NEW? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

Well, we have elected a new president who is very far from new, not only in chronological age and gender, but in personality and style. He is still Trump— everlasting in his own mind.   

I remember when Y2K hysteria about computer programming going akimbo after 12/31/1999 became 1/1/2000. It was much ado about nothing. Computers turned out to be smarter than we had imagined, and most of them recognized the metrics.

Well, it is not quite the same when we are talking about flesh and blood embodiment, is it? And there’s a lot of flesh in this body. Still, DJT we’ve known and have seen before, and all along. 

What we have NOT seen publicly along this election way is something I pray we will this time, something more mature than furor, hullabaloo, uproar, outcry, blaming and the like. 

Most newscasters are calm though honest on public television, but it’s not too hard when you are just charting the facts, please.  I am trying hard myself to keep my mood calm and my affect cool. Of course I am failing a bit, because I do dislike these candidates, Trump and Vance—not just their personalities but their politics. I am trying not to stir up my own pot of anger but rather to stay calm and kind and avoid arguments and prayers that this guy will be assassinated. 

Should we not be changing our perspectives? Should we not, for God’s sake, cultivate internalized compassion—versus politely deaf attitudes or heartless kindness? Does not robotic quoting of Holy Scripture feel like the clinking of a single coin in a beggar’s empty cup?  

By 2006, Al Gore, former Vice President under President Bill Clinton would publish his book An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming. The world soon would need a bipartisan and multi-national effort to alleviate ongoing global warming and save our planet Earth. Gore was born in 1948, just ten years after me. All the projected fears were contagious. Terra Firma was no longer firma.  I dare say the answer is NOT to deport honest working families as if they were “aliens”.  

The answer is to be kind to one another, to stop arguing and speculating, to give money to scientific and local as well as national and world measures, and to do all we can locally to set our focus on saving our beloved planet!!     

Oh, btw, pray whether you believe in God or not!  We all have a Higher Power!  

2024.08.18, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, Transition Tradition Prayer.

Transition.Tradition. Prayer.

Now this, it seems to me, is a grounded and love-inspiring prayer to say in a parish church, in any gathered community, in any country, at your own dining table, even alone—anywhere.  It’s about coming together for its own sweet sake.

Gracious and loving God, you know the needs of your Church in every place; look graciously upon us, the people of All Saints, and grant us the guidance of your Holy Spirit through this time of transition and discernment. Bless us with mutual trust, respect, and courage, for each other, and give us wisdom and confidence in your timing. May we continue to be strengthened in our mission  to “come and be fed, seek and love God, and serve each person as Christ.” All this we ask in your Name. 

The prayer is being used by a parish in transition in the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe. Many thanks to the Rt. Rev. Mark Edington, Bishop of the Convocation, for posting this on his Facebook page.  

2024.04.28 PRAYER-ing. Sorting Out Baloney. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

What is—or isn’t—so much baloney about prayer?  

-lists of gripes—one or two is enough, one at a time

-asking God to do something you can do yourself—escapism

-blaming God for causing everything when some things are simply inherent to our humanity or genetically inherited

-expecting miracles and resenting outcomes as if God owed you something, or as if God interfered with the gift of human freedom

-always pray with total emotional honesty, and never condemn your true prayers 

Prayer is most alive when it is in the context of your life—what matters most to you. Make prayer a constant conversation by which you keep in touch with your own longings and desires, then trust God enough to share them all as you would with a trusted friend. Divine power is relational not interventional. Really?

So how do I know this?  Well, because God listened. I read about this amazing God in a kid’s book, plus my mother told me I came directly from God. This was baloney and not a particularly good thing to hear, since she’d told me I came from her and Daddy, like spontaneous combustion or something called “making love.” Not until I got to church, sang in the children’s choir, and actually knew I really was an angel of sorts, did I discover that God made rules, stood up high looking down on everyone, gave lectures and had great expectations for us all, all of which my mother ignored in favor of thinking I was already perfect. More baloney. Still, I chose the impossibly imperfect route, obeyed most rules, got married, had four children, divorced, remarried, and eventually got the Episcopal Church to ordain me against traditional rules, which, it turned out, were baloney.  

So how midst all this baloney did I learn to truly love myself, no baloney?  

-my mother lived through her own baloney and forgave me mine 

-my dad followed me to church  

-my second husband listened to me and waited for me to catch up or share the lead

-all my children listened to me, laughed with me, cried with me, foolishly followed me, still love—my baloney and theirs

-my therapist told me it was damn good to be a raging bull

-my spiritual directors confronted my baloney with Jesus and some of his living life as a prayer

-my younger sister shared her baloney and still does

-my youngest sister once asked me if I too felt guilty after I hung up from a conversation with our mother

-my consistently listening women friends

-my teachers taught me I was smart, baloney aside

-my Bible revealed its own baloney—slowly and gently

-my own reading and writing which cherished all my baloney—except arithmetic

-my publishers published my baloney

And finally, in ancient news, the oddest no-baloney teacher of all: the official Preface to The Book of Common Prayer, according to the use of The Episcopal Church, ratified in 1789:  “. . . thanks to “the liberty with which Christ has made us free . . . this book may be altered, abridged, enlarged, amended and otherwise disposed of as may seem most convenient for the edification of the people, according to the various exigency of times and occasions.”  

