2024.03.24 Stethoscopic Listening, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

If you want to hear the pulse of the universe, you have to BE a stethoscope, listening not just hearing. Turn off your urges, your longing for security. Move out of the eager parade, such as the one so many Christians try to reenact on Palm Sunday, the tragic walk towards what everyone imagines will bring ultimate satisfaction to that longing to belong. Surely it will become obvious—atop a mountain, in a procession of Palm-waving, by Easter for sure? Surely. 

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Once upon a time a very old— ancient by any measure—snake called Rock-Dweller was born in my imagination at a writers’ retreat at a very holy monastery, when this very famous spiritual director named Madeleine told us all: Think of someone in Holy Scripture who was angry and write about it.  The snake in Genesis popped up. She was furious, asking: “Why do women hate snakes? Why, for that matter, does God?” Was there no grace for the snake? My snake prayed fervently, doubted even her own doubt, discovered her own secret shame, and laughed at divine folly. Eventually, my snake dozed on her “sun-warmed, soul-soaked rock”. (Spiritual Lemons. Biblical Women, Irreverent Laughter and Righteous Rage. Augsburg edition, 2005.) 

One recent morning, I did not want to wake up and face another day of what is called aging-in-place. I missed my get-up-and-go self. I felt angry and helpless, damning all self-help baloney, including my own. I lay still and listened stethoscopically—underground, beneath my heart’s resistance, my mind’s curse. 

“It has to be Qoheleth!” I finally said to my slowly-awakening spouse who groaned. 

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Qoheleth is the Hebrew translation for the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. The name translates as teacher/preacher/messenger, sometimes collector of sayings. Ecclesiastes was written after the exile (450BCE) at a time of tremendous economic growth accompanied by the politics of, let’s say, acquisition of wealth for its own sake and its attendant temptations. Much like today, the poor got poorer while the rich got richer—and the gift of divine grace got, well, undermined, taken for granted, forgotten. In this socioeconomic situation Qoheleth struggled to find God. He asked: Is everything vain, futile, spiritually bankrupt?   “What’s the point?” 

“What’s the point?”was my own father’s deathbed question in 1983. We stood, my sister and I, on either side of his bed as he groaned out his last breaths. Dad was only 71! 

There is never a clear answer to such a question or quest. Qoheleth stayed open-ended—wise enough to continue to question himself, his world, life itself, and the divine intention. Also wise enough to be reverent and skeptical at once. I aspire to do likewise—with my imaginary stethoscope. 

For everything, the inquisitive one concluded, there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven—birth/death, hate/love, mourn/laugh, silence/speech, war/peace. 

 

 

2013.08.18 Madaket Millie

2013.08.18  Madaket Milie

A Spiritual Lemon, as most of you know, is my sweet ‘n sour term for any person, place or thing that most people assume to be sour but that is really blessed with a special sweetness.

Madaket Millie is one such Spiritual Lemon. Here she is on one of her 80 birthdays, a local hero and legend.


Millie was Mildred Jewett, born in 1907 on Nantucket and moved to her grandmother’s farm in Madaket, the western end of the island in 1911. Millie was fascinated by the sea and would sit on top of her house gazing out to sea for hours. She became known as the “Protector of the West End” and called herself the “seaside sentinel.”

Her well trained eye earned her a vocation patrolling the beaches during World War II, watching for shipwrecks, and training German Shepard dogs for patrol duty for all branches of the military service. The Coast Guard was Millie's favorite branch, her “family.” Millie was awarded the highest honorary civilian rank, Coast Guard West End Command.

Millie had a gruff, grim, sour countenance and a sweet heart that loved animals, especially dogs, sold ice cream, and helped anyone in need. She greeted natives and visitors alike and called tourists “mop heads” because of the noisy contraptions they rode around. . . . mopeds.

Millie developed a close friendship with Mr. Rogers who had a home on Nantucket and couldn’t have been more cheery-faced to Millie’s curmudgeonly dourness. The two made a film together, and when they were around it was indeed a “wonderful day in the neighborhood.”


One summer day some 30 years ago my son John and his cousin ran into Millie near her tiny house in Madaket on the west end of Nantucket Island, MA. “What are you boy doing snooping around here?” Millie growled. The young boys arrived home breathless and terrified. On another occasion they met Mr. Rogers and ran home their eyes like saucers, breathless with celebrity-wonder.

Millie and Fred (above) stand in front of Millie’s cottage—the perfect picture of spiritual wholeness.

Today there is a terrific, informal restaurant near the west end beach in Madaket. After several incarnations that haven't lasted the name Millie's has taken hold. If this establishment is as resilient as its namesake it will thrive as long as the seas allow.

Somehow I imagine the ghost of Millie commanding the waters to back off and let this dear land live.

