2015.05.24 Telling Images

When we catch glimmers of mutual reflectivity between divinity and humanity, we exclaim, Holy.......

Creator Spirit is on the move—to connect, vivify, and potentiate life-giving energy everywhere, like a "big bang" in the soul of God. Schrapnel spills out all over the cosmos. You expected cozy-comfy? Connections happen between and among very different things and people—suburb and city, black and white, artist and engineer, executive and street beggar, religion and science, politics and politicians, east and west, enemy and enemy, on and on. By such connections we are transformed;  category-driven assumptions fall away; and something new happens.

Here are four illustrative images:

The first is traditional with a twist. It is identified as Mary of Nazareth after she has received a strange proposal from a large male angel named Gabriel. What I love about this image is that it is honest. This image is semitic; no cosmetics take away her history and lineage. The image also goes beyond literal history to show a woman alone “pondering these things in her heart,” as the biblical story says. Mary’s “Yes” to the invitation to enter the divine life in a particular womanly way was not a quick, codependent, aiming-to-please assent.

The second is a photo taken by professional photographer, David Pacheco, from inside St. Mary the Virgin Church in New York City. The church is on 46th street just off  Broadway—a community with a big heart, deeply embedded in the heart of the big city.  Its doors are always open for people to come into the dark quiet beauty of the sanctuary. Pacheco entitled his photo, “Stained-Glass Forty-Sixth Street.”  He took it through an ecclesiastical window with small leaded panes. It seems as if the colors you see on the city street come from the stained glass in the window, but the window is clear. The colors reflect instead onto the clear window from the lights and signs on the street. It is a perfect image of the church that belongs to the city and the city to the church. It reminds me of the Latin phrase, Urbi et Orbi, which denotes the papal address and apostolic blessing, developed in the 13th century by Pope Gregory X, given at Christmas and Easter to the city (urbi) of Rome and the entire world (orbi).

 



The third image is also city-bound but on-the-fly, this time in Boston. It is an aerial sculpture made of the finest high-tech rope, created by artist Janet Echelman, designed by engineers, and financed by the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, a non-profit organization currently committed to using art to lure visitors to the park.  And this is a huge piece of art, weighing 2000 pounds. It’s a net, just like fishermen use. Jesus uses the image to describe his hopes for the catch the Spirit will make to populate the reign of God. Echelman went to India to paint. Her paints and brushes never arrived, so she spent time with the fisherfolk and learned how to make knots and nets. 

This net is gossamer, composed of  many colors, fastened to the top of city scrapers. It's kinetic, shaped by changing patterns of wind and light; it waves over the Greenway, till October anyway. At night it is illuminated; all the lights in area office buildings are, by agreement, turned off to enhance the illumination. Urbi et Orbi  again.

The artist has not yet named the piece but has described it as  “monumental softness” and “it’s about imagination.”  Like any art, it depends on viewers’ projections. I can’t wait to see it in person. For me, it evokes the divine connective spirit—a true glimmer.

Finally, a verbal image created by scholar-theologian-cosmologist, Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, of Fordham, in her book, Quest for the Living God. No better words have I ever read about the Creator Spirit:

"To sum up: ecological theology proposes that the Creator Spirit dwells at the heart of the natural world, graciously energizing its evolution from within, compassionately holding all creatures in their finitude and death, and drawing the world forward toward an unimaginable future. Throughout the vast sweep of cosmic and biological evolution, the Spirit embraces the material root of life and its endless new potential, empowering the cosmic process from within. The universe, in turn, is self-organizing and self-transcending, energized from the spiraling galaxies to the double helix of the DNA molecule by the dance of divine vivifying power."

My left brain can not understand this, but my soul instantly did nip-ups when I read it. Can't explain.

2015.05.17 Humans Need Love and Fair Treatment as Much as Dogs Do

Leonberger dogs are a German breed of huge canine critters. I met them in the park near us, walking with their owners. These two are majestic, leonine—symbols of grandeur that made my world that day. These dogs are tall, dark and handsome. Okay, maybe too much pant and drool but............

When our children were growing up we always had dogs. Our last dog was Peregrine, Peri, a stray  (Shepherd/blend of sorts) who wandered into our back yard one Thanksgiving day. Immediately the clamor began—the please, please, please beggary. It included phrases like “we have to keep this dog, Mom” followed up by, “he needs us; he’ll be all alone; see how thin he is; how can you just ignore him, he came to us; It's THANKSGIVING!" I think one clever one of them added something about a gift from God. We gave Peri a home and love for several years. He turned out to be a she. 

The dog before Peri was Pip. Pippy we found at a local farm. The farmer was looking for a home for Pip, and well........  Pip was a combination mutt-brand, a cross between a St. Bernard and some kind of coon hound. He was mostly white with few markings, rambunctious and able to wag his whole butt not just his tail. Occasionally and unprovoked, he stretched out his neck and raised his head to let out a howl, as any good coon hound would do. He was a pip—full of great expectations! It didn’t matter whether there were any coons about of course. Pip was affectionate, hyperactive, and generally nuts. So were we at the time. Pip got run over and all of us blamed the speeding driver, not our Pip. 

