It occurred to me as I write my memoir that even the facts I know I don’t remember long or well, often doubt altogether. It’s why fragile memory can’t be proven, only explored and experienced with loving care. Then gone.
Here is a quote on memory from Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. I love it.
"My theme is memory, that winged host that soared about me one grey morning of war-time. These memories, which are my life—for we possess nothing but the past—were always with me. Like the pigeons of St. Mark's, they were everywhere, under my feet, singly, in pairs, in little honey-voiced congregations, nodding, strutting, winking, rolling the tender feathers of their necks, perching sometimes, if I stood still, on my shoulder; until, suddenly, the noon gun boomed and in a moment, with a flutter and sweep of wings, the pavement was bare and the whole sky above dark with a tumult of fowl. Thus it was that morning of war-time. "
I do envy that prose. We'd be blackballed today probably for such a lengthy sentence but it is eloquent. We who write are all honey-voiced don't you think?
My favorite Christmas memory of my childhood is my father reading aloud "Twas the Night Before Christmas" as we small three daughters listened in awe and wonder. The story itself held all the enchantment of the Nativity story. It's the story that converts and transforms, not its veracity.
My second favorite or clear memory of Christmas is of my father singing carols in his rich bass voice in church. It was enough just to listen and watch the candles flicker for me to know Love lives no matter what else dies.
The Eucharist is like Waugh's memory pigeons, a glimpse of remembered life, sharply present, beckoning, the past possessed, then, suddenly, swallowed and gone—not forgotten just gone. The Greeks call this phenomenon anamnesis (no amnesia.)
All you can do is say thanks for the memory.
Friday, December 2, 2011
2011.12.07 Anita Hill, Still Brave
It's Pearl Harbor Day, a time to remember tragedy, grieve our warlike ways, and up our efforts to prevent war!!
Also a fitting time for me to commemorate one of my heros who in her own way made a contribution to the effort to end violence and its ideologies.
In early October I heard Anita Hill speak on her new book Reimagining Equality. Stories of Gender and Race and Finding Home.
Hill as I expected her to be was eloquent speaking of how our ideas about HOME shape our experience and form our ideas of justice and equality in America.
I remember being riveted to the TV in 1991 when Hill confronted the issues of sexual harassment at the Senate hearing to confirm Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court Justice.
I’d never heard of sexual harassment but I sure had experienced it in church and society AND never thought a thing about it. I figured it was about my being an attractive women. Imagine!
Not until I read and became a feminist did I understand inequities, power dynamics and patriarchy, aptly defined by theologian Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza as any system of social organization that depends for its stability, its very existence, on -isms, strongly held beliefs and norms whereby one group has,and is supposed to have, more power and more access to resources than all others.
The inequity is structured right into the system,politically, economically, and theologically. It’s a short attitudinal hop from God HE the Almighty power to HE the man who has power over the woman. HE with all the power and right is sexISM.
Ism to me means that whatever precedes the -ism has all the power in the mind of a culture, an individual, or a group. I’m glad Christianity isn’t called Christian-ism.
Anita Hill told us that her grandmother’s name never appeared on the documentation or deed for a large farm her grandparents homesteaded in 1869. Her grandFATHER went from being property to owning property, the American dream. What happened to HER? The grandparents farmed the land together, both giving sweat and tears to the project of landed freedom. It wasn’t that her grandfather treated her grandmother with personal disrespect; the context ignored her very existence.
That’s old stuff you say. Maybe and maybe not. We’ve come a long way for sure and we’re not there yet. Hill cited the current housing crisis and foreclosure as no accident. The crisis is gendered. Women, singles in fact, have been unable to get loans and gain greater economic independence.
The two-parent single home solution isn’t working as the dream. It is failing to provide true HOME.
This is not the space to go deeper into this but Hill said the American dream of everyone being able to own property has ballooned. It has become distorted to mean that every American MUST HAVE bigger and bigger homes. "Trophy" mansions represent a failure of equity. They are symbols of a failed vision.
I’ve never like the idea of equality anyway. Human beings are not equal. They are equivalent, of equal value in our nations and in our churches.
Hill suggested that HOME means belonging, safety, community, not just house.
Many churches bear the name Heavenly Rest. Rest is a biblical metaphor for God. It doesn’t just mean peace after you die. You have a home in God as you are right now.
If we could begin to see each other this way we might rework the American dream and work to enlarge the concept of HOME as belonging in a community of equivalent souls where anything that devalues things black, female, disabled, poor, etc. undermines the whole.
According to Hill we need a movement from tolerance to belonging—very spiritual, very political, very economic, very American.
