2014.04.20 Eastering, 2014

How many “easters” does it take to make a resurrection? 

Answer....... depends on your own faith so it’s up for grabs. It could be none, or it could be only one, or it could be many. I say it takes daily attentiveness to the ways in which the Spirit of divinity makes things rise and arise, seeking new life always, over and over.  Will you notice?

What eastering means to me is that life’s spiritual purpose is to go around fostering as many resurrections as possible. For me that means imitating God in my own far-from-divine-but-terribly- sincere ways—and failing lots. And I wouldn't want to leave Jesus out because he lived resrrrection much better than I ever could, and in a way that his followers realized that they had seen God in action.

 
Most of us want to make everything happy, but sometimes things that need to rise up in you or someone else, are not so immediately joyful, certainly not worthy of multiple alleluias. Take, for example an old wound that still needs healing, or a resentment or grudge you’ve kept in hibernation in the wintry soil of your soul because you are afraid of its power to mess up your life. Let it be resurrected; let it come into the light.

I swear that God Creator resurrected Jesus, not because he was so perfect and good, but because God wanted to see Jesus’ face, alive and bright—always. And perhaps to say thank you.

Eastering is dynamic, energetic, and often demanding. You and God somehow together have to consent to it, as near-death stories tell us.  But that’s true even if you don’t biologically die. Death is not a necessary condition for resurrection. Also, there are many ways to “die” or be “dead.” 

For years I’d harbored a resentment against the bishop who had rejected me for ordination. It was buried so deep I didn’t even know it was there until, in a different diocese, I saw him and freaked. He should have been dead by now, I thought. I didn’t resurrect him, but after lots of prayer, conversation, and reflection, I did invite him to lunch and told him how I felt. He listened and said, more than once, that he was “so glad” I did this. He paid for lunch.

Still and all, capital-R Resurrection remains a mystery and a hope. It’s a divine action we don’t control. None of our business anyway. Metaphorically, however, easter always looks the same—coming out of darkness into light. 

Here’s an eastering image I love in the marvelous book length parable by Kenneth Grahame called The Wind in the Willows.

  
“The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First the brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said ‘Bother!’ and ‘O blow!’ and also ‘Hang spring-cleaning!’ and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gavelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, ‘Up we go! Up we go!’ till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.”

                                                     
                                                     
                                                      

What needs eastering in your life? What ought to die? What be resurrected?—with God’s help, of course because such things need assists, which begin from within or without or both.

May the one holy and living God adorn you with all loveliness, garland each daffodil with a golden halo, infuse each weeny sound with eternality, radiate the cosmos with glory, plant love in all things, make you wise in your bones, and deal out grace all round like a profligate gambler. AMEN.

2014.03.13 The Palms Have It

Palm trees in Israel gather and wave their own praises.

Christians call this Sunday, Palm Sunday, because we wave palms around, sing Hosannas, and expect our spiritual hero, Jesus Christ, to liberate us all from whatever keeps us in bondage—outside oppressor(s), addiction, mental illness, disability, religion, politics, gender, your neighbor. Our palms symbolize hope. They wave gracefully, especially when attached to trees. They also have sharply pointed tips, and kids are tempted to use them as swords.

To me this day has always seemed like a Jackson Pollack canvas—huge, diverse, disordered, every color imaginable spattered and splattered and slapped ruthlessly onto white space, filling it with bright horror. There’s no order in this startling beauty-in-chaos, yet.....yet what? Everything is represented.  Pollack titles one of his most famous paintings, "Convergence." See how everything is there? See that it is holy?

 
Every emotion, experience, desire and need you’ve ever known is packed into this day of Palms, this convergence of all of life at once. If you come to church for serenity and calm, or joy, stay away on Palm Sunday. 

Palm Sunday begins what for Christians is the most important week of the year, and also the most big fat unmanageable week. We tell the story of the entire week on this one Sunday.

This is the week in which Jesus of Nazareth and his followers entered Jerusalem where Jesus spoke truth to power, lost his life in the process, and died an ugly, ignominious death-by-suffocation in crucifixion—as his offended loyalists fled in terror, betrayal, desertion.

