2013.11.06 Ironies of Aging

I’ve taken serious notice...............

The more I need my adult children, the less they need me.

As I walk along the sidewalk I spot a flattened used condom and feel a quick charge, a spark of youthful vigor remembered, then, as quickly as it’s come, it goes, and I know I’m content with the spark I have now. 

I’ve always prayed for and wanted my children and theirs to love and connect with each other. Now that they are doing it, I’m happy—and lonely, no longer the center of their lives, which is a good thing.

If a married couple can make a bed together without suicide or homicide, you know the marriage will endure, or has endured.

The closer I get to the end of my life the more affection I have for beginnings, especially the great beginning when God fell upon the unformed but not inert substance of matter. Together they made something new and beautiful, just for the loving hell of it.

The only thing I dread more than getting older is getting younger. 

The more in love I fall with my spouse the less interested I am in sex. Warm presence is enough.

The shorter my memory stretches, the further back it reaches. On the other hand, I don’t remember what I’ve forgotten nor do most of my contemporaries and my spouse. Hence repetitions aren’t annoying except to younger brains.

The more I laugh till tears squeeze out the less I cry myself to sleep.

The older I get the less seriously I take theology, and the more seriously I take Divinity, named God/Godde to me. Here’s a Tom Robbins( author of Still Life With a Woodpecker) quote: "Twenty candles on a cake. Twenty Camels in a pack. Twenty months in the federal pen. Twenty shots of tequila down a young girl's gullet. Twenty centuries since Our Lord's last pratfall, and after all that time we still don't know where passion goes when it goes."

And we still don't know who's coming to dinner?!  Every damn Sunday Jesus comes to dine and we still don’t know.

When your husband tells you he dreamt last night that he was trying to teach Jackie Gleason how to use a computer. And between gulps of laughter you ask, “So, how did it turn out?”  And he says,  “I don’t know, I woke up. The computer wouldn’t obey my commands.”  Thus you know you are old, out of control, and happy as hell.

2013.11.03 The College Essay—and Beyond

Well, I never thought I’d be saying such a thing but in the spirit of the blossoming teenagerhood of Gillian, a seventeen year old granddaughter, plus my own memories, I’d say poetry rocks—mostly because it's not in itself an achievement but rather an inspiration.

This summer I was excited when Gillian told me she was interested in poetry. Excited might be too mild a word. How lovingly narcissistic it is to see a grandchild take a direction that feels like yours.   Grampy and I introduced her to David Whyte. We sat together on the couch and watched a TED talk by Whyte. Later in the bookstore Gillian asked if I'd heard of "this guy." It was Pablo Neruda and she bought a small book of his love poems, which she read three time over during the rest of the vacation time. I asked her if she wrote poetry herself and she said yes, but not the public kind.

I remember the non-public poetry I wrote at 17—dramatic existential blasts and blurs when life felt big and bold and intriguing and terrifying and I wanted to swallow it all whole.

Gillian has her own drama of course but I was delighted when her proud mom sent me her college essay which begins with a poem of her own, and a good one. She felt relieved it was “over with now.” I’m near-70 years older and I know it's only the beginning of her unfurling as a beautiful young woman with a blossoming gift for using bold words to tell her heart. She gave me permission to publish her work on my blog and I do so with pride and a few sweet tears......................


Caught in the in between,
Can’t decide between you and me.
If I stay,
My world washes away,
If I go,
You’ll be the first to know.
We’re like fire and ice
You’re the fire
I’m the ice;
You melt me
To where I am almost nothing,
I never let anyone in before
But you,
You melt me to the core.
I let you in,
You burnt a hole through me.
They say opposites attract,
But mother says it’s never good
To play with fire.

My love for poetry started a long time ago.  The first time I remember thinking about poets was in elementary school when my teachers would read Doctor Suess; and in middle school Edgar Allen Poe. I had always loved the fact that words can be transformed to rhyme and make a rhythm so profound that you could fall in love with just a stanza in a single poem. It was only until recently that my own inner monologue started to talk to me in different rhymes and rhythms.