Also a fitting time for me to commemorate one of my heros who in her own way made a contribution to the effort to end violence and its ideologies.
In early October I heard Anita Hill speak on her new book Reimagining Equality. Stories of Gender and Race and Finding Home.
Hill as I expected her to be was eloquent speaking of how our ideas about HOME shape our experience and form our ideas of justice and equality in America.
I remember being riveted to the TV in 1991 when Hill confronted the issues of sexual harassment at the Senate hearing to confirm Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court Justice.
I’d never heard of sexual harassment but I sure had experienced it in church and society AND never thought a thing about it. I figured it was about my being an attractive women. Imagine!
Not until I read and became a feminist did I understand inequities, power dynamics and patriarchy, aptly defined by theologian Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza as any system of social organization that depends for its stability, its very existence, on -isms, strongly held beliefs and norms whereby one group has,and is supposed to have, more power and more access to resources than all others.
The inequity is structured right into the system,politically, economically, and theologically. It’s a short attitudinal hop from God HE the Almighty power to HE the man who has power over the woman. HE with all the power and right is sexISM.
Ism to me means that whatever precedes the -ism has all the power in the mind of a culture, an individual, or a group. I’m glad Christianity isn’t called Christian-ism.
Anita Hill told us that her grandmother’s name never appeared on the documentation or deed for a large farm her grandparents homesteaded in 1869. Her grandFATHER went from being property to owning property, the American dream. What happened to HER? The grandparents farmed the land together, both giving sweat and tears to the project of landed freedom. It wasn’t that her grandfather treated her grandmother with personal disrespect; the context ignored her very existence.
That’s old stuff you say. Maybe and maybe not. We’ve come a long way for sure and we’re not there yet. Hill cited the current housing crisis and foreclosure as no accident. The crisis is gendered. Women, singles in fact, have been unable to get loans and gain greater economic independence.
The two-parent single home solution isn’t working as the dream. It is failing to provide true HOME.
This is not the space to go deeper into this but Hill said the American dream of everyone being able to own property has ballooned. It has become distorted to mean that every American MUST HAVE bigger and bigger homes. "Trophy" mansions represent a failure of equity. They are symbols of a failed vision.
I’ve never like the idea of equality anyway. Human beings are not equal. They are equivalent, of equal value in our nations and in our churches.
Hill suggested that HOME means belonging, safety, community, not just house.
Many churches bear the name Heavenly Rest. Rest is a biblical metaphor for God. It doesn’t just mean peace after you die. You have a home in God as you are right now.
If we could begin to see each other this way we might rework the American dream and work to enlarge the concept of HOME as belonging in a community of equivalent souls where anything that devalues things black, female, disabled, poor, etc. undermines the whole.
According to Hill we need a movement from tolerance to belonging—very spiritual, very political, very economic, very American.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
2011.11.30 A Family Saints Day
When I was a young teen and panting with romanticism, I admired Roman Catholics, actually envied them because they had stuff— like beads and prayers and saints names and days. They also prayed, to a woman of all things. AND they had answers to any religio-spiritual questions I might ask. And I had plenty of questions. I felt we Protestants were deprived.
But what I loved the most is that these Catholics had a whole array of saints, one for every issue and ailment and prayer concern you could think of. They even each had a saints name. I thought that was elegant, so personal. There was no saint Lyn.
Of course later when I took instructions to join the Roman Catholic church I found out they didn’t think much of women, except the statuary kind.
So I found the ANGLO-Catholic Episcopal church where there were beads that were optional, or less compulsively omniscient, and a liturgy that made me swoon almost as much as the Latin Mass. But here I had to wrestle with what all these mysterious words meant. It grew me up into a priest.
I made my own beads and use them when I’m dead tired or deeply desperate and wordless.
And I picked out a few saints to personalize according to meaningful days in my life and family. One was St. Andrew whose holy day is today.
Andrew was a nice and curious guy, a disciple of John the Baptist who suggested he meet this Jesus. Eagerly Andrew went to investigate. Then, according to the biblical story in John’s gospel, Andrew rushed back to fetch his bro Simon Peter.
Andrew never made it into Jesus’ circle of intimates. He wasn’t the type to aspire to the episcopate. Maybe he was lucky. After all look what became of Peter. Who would want to be pope?
But Andrew recognized a good thing like forgiveness and the God of love Rabbi Jesus preached, as a good way of life to follow. And he didn't get possessive with his new way but shared it immediately.
Andrew is patron saint to Scotland, part of our family heritage, but that’s not why I chose him as one of our family saints. I chose Andrew because on this day, 10 years ago, my two sons nearly died in a car accident. God didn’t save them, they were plumb lucky. But God I believe worked transformation in their souls after their shared trauma.
