I'm proud and pleased to share with my blog readers my son Rob's poetry. He has recently become a blogger himself. You can find his work on www.robbrakemanpoetry.com. Poetry is one of the creative endeavors that, to me, is very spiritual. Why? Because it has a way of going to the heart and soul of the matter, giving it full dignity as it is, grit and all, while at the same time communicating hope and new life. Matter and Spirit together.
Here is a poem Rob wrote some nine years ago when his brother was critically ill and Rob kept vigil in the hospital. His brother would do the same for him.
ANOTHER LATE NIGHT
an already slow elevator that stops on every floor
doctors and nurses, interns and surgeons
light blue OR scrubs and white coats
pens, clipboards and beepers
white sheets
the strange and continual smell of onion soup?
is that it? onion soup?
peristaltic pumps clicking on and off,
beeping too loudly when the bags are empty
intravenous pick line and dried blood
that yellow paste around every IV insertion
morphine
codeine
Tylenol
bed sores
blood pressure and pulse
an impatient nurse
no information
waiting
fluorescent lights
ileostomy
colo-rectal
gastroenterology
adhesions and adhesiolysis
holy shit
and there you were
in the middle of it all
like a small pea
held delicately between the forefinger and thumb of a giant
by Rob Brakeman when his brother John was in the hospital, 2004-5
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Sunday, March 31, 2013
2013.03.31 Eastering
Easter for clergy is exhausting, even if you’re only assisting. I’m the good kind of tired, the kind that comes from a fine meal in good company with lots of laughter and children’s faces, the kind that satisfies.
In our parish, when small children come to the altar rail to receive their share of the Holy Communion bread, which is a flat white tasteless wafer, they run or skip. Their parents grab them by whatever is grabbable to hold them back, to make them wait, corral their eager energy. But the children know better. They know when something is special and they know that they belong. So they run up, hop onto the kneeler, prop their small elbows onto the rail and stick out their hands—right palm over left, as they’ve been taught. Some kids curl their fingers into tiny tight cups. They try to get the formation just right.
The priest comes by to give them their “treat.” When I am the priest, I look into their turned up faces and bend down a bit to their level to place, sometimes wedge, a wafer into each pair of cupped hands as I say their name, or my sister or brother, “The body of Christ, the bread of heaven.”
Then they pop it into their mouth or take a bite and discover again that it tastes yukky. Still, they know that it’s important and that everyone is eating it with them, all together the same. Small faces register like and dislike —yes and no at once. There’s no faking here. Kids are truth.
Is it okay to say yes and no at once to Godde? Even okay to say yes, but—sometimes?
I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes
“God Says Yes To Me” by Kaylin Haught from The Palm of Your Hand, 1995
In our parish, when small children come to the altar rail to receive their share of the Holy Communion bread, which is a flat white tasteless wafer, they run or skip. Their parents grab them by whatever is grabbable to hold them back, to make them wait, corral their eager energy. But the children know better. They know when something is special and they know that they belong. So they run up, hop onto the kneeler, prop their small elbows onto the rail and stick out their hands—right palm over left, as they’ve been taught. Some kids curl their fingers into tiny tight cups. They try to get the formation just right.
The priest comes by to give them their “treat.” When I am the priest, I look into their turned up faces and bend down a bit to their level to place, sometimes wedge, a wafer into each pair of cupped hands as I say their name, or my sister or brother, “The body of Christ, the bread of heaven.”
Then they pop it into their mouth or take a bite and discover again that it tastes yukky. Still, they know that it’s important and that everyone is eating it with them, all together the same. Small faces register like and dislike —yes and no at once. There’s no faking here. Kids are truth.
Is it okay to say yes and no at once to Godde? Even okay to say yes, but—sometimes?
I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes
“God Says Yes To Me” by Kaylin Haught from The Palm of Your Hand, 1995
Friday, March 29, 2013
2013.03.29 Listening
It’s Good Friday, a paradoxical day when Christians remember Jesus’ hideous death on a cross and all the injustice and pain in the world, and at the same time see in it hope for transformation—brought forth by divine/human collaboration. Kinda crazy really, but hope against hope is like that.
One can only pray and write poetry. Here’s one that captures the whole hope-driven journey.
LISTENING
by David Ignatow (American poet, born in Brooklyn, NY, 1914)
You wept in your mother’s arms
and I knew that from then on
I was to forget myself.
Listening to your sobs,
I was resolved against my will
to do well by us
and so I said, without thinking,
in great panic, To do wrong
in one’s own judgment,
though others thrive by it,
is the right road to blessedness.
Not to submit to error
is in itself wrong
and pride.
