2025.12.07 The Advent of What? Whose? When? Whom? Why? Spiritual Lemons, Lyn Brakeman, blog post

Most small children think that Santa Claus is a real person who will appear in the night to leave them gifts. It’s a hooker as huge as any traditional fairy-tale opener:  “Once Upon a Time”.  What? I hold my breathe still.   

Is it fair to raise a child’s expectations that you have already made unmeetable, like bring Daddy back, or tell Mommy not to tell lies about miracles, such as me. I won’t easily forgot my own experience of finding my wee baby tooth in the medicine cabinet wrapped in a tissue. Some tooth fairy!!  Not to mention that we lived in a NYC apartment and had NO chimney, not that I once caught my mother sneaking in to remove the milk and cookies we left, making sure she scattered a few crumbs and left the milk glass empty with milk on its rim. 

Even the classic Christian answer, about a sixth century Bishop, Nicholas of Myra, who actually did go around and leave small gifts and food at the doorsteps of homes he knew were impoverished.  That was true gift from a real ancient bishop from the far east who really did distribute gifts to children at Christmas time. There is definitely some holiness in such a tradition but few acknowledge it any more.  

There is such a thing, however, as on-the-ground fact, and there also is truth, often called Myth.  A Myth is not a lie.  It is simply a different perspective, a slant, on a common scenario. Most so-called fairy tales are social commentary on cruel situations turned upside down. Cinderella was a girl (beautiful blonde of course) forced into slavery by her Mistress, the “evil stepmother” (aka dad’s new wife) who is driven by jealousy and grief. Truth or fact?  Likely truth. 

Little mice scheme to rescue Cindy by chasing down a handsome prince to rescue her and carry her off to live in the castle, marry her course and thus legitimize her justification, her worth, her lovability. Truth? Possibly. Fact: proposition that does verify her hopes, her dreams, her worth as a woman her marriage-ability—for now.  Myth: Cindy’s happiness lasts forever and ever. Truth: maybe. 

A fact in time does not tie down any event or circumstance forever and ever. A myth makes us feel better, yet it is temporary beauty, never forever and ever for everyone, amen. We have hope and each other—gifts all. 

Grace is a gift free of charge and charges. Fact: God knows. Truth: we are free to choose, also to choose again.  Process: Tell it all and tell is slant!  

Wisdom from Emily Dickinson, a reclusive poet who lived in Amherst Massachusetts (1830-1886). Here below is her take on truth-telling:  Tell all the truth but tell it slant—

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind—

 

2014.07.24 BOOK REVIEW: This Is How It Feels, Craig MIller

This is a book of truth, It is not pretty; the whole truth about human life rarely is. It is beautiful;  beauty can change the world.

I have just finished this terrorizing yet redemptive read. It’s a memoir written by Craig Miller, a man who suffered from OCD and depression, made a suicide attempt at 20, spent three days in a coma, and experienced an amazing inner shift of perspective—while technically dead. Life won, he says.

This memoir is so emotionally authentic it’s hard to read. Miller writes as if his soul spills out onto the page. Yes, he spares no details about the horrors of what happened to him and of his mental illness, but he does so with no remove. We are in it with him.

At first I thought: This can’t be true! and So how come I believe every word? Then I realized that I had heard such horror stories from clients and in the addictions treatment center where I worked as a chaplain/counselor.  But when you are functioning as the therapist, or the spiritual companion, you can’t plunge into the emotional murk yourself or you won’t be helpful. In fact, you’ll drown. But reading alone in my room allowed me to dive right in with Miller and swim with him. My heart beat for this boy, this teen, this young man. It ached, broke, wept, no sobbed. He prayed, and I did too.
 
Miller writes graphically about his suicide attempt and his courageous jihad against his mental illness. No one along the way of treatments asked him about what happened!!  His family and friends did not know how to help him. Social attitudes twenty years ago toward bullying, especially for males, were: Get out there and defend yourself, wimp! Rape, suicide, mental illness?—forget it!  Miller’s loneliness was profound, palpable, yet he pursues his search for kindness relentlessly. He is  a fighter. 
 
I knew that he survived and that he is now married with kids, but I had to find out exactly how he got there. This is a suspense-filled story fueled by hope, grit, and grace.

The book is structured around the three days Miller spent in a coma. During those days every single repressed memory reeled by. He came out just enough to know he was in a hospital, but sank back again into a comatose state.
 
This is not a traditional near-death experience. Although Miller’s brain is dead, he doesn’t experience heavenly peace; nor does he travel anywhere— except backwards into his past. Something functions without his brain. This kind of healing from trauma and mental illness would take years and years of good therapy, plus medications and a community of recovery. For him it takes three days to begin the process toward full healing. All I could think of was the New Testament phrase, predicting resurrection: “. . . and after three days he will rise . . .” God’s time is not our time.

It's true: God makes us whole as we rise, whether before or after biological death.

I will not reveal more about the transformation that happens. I will only say that this is the most profoundly spiritual book I’ve read in some time—uniquely so.

Craig Miller writes and speaks his whole truth, and nothing but, about depression, OCD, suicide, addiction, violence and abuse. His work is indispensable to treatment professionals and those with mental illness, but even more so it contributes to the mending of the world, tikum olam, according to Jewish tradition. We need more broken hearts. And we need to eliminate the fear and shame that go with stigmatization, religious and secular, attached to mental illness and suicide. Start by calling survival accomplishment.

Miller has his own saving mantra.  

I leave you with mine: The glory of God is the human person fully alive.  Irenaeus of Lyons.