Thanks Given

There are times when the membrane between matter and spirit is tissue paper thin, times when the transcendent defies circumstance, resists control and suddenly shoots through the permeable membrane to provide something new—for no reason.

It can come through a sense, be an insight, a rush of gratuitous love, the touch of another person, or a bit of wise humor that elicits laughter. It can even be a releasing sob.

Such moments tend to happen at times of birth, death, or deep helpless pain, either emotional or physical.

To that traditional list I would add moments of gratitude and wonder when you feel the puncture of something getting to you through you, but you know it’s not of your own making or quite commensurate with your circumstance. It simply comes to you through you—a surprise, inspiring deep gratitude.

My friend just told me she got new sneakers—and feet. She has suffered from neuropathy due to M.S. With therapy, chiefly massage, she suddenly feels her feet. “All tingly with gratitude.”

Our son John, 38, who has a chronic progressive disease, loves ladybugs. He spotten one the morning before one of his surgeries several years ago and saw it as a sign, a little bit of heaven on earth. Yesterday he spotted a wee yellow ladybug and exclaimed spontaneously “Hey Ladybug, everything’s going to be all right.”

The summer I turned eight I inhaled gratitude through my nose. I was sitting on the edge of my bed after a day of riding my pony through fields and over dusty roads at the upstate New York farm where we summered. A hot breeze ruffled the curtain. As I reached down to pull off my boots and remove my jodhpurs I was unexpectedly intoxicated by the odors of the day—hay, saddle soap, horse lather— smells I knew well, smells that happened every single summer day, smells that in this moment carried more than familiarity with them.

I didn’t know what had happened, why it happened just then, or from whence it came, I just knew I felt flooded with gratitude, a joy so delicate it eluded even thanksgiving.

Make your list of blessing and gratitude, recite it well and often. And watch for those things that don’t make it onto lists but count even more. Thanks given.

Cranky and Hopeful

When I was a tender and cranky teenager my mother besieged me with Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking. Even bought me my very own copy.

I read it in spite of myself just in case my mother actually had a good idea or two. But my first suspicions about this “gift” were correct. It was over the top—not me, especially at fifteen!

My mother wanted me to be cheerful, extroverted and fun-loving like her. I’m an introvert, serious, solemn with my own brand of fun. Bad mix of personalities

That was a long time ago, but I’m still distrustful of overly cheery people especially when it feels forced or I feel judged by it.

The spiritual virtue of hope isn’t the same as having to think positively all the time. The biblical Psalms have plenty of lament, but through the process of honest lament the psalmist arrives at genuine unknowing realistic hope.

Christians who judge themselves and others for being negative need their Hebrew roots renewed. And Jesus was hardly sugary. Cheer up? Chin up? Smile, God loves you? Be happy? Nothing gospel about these except God loves you.

Unremitting negativity is as lethal to spirituality as overblown positivity. Spirituality is about wholeness and balance.

Jesus healed without a motivational speaker, judgment or cheerleading, often asking the obviously disabled what they wanted and if they wanted to be well. He didn’t spend much time trying to talk someone out of their misery or into a positive attitude.

There are actually books on how to be happy. Since when is happiness anyone’s right? Pursuit of course but not perfection. One person’s happiness might be someone else’s nightmare. Positive psychology is in now. It’s a corrective to too much psychotherapeutic emphasis on diagnostics, pathology, problems, what’s wrong with you. A good corrective but have we gone too far? Tipped over into the cotton candy vat?

According to reviews in Boston Globe and New York Times, Barbara Ehrenreich’s recent book Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America makes a refreshingly honest case against the tyranny of positive thinking. I'm grateful to her for speaking my mind.While quintessentially American, constant positivity can be oppressive. I think Peale is back in town.

Ehrenreich’s book came out of her own experience with breast cancer in which she felt that expressions of dread and outrage and profound fears were the wrong attitude. One should be upbeat, positive, never angry or a victim. Ehrenreich posted on a cancer support site that she was angry about chemotherapy and insurance companies and sick of pink ribbons and was told she needed therapy for her “bad attitude.”
What happened to realistic? Affirmations are wonderful IF they aren’t quick cover-ups, instant makeovers..

