2020.12.13 I FLESH.

Dear God
    I’m here
I flesh
    tired, blurred, blessed

Dear God
    I love you
    I need you
    
    I’m sorry
    I thank you

For the beauty of Earth
For gleam and glower
For dirt and long-gone flower.

So?

Is there any chocolate in this house?

For the pain and for its power
For today and for its morrow

So?

For clouds and shrouds
    and silence loud

I hear
    I listen
        I here

I flesh

    You?

Son. Sun.

2020.12.06 HOLY

Where is John the Baptist when you need him? His is the voice of alarm, the clarion call to wake up. It is the screeching of the fire engine racing to help. It is the scream of a police car siren racing to help. It is the cry of a hungry baby, the agonized why? of the crucified, the whimper of those alone and dying, the near-silent mutter of a street beggar, the rage of the able and of the helpless, the sigh of the contented writing out a check which is too small to matter, the groan of a planet in peril, the blast of a shofar in early morning—calling, calling, calling.  

What voice do you need to hear? What voice is strong enough to break open your heart? To wake you up to the naked need that surrounds us even when we neither heed, nor hear, nor need. It’s there. What voice moves you to stop running and start listening? Who is your prophet?

In every call, there is Godde. In every need, there is Soul. In every despair, there is Hope. In every wound, there is healing. I know this by faith and by glimmers, glimpses, glows, and guesses.

A glow: December 6th is St. Nicholas day. In life he was a bishop in the early Christian church who died in 343 CE. Nicholas was of Greek origin. At 5’6” he was small in stature but giantesque in heart. Sometimes called the Wonderworker, Nicholas instructed children to leave their empty shoes out by night, and by morning the shoes were filled with goodies and surprise treats. From this small holy activity emerged Saint Nic’las and then/now Santa Claus.

 

 

 

 

 

 I am reminded that the generosity of Godde —in Creation and through all life of all beings—is extravagant and eternal.

 

 

 

 

 

A shimmering story. One of my granddaughters asked for a cross on a chain for her 21st birthday. She specified :“Not one with that body on it.” I remembered a time when this young woman was in her teens and had a fight with a classmate about religion. What middle-schooler fights over that? She’d angrily insulted her friend’s religion, calling it stupid. The dispute was arbitrated by the principal, an apology was made, and my girl did further penance on her own. She went to church with her friend, jumped up for the altar call, and got “saved.” She came home, announced her salvation, and told her older sister that she should get “saved”—it would help her a lot. By the next weekend she decided against church and for the mall.

All of this is not exactly what one might call divine salvation—or is it? Something happened that this girl never forgot. Something to do with Christ, she told me, and wrote me a note, with this salutation: “To my Holy Grandmother.”  It is a beautiful articulation of her spiritual experience, her gropings and her raw and innocent wonderings as she tries to discern what Christ means to her. Salvation is a process. This kid’s a pretty topnotch theologian already!

I wondered about myself being called “holy” refraining from sophisticated definitions of holy.  She wrote me this: “In terms of your holiness, I think I meant it in the way I have always seen you. The only person in my family growing up that was spiritual and religious. I remember being young, exploring at St. John's, and finding peace there. I also remember always asking my parents if we could go to church (I mean, what kid does that??). There's always been a yearning in me for spiritual knowledge. I think for me growing up, you embodied that for me. So thank YOU!! :)”

I say the same to her!

11.29.20 ADVENT FLASH

Every once in a while—requested or not, planned or not, expected or not, desired or not, rational or not, explicable or not—there come a flash of awakening.  It’s not like the slow sleepy arising in the morning. Nor is it the sudden kick in the gut of noticing the obvious for the first time, or the surprise of finding a lost earring peeking from under the edge of the bureau. This flash partakes of Mystery.