2024.03.03 Troubling/Troubled/Troublesome? Let's Talk. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

   

        .     “Don’t look away.

• "Don't allow hatred to enter into your language when speaking about the conflict."

• "Practice Radical Empathy, particularly with those with whom you struggle in this conflict."

• "Christian hope is founded on God's love and presence with us in the midst of brutal realities with no immediate causes for optimism."

• "There is a buoying power in prayer."

• "The power of the love of fellowship of God's family is so important —We're not going through this alone.”

Dean Richard Sewell of St. George’s College, Jerusalem, with The Rev. Barkley Thompson, President of the North American Committee for St. George’s, recently offered online conversation about the painful war-torn situation—obviously threatening to everyone who lives in Israel, everyone who has ever visited the college, and all of us, near and far who, yes, care deeply. 

Whether we call Israel “holy land”, recall singing hymns about Jerusalem in churches, are Jewish, have messianic expectations, follow Jesus of Nazareth, or, prayerfully and powerlessly, desire an end to war-making for the sake of peace-making, we must talk.   

Recent conversations at St. George’s were described by leaders as “honest, raw, real, spiritual, moving, humane and hopeful.” There was no evaluative judgment, blame, partisanship, denial of Divinity, or even politics. Now that’s a miracle!  

The College provided this rare opportunity for the family of God to gather— authentically in prayer together in the midst of terror. 

*  *  * *

Many of us would be quick to deny the existence of God, to wonder why “he” does not intervene to eliminate such chaos and pain and death, especially when it is inflicted on the innocent. 

Good god! Do we not know by now that, IF there is a Creator, and IF there is evolution that insures humanity with ongoing conscience and will and heart, and IF our own fear blinds our own kindness and breeds insanity, revenge, and war disguised as peace-making, THEN we will continue powerless, make enemies at will, and blame or shame, whichever comes first. Any parent knows that. I think very little of transcendent anything, and even less of divine will or some idea that we can, by sheer will, eliminate pain and error. 

What we can do is get honest, have conversations not harangues, listen, pray simply to let ourselves in on our own truthful thoughts and feelings, grieve together, establish enough kindness to intervene with courage when we can. This is how to take the long hard path toward mutuality—your need is as important as mine, so let’s talk—and listen. 

*  *  *  *

P.S. When Jesus is remembered in the Bible as having a temper tantrum about the desecration of holy ground in the Jerusalem Temple with merchandise, usurious practices and greed, may we also remember his temper didn’t work to stop greed—but it did leave us a story we never forget.  And gave us permission to roar when necessary.  

2023.05.28 PENTECOST, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

I’ve loved and trusted the Presence of God since childhood, but I’ve never felt the urge to evangelize as we Christians are supposed to, right?  To me Pentecost was/is not the birthday of the Christian Church, nor the arrival of the Holy Spirit for the first time ever, but rather a stunning advertisement for the steadfast loving Spirit of God, present broadly, deeply, and wildly to all sorts of people the world over. Will they all be Christians? Not likely. Will they all be endowed with divine grace? Yes. Is that enough salvation? Yes. Is it the only way of salvation? No.

*  *  *  *

Recently at a sacred music concert taking place in an enormous church sanctuary, a listener turned to me and said bluntly: “What’s a mystic?” As if I knew! People ask clergy the most annoying real questions just because we are clergy. Clergy are NOT God, thank God!  

Still, the question got me wondering: What IS a  mystic really?  

A prayer practitioner. 

Pop-up answers seem foolish, I know, yet they are the kind of answers that force my attention away from my ego and all my educated answers. A prayer practitioner?  

Who, what, where, when, and why? 

WHO is a prayer practitioner? Anyone hoping, perhaps longing, to deepen their relationship of love with self, God and neighbor.  

WHAT is prayer? Being silent, preferably in solitude, while willing to open up to inner thoughts and feelings, to listen for God in your soul or notice God sitting on the branch of a tree. 

WHERE? At a place of deep quiet usually but not always at a monastery or a convent, run by monks or nuns whose ministry is to provide and maintain space and hospitality for prayer practitioners. 

WHEN? As soon as you admit to yourself that you need well, to know what the hell you are doing with your life.  And when you decide to sign up for a silent directed retreat for 3 days, then for 5 days and eventually for a whole week or 10 days. And when you submit to talking about your innards with a wise and trained Spiritual Director who listens and makes suggestions about things to use from Scripture or, annoyingly, recommends more silence. That’s when you take a walk, fume to God about all this damned silence, return to your room and sleep like a champ. 

WHY?  Because I said so.  On my first silent directed retreat, I stared for a very long time at a huge portrait of a rose. I loved its sheer size, its astounding beauty, elegance, and all its petals. I went to the greenhouse and asked if the man I met there was the gardener, just like Mary Magdalene had asked the Risen Christ who appeared to her as she wept at Jesus’s empty tomb in the gospel story in John 20:15.  In my case, this guy in the greenhouse actually was the gardener. He gave me one rose. I took it back to my room and dissected it, one petal at a time. The bright red petals were strewn all over the floor. There were only about 29. I left the petals and slept. The next day I returned to the chapel where the rose portrait hung. This time I noticed its long stem. There were thorns, sharp and pointed all along the stem on both sides.

 The thorns were hard. I frowned.

The petals were soft. I cried.

The petals far outnumbered the thorns.  I laughed.