OPEN WIDE. Lyn Brakeman, blog post, Hartford Symphony Orchestra Concert

Have you ever seen a grand piano miked up—that is with its lid wide open and not one but two microphones hanging down suspended from somewhere high above the vulnerable open-lidded piano?

It almost reminded me of being at the dentist, all bibbed up and feeling apprehensive about the little tray of sharp picks and tools you have spied. Any minute now, the dentist will approach at your right, lean in with a smile, and say OPEN WIDE. 

I do because I’m a good girl. A treat awaits me for good behavior. At the dentist in NYC where I grew up that meant a brand new tooth brush in a small bag accompanied by a small tube of toothpaste, tied with red ribbon and, of course a good mother who I know will take me to the nearby Schraffts for a sweet treat.

This is self-defeating of course but a ritual to be admired. So it was with the Hartford Symphony concert on April 12, 2024. BUT here the treat paid off! 

*  * *  *

First, we heard the pre-concert talk, organized and offered by Carolyn Kuan, the Music Director. She is personable, fun and smart. Usually there is some history about the players, soloists, and composers, yet it’s not heady. If there is a concerto featuring one of the instruments or its soloist that player is invited to the stage to talk about her or his instrument. One I most remember of course is the tuba, and what I remember about that is how very heavy a tuba is, how little it is featured in most pieces, and that the player sometimes polishes it, raising a shine bright enough to reflect his own grinning face. If the tubist were a woman I imagine she could put on a fresh coat of mascara and grin. The line between beauty and vanity is never absolutely clear anyway! And the tuba is always part of a symphony orchestra.

*  * *  *

But back to the yawning piano, all primped and ready for pianist and composer, Brazil-American, Clarice Assad, often known as a musical polyglot. She played the piano inside and out, once even crawling inside to pluck some strings with her fingers to illustrate the theme of connectivity in her musical piece, FLOW.  She wrote the music with the Erie 

canal in mind. 

Geographically, the Erie Canal, was built in 1825 to facilitate commerce between Albany and Buffalo. Simultaneously, it facilitated the “flow of ideas”—what people thought and felt about life itself, their cultures, religions, and the exchange of ideas and feelings—almost like a memoir would.  

Divinity, in its many expressions, must also flow along,  just like the canal, always thrumming the flow of my own heart, and facilitating the divine connective presence in all things. In short, let’s go with the flow. I wonder who will serenade the Strait of Hormuz?  

GO WITH THE FLOW. EMBRACE THE CRAZINESS.  YES, WE DID! 

2023.02.26 Ashen Days/Dusty Path, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

 

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. 

The repeated refrain on Ash Wednesday echoes in my mind. Is it just this one day called Ash, or is it all of Lent, or is there something more universally true about this dusty theme? Is the spiritual life one long unpaved path—straight, curved, twisted, hilly, full of distractions, temptations—tedious and irresistible? What keeps us on this path and why? 

People stream forward up the aisle and stand or kneel before a priest whose thumb, dampened with blessed healing oils presses into a small bowl of black ashes that stick. Over and over the priest smears the black ashes onto each upturned forehead, making the sign of the cross and saying: Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. 

This ritual kicks off the season of Lent, and shapes the whole season, one of reflection self-examination, grace and grit all the way to its climactic tragedy of Good Friday. Gloomy to say the least.    

Why is this ritual so popular?  You’d think it would fearful, depressing, overwhelming. Who wants to be reminded of their mortality? Many apparently do. 

When I worked as a chaplain in hospitals, staff would seek me out to get their ashes. Just the one phrase with the smearing and they hurried off to finish their day. Patients as well often requested ashes. I knew there were some who weren’t even Christian, including former Roman Catholics and young agnostics who had left the institutional church long ago, constrained by its rules and its gloom, not to mention their resistance to “organized” religion. Name me something that isn’t organized? Yoga, the spirit-calming practice, is very organized!  

Once the ashes I smeared floated down onto a recipient’s nose. She laughed. So did I. No point in being overly solemn or pious, as if we actually knew exactly what we were doing.  While working as chaplain in an alcohol/drug rehabilitation hospital I added a phrase to the traditional line: Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. And God by grace will restore you to fullness of life. It was cheap grace, arrogant idolatry, and playing at God, I know, but some of these people were so beaten down by disease. And I had difficulty leaving them in ashes.

I left my own ashes on all day long—profoundly convinced that Ash Wednesday is the most true and honest day of the Christian year. 

-There is not a single soul who doesn’t mess up, clean up, mess up again, and clean up again. 