We live as everyone the world over is living in near-quarantine in this season of Covid-fear and masks and huglessness. In the midst of this the town where we just moved, Simsbury, Connecticut, had its 350th anniversary. How does one celebrate antisocially?  Town officials decided the best, perhaps only, way was to have fireworks. This phenomenon is bravely American and traditionally reserved to July 4th. The best place to set off the display was at a local golf course. Guess who lives right behind that golf course, bordering its well-pruned green expanses. WE DO!  

Last night Dick and I sat at our window and watched. The flashes came in succession, each one louder and more colorful than the last. In the parking lot below, cars gathered, one with a bunch of young children atop it and all around it. Sounds of their laughter and screams of delight accompanied the fireworks. 

Mysteriously, this 20-minute flash was better than any July 4th I’ve ever seen. It was far better than the costly displays with musical accompaniment, tailored for global viewing to advertise America’s brand of freedom. Now more than ever we need to learn how to live our brand of freedom—not as power but as joy, not as exclusive to us but as available to all living things in nature and human nature, not as dogma but as covenant.

As this flash subsided, I was suddenly suffused with tears—gratitude, inner warmth, hope, awe, and sheer Mystery.

PS.  Simsbury. Thanks for your wondrous fiscal irresponsibility!

I LIKE YOU JUST THE WAY YOU ARE. 11/22/20

You might think I am obsessed with Mr. Rogers, and you’d be right. My obsession isn’t pathological but spiritual—something this secular world might consider pathological anyway.

My “Rogerian” focus is broad and deep, perhaps global. I think the late Fred Rogers is an icon for our time. An icon is an image through which we see the glory of God, aka divinity. It’s only a glimpse, but when you see it you recognize it. The early Christian bishop, Irenaeus of Lyons (130-202 CE), pictured below, best summarized such spirituality this way:                       

                  The Glory of God is the human person fully alive.

But this post isn’t about Irenaeus; it is about Fred McFeely Rogers (b.1928, Latrobe, PA.) who embodied Irenaeus’s theology:
    -not because he happened to be an ordained Presbyterian minister who had attended Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, spoke Greek and Hebrew, and in time graduated magna cum laude with a specialty in musical composition from the University of Pittsburgh
    -not because he was strictly religious or doctrinaire: You don’t have to speak overtly about religion in order to get a message across. He knew there were “terrifying ideas in all religions.”
    -not because he loved children so much
    -not because he became famous for his work in public television for children, won many awards and honorary degrees including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by President George W. Bush in 2002
    -not because he took daily naps, stayed fit, maintaining his weight at 143 all his 74 years
    -not because he never smoked or drank
    -not because he was a registered Republican, which some folks think is godly these days
    -not even because he was a vegetarian: I couldn’t eat anything that had had a mother, he'd say.

Rogers reflected the glory of God because he was a person fully alive—and imperfect:
    -because he had a difficult childhood, spending many hours at home because of asthma
    -because he had many stuffed animals who helped him make friends with himself
    -because he learned to play the piano at age 5, and followed this passion to get a degree
    -because his personality was introverted and shy
    -because he was bullied in early school for being overweight, called Fat Freddy, and made to feel “very sad”   
    -because he was resilient and blossomed in high school to pursue his early passion for music, eventually marrying a fellow student Sara Joanne Byrd with whom he played dual pianos and who became the puppet Sara Saturday on Mr. Rogers’s Neighborhood
    -because he would get perfectionistic about his show and cranky, as he did over the arrival of the educational television show for children called Sesame Street. It was competition and he didn’t like it, probably because it was too teacherish.   
    -because he struggled all his life with anger and self-hate
    -because he hated television, yet when he discovered an old television at his parents’ home in 1951, he exclaimed: There must be some way to use this fabulous instrument to nurture those who would watch and listen.” This “aha!” moment shaped his career in public television.
    -because he insisted on a private funeral in 2003 in a chapel in Latrobe for family and friends to have some protected time for their own grief.  There was a public ceremony later at which violinist Yitzkak Rabin, cellist Yoyo Ma, and organist Alan Morrison played, for 2700 people who mourned this humble hero fully alive in their hearts
    -because his mother knitted all his sweaters, including the famous red, front-zippered one he wore on his daily television show, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Tom Hanks, who played Mr. Rogers in the current movie, “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” had difficulty managing Rogers’s nightly entrance into his “neighborhood”—grabbing the red sweater, zipping it up, spit spat like that, removing his shoes, flipping one shoe into his free hand, then donning sneakers, ready to play with puppets and charm his young audience, nightly from 1968 to 2001.
    -because he was an avid swimmer of laps, saying that this and the piano gave him a chance to feel capable and in charge. Swimming was his most important self-discipline.
    -because as a boy Fred Rogers saw scary things in the news and never forgot the advice his mother gave him: Look for the helpers. you will always find people who are helping.
    -because, despite his lifelong dedication to the psychological and moral well-being of children’s emotions about painful life challenges like divorce, sibling rivalry, death, Rogers ably directed his energy to adult politicians when he testified before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communications on May 1, 1969. His testimony enchanted the Senators charged with eliminating government funding for public television for children. He closed his testimony singing a song he wrote for his own show: “What Do You Do With The Mad That You Feel?”  