There are actually people who think that they can create their own reality, make stuff happen by how they think. There’s some truth to this but it’s snaky half-truth, and it certainly doesn’t work for child abuse. Children, innocent and powerless, do not create their own reality.

Jesus did not think himself onto or off of the cross. He simply had integrity and took the risk of proclaiming the God of his understanding, the one in fact who does not prevent or eliminate suffering and evil but, often through prayer and truth-telling, strengthens us from within, which can help us find resources beyond ourselves—even learn to show, tell and ask.

And religious folks are flocking to self-help books. How to get God. How to find the prosperity God wants for you. How not to get left behind. How to feel good and gooder. It’s icky.

Ehrenreich, according to reviewer Hanna Rosin (NY Times Book Review, Nov. 8. 2009,) critiques Christian overcheer and wonders where the biblical “demand for humility and self-sacrifice” has gone to.

OK I’m a crank. I know there are people who need pep talks, encouragement, empowerment, even a little cheerleading, who need reminding that they do have resources they might not have counted. I do too this in my work as priest, spiritual director, counselor, but never to override tears and lament.

Spirituality and good religion are about trust that there is a God who cares and has more grace, will and power than your own will, attitude or positivity.

It’s a control issue!

I believe that the source of one's soul-uplift is not in one's own mind or ego strength or can-do mentality but in one's willingness to partner with the grace that’s given.

Sacred Spaces for the 21st Century

On our sabbatical road trip we’ve done cities: Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philly and our hometown New York City. Well, we’ve done as much of each as possible with limited time and limited bodies.

It only took us a day to discover that we could only really do one big thing a day—one art museum, one tourist event, one 20-block walk, one history museum or one zoo, the latter a necessary antidote to too much past and too many people.

Standing, staring and shuffling by wonders brings awe as well as neck and back aches—to say nothing of jostling on subways and trains, finding a bathroom and a Starbucks fort the late afternoon treat.

One of the most fascinating small museums we visited is moBia, the Museum of Biblical Art in New York It is a small space upstairs from the American Bible Society store and learning center. This museum offers regular special exhibits, lectures, concerts and workshops.

There was an engaging photographic exhibit of a recent visit to NYC of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, head of the Eastern Orthodox Church. He has been traveling to promote the green agenda, sparing no words to tell the faithful and any who will listen that any act that harms natural resources like water, air, earth counts as a sin against the deity, no exceptions.

The Patriarch claims to trace his apostolic authority to St. Andrew one of Christ’s original biblical disciples. I thought it might have been Bartholomew like his name, but such authenticating details matter little to me.

Bartholomew is a handsome, white-bearded elderly man with an air of dignity and a twinkle in his eye. Particularly engaging was a picture of him laughing as he alighted from a buggie after a horse and buggie ride around Central Park. The ride is one of New York’s famous attractions. I’m quite sure that this green man of God would never have gone on such a ride had he not been assured that the scandal not long ago exposed of abuse of the poor horses had not been corrected. Which it has been.

The main exhibition just now is the work of artist Tobi Kahn. It contains many ceremonial objects for synagogue worship. They combine the symbolism of Jewish rites with functionality and a unique artistic voice—very contemporary, simple lines, using many geometric shapes arranged in patterns that suggest deeper spiritual meaning.

For example, the Torah breastplate which protects the scroll, the law of God so central to Jewish life and religious formation, is a large wooden square composed of many different shapes in relief and arranged in such a way that I at least couldn’t make it conform to something manageable or replicable. Very bold, tangible and made from earthbound material yet mysterious and transcendent.

Where my heart stopped and stayed for some time in spite of my tired feet was to behold what Kahn calls AHMA, four Shalom Bat chairs acrylic on wood creatd in 2008. The chairs are high backed and represent four biblical matriarchs, Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca and Leah, women without whom there would be no biblical patriarchs, in fact no story at all. But women nonetheless who have been overshadowed by their male counterparts, mentioned yes but not given full honor.