-No one does anything without two motives, one truly altruistic and generous, the other secretly self-serving. 

-God does not lead anyone into temptation. We do! Then we pray for help from God and others to get back on track, to save us from ourselves. God is far more generous than we are.  

*  *  *  * 

Do you know that our bodies can actually be composted, turned into rich, fertile soil, in which new green life grows? Tis true. Far less costly to the environment than cremation. Now there’s a new beginning!    

2021.02.21 Ashes Change Hearts

    “Most loving God [sic], whose will it is to give thanks for all
    things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our
    care on you who care for us: Preserve us from faithless fear
    and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may
    hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and, which
    you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord;
    who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
    one God, now and forever.” AMEN.

We rarely get to pray together this Collect for the Eighth Sunday after Epiphany (BCP, p. 216), because Easter is a moveable feast and we seldom get eight Epiphany Sundays. Somehow this prayer feels to me like standing shivering at the end of the high diving board looking down, feeling small and anxious at eleven. Do I have the nerve to jump? How cold will the water be? Can I do this or not?  Then I inhale deeply, grab my small nose, and jump wildly into the air. The water does catch me. I do surface triumphant. Now all I have to do is refrain from boasting.  

This Collect takes my soul on a dive toward humility—being right-sized, not too big and not too small. It is a difficult spiritual balance to strike. This prayer helps me prepare for a season of reflection, and retreat, and deep personal honesty—diving into myself, praying that the smudge of ashes I just received has mysteriously prepared me.
 

ASH WEDNESDAY, 2021    

I think ashes are powerful symbols through which the Church alerts us to our mortality, how profoundly vulnerable and fragile our sweet lives are—and how valuable.

The ritual reminds me of the nursery rhyme: “Ring-a-round-a Rosie.”  We children joined hands in a circle, then skipped around singing as if we all had a pocket of posies. Then we sang:  “Ashes, Ashes we all fall down.” We’d collapse to the ground on our bums, laughing with glee before we hopped up to repeat our dance.  

Of course we had no idea about the grim implications of this rhyme, understood by some to refer to the rosy rash one got during the 1665 Black Plague in London, herbal posies carried to ward off the smell of the disease.  We kindergarteners just loved it for fun and games. Faster. Faster. We whirled around. Falling down was the best part. We didn’t give death a thought.  BUT……. once one of the girls circling fell down and did not, could not, despite urging, get up. (As I recall she had a heart event, needed immediate treatment, and returned to school in time.)  

What I remember most, about this trauma was how instantly and firmly, our collective terror  gripped us. This ashes event lives on vividly in my mind, even as I dip my thumb into a bowl of blessed ashes and press it firmly onto the forehead of an upturned recipient, saying “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”  I don’t feel negative. I do feel solemn. How desperately I want to add something Easterish, but I don’t. I just do not. Silence matters. Solemnity matters.

Then I just jump into Lent. After all, the Bible has said that it’s time to change my heart and turn about and wonder what in hell I am doing now, and what I have done in my little life, and whether I need to notice something new, or repent of something bad.

I can’t think of a single thing, so I think I’ll just follow my gut that tells me to strip down and streak the halls of the retirement residence where I live. I resist that temptation, mostly because of vanity. My aging body is a thing not to behold. Still, the thought itself has lifted my mood.

Mark's Gospel tells us that Jesus, properly awakened, heads not to church, not safely home, not for the road to proclaim and preach, but into the wilderness where he will figure out his own jumping in— his own right-sizedness—as the dry desert winds buffet and buffer his body and soul. 

Will he be a Messiah?  Or will he simply be Beloved?

Mark’s gospel account is honest and brusk:
    All we know is that Jesus’s adult baptism jolted him with his spiritual identity and calling, that he was sorely tempted, and that his discernment took a very long time—forty days a metaphor suggesting some time.
    All we know is that Jesus faithfully used his one mind, and his one heart to make his one plan: I will tell people about the God I know best, the God I believe in and who I believe believes in me.

This same God believes in all living things—including you and me, and the black squirrel who just sprinted and skimmed across the snow-laden chain link fence, pleased I bet with his or her athleticism. 

TO LOVE OR TO FIGHT? That Is the Question.

Today is Valentines Day, a day on which we deeply honor the eternal value of LOVE, a word as difficult to define as Divinity, and as essential to the well-being of every living thing as food and water.

I am completely persuaded,  as I have been for years, that language matters. The words we use advertise what we value most, who we are, and how we see ourselves and others. Words tell the truth about whatever dominates the mind and heart of an individual, a culture, a society, a nation, a country, a world. 

