An Elegant Soul in LIfe and Death: James Keegan, S.J.

The Rev. James Keegan, S. J. (1940-2018), a man of wit and wisdom who brought life to others through his ready grin, bold heart, and sharp mind—always ready to leap the bounds of traditional religious rigidities, died this week into the great mercies of God.

I say this, not because Jim complained or was fed up with life. Not at all. Jim gave life every ounce of everything he had for 78 years. He was born in Franklin New Hampshire, grew up attending Roman Catholic schools and Boston College where he majored in English. He taught high school English and theology in Portland Maine and then was assigned to Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There he met William Barry under whose tutelage he learned to pray, fell in love with Jesus in his own flesh and prayer, and was ordained a priest in 1971—a late vocation you could say. Still, his early experience formed him to be, to use an old-fashioned sort of word, well rounded: all life mattered. Jim Keegan's mantra was: seize life!

In his last years Jim struggled with the diminishments of Parkinson’s disease for many years. He had lost mobility, speech, and most recently, bore up under a case of shingles as a “bonus". Yet Jim retained a sharp sense of the divine voice and energy, so much so that he received visits from people who sought him out for spiritual guidance and direction until just a week before his death.

[NOTE: Despite what you might have heard anywhere from anyone, God doesn’t cause any of this. It just happens. Still, some people seem to have more suffering to bear than others—again, by nature’s design, not divine design, or desire. The sacred holy heart weeps with us who weep, and wept, for Jim.]

The Rev. Jim Weiss, Episcopal priest and Professor of Theology at Boston College, as well as one of Keegan’s directees, shared his own reflections: “The last time I saw Jim for direction I told him I had nothing much to say, that I’d been busy and hadn’t even prayed as I would like. Jim, whose head drooped low and whose speech was generally unintelligible, suddenly lifted his head, his eyes bright and focused, and said clearly: ‘That’s just what you think. There’s a lot more going on.’”

Weiss also revealed that two things about Jim Keegan had stayed predictable and constant right up to the end: his sweet tooth and his penchant for puns. He loved chocolate chip cookies [I can identify!] and wherever he was, in his long career as a Jesuit priest, spiritual guide, teacher and friend, his family sent him tins of cookies. When the cookies arrived his colleagues hung out and hovered, like children ready to pilfer from the cookie jar. Jim would tell them: “There’s a toll for the Toll House Cookies, you know.”

The sermon, delivered by Jim’s friend of many years, Richard W. Bollman, S.J. of Milton, Ohio, was quite splendid—faithful to the person and wealth of character of his buddy as well as to the gospel message of hope in the midst of inevitable aging and death. In John 21, the risen Christ grills Simon Peter about the fortitude of his love. Christ is remembered in John’s gospel as saying to Peter: “When you are old, you will stretch out your hands. Someone else will dress you. Someone else will lead you where you do not want to go.”

Will Peter carry out the vision of love and service in the best and worst of times?  Will we?

Bollman spoke about his visits to Keegan. The phrase he used about pushing his dear friend about in a wheelchair was: “It softened my competence.” Most of us can admit with honesty that when we are helping someone who is disabled, we secretly think about how good it is that we are just fine and able. I know that’s my first thought. Bollmann told us, however, that giving companionship to his suffering friend over time “fractured my poise.” He was plunged into his own vulnerability and rage at Parkinson’s. “Like Simon Peter in the gospel story, I was led somewhere I did not want to go,” he said.  

Jim Keegan’s poems are equal to his presence in the flesh. Words and feelings, raw and real, all move as one. One day in the midst of the dawning of awareness about his condition, he examined his own hands with dismay. As he did, he received a strong vision—newborn hands. It inspired him to write this poem, called “Hands.” The title of Keegan’s collection of poems is These Hands.

When did these hands become foreign to me?
Skewed like a lobster’s claws: about ten degrees
off at the wrist—and bony? Puffy blue rivers
of blood run north-northwest up their back side.

And when did these hands make enemies of
buttonholes, zippers, clasps, snaps, fasteners of
all sorts, screws, safety pins, paper clips or
any kind of knot? Did it happen in my sleep?