Ever since I was a young girl I have been drawn to and loved music as well. Whenever I listened to music the lyrics would pull in me in leading me to write all over my desk with song lyrics and little poems made up in my head.  Over time I switched to pen and paper and now have multiple notebooks with different poems and lyrics, and they get longer and better as written products.

I like to write about love. I have read Pablo Neruda’s Love Poems about 10 times and ever since then, it’s all I want to write about.  The fact that I have never been in love may add to the fact that I love the idea of being in love. That said, maybe I have found love in Neruda’s poems. In David Whyte and Robert Frost, I have fallen in love with places and people I have never met or seen. Maybe that’s why poems sometimes seem so cliché - perhaps I need a better outlook on life than that which is written in black and white.

I wanted to share this poem because I believe it is one of the best I have ever written. It came to me in about ten minutes and I didn’t have to change a thing. I have never taken a poetry class before, but I would love to. This poem and the ease with which it came to me marks a time in my life when I just simply knew I was no longer a little girl.  I realized I’m growing up and am a young woman with deep thoughts, intelligence and a creativity I’d only once imagined I possessed.

Going to college is important to me for many reasons but mostly because I know it will open my mind and heart to new ways to write and think about life and my future. I am all about opening my mind to new experiences and new beginnings, and that’s what I’m really hoping college will give me - a chance to explore. I want to find out who I am, and I think leaving home and being on my own will help me do that.

             ©Gillian B. Colbath, 2013, printed with permission.


God bless you on your way, Gillian, my chica, with life abundant and the courage to believe in yourself and the wonders of poetry.  And bless Dr. Seuss whose creative imagination did away with the abysmally boring Dick and Jane reading primers I had to learn to read by.  As one of your uncles said, you "will do wonderful things."

2013.10.30 Book Review. God's Hotel.

For my beach reading last summer I’d Kindled God’s Hotel by Victoria Sweet, M.D., PhD—hoping to read about how God practiced (was intimately involved with) medicine, maybe in a hotel? I wasn’t disappointed. Let me explain.

The bishop who ordained me had recommended the book. He’s a Gutenberg man who is rarely wrong about his books. God’s Hotel, published by Riverhead Books in 2012,  is a page turner. I finished it before I even got on vacation and to the beach, which was okay because, although my Kindle is named Fire, its glow doesn’t provide enough light to compete with the glare of brighter beach sun.  

The title comes from the French, Hotel-Dieu (God’s hotel, literally God’s hostel) the name for any charity hospital that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages.  Right away we get the flavor of ancient history.  A reader will learn about premodern medical practices and something about the utterly unimagineable mercies of le bon Dieu for the sick and the poor, poverty being a social disease. The book, to me, portrays medicine as ministry.

Because Dr. Sweet worked in an almshouse, Laguna Honda (sounds like a car dealership) she was able to practice what she called slow medicine. She had the luxury of time: being able to work part-time, spend an hour for a patient intake, and read Xrays on site herself!  Paradoxically, the penniless received top notch medical care for nothing. So much for idle assumptions about inferior care in clinics for THE poor. Such stereotypes are conditioned mostly by social shame and shaming.

In most religions God’s care is free— just like Laguna Honda’s was.  

Slowed down medicine was good for the doctor as well as the patient. Sweet learned she wanted to be herself with her patients, not so distant and guarded about professional boundaries. There was more time for relationships, a bit of humble mutuality without compromising her role or risking her patients’ emotional health. 

It would be easy to dismiss this by saying she knew these patients couldn’t sue her so it was safer to drop her guard a bit,  but that would do a disservice to this physician’s integrity, much of which she learned from patients. She recalls us to the spirituality of medicine through the cases she chooses to share, as well as her own evolution as a physician.  

God’s Hotel opens with an autopsy, the author’s first. When the face of the dead person is exposed Sweet suddenly recognizes one of her first-ever patients. It was Mr. Baker but it wasn’t Mr. Baker—really.  Where was Mr. Baker?  Spiritual questions immediately confront author and reader. What does and did medicine have to say about such obvious concerns?