In time and with gratitude these brothers supported and led each other into a new way of life.
Each person finds his or her way to truth and holiness, and some people do it together.
But what I loved the most is that these Catholics had a whole array of saints, one for every issue and ailment and prayer concern you could think of. They even each had a saints name. I thought that was elegant, so personal. There was no saint Lyn.
Of course later when I took instructions to join the Roman Catholic church I found out they didn’t think much of women, except the statuary kind.
So I found the ANGLO-Catholic Episcopal church where there were beads that were optional, or less compulsively omniscient, and a liturgy that made me swoon almost as much as the Latin Mass. But here I had to wrestle with what all these mysterious words meant. It grew me up into a priest.
I made my own beads and use them when I’m dead tired or deeply desperate and wordless.
And I picked out a few saints to personalize according to meaningful days in my life and family. One was St. Andrew whose holy day is today.
Andrew was a nice and curious guy, a disciple of John the Baptist who suggested he meet this Jesus. Eagerly Andrew went to investigate. Then, according to the biblical story in John’s gospel, Andrew rushed back to fetch his bro Simon Peter.
Andrew never made it into Jesus’ circle of intimates. He wasn’t the type to aspire to the episcopate. Maybe he was lucky. After all look what became of Peter. Who would want to be pope?
But Andrew recognized a good thing like forgiveness and the God of love Rabbi Jesus preached, as a good way of life to follow. And he didn't get possessive with his new way but shared it immediately.
Andrew is patron saint to Scotland, part of our family heritage, but that’s not why I chose him as one of our family saints. I chose Andrew because on this day, 10 years ago, my two sons nearly died in a car accident. God didn’t save them, they were plumb lucky. But God I believe worked transformation in their souls after their shared trauma.
In time and with gratitude these brothers supported and led each other into a new way of life.
Each person finds his or her way to truth and holiness, and some people do it together.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
2011.12.04 25 Years of Wedded Laughter
Evening conversation or its lack between a middle-aging couple, retired and gratefully vital but with occasional memory lapses, can be sparse or sparred, but most always risible.
Astonishing how SHORT the “short” is in short-term memory loss.
Example: SHE confesses to forgetting to flush. (Now that’s VERY short term memory loss :0
HE reminds her by calling attention to it, loudly of course and from two flights down.
OK this is us of course. It's how we stay married by laughing.
What did I want for our 25th wedding anniversary?
I answered boldly and with surety: I want you to stop wearing underwear and socks. It would make folding the wash so much easier.
I knew his asking was a joke because we have long since not given gifts to each other in the interest of not accumulating anything that we will have to pack and move, facing wrenching downsizing choices.
OK, he said, if you don’t ever buy another stitch of clothing for as long as you live.
I won’t, I swore, silently adding “with Godde’s help.”
How did we make it the second time for this long?
You’re too ornery and I’m too terrified, he said.
Or vice versa I said.
Obviously, we have little shame left. And today we caught ourselves defensively competing over who forgot or remembered what—when and correctly. Imagine! BUT... what one forgets the other remembers and vice versa.
We’re having hysterical fun, even when we fight which happens often and lasts shorter than short-term memory loss. Not really a fight just a skirmish to make sure we’re both clear on our points. Just so neither forgets!
This is aging love—all gratitude, all laughter, and all truth in a big fat spiritual grab bag.
Thanks be to God whose sense of humor is eternal.
Astonishing how SHORT the “short” is in short-term memory loss.
Example: SHE confesses to forgetting to flush. (Now that’s VERY short term memory loss :0
HE reminds her by calling attention to it, loudly of course and from two flights down.
OK this is us of course. It's how we stay married by laughing.
What did I want for our 25th wedding anniversary?
I answered boldly and with surety: I want you to stop wearing underwear and socks. It would make folding the wash so much easier.
I knew his asking was a joke because we have long since not given gifts to each other in the interest of not accumulating anything that we will have to pack and move, facing wrenching downsizing choices.
OK, he said, if you don’t ever buy another stitch of clothing for as long as you live.
I won’t, I swore, silently adding “with Godde’s help.”
How did we make it the second time for this long?
You’re too ornery and I’m too terrified, he said.
Or vice versa I said.
Obviously, we have little shame left. And today we caught ourselves defensively competing over who forgot or remembered what—when and correctly. Imagine! BUT... what one forgets the other remembers and vice versa.