My sleep has been visited in recent weeks by a
newborn boy in a crowd. He looks at me and laughs,
stretches out to me ten perfect fingers and
holds my scarred flesh in his divine grasp.

Bollman had agreed to come and preach for one reason only: “Because he asked me.” Now here standing in front of the casket he asked his beloved friend: What do you want them to know?  The answer he received was: Tell them that it all belongs.

It all belongs.  Thank you Jim, and goodbye.

2018.10.07 A Visit To The Farm: Sweet Memories Build Spiritual Resilience

Grabbing a short four days to head north to Ancramdale, New York sounds like a traditional leaf-peeping autumnal trip. It wasn’t.

First, there were no leaves of color on the green summer trees, even in upstate New York. There was torrential rain and bleak landscape covered mostly with fog. This should have dampened our spirits if that was what we’d hoped for. It didn’t.

We were looking for bright memories not bright colors—heading for Ancramdale to visit the farm where I’d spent summers as a child. Along the way I kept looking for Route 22, the one my parents had traveled from the big city Manhattan, leaving the minute school got out for the summer. I would get so excited as we drove up Route 22, I thought it would take forever. I felt the same way as Dick and I drove along, and I chattered to him about the Ancramdale chapter of my life. Route 22 finally appeared—still there. 

I’d regretted my parents’ decision to summer in Westhampton, L.I. when I was ten or so. I guess it was the upwardly mobile thing for a “Mad Man” and his young family to do back in the 1940s. But I missed the farm, my pony, the old swimming hole, my best friend Bella, and the big red barn with its hayloft from which we’d swing on a rope like monkeys. I loved being around animals I’d only seen in picture books: cows, horses, even grunty pigs. I did not miss the big fat beady-eyed rats or the fiercest loudest scariest mountain thunder storms, the likes of which I’d not known in the city. Even now as we snaked up 22, I conjured the dungy milky sneezy pungent hay smells of my barn.

Here is that dear old barn today, still standing but silent—no longer a working farm.

We found the things I remembered most and learned more about the Ancramdale backstory. My young parents weren’t dreaming of a rural getaway in February, 1942, but a business associate of Dad’s thought they’d love a free two-week vacation in the farmhouse he rented. I was three years old by then and my maternal grandmother would stay with me. My parents hopped on it. There was only one stipulation to this offer: that they not bother the Sommerhoff family, owners of the property who lived a short few blocks away at their place, The Sommer Hof, German for summer court or small enclosure. They kept their promise not to bother the Sommerhoffs, but the Sommerhoffs had made no such promise in reverse—and thank God for that.

The weather was unusually frigid, well below freezing and with strong winds. The little cottage had no heat and so many holes that the wind whistled through it. There was a fireplace around which my parents huddled and shivered. They moved their bedding to sleep there. My mother reported that her Coke froze solid. Probably Dad’s gin didn’t freeze.  The Sommerhoffs, Kurt and Ba, worried and debated. Compassion won out and they called my parents just to ask if they’d like to come for a hot meal and a hot shower. Salvation! Thus began a solid friendship of 26 years. 

My father wrote a poem about this amazing friendship—all printed out and framed. Though not signed, this poem and neat printing is Dad’s voice and heart. I’d know it anywhere.

The Visit That Lasted Twenty-six Years

In the middle of February
    in ‘Forty-two,
The winds were like sixty,
    the temperature two.
An unheated farmhouse
    was the scene
Of  Peggy and Don’s
    vacation dream.

In warmth and comfort
     a mile away,
The Sommerhoffs worried
    most of the day.
But after the sun set—
    wouldn’t you know?
The Temperature dropped
    to fifteen below.

The Sommerhoffs seriously
    pondered intrusion;
Their kindness prevailed
    as they reached a conclusion.
They offered a bath
    and a hot dinner, too;
The Gillespie’s accepted
    without much ado.

The bath and the dinner,
    the company were
So great that the G’s
    not a muscle would stir
To return to that Hell
    which is supposed to be hot
But in this very case
    it most surely was not.

The Gillespies they sponged
    for a solid two weeks,
While the Sommerhoff food
    they stuffed in their beaks.
There’s a very good chance that
    they might still be there
If their meager finances could
    have stood wear and tear.