Guess who got the funding? And guess who left the hearing feeling fully alive—divinely so?

I think Rogers is an icon for this time, this 2020 year,
    -because he listened attentively—present physically and emotionally to every single child, kneeling to be on their level,
    -because he said over and over: “I like you just the way you are.”   
    -because he prayed— regularly and no matter what
    -because journalist Tom Junod said of Rogers: “It was very hard to interview him because he just wanted to focus on me and who I was and my feelings.”
    -because when asked what he thought Mr. Rogers wanted him to do, Junod said: “Oh, I think he wanted me to pray.”  
                                              *  *  *  *
Tomorrow is the 34th anniversary of my marriage to Richard J. Simeone, brother priest, mentor, friend and companion-in-cranky. Above our sleeping bed hangs the wisdom of old Irenaeus.  
    
               The Glory of God is the human person fully alive.

 
I like you, Dick, just the way you are—whether asleep or awake. Some days I don’t love your every way, but I always like you just the way you are.

And to us all: Let’s try to be a little bit like Mr. Rogers in our own neighborhoods—every day.

My "Racism"—Brief Anecdotal History. Part Thirteen. Choices.

My very first choice was at three when I left my parents to their own cocktail hour and went off on my own to meet God with my reckless imagination. Whether that choice could be considered free I can’t say, except that it felt free to me. Looking back, I’d like to say I had good emotional intelligence, yet honestly it was more likely impulsive, childish creativity writ large—accidental grace. Is there any other kind of grace?

My first morality-laden choice had been choosing my own pleasure against loyalty to my black friend Carol Lee. The burning memory of it still stings. Whether I called it racist or not didn’t matter. My conscience did. Carol Lee and I were different—not just because of our skin color but because of my choice—my choice.

My early experience set me up for knowing that choice was an intimate part of life and that it would always be impure.

Scene XXXIV. Why?

I was nearing forty. I’d made made choices about marriage and children. These might not have been perfectly timed, but I had no regrets as I watched the children I adored and admired grow and thrive. They were my greatest pleasure. But something was missing. I didn’t know what exactly. I sat in my kitchen conjuring up fake images of myself as a domestic wonder-mother when an interruptive question—the kind only God-from-within could inflict—broke into my reverie.  

Why are you doing this?  

I sat down at the kitchen table, rested my bowed head on my crossed arms and sobbed—sobbed.
Why was I doing this?  Truly, madly, deeply why?

Scene XXXV. Leap

As I sat in my tears I made a choice to answer the question—truthfully. What was missing from the lovely picture was me. Yes, me. I leapt first into a part-time job as a local weekly newspaper reporter.
I faithfully reported on the most boring of town meetings. I was a stringer, paid by the column inch, so I made my articles as long as I dared. Soon I leapt into writing features, then editing.  