We’re having hysterical fun, even when we fight which happens often and lasts shorter than short-term memory loss. Not really a fight just a skirmish to make sure we’re both clear on our points. Just so neither forgets!
This is aging love—all gratitude, all laughter, and all truth in a big fat spiritual grab bag.
Thanks be to God whose sense of humor is eternal.
2011.11.27 Advent Commandment
Every pregnancy is holy and every pregnancy asks us to slow down, heed inner life growing, and wait with gentle patience for the birth—of Jesus and whoever else is en-wombed.
No flesh is illegitimate!!
A wisdom that needs to take on the tenor of a commandment for all seasons, not just Advent. Our culture is blessed with instant communication. I find it helpful and use email but not social networking—yet. I still love long lunches with friends and park bench chats — in the flesh.
I received this email from a friend recently. She was getting tied in knots by email correspondence, if it can be called that.
She wrote: i've come to hate e-mail - no voice, no nuance, too quick, too easy (and you can quote me on your blog). i get about 150-200 per day at the college. madness, sheer madness.
Noting the irony I shot back my instant reply with a quick click: Tis madness indeed! And it's deaf, dumb and blind to boot!! Jesus, however, did heal such blindness with a click of his prayer-suffused hands, no? Maybe we should pray on this, to heal the device-addicted culture. Of course we will be called old fogies but I don't care. We are older, not fogies just spiritually sane. We can remember a more connected less harried world. And Eucharist is for remembering our embodied holiness, last time I ate, right?
Paradox: The more connected our devices tell us we are the more disembodied and non-incarnational we get.
Today’s culture is anti-Christian. I don’t need everyone to espouse Christianity. Some days I don’t myself. But it sure wouldn’t hurt to pay attention to one of Christianity’s central ideas: INCARNATION.
If G-d or the Holy lives in our human flesh, honors it enough to dwell therein, then maybe we need to do likewise. Touch and the keen eyes of understanding heal souls.
The lady preacha (not ordained) Baby Suggs says in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved:
"Here, . . . in this place, we flesh; Flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it, love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. . . . Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them, touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face, ‘cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, You! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. . . . You got to love it. This is flesh that I’m talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance, backs that need support; shoulders that need strong arms. . . . More than eyes and feet. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear em now, love your heart. For this is the prize.”
This is the prize: ALL flesh is blessed so bless ALL flesh.
(This means you have to keep in shape AND love your muffin tops, too.)
No flesh is illegitimate!!
A wisdom that needs to take on the tenor of a commandment for all seasons, not just Advent. Our culture is blessed with instant communication. I find it helpful and use email but not social networking—yet. I still love long lunches with friends and park bench chats — in the flesh.
I received this email from a friend recently. She was getting tied in knots by email correspondence, if it can be called that.
She wrote: i've come to hate e-mail - no voice, no nuance, too quick, too easy (and you can quote me on your blog). i get about 150-200 per day at the college. madness, sheer madness.
Noting the irony I shot back my instant reply with a quick click: Tis madness indeed! And it's deaf, dumb and blind to boot!! Jesus, however, did heal such blindness with a click of his prayer-suffused hands, no? Maybe we should pray on this, to heal the device-addicted culture. Of course we will be called old fogies but I don't care. We are older, not fogies just spiritually sane. We can remember a more connected less harried world. And Eucharist is for remembering our embodied holiness, last time I ate, right?
Paradox: The more connected our devices tell us we are the more disembodied and non-incarnational we get.
Today’s culture is anti-Christian. I don’t need everyone to espouse Christianity. Some days I don’t myself. But it sure wouldn’t hurt to pay attention to one of Christianity’s central ideas: INCARNATION.
If G-d or the Holy lives in our human flesh, honors it enough to dwell therein, then maybe we need to do likewise. Touch and the keen eyes of understanding heal souls.
The lady preacha (not ordained) Baby Suggs says in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved:
"Here, . . . in this place, we flesh; Flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it, love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. . . . Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them, touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face, ‘cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, You! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. . . . You got to love it. This is flesh that I’m talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance, backs that need support; shoulders that need strong arms. . . . More than eyes and feet. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear em now, love your heart. For this is the prize.”
This is the prize: ALL flesh is blessed so bless ALL flesh.
(This means you have to keep in shape AND love your muffin tops, too.)
Thursday, November 24, 2011
2011.11.24 Thanksgiving
Originally this day was declared a national day of thanksgiving and prayer.
Often the prayer part gets left out or hastily truncated before we dive into our feasts.
So here is my prayer along with my thanks for life itself.