The friendship that started
    with this chilly tale
Has grown to a strength
    that never can fail.
Here’s a toast to the memories
    this friendship has known;
The Gillespies won’t trade them
    for the most precious stone.

We Gillespies never stopped going to Ancramdale to visit the Sommerhoffs even when we no longer spent summers there. I remember my father’s cursing heartily at the chains we put on our car against the winter ice and snow. They would snap and break off as we snaked up 22.  He pulled over, jumped out, swore at my mother, and repaired the chain link. It was Ancramdale or bust. Even if I moaned  that I might throw up, he motored on. Mom supplied a bag in case.

Emilie Sommerhoff, daughter of Chris Sommerhoff and granddaughter of Kurt and Ba, and her husband, Job Yacubian, still live in the original Sommerhoff home, the one we called the big house, the house of hospitality. They were charming and we felt at home.

Ancramdale felt the same to me some 70 years later. Emilie gave me a tour of the house and lovely conversation. The amazing thing is that it is not very changed from my childhood memories, although it is not a mansion as I’d remembered. The small windows just under the roof are still there, the large playroom upstairs, and the rope bannister going down to the hearth room where we all spent much time by the fire singing and laughing and partying. The thick lambswool rug is gone now. That rug used to scare me. I was sure mice were nesting in its depths. Emilie grinned and said: “You were probably right.” I think she loves the humble place as much as I do.
         

Before we left I had to find the farmhouse where my parents had originally stayed and where we spent so many delightful summers. Chris Sommerhoff and my old friend Bella helped me with an address. Here it is, now all spiffed up, painted red and obviously expanded. But I see it still it as the little white farmhouse with the vast cornfield next door.
 
The vast cornfield where I used to run and play—hide from discovery—still stands. I’d run through its neat rows, completely hidden from view, and share all my secret wonderings with God and myself. Cornfields whisper back. Did you know that?

And sweet memories provide resilience and hope in days when anxiety lurks and slinks around the edges of both the personal and the national. I feel grateful Thank you Emilie for inviting us to come again.

  

 

2018.009.30 A Shot In The Soul

Yesterday I went into Boston to the installation of our cathedral’s new dean the Rev. Amy Ebeling McCreath. She’s now “very” reverend, but she looks to be the same solid, sane, and sensible self she has always looked to be.

I went because I know Amy and like her lots. I went because I’m thrilled that our cathedral has its first female dean. I went because our diocesan bishop usually delivers a homily filled both with wisdom AND good humor. I went also for a shot in the arm, my metaphor for what high-spirited liturgy can do for me. It lifts my soul and pulls me beyond my fears and woes. There is nothing as exhilarating for me as to be in the midst of hundreds of people all committed to the same faith and cause, all singing and responding as if they believed every single word of every single hymn and every single prayer. Good liturgy has more than a pinch of God in it. It has a dollop for me.

When lives are strained but hearts are full is one way to describe the effect of excellent liturgy.

I’d been immersed in crafting a sermon, finding a way to talk about the current situation in our politic scene and describe the culture of rape we live in, a culture that wounds everyone. The Church is not exempt from its own politics of power and rape.  Rape is obviously physical assault, but broadly defined, rape can rape you of your dignity, your worth, your esteem, your opportunities, your faith, your God, and yes, your very soul—the deepest part of your being where you connect with the grace and affirming presence of Being itself. 

The politics of church and world make me feel raped sometimes. I needed to be healed, made whole—not escape but be raised up and out. Great words, music and enlivening spirit do that. 

Here is a photo of Dean Amy. I wish her great grit and great grace as she enters into this new leadership ministry in our diocese. Here she is pre-dean and very rev. anyway.

2018.09.23 A Crisis of Formation In the Episcopal Church?

Does anyone imagine that the core values of the Christianity—like social justice, prayer, outreach, compassion, liturgy, ministry, care for all Creation—flourish without a solid rootedness in faith formation? 

Yesterday Dick and I were presenters at a day-long Ministry Network Showcase, sponsored by the diocese. There were thirteen presenters sharing specific ministries focused on Reimagining Our Congregations, Building Our Relationships, and Engaging Our World. We spoke as the Coordinators of Education for Ministry (EfM) in the diocese. Here’s Dick at our resource table. So cute, isn’t he?