The very tall chair backs are painted with abstract but strongly suggestive patterns of feminine imagery, biology and shape—ova, blood red slashes of color, breasts and roundedness. There isn’t a squared-off shape on any chair.

Kahn made the chairs along with other works in commemoration of his mother. They connect with the ritual ceremony of welcoming and naming a baby girl into a Jewish family. Mothers and grandmothers, maybe even stepmothers or mentor mothers, sit in the chairs during the ceremony. On the back of each chair is space for each girl’s name and the date of her naming to be engraved. A beautiful gift of wholeness (shalom) for the daughers (bat)of Israel and all women, ancient and modern.

Kahn leads workshops for families in which they create their own miniature Shalom Bat chair to commemorate a significant family event or honor the life of a loved one, of either gender I assume and hope. since it would not do for any of us women, no matter how zealous we are to bring women into their rightful places in history and contemporary life, to be exclusive. Women and men and contribute equally and indispensably to every aspect of communal life religious and secular.

I’m grateful for Tobi Kahn’s art for its own beauty’s sake. I’m also grateful that his work serves a politics of justice, inclusion and freedom for humanity.
* * * *
I serve as a trustee of the Massachusetts Bible Society (MBS), an organization whose original mission was the distribution of bibles. We wanted people to have them. Our mission today is to promote biblical literacy. We want people not only to have access to bibles but also to to read and interpret biblical wisdom as it enhances everyday living toward a world governed by justice, peace and compassion—central biblical themes.

The MBS motto is "One Book, Many voices" meaning the bible is composed of many voices and also that it takes many voices to participate in biblical study to keep this book alive for every culture and person.

Just as every age develops it own aesthetic, so very era must find spiritual wisdom appropriate to its particular situation and a message of liberation for its day.

The bible is a vast and supple library of resources for this endeavor. Such amplitude is why many call this book holy and why biblical word, theme and insight continue to flavor literature as well as the secret desires of every longing heart.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things—About Aging

As you edge into your 8th decade you may notice you're getting older and more fun when............

-you can c.y.o.g. (choose your own gender)
-you go out to lunch not dinner because you’re in bed when most diners get started and you can’t see to drive well because the moon isn’t as bright as the sun
-your body talks back for the first time
-words that end in ah suddenly end in er as you hear yourself say, Linder’s lovah
-you and your friend or spouse get a case of teenage giggles; you suddenly hear yourself say, “Stop. You’re making me wet your pants!”
-you carefully pinch out the salt for your neti-pot and drop it into your o.j.
-hearing small children’s voices outside, even their wailing, becomes essential soul food
-you read the funnies before the news (even the word funnies dates you)
-nature is a primary source of reverence; in fact you fall in love with Ms. Spider at the window and cry when one day she disappears
-your mate sees you storing bananas in the refrigerator and shouts “Don’t!” You say, “Why not? They’re collecting fruit flies.” He says, “Chiquita Banana says...”
-you give your sleeveless tops to Good Will who, according to your granddaughter, isn’t a girl.
-your flesh takes on a life of its own, separate from your bones
-gratitude is up, griping down; laughter is up, lament down
-you pray that they come up with a less beefy, more stylish call alert wristwatch before you need one—a matter of fashion
-a box pops up on your computer screen saying your server is disconnected, but you don’t know what a server is so you call your six year old grandson.
-the ratio of medical to gossip has flipped from 20/80 to 80/20 in girlfriend conversations
-your will gets weaker but your soul gets stronger
-you think Godde may actually be your father............. AMEN.

The Paranoid Paradox of Faith

Last Monday I received a phone call. “Hi. Is this Lyn Brakeman?” (Too cheery. Telemarketer for sure.) “Yes,” I say guarded. “Oh,” the female voice continues, its brightness dimmed. “Oh, well then. This is Holly from Writers Digest.” “Yes.” (Wants to know when I’ll renew.) “Well,” (Could she be more excited? Sounds like my mother used to. I imagine her jumping up and down.) “I called to tell you that your essay Electric Salvation has won fifth prize in our annual national Writers Digest contest in the category of Inspirational Writing. “Cool.” (Warming up. Inspired myself.) “So we need your email to tell you the details.” Gladly I oblige. Thanks are exchanged. “You’ll be getting an email from us soon.”