 Today, and for centuries, the word-of-choice to indicate our highest values, has been FIGHT.  (Fight has Germanic origin and relates loosely to fencing, a sport that is lethal, potentially death-dealing, yet requires great skill with movements that look like a graceful dance.)

We FIGHT. It’s the behavior of choice. We FIGHT for and against. Wars are the preferred solutions to sin, cruelty, discrimination, and injustice. FIGHT is the strategy and the ironic path to peace.

We FIGHT cancer and depression or mental illness, and if we lose such “fights” we die, which means we’ve LOST the FIGHT.   

FIGHT is the way small boys on a playground prove their mettle, gain acceptance and popularity.  Young girls also learn to FIGHT—underhandedly. And just look at the video games our young children play, most all are about war and FIGHTS.

Religions FIGHT against each other. They FIGHT for their own God. FIGHT(ing) images projected onto Divinity in sacred texts are more numerous than images of LOVE.

Sports have become FIGHTS. We sing FIGHT songs. We make FIGHTER jets and train FIGHTER  pilots. Politicians FIGHT for votes. We FIGHT for healthcare and the right to freedom and relief from poverty. Why not work for such things? We even FIGHT for peace.

The news throughout the 2021 impeachment trial cited the word FIGHT countless times. It was used to prove the ex-President innocent of charges that his FIGHT language incited acts of domestic terrorism. It was used also to demonstrate that all politicians, even those who leveled FIGHT-charges against the president, use FIGHT.

FIGHT was the word used to convict, and FIGHT the word to assure innocence.

FIGHT is such common parlance in the world of politics, medicine, religion, social discourse, business, entertainment, education, and family life that FIGHT has become benign. That is tragic, if not fatal. That assures that LOVE cannot and does not win. Even when we do fight FOR love, like in wars or duels, it is not very successful, because our goal is to win, not to love.  

                                         *  *  *  * 
And yet there is just one day—today—in the year dedicated to LOVE and to the value of coupling and relationships that enhance goodness in self and other. Rituals that surround LOVE on this one day, which happens to fall on Sunday this year, are costly (flowers, cards, jewelry, pricey chocolates)—icons of LOVE.

Valentine’s Day has many roots from ancient times, yet it is universally dedicated to LOVE, and falls on the same day each year. We will not forget it, even if it can make us sad. That’s because Valentine’s Day is a collective ritual, not unlike the sacraments of worship, always the same day, always in the bleak mid winter, always celebrating the same value, and acted out not just by human couples but by loving families and creatures—even pets or stuffed teddy bear confidants—who know about LOVE, affection, listening, compassion, care, loneliness, and yes, God.  

Why the heart shape? Well, because without a beating heart there IS no life, no pulse. On this day we try very, very hard not to fight. On this day we recognize the invaluable beauty of LOVE. It is only by LOVE that this planet will survive and thrive.  
 
My prayer to God is to LOVE those with whom I passionately disagree and/or of whom I’m afraid aka “enemies,” because I cannot yet. The divine goal and purpose is always LOVE not fight. Choose LOVE—every day just a little bit. Make every day Valentine's Day.

2019.04.14 Three Cheers. Three Palms. Three Words of Wisdom.

Palm Sunday involves much hullabaloo in the Christian church. I’ve always wanted to downsize the hype, introvert that I am. Do we have to re-enact the triumphal entry story of Jesus on a donkey entering Jerusalem, raising a rumpus, bringing cheering jeering crowds, and raising the hackles of the reigning authorities charged with maintaining order? I feel sorry for them. Jesus was a trouble maker—for the sake of justice we argue.

And then—post-triumph—we re-enact the rest of the story with us all playing the hostile turncoat crowd, betrayers all, shouting: Crucify him. Crucify him. I want to shout STOP don’t crucify him. Don’t crucify anyone! Thank God there’s no sermon on Palm Sunday, save this morning’s brief fervorino, aka pep talk—in this case for Jesus. No need to say more than the complicated tragic story already says.

Sometimes these reenactments feel pale, with people lined up in front reading their parts from scripture. It’s pretty stiff theater, but it is better than to abandon the biblical story completely and write our own little play version—dumbed down as if we all were in kindergarten. So I’m stuck with the Palm Sunday hoopla.

We act all this out and pretend, or pray, we too are going to reform our systems for the sake of justice and love and peace. Does this ritual work? Does it inspire, set on fire?

Well, sometimes it is effective. It helps me return to the beginning and imagine the primordial chaos into which the Creator infused life and hope. This creationing process keeps on and never stops. It gives me hope.