This week is just as dazzlingly diverse as the putative seven-day week of Creation, but this week centers on human flesh, not just created by but inhabited by Divinity. The crashing crushing climax of this week is less securely glorious than Creation. It leaves us with no evidence—only faith, hope, and love, the strength that flows from hope.

It wasn’t God who abandoned Jesus, it was humanity. Except of course for some few women who stayed with him at every step and cared for his dead body after his torturers had left, their dirty duty done. These women are the embodiment of faith, hope and love. In them we see the whole direction and the point of what would become Christianity. They are the gospel. Follow them, and their kind, with your “palms” and your Alleluias.

2014.04.06 Prodigality Reclaimed

My favorite biblical story is the one about the so called prodigal son who grabs his inheritance early and splits to manage his fortune, which he squanders on loose living. It’s sort of a classic growing-up story. Ask any parent of teens.

The key line in the story is in a scene of porcine gluttony and filth in which the destitute young man feeds with the pigs.

While in the sty the prodigal COMES TO HIMSELF and decides to go home, hoping against hope that his Daddy, aka Godde, will still love him. Mommy, btw, is not mentioned, so fill it in. (If I were the mother I’d have strongly advised my husband not to give sonny the inheritance in the first place.)

I’ve been prodigal myself. Once I thought I’d be ordained a priest. I thought this in my prayers and secret conversations with God. In fact, in my midlife whirlwind I thought that I could not be a woman fully realized unless I also became a priest. It wasn’t until I encountered the institutional church in the 1970s that I found out what it felt like to be a small davidic female thinking she’d take on Goliath—without five smooth stones or a slingshot. I had no inheritance to squander, but I did have a self to “come to.”

I had dashed forth too soon to manage my life and discovered I couldn’t do it alone, or at all well. I needed Godde, love, family, belonging, church community, friends, sex, seminary, grief, a divorce, and a ton of therapy in many forms. So there you have it.

The moral of this story is......  do you know who you are?  “Coming to yourself” may help you find out, and from that touchstone to go forward.

I think it’s possible for even a large institution to “come to itself,” that is, to re-member the purposes for which it stands and its core values. For the Christian church that core is love of God, self, and neighbor. 

This kind of spiritual self-recognition seemed to happen at our recent convention to elect a new bishop for the diocese of Massachusetts.  There were seven candidates, all vetted and known as much as possible. 334 lay people and 298 clergy gathered to worship, sing hymns, pray, and ballot until a simple majority in each order, clergy and lay, was reached to elect. We were there from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. There were no “hanging chads” but there was a vote count problem in the first ballot and we had to await legal recommendation about how to proceed, since the next two ballots, already processed, were declared invalid. Details can be found on the Diocese of Massachusetts website.

In addition, the retiring bishop, who has served for 20 years, is struggling with brain cancer. It was heart-breaking to see him strain to stay on track, and wonderful to see all those around him gently prompting him. Do we not truly bear each others' burdens when we can, as the Bible suggests? In this illness, the bishop’s temperament has softened and his sense of humor has taken more of a lead.  “I know all of you. I love all of you. I just can’t remember your names,” he joked.

Can you imagine there were a few loud and brash voices screaming out "It's Lent! It's Lent!" in response to the bishop’s request that we sing, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God…" a hymn with a wondrous lilting and upbuilding chorus of Alleluias. (In the season of Lent we do not say Alleluia until it reemerges strongly in Easter.) To me this objection to liturgical rule-breaking represents the worst of liturgical rigidity—and it wasn't even part of the official liturgy, only one of the hymns we sang to pass the time while we waited. The church can not afford to constrict itself unnecessarily. Remember those girdles and corsets women used to wear?? Constriction is one translation of the word sin. 

Our diocese had lost its way in many respects. The center wasn’t holding, and people felt anxious and vulnerable, the weight of sorrow hanging heavy in the air. Nevertheless, our true center—Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit—held. We came to ourselves as we sang. Despite a lot of mess and error, the Holy Spirit, whom we lustily serenade and, deep down, don’t believe a word of what we say, presided.