My heart jumps up and down. I call Dick. He jumps up and down. Send email to friends and call my kids.
Tuesday there’s no email confirmation. Anxiety edges out joy. Who is Holly? Sudden panic. It’s a hoax. Go online to their site. Read the list of winners. I’m not on it. Call Dick. He dashes home to join me in my puddle of tears, asks a few details. What? You gave her your email address? I told you don’t give any personal information out to anyone on the phone. It was in good faith. She sounded true. He freaks out. Now he’s paranoid too. Guilt.

I call the magazine, manage, navigate twelve prompts and then four more after I find the correct one for my question, which is “Is it true?” Leave a message for Teresa or Marissa Brower, Bower or Bowes.

I don’t know which head got cool first his or mine but he goes to the computer at the same instant I wonder if I’ve looked at the list of last year’s winners. But it says the winners would be on line. Will be? Yeah. Early November. It’s October. They wouldn’t put them on line before the next issue is out or no one would buy the magazine. Oh.

Call Marissa/Teresa B. Leave an apologetic message. Courteous. Call writing buddy to laugh with her about my paranoid process. My magazine just came she says. Yes. Here’s your name listed. It’s true.
It’s true. I feel as if I’d just seen the bodily Resurrection of Christ and I know it’s true, a fact. I feel about six years old. It’s true. I notify the “world.” It’s true.

It’s amazing what writers go through—out here writing, hunched over computers, submitting to countless publications, editors, etc. over and over along with hundreds of thousands of aspirants all as hopeful as you are. Rejections pour in by mail and email. It's easy to lose heart, get paranoid, be sure the whole world of publishing is out to get you alone, expose your foolishness. Your spirit begins to schlump, great yiddish word. Thank God for friends who schlump too, and thank God for Spirit who raises up schlumpers.

I’m still waiting for Holly’s cheery email and wondering at the paradox: the more passionate you are about something and the more hopeful and persevering you are about it and the more faith you have in your efforts, the more vulnerable you are to paranoia when hope turns to truth.

How odd. It reminds me of the phrase in Luke’s gospel describing the Jesus followers’ reaction to the news the women brought of the Resurrection. First they called it a hoax, an “idle tale” (like the ones women always tell, right?) Then they ran to check it out for themselves. Then they had a spiritual experience of the resurrected Jesus himself on the road to Emmaus. They “disbelieved for joy.” (Luke 24:41)

Angels and Bulls

Today on the church calendar we remember St. Michael and All Angels.

Do you believe in angels? I don’t know if I do, but I love the imagery and the spiritual energy that is named angel. To me angels are metaphors for spiritual strength—the kind needed for liberation.

Angels are like bulls charging into life’s injustices full force. That’s why they are pictured with weaponry, divine armor which does not mean you are to start a war either inside or outside yourself but rather to trust that inner strength will be provided.

It seems too sentimental, except for children, to say that angels "guard" individuals. I think angels guard divine values—justice, peace and compassion—by giving us wings to fly free and help others fly.

In the bible angels are messengers, fierce messengers announcing news of something new that will require your attention, your best resources and your creative imagination. When imagination and the forces for good are let loose, angels fly, bulls charge. There is death and there is new life.

Today I read in the Boston Globe that a 1,400 pound bull had escaped from a slaughterhouse in Paterson N.J. and dragged police officers with a lasso down the street ten blocks. The bull charged forward with brute force, running for his mighty life, refusing to succumb to the forces of violence that threatened his beautiful life.

My heart flew with the bull as I stared at the photo. Angels were with that bull as he made a run for life and freedom against impossible odds. I admired that bull. His effort was futile. It took an hour to corral him, sedate him and return him to slaughter. I will think of that bull the next time I order steak and am asked how I would like it cooked. The bull’s effort was futile, not wasted.

Sometimes our best efforts for the good end in tragedy. The courageous among us make these efforts anyway. Liberation is never easy. Liberation requires heroism, strong force. Many literally die like the bull, but all liberators wake us up and all are beloved.