Reading, I remembered my first—and last— autopsy. Autopsy comes from a Greek work meaning “eyewitness.”  It’s easy to see why this word evolved: no organ is left unexamined, no gall bladder unturned.  It went along all right until a hand dropped from beneath the sheet that covered the body and I jumped.  This was a real person, or had been a real person, or might be a real person—a woman I could tell from the hand alone, a woman who had lived and breathed, and was warm, and said “Hi.” It was such a startling revelation that we chaplain trainees covered up our nervousness with giggles, of all the adolescent responses!  

You grow up fast when you see the totality of death, when you know there is absolutely no life there at all.  And you wonder just as Sweet did, just as the early Jesus followers did. I bet they also used some gallows humor to cope.

After her autopsy viewing Sweet wrote: “I did tuck away in the back of my mind the image of his dead body as a crumpled suit of clothes, abandoned in the corner of a sterile white room.” Later she discovered that  premodern medicine did have words for what was so shockingly absent: spiritus (rhythmic breathing) and anima (soul). Medicine is so physical—and so not, all at once. 

Take Mr. X , a man who sat around all day every day looking blank and thinking nothing—demented (de +mentis, without a mind.) Mindless!  Absent? Yet one day Mr. X heard the music of Glenn Miller, his era, and very slowly he arose from his chair and began to dance, and dance well. When the music ended he sat back down, blank as usual. What IS a mind anyway? A soul?

The medicine of Christian mystic and saint Hildegard of Bingen, one of Sweet’s specialities, is interwoven into modern practices. Hildegard’s remedies are common sensical, sophisticated, and grounded in her religious faith and prayer.  You’ll love reading about  Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet and Dr. Merryman.  

Dr. Sweet’s patients tell astonishing stories of deep truth, just like the gospels. Readers also get to walk with Sweet on the famous pilgrim’s walk to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and follow the politics of medicine as it has evolved from the practice of medicine to the delivery of healthcare. The book is mystically empirical. 

Laguna Honda finally is moved and modernized, however its soul will linger on because of this lovely/loving book, and because Sweet leaves us to wonder more than answer. She is currently an Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Her students are lucky.

I have only one reservation about God's Hotel: you might have to re-read it to digest it well. I’ve bought myself a good old reliable paperback so I can dog-ear and mark up as I do with books too chuck full of wisdom to read once. 

2013.10.27 Prayer is Poetry and Poetry Prayer

"I'm not very good at praying, but what I experience when I'm writing a poem is close to prayer. I feel it in different degrees and not with every poem. But in certain ways writing is a form of prayer.”

Denise Levertov (1923-1997) wrote the above quote, along with the beautiful poem below. She was born in England, served as a civilian nurse in WWII, and published her first book in 1946 after which she came to America.

I get the prayer/poem connection.When I write I am drawn into the process as if I were a deer and the computer screen bright headlights.  I’m not dazed or in a trance.  I’m just engaged with something so much bigger than I am and with so much fascination I forget that it’s me doing it.  Some days, not all, it can seem as if words write themselves. I wonder if that’s how Godde created— electric with the fierce runaway energy of mutual potentiation. Deep prayer, when I let it happen, is just like that: I become We.

Levertov intuits this kind of connective mystery, a natural, near-quotidian holiness that does not dissolve.

Come Into Animal Presence (1961)

No man is so guileless as
the serpent. The lonely white
rabbit on the roof is a star
twitching its ears at the rain.
The llama intricately
folding its hind legs to be seated
not disdains but mildly
disregards human approval.
What joy when the insouciant
armadillo glances at us and doesn't
quicken his trotting
across the track into the palm brush.

What is this joy? That no animal
falters, but knows what it must do?
That the snake has no blemish,
that the rabbit inspects his strange surroundings
in white star-silence? The llama
rests in dignity, the armadillo
has some intention to pursue in the palm-forest.
Those who were sacred have remained so,
holiness does not dissolve, it is a presence
of bronze, only the sight that saw it
faltered and turned from it.
An old joy returns in holy presence.