We elected the Rev. Alan Gates from Ohio, but we voted for ourselves as a faithful community gathered in Godde’s holy name. Many will grump and grunt and be negatively-focused, mostly about stuff we already knew was in disarray, but this is my take on the soul of this day—gracious with new life coming to us as we came to ourselves. What could have been a flop leaving bitter taste turned out to be amazing grace.

We're still covered with mud, but we’re headed home.  Alleluia anyhow!!

Do we ever practice what we preach, we clergy types of righteousness?  We are as prodigal as anyone else, longing to succeed in the world and longing to be held like an infant—at once.

2014.03.31 Who Loves a Donkey?

Well, that’s a good question. Donkeys are not the most glamorous animals, but they might be the most faithful. On many occasions in the Bible donkeys play a key role. Look up the biblical story of Balaam’s Ass about a donkey who knew better than his master did. (Book of Numbers, chapter 22) 

Horses are much more sexy of course—speedier and more graceful than the poor old dull-grey donkey. Still, the donkey carries heavy loads along often treacherous roads and does it with valorous grit.

                                           

In Christian story, the donkey carried a very pregnant Mary of Nazareth on its back, trekking from inn to inn, tirelessly seeking a place where Mary could give birth to Jesus. And again, it was a donkey who carried Mary, now cradling the infant Jesus, from Bethlehem back to their hometown Nazareth to comply with the census regulations for taxation. Joseph led the donkey who followed with trust. And Palm Sunday, often called triumphal, featured a donkey carrying Jesus through the Golden Gate, also called “Beautiful”,  into Jerusalem to face trial and execution. No one suspected such an outcome—except Jesus, and perhaps the devoted donkey.

But who really loves a donkey?

I know one lovely woman who would. She is my second daughter Jill. Today is her birthday. She would love and care for the donkey, maybe even before the people. An attorney by profession, Jill would represent animals pro bono if the need arose. Since childhood, she’s been as faithful to her passion for animal life as the donkey has been to its role as the carrier of burdens.  But do animals love back?  Jill tells me they do in their own ways—through grace by faith. (Jill, in consultation with her horse, Smokin' Gun)

                                                 

 The Poet Thinks About the Donkey
    by Mary Oliver

On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.

How horses, turned out into the meadow,
leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
clatter away, splashed with sunlight.

But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.

Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.

The Avowal by Denise Levertov

As swimmers dare 

to lie face to the sky

and water bears them,

as hawks rest upon air

and air sustains them,

so would I learn to attain

free fall, and float

into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,

knowing no effort earns

that all-surrounding grace.






 Free fall/free grace.


Poet, Denise Levertov (this is not Levertov in free fall in the photo) was born in England to a Welsh mother and a Russian Hasidic father. Her father, who had emigrated to the UK from Leipzig, converted to Christianity and became an Anglican priest. She moved to the United States in 1948, and in 1955 became an American citizen. By the time she died in 1997, Levertov had published nearly fifty volumes of poetry, prose, and translations. She taught at Brandeis, MIT, Tufts, Stanford, and the University of Washington. It was at Stanford, where she taught for 11 years (1982–1993) in the Stegner Fellowship program, and where her papers are now housed, that Levertov converted to Christianity at the age of sixty. After moving to Seattle in 1989, she joined the Catholic Church.

Such a history—spiritual diversity in the flesh.

To avow means to assert or confess and comes from the Latin root, advocare, to advocate or summon in defense. It has a legal ring to it. An avowal is like a vow. There is solemnity to an avowal, though it is far from joyless.

Still, vowing of any kind is hard, and solemn vowing even harder. It carries more weight than a commitment, unless of course someone else is committing you to a hospital because you are unable to manage life on your own.

When you are most sure you can do it on your own is usually when you are least able to do it on your own.  

The spirituality of an avowal to me means that I actively move toward something or someone. I move toward with all my mind, heart, soul and body. Avowal is a big fat wholistic deal, freely given and with no strings attached. Trust, even when there’s no reason to trust. Knowing that there is a future even when I can’t see one.