Dear God, Thank you for You, for the gift of divine presence in my life. You help me stay me, no more and no less. You bless me with wonder. Bless to me this sacred gift, keep me faithful, and be a spirit of prayer and thanksgiving within me and within all the people I love and believe in. As I pray without ceasing in good times and bad may I also be grateful without ceasing in good times and bad. By this I plan to help You make a feast for the hungry and the starving to share together. Let's try. AMEN.
Often the prayer part gets left out or hastily truncated before we dive into our feasts.
So here is my prayer along with my thanks for life itself.
Dear God, Thank you for You, for the gift of divine presence in my life. You help me stay me, no more and no less. You bless me with wonder. Bless to me this sacred gift, keep me faithful, and be a spirit of prayer and thanksgiving within me and within all the people I love and believe in. As I pray without ceasing in good times and bad may I also be grateful without ceasing in good times and bad. By this I plan to help You make a feast for the hungry and the starving to share together. Let's try. AMEN.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
2011.11.20 King Sunday
When Dick and I were married 25 years ago we chose to have our marriage liturgy on a Sunday morning in the parish church where Dick was rector.
Ours was a second chance marriage. I had been on the search committee of my home parish when we elected Dick as our next rector. On paper he looked quite ordinary and I remember throwing his profile aside saying Let’s chuck this Simeoneee ( I pronounced it incorrectly) guy. Boring.”
I got outvoted because Dick’s profile had advertised his interest in doing youth ministry, the speciality of the former rector. I commented that they all said that, good marketing.
In the short run youth won out. In the long run so did love and eventual marriage. Going through divorces in a small town in a smaller parish was no picnic and neither of us would have opted for that if we’d seen alternatives. Both of our ex’s took their second chances too and are happily remarried.
I remember debating our day. We chose this Sunday called Chist the King, which 25 years ago was Nov. 23. The day marks the end of the Pentecost season and is the springboard into Advent, time to expect the new baby and begin the life cycle again.
Christ the King is a glory day, an all white day just like a marriage or Easter. Time for new life, for recognizing anew who really is in charge, and it’s not you. And time to know that in Christ we see the love of God lived out in the flesh and are supposed to try to follow the good example.
I don’t like royalty much but thought the day for our marriage would be OK since if Christ were sovereign of the cosmos then no one else could be—ever. We would be mutual marriage partners, no one on top, except of course........ :)
But I drew the line at the Diademata hymn—terrific triumphant music but all about kingship and completely and exclusively masculine language.
Jesus was a man and can keep his male pronouns but Christ is alive in an eternal spiritual way and can not be He, Him or His all the time. So I ruled out the crowns and the He’s and that hymn for our wedding day.
Today in church we sang that hymn and for every He that was clearly not referring to the life of Jesus on earth I sang Christ, a more neutral word, gender-free.
You don’t have to be a man to be a christ. Neither for that matter do you have to be a Christian to be a Christ.
Ours was a second chance marriage. I had been on the search committee of my home parish when we elected Dick as our next rector. On paper he looked quite ordinary and I remember throwing his profile aside saying Let’s chuck this Simeoneee ( I pronounced it incorrectly) guy. Boring.”
I got outvoted because Dick’s profile had advertised his interest in doing youth ministry, the speciality of the former rector. I commented that they all said that, good marketing.
In the short run youth won out. In the long run so did love and eventual marriage. Going through divorces in a small town in a smaller parish was no picnic and neither of us would have opted for that if we’d seen alternatives. Both of our ex’s took their second chances too and are happily remarried.
I remember debating our day. We chose this Sunday called Chist the King, which 25 years ago was Nov. 23. The day marks the end of the Pentecost season and is the springboard into Advent, time to expect the new baby and begin the life cycle again.
Christ the King is a glory day, an all white day just like a marriage or Easter. Time for new life, for recognizing anew who really is in charge, and it’s not you. And time to know that in Christ we see the love of God lived out in the flesh and are supposed to try to follow the good example.
I don’t like royalty much but thought the day for our marriage would be OK since if Christ were sovereign of the cosmos then no one else could be—ever. We would be mutual marriage partners, no one on top, except of course........ :)
But I drew the line at the Diademata hymn—terrific triumphant music but all about kingship and completely and exclusively masculine language.
Jesus was a man and can keep his male pronouns but Christ is alive in an eternal spiritual way and can not be He, Him or His all the time. So I ruled out the crowns and the He’s and that hymn for our wedding day.
Today in church we sang that hymn and for every He that was clearly not referring to the life of Jesus on earth I sang Christ, a more neutral word, gender-free.
You don’t have to be a man to be a christ. Neither for that matter do you have to be a Christian to be a Christ.
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