Obviously all presentations, strictly timed (with only a couple of cheats) at 18 minutes each, overlapped in energy and intent: being in relationship to work together as ministers to bring about justice, compassion, and peace. All these works can happen without religious faith of course, but the fuel for their implanting and ongoing verve is spiritual—the love of God in our flesh. It’s shareable!   Ministry is present in whatever we do. Think of it this way: everyone we meet and everything that happens presents us with an opportunity to enhance or impede the flow of divine love.

To avoid dryness, Dick and I invited the audience to listen in on a conversation between two lay Episcopalians about The Episcopal Church (TEC). We opened with “Houston, we have a problem! We can’t get down!”

What’s that got to do with the Church?

Despite being lost in wonder, love and praise over our liturgy and music, we haven’t done well landing in ongoing faith formation for adults—ADULTS!

Some facts—not fake news, taken from an article by Missy Morain, lifelong Christian formation advocate in the Diocese of Los Angeles, entitled “A Crisis of Formation.” 

“Christian Faith Formation in TEC is lifelong growth in the knowledge, service and love of God as followers of Christ and is informed by Scripture, Tradition and Reason.” That, dear friend, is TEC’s General Convention (GC) resolution passed in 2009.

Are we doing it?

Not so much.
    -At our 2018 GC there was NO talk about formation and discipleship.
    -Over the past nine years GC made significant changes to structure and governance of TEC.  They chose in 2012, just three years after that noble resolution, to END the work of the Standing Commission on Lifelong Christian Formation, to CUT its budget by $2 million, AND to reduce its full-time staff from 9 people to 4. FOUR!
    -There is only enough staff and funding to work on formation for ages 13-30. Do the math. Is that lifelong?

It IS a crisis. What now?

EfM of course. It’s offered by the Beecken Center of the School of Theology at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennesee and has been around since 1975. It is defined as a distance learning program of adult formation—a curriculum covering both biblical testaments, church history and theology over four years. EfM meets in small weekly seminar groups guided by certified and re-certified mentors. EfM happens all over TEC and the Anglican Communion AND it’s ecumenical, open to all denominations. 

Too big a commitment!

Sign up one year at a time.

My Rector’s too busy to take on another parish program.

EfM is not a parish program. It comes at no cost and with nothing to do. Maybe offer space.

Oh, the vestry will love that! 

EfM thrives on TR. That’s theological reflection, a process that helps us connect the wisdom of our faith tradition to our lived experience. TR is spiritual: EfM’s heart and soul. Insights are electric!

Come on! Really?

Yup. Here are a couple of true examples.

I’m a parent serving on our local school board. I was recently stunned when one of our kindergarten teachers came before the board. She spoke about EfM, said it made her a theologian and a minister. She asked us if she could apply the 18 CEUS she got yearly for her EfM training to fulfill her continuing education requirement as a teacher.  She told us she saw her students with new eyes. I was so impressed.

Did the board grant her request?

You bet we did—unanimously.

Another EfM’er, a businessman, raved about his EfM group, told me he never thought of himself as a minister. “Imagine me a minister!” He laughed, then told me he saw his staff and clients differently. “Maybe I try to see them as God sees them.”

Hey, Houston, EfM is a way for TEC to land and to honor its own resolution.

Besides brochures we made book marks with contact information and EfM’s purpose and mission:

LIFELONG CHRISTIAN
FORMATION GIVE US
STURDY LEGS AS WE
ENGAGE THE WORLD.

EFM GIVES US
CONFIDENCE TO SPEAK
GRACEFULLY ABOUT OUR
RELIGION’S VALUE

EfM Coordinators:
    Lyn Brakeman:lyngbrakeman@gmailcom, 978-314-7763
    Dick Simeone: sim6366@gmail.com, 978-314-7762

2018.09.16 A Rant

Since this is a rant I begin with asking forgiveness from anyone who may be hurt by its excesses.