2012.01.14 Blogger Questions

A blogger, who identifies herself on line as Velveteen Rabbi, has been nominated for an award, given to bloggers by bloggers for an up-and-coming blog with fewer than 200 followers. "Leibster" is a German word  which mean beloved or favorite. Rabbi Rachel Barneblat of North Adams, Massachusetts, has answered the questions asked of her as a nominee and is meant to identify eleven other small-readership blogs and nominate them. Rachel sent out five questions to potential nominees to help her select nominees.  I'm a small-readership blogger, unable to resist the temptation, or invitation,  to be a Liebster and get more readers for my off-beat religio-spiritual blogspot blog called Spiritual Lemons.

Here are the questions the Velveteen Rabbi asked and my responses:

1)  What's your favorite book?  My favorite book is The Little Book About God published in 1934, just four years before I was born, and written by Lauren Ford for her granddaughter Lauren.  It's the biblical story, from Creation to the Annunciation to Mary, Mother of Jesus—the whole sweep.  I fell in love with the book as a young child and recently retrieved it while writing my memoir. The book present an image of God as Creator of wonders, but also as Meditator in a garden listening carefully and identifying all the sounds of Earth. God listened to and tracked every single sound, even "weeny sounds,"  like those of a small girl-child crying.  I got my image of God from that book.

2) With what fictional character do you most identify?  Jane Eyre.  I read the book a long time ago and re-read it recently.  I was not as bereft with hardship as Jane, but have had my share of struggle. Jane prayed and had faith against great odds. She also developed self-reliance and never abandoned herself, or her God.  I loved to watch Jane make hard choices. I love to see love and freedom win together.

3) If you could throw a dinner party and invite five people, real or fictional, from any moment in human history, who would you invite?

       Jane Eyre for her spirituality, and fortitude, and compassion.
       Beatrix Potter for her love of everything wee.
       David, the biblical hero, who faced a giant of an obstacle and became aware of his own resources in five smooth stones.
       Jesus, a lover of people and a man who spoke in parables that challenged, not lesson plans that assigned.
       Hillary Clinton, a woman leader who has suffered greatly just because she is a woman, but who has not given up or lost her voice, in spite of public and private scorn

4) What's your favorite place to pray/meditate/engage in spiritual practice?    My liebster place is my home altar, a low table at which I kneel on a prayer cushion daily to lament, plead, bitch, beg, gripe, eat consecrated bread, and praise every day. On and under my altar is an array of spiritual tchotchkes, some traditional icons and some personal icons, all of them with meaning, great and small. I get grace and grit at my altar.

5) What's something you're hoping for in 2013? Personally I'm hoping, also praying, that I will get my memoir Under The Table: Becoming a Woman Priest published.  Religiously, I'm hoping for honest interfaith conversations. Spiritually, I'm hoping that the one Godde will acquire a new wardrobe, specifically that the use of exclusively male language and image for Divinity will be transformed. I'm a writer and a wordsmith, and I'm tired of feeling left out of the imago dei.  Language can change.  Politically, I'm hoping for a wannabe woman president for 2016 who is progressive, wise, wry and able to be a non-anxious presence with humility, and who can heal our wounds and move us along out of patriarchy and into a new unitive way of being a country, and a world.

How would you answer these questions? A good way to get to know your own depths and maybe God/Godde.
      

Lemon wisdom

When I was a small child an auntie gave me a wee rocking chair all my own. I was told it was an antique and to be very careful with it. That bit of advice took hold and I treated it as if it were a sacred object, but not too sacred to sit in and rock, rock, rock.
The little mahogany chair became my perch. I would sit there, rock and absorb as much adult conversation as I could. Most fascinating were adult ways. I became an observer and later discovered that my totem is an owl. The dangers of being an owl are that you can be accused of rude staring and/or you can become so nocturnal that you never leave your branch.
Owls are traditionally associated with wisdom. In my little chair with my owlish ways I developed the gift of wisdom. For example, I noticed quite early that my mother wasn't all joy and happiness as she advertised; nor was my father all silent and martini-sipping as he advertised. They were much more than their ads. Mommy could be quite sad in her eyes and angry with a smile, and Daddy could be quite talkative and playfully humorous, not always sarcastic.
In my chair I learned that people were mixed and good in their mixedness. That I imagine was the source of the lemon wisdom I wrote about in my book years later. I learned that people want to make lemonade, want to pretend they are sweet and nice as life "should" be, but the truth is they can also be sour and nasty.
The funny thing about it all was that I decided I liked people just as they were and that Godde didn't want to destroy the truth of lemonhood by making something as fake as lemonade out of a good zestful lemon. The Godde I met didn't scold me either when I was in a mood or filled with childish pique at some offense. It was all me and it was all. That's lemon wisdom. I think it has something to do with integrity.
Sundays in our parish we sing a gospel troparian (a musical response to a biblical reading from one of the gospels, stories of Jesus' life and teachings.) The wise words, by Renée Miller, seem to me to be a definition of the Godde within. "Walk the way of ancient wisdom etched and patterned, deep within. Walk the way of holy freedom, find your soul made whole again."