Oh,by the way, no one is good, or bad, at praying.  

2013.10.23 Salman Rushdie: An "Exile" Speaks

The key note speaker at this year’s annual Boston Book Festival was Salman Rushdie. I hadn’t read a word he wrote but dimly remembered the controversy about his 1988 book The Satanic Verses: hot accusations of blasphemy and the bearded face of the fierce Islamic cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini, spiritual leader of Iran. 

Ignorant and secretly loving the idea of hearing someone who, like Jesus the Christ, had been accused of blasphemy and survived, I squeezed, with my husband, Dick, into a side pew in the huge and packed Old South Church in Boston.  

The “address” was a conversational interview with Homi Bhabha, professor of English and American Literature at, where else, Harvard. Bhaba spoke of Rushdie’s memoir, Joseph Anton which details the “afterlife” of Khomeini’s fatwa against Rushdie.

A fatwa, I looked this up, is an order of execution. Rushdie spent several years under police protection in the UK where he was a citizen and had lived for years.  “The police kept telling me it would be all right, over soon, but it lasted 12 years.” Rushdie remarked. He considers himself to be an “exile.” He felt locked out, though the furor was about his book.  

It is interesting to consider just how much separability there should be between an author and his/her writing? Not much I reckon, especially if the words, characters and driving rhythm of a book dethrone a religious hero. Some shrug it off, but extremists get violently defensive.

The British in time broke diplomatic relations with Iran and knighted Rushdie who now lives in NY City—mecca of publishing. He has in fact spent most of his life in the West but he writes about the East, his heartspace.

Most of us have felt like an exile from time to time: in a relatively safe comfort zone but with certain restrictions, which can be emotional as well as physical. At times I felt locked out of the "country" of my first family, and it has been so in my Church as well. The longing to belong can feel almost feral. Where? How? When? This is Rushdie's passion and his work. He's married to it—obviously since the man has had four wives. 

There is a lot more to this complex story. (Check online.) But what stood out for me was Rushdie’s adamance about not adopting the “security view” of the world, which he said was of necessity based on the worst case scenario, such as if you cross a street you might be hit by a car, so we tell you not to cross the street. That was of course an exaggerated example, but I wondered if I would cross against a red light if there were no cars around and it was 5 a.m.in the morning. Probably, I’d sit there till the light turned green. And I'm not Ms. obedient.

“You cannot buy the security vision of the world, because if you do you can’t have liberty. Don’t buy it!” He's not from New Hampshire, Live free or die, though he credited America for "giving me back my freedom." Salman Rushdie has enjoyed both safety and freedom and has not died for either.   I imagine he doesn't think much of Homeland Security. 

People push different envelopes. It depends on what rules and the stakes. I’d love, for example to eliminate all the masculine pronouns we keep on using for God, but I don’t want to be “exiled,” to say nothing of really hurting someone’s sensibilities.  It’s the old question about how to balance pastoral sensitivity and prophetic action for change you believe is necessary. What ditch will you die in?   If I’m going to “die” for a vital cause, I want someone with me in the ditch. 

 Rushdie advocates for religious reform and moving beyond traditionalism in religions.  "Broadmindedness is related to tolerance; open-mindedness is the sibling of peace." 
 I agree but Rushdie is a self-declared atheist and I am not.

A man in the packed-church audience identified himself as an atheist and asked for advice on how to co-exist as a non-believer amidst believers. Rushdie didn't really answer, but said, "Well, you can console yourself with the thought that you're right and they're wrong."

I thought his tone was tongue in cheek but I felt annoyed at the attitude. I mean, here we all were in a Christian church. Okay, I felt defensive, but I thought his tone sounded as arrogant as the attitudes of the traditionalists he preaches against. Probably a slip of ego. More importantly, I’m sick of all religion(s) getting lumped in with the excesses of extremists in any religion, including atheism, as if they all were the same.

Imagine the hubris of thinking I could defend God. But what else do you do when you're in love? 