I’m not shocked at the omnipresence of clergy sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. Nor am I shocked by the ongoing widespread coverup. I am, however, incredulous that so many men whose vocations and careers have taken them to the top echelons of an institution which calls itself religious have become so immersed in pathological denial that they are “eating their young.”

Why doesn’t someone notice the disconnect? Institutionalized moral rules for good give rise to moral ills. It’s ironic to me that this institution funds and advocates for social justice while simultaneously being a source of social injustice.

There is no verifiably direct causality but there is uncanny correlation between required celibacy for clergy and sexual abuse of the innocent; between prohibition against ordaining woman clergy and isolation with increased vulnerability of male clergy, both heterosexual and homosexual; between prohibitions against divorce, birth control, abortion, and remarriage in the church and painful offshoots like poverty, poor health, hunger, unemployment, domestic misery, homelessness, suicide, prostitution, infant mortality, crimes of violence, and the biggest stressor of all on human and natural resources: overpopulation. Overpopulation!!

The largest Christian denomination in the world is not exempt from the part its policies play in the brokenness of those it seeks to love and serve, including its clergy.

I know. I know. I know  . . .
    -Debate on these issues at all levels of the institutional church is in process and is very complex—historically, politically and theologically. Debate is better than stonewalling. Maybe the clergy crimes are generational, but the wounds and healing processes of the victims know no generation, no statute of limitation.
    -Truly, some of my dearest friends are Roman Catholic.
    -I have never been abused by a Roman Catholic priest but have counseled many clients who have, including a former Roman Catholic priest who had been deposed for pedophilia. He had lost his entire pension and a large chunk of his soul.
    -I have experienced excellent spiritual direction from Roman Catholic priests.
    - I am an Associate of the Religious Sisters of Mercy; many sisters feel as pained as I do.
    -The majority of Roman Catholic clergy are faithfully carrying out their vocations and share my distress. Institutionalized abuse is not unique to this church. Its epidemic proportions are. 
    -Attracted to the sacrament of the Mass and the embodied way of prayer, I once took instructions to become Roman Catholic. I could not become Roman Catholic, because the only woman up front on the altar scene was a statue—sweet, silent, and immobile.
   
What does this twisted torturous “morality” do to faithful people inside and outside the institution? What does it do to the wrenching disconnect between preaching and practice? What does it do to the God who has infinite love for the infinitesimal?  What does it do to the Way of Love Jesus Christ proclaimed? It raises all hell, that’s what it does.

Is this assessment fair? NO
Is it complete? NO
Is it angry? YES
Is it truthful? YES
Is it hopeless? NO
Is it a prayer?  YES
Is it a holy NO? YES

Is there a rave in my rant? YES—for those Roman Catholic clergy and lay people who excise beauty, hope, and community from exquisite liturgy—the consistent, repetitive simplicity of ancient word, ancient meal, and love-longing prayers. 

2018.09.09 Moments To Ponder In Poetry

The poet Jane Kenyon wrote: “A Poet’s job is to find a name for everything: to be a fearless finder of the names of things.” For this you have to notice what is and distill it for good reason.

LANDSCAPING?

They came
they saw
they did not conquer
but laid to rest.

I watched
I waited
I did not pray
but vigil kept.

My vigil began at seven when the nagging bleat of the buzzsaw
brought me awake with a shudder.

Another tree
—alive and well and old like me—
with a diagnosis I did not understand:
no disease, no deterioration, no blight

The operation took four hours and five men
in electric green shirts and orange helmets
They worked with care, efficiency
    no step overlooked, little talk—hints of tenderness
Surgery is like that: assess and cut twig, branch, limb, trunk, stump—one by one. Or is that
    autopsy?

No battle, no guns, no bombs, no fall—just an
enormously majestic oak of great worth
    of great dignity
        of elegant beauty
            of saintly service
a steadfast presence shading and shielding tender underlings for years—
    gone.
   