Standing beside you,
I took an oath
to make your life simpler
by complicating mine
and what I always thought
would happen did:
I was lifted up in joy.
One can only pray and write poetry. Here’s one that captures the whole hope-driven journey.
LISTENING
by David Ignatow (American poet, born in Brooklyn, NY, 1914)
You wept in your mother’s arms
and I knew that from then on
I was to forget myself.
Listening to your sobs,
I was resolved against my will
to do well by us
and so I said, without thinking,
in great panic, To do wrong
in one’s own judgment,
though others thrive by it,
is the right road to blessedness.
Not to submit to error
is in itself wrong
and pride.
Standing beside you,
I took an oath
to make your life simpler
by complicating mine
and what I always thought
would happen did:
I was lifted up in joy.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
2013.03.27 Who Said Animals Don't Get Ressurected?
Imagine having a huge horse (10 feet tall, 1000-1200 pounds,) a lion 7 feet tall, and a giant brown bear, 8 feet tall, living in your barn, which is attached to your house?
This would be worse than being Noah and his wife, whose name was Elizabeth (I made that up, sick as I am of biblical female anonymity) on an ark. Imagine the demanding task of having to keep track of the feeding schedules of hundreds of creature couples, plus clean up their daily excrement—probably a lot, since being crammed into an ark for 40 days and nights with no sign of land would make even the fiercest of beasts nervously excremental. (The first thing Noah did, btw, when he got off that ark and onto dry land was get drunk—of course!)
But the large animals living in Arron Sturgis’s barn don’t make any noise, eat nothing, and don’t shit. They are wooden sculptures by the late Maine artist Bernard Langlais. The animals, signature Langlais art, have lived outside in the garden at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art for over 30 years. The wood has suffered from rot. Now, thanks to grants and gifts, these animal works of art are going to get a resurrection. And they’re not even dead yet!
Sturgis owns Preservation Timber Framing, Inc. in Berwick Maine. He’s a timber framing expert, sensitive to the needs of all kinds of wood that has gotten old and needs restoration. Usually his work involves old New England buildings, church steeples, and even design and framing work on the new American wing of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. And now beasts of wood.
“The challenge is doing this work without changing the artifact so it’s no longer a Langlais,” Sturgis said. “But they’re all salvageable, and they all will be Langlais when we’re done with them.” He wants to capture the same spirit and vigor he imagines Langlais invested in his originals. Now that’s humble integrity!
“This guy wasted no time on these,” said Sturgis. “They are not pieces of finely crafted furniture. He was really moving.” Sturgis, 52, is the same age as Langlois was in the prime of his creative years. As I know Arron Sturgis, he will move efficiently and with all of his own vim on these resurrections, which will be as valuable as the originals.
So you see there are artists behind the artists, behind the artists, all with the same goals as the divine artist, whom some of us call God-Creator/Godde-Resurrector.
A whimsical anecdote from Sturgis: One day he was transporting the bear, who sat nobly in the back of his truck as they drove through Ogunquit. He stopped ( no light, just courtesy) to allow a pedestrian to cross. The woman began to cross, with her head lowered, absorbed in her electronic device, when Sturgis yelled out his window, “Hey watch out for the bear!” The woman looked up, gave the bear a glance, then went right back to the non-ursine essentials of her life.
The bear (see below) was nonplussed as well. He knew he would soon receive the gift of new life.
This would be worse than being Noah and his wife, whose name was Elizabeth (I made that up, sick as I am of biblical female anonymity) on an ark. Imagine the demanding task of having to keep track of the feeding schedules of hundreds of creature couples, plus clean up their daily excrement—probably a lot, since being crammed into an ark for 40 days and nights with no sign of land would make even the fiercest of beasts nervously excremental. (The first thing Noah did, btw, when he got off that ark and onto dry land was get drunk—of course!)
But the large animals living in Arron Sturgis’s barn don’t make any noise, eat nothing, and don’t shit. They are wooden sculptures by the late Maine artist Bernard Langlais. The animals, signature Langlais art, have lived outside in the garden at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art for over 30 years. The wood has suffered from rot. Now, thanks to grants and gifts, these animal works of art are going to get a resurrection. And they’re not even dead yet!
Sturgis owns Preservation Timber Framing, Inc. in Berwick Maine. He’s a timber framing expert, sensitive to the needs of all kinds of wood that has gotten old and needs restoration. Usually his work involves old New England buildings, church steeples, and even design and framing work on the new American wing of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. And now beasts of wood.
“The challenge is doing this work without changing the artifact so it’s no longer a Langlais,” Sturgis said. “But they’re all salvageable, and they all will be Langlais when we’re done with them.” He wants to capture the same spirit and vigor he imagines Langlais invested in his originals. Now that’s humble integrity!