I bring my palms home, drape them over beautiful pictures—icons, a landscape, a cross on the wall—where they will stay until next year’s hope-packed whoopee. Some may even make it to the burning pot where they will be turned into ashes—forehead reminders that we all are dust and to dust we all shall return—for Ash Wednesday. I am happy to have had their company for a year, and to have them renewed for another year.

Ancient repetitive rituals have inner value. Below are three quotes of my own. They were lifted from my blog posts by a spiritual director who used them for her facebook group ministry. She’d started the group to promote her own practice, but it morphed into an online ministry. It was fun for me to see my name and my words, on her site—framed and decorated in colorful ways.
  
Heed the intimate scriptures of your own heart and intuition.
    
Religion without spirituality is arid and spirituality without religion is lonely. 
    
Spirituality is a matter of training your heart and your eye to see beyond or inside a simple ordinary scenario and marvel at its sudden inexplicable grandeur. Do you ask: Is this God?
   
I'm humbled and honored in the best way—though not too humble to feel surprised at my own wisdom and wonder: Is this God AND me together co-creating?

2014.01.19 One Little Prophetic Photo

Here is one little photo that appeared in the Boston Globe’s Metro section on January 17th. It should have been on the front page. Maybe it wasn’t because there is something “wrong” with this picture.  

It pictures the Rev. Anne Robertson, United Methodist clergywoman and the executive Director of the Massachusetts Bible Society, making the Christian sign of the cross on the forehead of Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, anointing him with consecrated water and saying traditional words: “Remember your baptism and be grateful.”

This is not the expected order of things.

At the parish where I was Priest Associate in Gloucester, MA. there was consecrated holy water in the font as you entered the church and we dipped our fingers into it, blessed ourselves with the sign of the cross, and murmured, or said aloud, “Lyn, remember your baptism.”  It was a customary gesture, not unusual. We did it to renew a faith commitment, often very difficult to keep. I used to love to see children clamor to be lifted up to the font so they too could stick their small fingers into the water and joyfully giggling make the sign—all over themselves.

This little photo shows such a usual ritual—unusually administered. Would a Protestant  clergywoman be tracing the sign of the cross on the forehead of a Roman Catholic friar and cardinal, “Prince of the Church?”  

Yet here it is in living color. It's so darn Christian. I mean if you really follow Jesus you have to speak out wherever you see injustice, greed, cruelty and other inhuman behaviors. You also have to be kind of crazy and bust through walls of rigid rules, especially patriarchal ones. This is what I see here.

The photo was taken at an ecumenical service at a Sudbury Methodist Church last Sunday at which O’Malley had been invited to preach in order to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Cardinal Richard Cushing’s visit to the same church to promote Christian unity. The drill was that O’Malley would dip his thumb into the consecrated water and say the words to Anne Robertson who would then take the bowl of water from him and go to offer the ritual gesture to the others present. 

But O’Malley didn’t follow instructions. He anointed Robertson then gave her the bowl inviting her to do the same for him. It was a powerful expression of shared Christian identity. Nothing in his gesture violated Roman Catholic teachings, yet the image speaks volumes about change.

Much of the change Jesus stimulated he did with his body. He went places he wasn’t supposed to go, healed people he wasn’t expected to heal, dined with people who were outcasts, and invited women to follow him and be apostles of the gospel.  Scandal—2000+ years ago and today. Women’s ministries are still not fully accepted in roles and places of authority in the Christian church. And women's ordination remains against the law for Roman Catholics. 

O’Malley didn’t perform a sacrament, yet he made this familiar ritual mutual.  He broke rank with expectations—the man, the priest, the father, the holy father, the hierarch—received from a woman that which he was supposed to give to her, not vice versa. The Cardinal gave her pride of place and she gave him the touch of a woman. Robertson was moved to tears by the unexpected gesture. See her blog at annerobertson.org for more in her own words.

Extremists have weighed in of course. Those opposed call this gesture “heresy,” “disgrace,” and a repudiation of the sanctity of Holy Orders. O’Malley didn’t ordain Robertson. She’s already ordained and he gave that status respect. At the other extreme, some have downplayed the gesture calling it one of “courtesy," a simple exchange of blessing. Ho hum. Yes, and more.

The photo of course has gone viral. It’s news and I hope good news. No, not an official priestly gesture, yet an outer sign of an inner grace, perhaps an icon, a window through which we can glimpse divinity, dare I say Godde's will?  

To me, what the camera’s eye reveals is prophetic, a visual that simultaneously foretells the future of the Christian church—and advocates for that future.