Once a bull was an angel of liberation for me. He came out one day in therapy when my brilliant and uppity therapist suggested I give my restless inner energy an animal identity. I knew right away it was a bull. I’d spent lots of childhood time on a farm. I knew bulls up close and personal. In spite of my fear at their ferocity and power I was fascinated. My therapist told me to be a bull, right there in her office. As appalled as I was I was at a stage in my therapy that if she told me gravel was food I’d have eaten it. I started to paw the carpet, roar, howl, snort. What was probably five minutes or less released thirty years of rage. When the bull quieted I emerged transformed. A feeling of absolute peace enveloped me and strangely sharpened my vision so I looked up at my therapist and for the first time noticed how beautiful her face was.

She asked if I had words. A hymn came to mind, “Father Eternal, Ruler of Creation.” It’s a violent hymn, relentlessly, verse by verse, detailing the destructive powers of oppression and war. The refrain is Thy kingdom come, oh Lord, thy will be done. I sang it to her.

At the Foot of the Cross—or the Bed

Reflecting on Holy Cross Day, September 14th, on the old holy cross, I wonder why we could call such a topsy-turvy symbol holy.

Most people think it’s nuts. Even many Christians. A great and innocent man of God is killed for preaching divine mercy and justice and roiling up the rabble and we call it divine love? divine will? How do you make common sense or sacred sense of such a hideous instrument of execution, signaling cruelty, injustice and other sins against humanity too fierce to mention And Christians say it’s God’s self-giving love? Or worse, it’s for your own good, or God needs this lamb’s blood to ransom us from sin. Not very loving, eh?

One of my favorite movies is Thelma and Louise. It’s a gruesome story of two women who commit murder in the wake of rape, become fugitives from the law, and decide to die together rather than submit to further abuses in a patriarchal system. Their decision to drive over the edge of the Grand Canyon felt noble to me, heroic, holy. My tears flowed sorrow and joy. I learned a lot about myself, women, injustice, cruelty and spiritual freedom. I think of Jesus’ choosing death. I think of God’s choosing resurrection.

I bet those women ended up somewhere near the right hand of Godde.

Our good friend of years and brother priest Richard Schuster died the end of August. He had devoted his whole adult life to works of justice and love, developing a non-profit organization, St. Lukes LifeWorks, to help the underserved populations of the city of Stamford, Connecticut get jobs, training, counseling and housing. He saw his work as ministry. He did it for people and for God.

Richard was only sixty-four. His disease, pulmonary fibrosis, took hold and went faster than anyone imagined it could.

On Friday August 28 we had a dinner date with him and his wife Angela. We two couples had been good friends for years. Our dinner date morphed suddenly into hospital and hospice and huge oxygen tanks that pumped oxygen into his failing lungs, almost like a home respirator without the nasty nasal gastric tube.
We debated about it all and, undeterred, decided we’d come anyway and bring in some take out food from one of our favorite haunts Mitchells Fish Market. When Richard heard we were coming and getting food from Mitchells he perked up and ordered—broiled trout, garlic mashed potatoes, two pieces of key lime pie and wine.

We gathered, sat on his bed while Angela fed him a little trout, two bites of potato and almost all of one key lime pie slice. He was alert. We laughed, sharing old and odd memories of our escapades, including our plans to reform the church calling ourselves Parish Management Services, which we dropped when we figured the acronym was PMS. We all cried; we touched; we said prayers each one according to our own styles and words; we touched some more, hands, arms, head, his flesh cold to the touch; we said good bye and good bye and good bye with love. It was a holy communion at the foot of his bed, his "cross". Then he left and started his journey home. We ate the rest of the meal and the pie, drank the wine and hugged. A holy communion.

Although sad these last moments were transformative for us all. We and Angela have a living memory that will stay with us for ever or at least every time we dine on key lime pie and loving conversation.

Isn’t that what Jesus’ followers did with his tragic death: gathered, shared, prayed, loved, sipped wine and broke bread together? Is that enough meaning?

Isn’t this what we Christians do every Sunday when as community we gather at the foot of a cross for the Holy Eucharist?

It’s enough meaning for me, holy enough too.