“This guy wasted no time on these,” said Sturgis. “They are not pieces of finely crafted furniture. He was really moving.” Sturgis, 52, is the same age as Langlois was in the prime of his creative years. As I know Arron Sturgis, he will move efficiently and with all of his own vim on these resurrections, which will be as valuable as the originals.
So you see there are artists behind the artists, behind the artists, all with the same goals as the divine artist, whom some of us call God-Creator/Godde-Resurrector.
A whimsical anecdote from Sturgis: One day he was transporting the bear, who sat nobly in the back of his truck as they drove through Ogunquit. He stopped ( no light, just courtesy) to allow a pedestrian to cross. The woman began to cross, with her head lowered, absorbed in her electronic device, when Sturgis yelled out his window, “Hey watch out for the bear!” The woman looked up, gave the bear a glance, then went right back to the non-ursine essentials of her life.
The bear (see below) was nonplussed as well. He knew he would soon receive the gift of new life.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
2013.03.24 Empathy Week
Most Christians call the week we are entering, Holy Week. I call it Empathy week. It’s a week we re-enact the skein of tragically inevitable events in the life of Jesus Christ, events that led him to trial and then to execution on the cross, events human history never forgot and divine grace forgave.
Christians are not re-enactors, like the groups that re-enact Civil War battles and the like. Our liturgies are not pageantry for its own sake, or to memorialize for history’s sake. Christians, if we allow ourselves to be real, if we dare to feel what Jesus might have felt, ought to be heartbroken.
Do we dare to be empathic with the sorrow, the cruelty, the betrayal, the treasonous politics, and rigged proceedings? It takes courage to feel empathy. Can we put our hearts where our mouths are? All those bloated hosannas ring hollow without heart-truth.
I’m reading Sonia Sotomayor’s memoir, My Beloved World. Her life discoveries are interwoven into her story in a seamless way. Here is one such insight: “I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can’t imagine someone else’s point of view.”
At the time when Sotomayor, was “on trial” herself to prove herself worthy of being a Supreme Court Justice. She said that one of the values she thought important for a good justice to hold was empathy. Many people jumped all over that word and mocked it as absurd, not part of justice at all in fact. Do you remember the hullabaloo?
At the time I thought all the flap had something to do with Sotomayor’s being a Latina and a woman. Probably it did. However, at a deeper level, the reaction had to do with an incomplete and narrow understanding about what true justice is.
“I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can’t imagine someone else’s point of view.”
Without empathy, things (like love, justice, peace, truth, faith) break down. Simply so.
Sonia Sotomayor has served as Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court since 2009.
Jesus Christ, as far as I know, is still feeding hungry souls.
Christians are not re-enactors, like the groups that re-enact Civil War battles and the like. Our liturgies are not pageantry for its own sake, or to memorialize for history’s sake. Christians, if we allow ourselves to be real, if we dare to feel what Jesus might have felt, ought to be heartbroken.
Do we dare to be empathic with the sorrow, the cruelty, the betrayal, the treasonous politics, and rigged proceedings? It takes courage to feel empathy. Can we put our hearts where our mouths are? All those bloated hosannas ring hollow without heart-truth.
I’m reading Sonia Sotomayor’s memoir, My Beloved World. Her life discoveries are interwoven into her story in a seamless way. Here is one such insight: “I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can’t imagine someone else’s point of view.”
At the time when Sotomayor, was “on trial” herself to prove herself worthy of being a Supreme Court Justice. She said that one of the values she thought important for a good justice to hold was empathy. Many people jumped all over that word and mocked it as absurd, not part of justice at all in fact. Do you remember the hullabaloo?
At the time I thought all the flap had something to do with Sotomayor’s being a Latina and a woman. Probably it did. However, at a deeper level, the reaction had to do with an incomplete and narrow understanding about what true justice is.
“I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can’t imagine someone else’s point of view.”
Without empathy, things (like love, justice, peace, truth, faith) break down. Simply so.
Jesus Christ, as far as I know, is still feeding hungry souls.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
2013.03.20 Tweet. Tweet?
There is lots of pressure these days to use Social Media, especially if you hope to publish. Get yourself, your brand, your fabulous wonderful YOU out there—VIRAL NOW!
Or perish? My hashtag might be—no idea, send me one. But I’ve been practicing in case I decide to get on Twitter. Here are some sample tweets.
The most forward thinking thing the RC church has done in 2000 years. What will they think of next, ordaining women? A friend’s comment on pope’s decision to tweet. Hashtag is pontifex!
Godde has no way to us but through us.
There’s no such thing as disincarnate love.