Most days I avow myself to my faith in Godde; and most days I disavow that pledge in a million foolish and ugly ways. Damn, I start again. My sins are not just forgiven, they are remitted, sent away for now, as in remission from cancer.  We are sinners in remission. 

Actually, I think that Godde is the only sweet Being capable of making a true avowal, an avowal toward all living things with sticktoitive power forever.  Divine avowal is called grace. Human avowal means embracing remission—again and again.

2014.03.16 Stalling Out?

I feel stalled out. Maybe it’s winter blues, or world and church systems run amok. More likely it’s personal disappointment because my consistent, persistent, persevering,very good efforts to get my little memoir published have not born fruit—yet. Plus, it's Saturday with nothing to do.

Thus, I feel like Alexander having his “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day” (1972 book by Judith Viorst)  I’m not a fourth grader like Alexander, therefore I’m having not one but a series of such days. Perfectly age-appropriate, no doubt, yet clever rationalization doesn’t get me out of the stall.

You know what it feels like when your car stalls out, right?  Suddenly you lose your GO-power. The stalling out phenomenon is worse in an airplane. I learned about it when, back in the 70s, I took a pinch-hitter course, learning how to fly a small plane. My then-husband was a pilot and owned a Piper Cub. He was an excellent and safe pilot, and I was confident I’d never have to pinch hit. The real reason I took the course was to write about the experience, and also get a photo of myself standing at the wing of a small aircraft—grinning. Those were my Brenda Starr Girl Reporter days on staff for a small local weekly newspaper—my first paid job ever.

My instructor talked a lot about stalling out, especially while taking off. I know little of aerodynamics but a stall on take off, he said, was more dangerous than a nose-down stall that could cause a tailspin.

Technically, a stall can be described thus:  Sufficient airspeed must be maintained in flight to produce enough lift to support the airplane without requiring too large an angle of attack. At a specific angle of attack, called the critical angle of attack, air going over a wing will separate from the wing or "burble" causing the wing to lose its lift (stall).

When the plane stalls on takeoff it feels as if it starts to slide backwards, hovering there, threatening to descend tail first.  In this image, the lower plane is in stall—like me just now.

A skilled pilot knows how to get out of a stall. My ultra-calm instructor was my co-pilot making sure I didn’t overdo the power trip, a big temptation, and stall out. I loved powering up—rising into the air. In a small plane you really feel, well, as if you yourself are a huge bird. 

But how do you "pilot" your life when a stall happens? I have no idea really. I hovered around for a while, doing nothing purposeful, moping. I gave God my worries, but not my aspirations. Were they too high? I had no idea.

So here’s what I did: I mopped the disgusting bathroom floor covered with winter grit; I went for a walk in 50 degree weather; I met a friend for lunch. She felt blah too, so we ordered pizza, one for each of us. I ate some bread before my pizza arrived. Really!  My friend was more sensible and restrained. We laughed a lot. Back home I ordered some new skinny jeans from a catalog because I’d punctured a small hole with my pointy fingernail in the ones I got for $20 at CVS. I called another friend who wondered if I were "too attached". I told her no, I’m sleeping and eating fine. I’ll detach tomorrow—maybe.

I marvel that the high point of days like this is enjoying a glass of wine in the evening with my husband and watching a British soap, like "Doc Martin"—the local doc in a tiny town in Cornwall.  Martin is perpetually ill-mannered and grumpy as hell—and we love him.

Writing about my stall-days helps. Godde knows why but I feel better just getting it out and onto a page.  Feel free to take it all on yourself but don’t feel too sorry for me. Hope and energy return slowly, like wind on wings. I remember this from other stall times in my life when I didn’t crash.

Behold!  The psalm reading for evening prayer was Psalm 138. I use Pamela Greenberg's translation. Verse 8 flew off the page and into my heart. The psalmist prays: If I walk into the thick of my sorrows, you keep me alive—against the wrath of my fears.

End of slumpy stall for today. I'm alive. Sadness and fear can't kill Soul.