The pronouncement? Death by landscaping.
The why? Development: more condos like mine.
Yes, but . . . in the end the landscape suffers—like mine when
my parents— one by one—became memories on the landscape of my mind
    alone.
                by Lyn Gillespie Brakeman, 2018

TWINIGHT      

The evening is lovely
light blue, mild with
cloud puffs so
light they don’t interfere
with sun’s light.
We have it all tonight
the air unconditioned, and Lo!
a doe light-stepping the green expanse
of lawn, her speckled fawn at play.
I cough.
Her ears stand at attention, her nose
combs the air, head pivots as the
little one scampers, frolics—completely free to experiment
with life while
her mama stands sentinel, and buck-daddy lurks nearby in the woods,
ready to charge at a moment’s notice.
He is unafraid for the sake of love,
not budging even for the huge noisy rider mower

I worry the fawn will dart out into the road, get run
over—die.

A chill moves the air. I turn to reach for
my sweatshirt and when I turn
back, they are gone
vanished—so close and yet so far—like Godde

Oh, stay in the woods, small one—grow and
play.
Soon enough you will have to be watchful—not yet

Pink streaks over the blue
sun going and going.

It’s twinight—so pretty in peace.

Everyone in the world everywhere has
twinight.
                               Lyn Gillespie Brakeman, 2014

2018.09.02 Eighty Is Eighty

This is how my 80th birthday celebration went.  I’ve written about this in many ways in different sites, but I’m not done celebrating. 

I was born August 7, 1938. My husband Dick was born also on August 7 but in 1941. His brain is three years younger than mine. That’s helpful at my age! (Photo November, 2017)

We decided in 2018 to celebrate our one day twice—one dinner out for my day and one for his. The first dinner was at a new Indian restaurant, Nirvana in Cambridge. We love Indian food and had scheduled our reservation early, 5:30—the hour of dining for oldies and what I’d sworn I’d never do. We expected nirvana. When we arrived we were greeted by the noisy, messy chaos of a birthday party for a group of eleven-year-old boys, complete with birthday cake and a food fight. So we talked about memories of being wildly pre-pubescent ourselves and memories of being parents of seven children and a few grandchildren in the same state of explosive life.

Our second chosen restaurant is a favorite neighborhood restaurant—Italian, Dick’s heritage. We are friendly with the staff. I have learned a few Italian words and some of the wait staff speak Spanish. It’s the restaurant we went to nearly every night when we first moved to Cambridge eight years ago and were waiting for our appliances to be installed. We were sure we’d be feted and treated like the regulars we are, and especially with a high profile birthday. However, both managers were on vacation, the place was hopping with people who had spilled out and into the restaurant from an event in nearby Danehy Park, and they were understaffed and rushing around, even had the bartender waiting tables. They hardly noticed us. We talked about the spirituality of patience, finally agreeing that it was for the saints, or at least the birds.  Spoiled, privileged, entitled, yes, but not guilty. Prego.

We got off to our two weeks' vacation in Nantucket the next day. Even the ferry food tasted good, and the sun shone brightly as the sea breeze unruffled our feathers. We were almost afraid to try again at our favorite island restaurant, 56 Union. We waited till Monday, a low night we hoped, and we went at 7 p.m. As we came in the hostess asked us if we’d like to be seated in “the quiet room.”  Ah!  Aging is good.

At the end of our birthday month after we were back home, my four children, all from Connecticut, came to take me out for lunch on Sunday August 26. They had asked what I wanted and I told them I wanted to be together with them—just them, no spouses or grandchildren. They thought we could meet somewhere equidistant, but I said I wanted them to come here. One daughter had never seen where I live in retirement. And so it was. Our lunch at Artistry on the Green in Lexington, was elegant, quiet, and relaxed. No agendas, no need for deep confessions, no leftover family kvetches, no pressurized joy. It was perfect, which doesn’t mean there was no chaos in each life. That was put aside for the day. It was a ritual as holy as Sunday church or my birth day, Sunday. They gave me a funny card, a multi-colored piñata signed with little love notes from each one of them, and a gift card for the Seaside Motel in Maine where we for years have spent Thanksgiving week and celebrated our wedding anniversary, November 23.  And they paid the tab.

(Robert William, 51,III, Jill Barlow, 54, Lynda Gillespie, 80, John Thomas, 47, Beverley Ann, 55—all Brakeman)

Eighty for me is not the new 60, or 40. Eighty is quiet of soul—glory, gratitude, humor, love, and good looks thrown in.