Your writing is spiritual when it dwells in the depth dimension where all hell breaks loose and all heaven breaks through.
If Godde is love, then love must be God.
If we were dinosaurs, aka olding, then I want to be the little hoppity one who turns quickly into a bird and soars off into the wild blue yonder.
I can put faith and trust in the ultimate and ideal Christ and the historical human Jesus at the same time.
Rebbitzen, tog mir a toyveh, fahrlr mein ahdres. Yiddish for: Lady, do me a favor, lose my address. We should make one for a woman to say to a man, no?
Or perish? My hashtag might be—no idea, send me one. But I’ve been practicing in case I decide to get on Twitter. Here are some sample tweets.
The most forward thinking thing the RC church has done in 2000 years. What will they think of next, ordaining women? A friend’s comment on pope’s decision to tweet. Hashtag is pontifex!
Godde has no way to us but through us.
There’s no such thing as disincarnate love.
Your writing is spiritual when it dwells in the depth dimension where all hell breaks loose and all heaven breaks through.
If Godde is love, then love must be God.
If we were dinosaurs, aka olding, then I want to be the little hoppity one who turns quickly into a bird and soars off into the wild blue yonder.
I can put faith and trust in the ultimate and ideal Christ and the historical human Jesus at the same time.
Rebbitzen, tog mir a toyveh, fahrlr mein ahdres. Yiddish for: Lady, do me a favor, lose my address. We should make one for a woman to say to a man, no?
Sunday, March 17, 2013
2013.03.17 Stormy Weather?
It’s amusing to watch the weather people this winter here in New England. They usually don’t get much air time, but with all these storms they are front and center in our living rooms. Weather newscasters shout the latest disaster and its terrific drama almost ecstatically. They dance close to roiling waters, mikes in hand, while nearly being soaked by a blast of sea, or blown over by a fresh strong gust of snow-wind.
The weather is Cecil B. DeMille calibre.
But I’m tired of everything, from the latest economic news to D.C. political plots, being cast as a disaster, a catastrophe, a crisis. The “weather”of this culture is like the weather outside, so hyper it could blow us away.
Does everything have to be an opera in rehearsal? It’s hard to slow down, hard not to snap at people I love, hard to concentrate on what really matters when everything seems to demand attention—hard to love.
I even suffered the base theological temptation of wondering if God, through the weather, was getting even with us for being scornful and forgetting Divinity. We, as well as God, can get lost in the swift currents of a world in a panicky race. Many religious folks worry —silently or aloud—that God destroys as well as creates. But Godde has nothing to do with the weather. Nature’s will is as free as ours. And Love does not destroy.
Still, I’m tired of adrenaline rushes. My soul is ready for some peace. If it snows or blows or implodes I want to hear the news in a clear, calm way that gives the facts, advisories, and predictions.
There is a difference between an apocalypticist (the end is near and it isn't pretty, so get afraid now) and an eschatologist (we don't know how, or if, the world will end, so we live each day in hope).
Then a gift came my way. It is a storm photo, but it’s not stormy. The bird mid-flight looks more like the Spirit to me than the “almighty” weather. She is free, lithe, peaceful, and true, in all weathers. Not dramatic, but so powerful—sort of like the white smoke over the Vatican, symbol of hope-in-flight. We'll see. Thank you.
The weather is Cecil B. DeMille calibre.
But I’m tired of everything, from the latest economic news to D.C. political plots, being cast as a disaster, a catastrophe, a crisis. The “weather”of this culture is like the weather outside, so hyper it could blow us away.
Does everything have to be an opera in rehearsal? It’s hard to slow down, hard not to snap at people I love, hard to concentrate on what really matters when everything seems to demand attention—hard to love.
I even suffered the base theological temptation of wondering if God, through the weather, was getting even with us for being scornful and forgetting Divinity. We, as well as God, can get lost in the swift currents of a world in a panicky race. Many religious folks worry —silently or aloud—that God destroys as well as creates. But Godde has nothing to do with the weather. Nature’s will is as free as ours. And Love does not destroy.
Still, I’m tired of adrenaline rushes. My soul is ready for some peace. If it snows or blows or implodes I want to hear the news in a clear, calm way that gives the facts, advisories, and predictions.
There is a difference between an apocalypticist (the end is near and it isn't pretty, so get afraid now) and an eschatologist (we don't know how, or if, the world will end, so we live each day in hope).
Then a gift came my way. It is a storm photo, but it’s not stormy. The bird mid-flight looks more like the Spirit to me than the “almighty” weather. She is free, lithe, peaceful, and true, in all weathers. Not dramatic, but so powerful—sort of like the white smoke over the Vatican, symbol of hope-in-flight. We'll see. Thank you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