2013.10.20 What the Church Needs Now?

The song says: “What the world needs now is love sweet love.”  We always need love; it’s the garment of our existence, the force that keeps us alive and helps us put one foot in front of the other, even if, and when, we have lost our footing. The Church of Jesus Christ preaches unconditional love. What we need is to ease up on the many conditions we place on that Love.

What the church perhaps doesn’t need now is to abandon its own language and identity.  The Church does not need to go secular in order to attract people to its message; does not need to derive wisdom from the world of social psychology or the field of consultants and then couch it in theological language to make it seem religio-spiritual. Such dazzling endeavors may be good for marketing and sales, but they can also be temptations of self-betrayal, sell outs. 

A clergy colleague recently expressed amazement that the young people in her parish coming for a Confirmation class, likely under duress she imagined, were not interested in discussing contemporary issues of their age group. They were interested in God. Surprise!

These teenagers, 15-18, felt as if they were drowning in a kind of existential loneliness and they wanted a structure to put faith into, and a language to express their soul’s deep hunger, and some meaningful ritual that would take them beyond what is offered by Facebook communications, electronic games, sports, academics. They weren’t interested in talking about their sexuality or their addictions or even all the angst about parental divorce in their lives and those of their friends. 

In short, these teens wanted God and God-talk.  

They wanted what the church offers:good people, good theology, spiritual practices, song and psalm and gospel, Bible, ethical guidance, and listening hearts. They really wanted to follow Jesus and love God and feel more secure in how to do that. 

The priest who met with them told me that there was particular interest in the baptismal covenant, something Christians all know by heart and have recited many times over. Has it gotten flat, irrelevant?  The baptismal promises are a very solid Code of Ethics, a covenantal structure to frame conversations about talk about God and basic Christian attitudes and behavior.

What does it mean to respect the dignity of all human beings, to seek Christ in all persons, to strive for justice and peace? How do you do these things?  These were the issues that riveted their interest and conversation. in Church.

The Confirmation class process, it seems to me, provided a model for honest talk, plus support for living up to their Baptismal Code when complex decisions arise. Sort of like the Twelve Step recovery meetings process: no one stays sober alone. Well, no one can be a faithful Christian alone either.

What the church needs now is to give people the best of what if has to offer—with professional guidance, yes, but unadorned with sparkles or glitter. No one is fooled, especially the young. 

2013.10.16 Having FUN!

So here we are, Dick and I,  on the new carousel at the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston.  You really don’t need a grandchild to do this but it helps if one is along for the ride. Such joy!

I sought out the owl, my totem, and Dick sat on the animal next to the owl. His totem is a stallion but there were none. “”I wanted to make sure I got one that went up and down while it went around,” he said. “What am I on?”  “A skunk,” I said and we howled. 

This carousel is unusual. It has no horses, just an amazing array of 14 non-stereotypical carousel  critters—three types of butterflies, fox, lobster (think Gloucester), seal, skunk, falcon, whale, owl, grasshopper, sea turtle, sea serpent, and a beloved cod (think Cape). The project was the dream-child of Amalie Kass who wanted fun activity for Boston children and was the chief donor for the project.  Boston school children identified and created drawings of local and regional animals from which artist Jeff Briggs designed the colorful carousel steeds.  

My mother, herself quite a child for many good emotional reasons, but also because of her extroverted hyper-cheerful personality, so different from my more introverted serious one, turned FUN into an art form. It made me a bit shy about fun. 

I guess our ideas of what fun was were divergent. For Mom it meant doing things, going places, activities. For me it meant inventing games, curling up with a good book,  writing a bad but heart-thumping poem, giggly conversations with girls, exploring city apartment house basement crannies, making up stories about teachers, creating outdoor forts and rituals, and dancing (clumsy leaps) flailing colorful scarves and shawls to Strauss waltzes.

I traveled the world of my imagination and Mom was a social butterfly. As a child I wished she would alight. This carousel is just the kind of project Mom would have rejoiced in. Next time I go I will ride on one of the butterflies in her memory and in her honor—and have FUN.

Whatever way you have fun it's spiritual when it makes you feel alive —alive-O!