And before Pip we had Pal. We favored names that  began with P,  I guess.  Pal was a gentleman. He was some kind of mutt-brand as well and I don’t remember where we got Pal. He looked like a beagle with black and white markings. He would bark once at the door then stand and wait until someone opened it. He never fussed to eat, or whined to be let in or out. He had a white bib almost like a perennial butler. You’d expect to see him carrying a tray of elegant champagne flutes. Pal died a natural death.

Peri died, at our hands and thanks to a taunting neighbor kid and her hysterical mother; we did not get any more dogs. What do you do when a police officer shows up at your door with a bad dog story? Allegations were that Peri had bitten right through the child’s snow jacket. The child was fine but we had no way to defend Peri, even though our children reported that the child had taunted our dog.

It’s a traumatic experience to, as they say, “put a dog down.” Why say it this way? Well, it minimizes the fact that we are committing murder, or in cases of extreme age, disease and suffering, mercy killing. Sometimes I wish we could do that for humans. I’ll never forget Peri’s placing her paw against my then-husband’s chest as we said goodbye. I still don’t know if we did the right thing. I suppose we were afraid that Peri would bite someone. Was Peri dangerous?  She never had been but we didn’t know her history except her few years with us. But at least it was painless for Peri, though not for us.

Reports indicate that in Oregon, where euthanasia choices are legal now, not many people avail themselves of this right. I suppose it's our addiction to the idea of freedom of choice that tells us this is a good option. I don't disagree but can't quite imagine myself making that choice. It's not because I think that the timing of death is somehow God's doing, because my theology doesn't support this view of God.

I'm glad that capital punishment  is illegal in Massachusetts, yet as we in Massachusetts endured the painful deliberations about whether to kill the Boston marathon bomber under federal law, I wondered. To spare a life may be as just as drastic as to take one. What is gained by that? I thought that until I heard about conditions in the Maximum Security prison where this young man, the same age as my oldest granddaughter, could spend the rest of his life. Such a prison serves neither justice nor mercy nor humanity nor the goodness of God. Our system can do better.

Incidentally, I also know from a counselor who works with staff in such prisons, that those who work in the supermax facilities are being driven slowly insane as well. And we Christians thought crucifixion was bad! It too, however, was institutional violence. We believe that there can be resurrection and new life because love goes on, despite cruelty and violence and human sin, individual and systemic.



I took a small action about my horror at the existence of such prisons. Here is a note I sent to our Massachusetts Senators, Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren.

"The morning after I'd watched an interview on Greater Boston with a man who'd spent five years in a maximum security prison, I woke in a sweat of horror. I couldn't shake it off. I didn't even know how to pray. I did not know about the conditions of absolute unremitting isolation that exist in these prisons. ABSOLUTE isolation.  I kept asking myself: How can a nation that dares to entertain mottoes like "In God we trust" and call itself civilized, countenance such pure evil in its midst? It's an insane asylum we create, not a prison. My horror goes far beyond the Tsarnaev case and any crime and punishment issues. It's a spiritual question. We have devised a way to slaughter souls.  Capital punishment is not justice, but it might be mercy killing."

 Most of us would not treat any dog this way, for any reason, so why treat any human this way? It makes no sense to me. It serves no purpose except a sinful one. I pray that we can do better.



P.S. Tsarnaev's jury just decided that he should be put to death because of his heinous crimes. This could be merciful for him in the end, but the process will take a long time. I hope Helen Prejean, the sister who visits inmates on death row, will visit him and pray with him. I have faith that God has mercy enough for all of us.  I pray as well that all those who suffered death and loss because of Tsarnaev's crime, will recover some quality of life, find the grace of resurrection, and live with hope— though they will never forget.

2015.05.10 Two Original Mother's Day Proclamations

I have a very old photo of me and my mother. I'm about four and she's in her early thirties. She is perky and pretty and I am sour and serious. She called me a sourpuss and I was. She had proclaimed me a "miracle." I hated being a miracle.

But Mom also gave me a book, published in 1934, called The Little Book About God. The book shaped me in ways I didn't understand. When I was near fifty Mom gave me a framed quote in multicolored calligraphy: "God danced the day you were born." On the sides are smaller inscriptions: “You are loved, you are beautiful, you are gift of God, His own possession.” And: “You are gift to all mankind, His gift of love to them you are His.” She had ordered it from an Abbey Press catalog.

Mom has been dead now for 17years, and I can only guess at her motives. What I can say is that such praise was for me unbearable, not to mention quite untrue. Not until after she died and I started to become a woman and a priest, did I retrieve the fullness of myself and know that my mother had given me God. I still have The Little Book About God and the calligraphy.

Still, with my penchant for words, I have to include another less personal proclamation in original words written in 1870 by Julia Ward Howe. Howe was an abolitionist. She wrote the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and worked to establish a Mother’s Peace Day.  In 1907 Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia campaigned to have the day recognized as a national holiday, which was accomplished in 1914 by President Woodrow Wilson. This proclamation is still shaping the world and humanity.

The Original Mother’s Day Proclamation: Appeal to Womanhood Throughout the World

Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.



Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.



From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says, “Disarm, disarm! The sword is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.



As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each learning after his own time, the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.



In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.
                                                                        
If Mom were still alive, she might say, “Well, darling, I told you so—in my fashion of course.”