I listened carefully to the instructions from the hang-gliding teacher. He strapped me into my glider wings. I took a deep breath, swallowed my fear, and leapt off a mountain top, well, really a ridge. Lifted and held by puffs of wind, I was airborne—a soundless plane. The thrill was—forgive me—godlike. I looked down and saw the world, my world. I wanted it all. All. I wrote it all.

Choice by choice, I devoured my freedom—moving, leap by leap, away from traditional and expected roles. I could blame the 70s or Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, but that would be cheap grace. I took it anyway. I would deal with the sin of my profound selfishness in time and through tears. My four children were too young for this loss, for my leaps, for my evenings meetings, for too much maternal abandonment—paternal too.

I got involved with the local church and took on leadership roles. I eyed the altar territory with something akin to lust. I wanted to stand up front. I wanted to be a woman-in-the-flesh up front and not a statue draped with sorrowful looks and roses. I also leapt from the Republican party to the Democratic—away from my parensts'  party to one of my own, one I thought more in line with the  kind of values and choices I thought Jesus would make.  I was sure Jesus would ordain me if he were a bishop—or still enfleshed, or not Jewish.  
 
In 1977,  just after the Episcopal Church had voted—not by a landslide—that women could be ordained priests, I made application to get into the ordination process in Connecticut. The Bishop of Connecticut had voted against the ordination of women priests—unbeknownst to yours truly who had an outsized idea that the Church was the Body of Christ, therefore apolitical. My application was rejected, mostly because I had “2.24-too-many children”, and I couldn’t be a mother and a priest. “Dual vocation” they said. No mention of men and fathers, of course.

I leaped into God-school anyway. Anyone could get a theological education, the bishop had said. I applied for a student loan—something I thought carried great authority. Paying it back I’d worry about later. The second I came onto the campus of Yale Divinity School for my interview, I gazed at the very Protestant chapel keeping watch over the quadrangle of buildings, went to sit in its emptiness, and filled it with my prayers. My heart soared. I leaped into seminary education in the autumn of 1978.

In March, 1979, my youngest sister died unexpectedly at 34 after surgery for congenital aneurysms in her brain, leaving her husband and three young children. Her death precipitated severe asthma in me. There is nothing like not breathing well to make one feel like death. I never thought this was divine judgment or punishment. I did feel a terror I hadn’t known before—and again the pain of  betrayal. On medical advice, I found a new home for my second daughter Jill’s two cats. Fear-based choices never work well.

There was probably no better place for me to be than studying the Old Testament, not a single word of which was free of anguish, pain, grief, sin, and relational turmoil—all of which God created, absorbed, healed, frowned at, and and wept for. Sin and mayhem were as omnipresent as divine love no matter what. I chose it all.

Scene XXXVI.  Free?

All my choices, my leaps, shaped me, hurt me, hurt others, helped me grow, helped others grow, required amends—and forgiveness.

I was dimly—gradually, painfully— learning that most of my personal big choices could be followed, because I was white, privileged, and moneyed.

My freedom was not bound by poverty, class, or the color of my skin, although I knew the pain of being restricted because of my gender. White freedom of choice looked free, but it was racist. It was embedded in a context of racial injustice. Others, chiefly blacks, couldn’t make the choices I could. There wasn’t room for their freedom in American society. Black people and others did not have the same access to the famous and, to my mind questionable, “American dream” as whites did—even though such freedom was preached. A racist set-up if ever there ever was one.

My choices were made in a racist context and therefore indirectly partook of racism. My racism was getting clear enough not to surround it with quotation marks.  All it needed was to be fleshed out.

 

We Voted. WE.

WE, this United States of America,  just voted on its next President, former vice president Joe Biden. We have voted in record numbers—yes, to a man, no, to another man/incumbent; yes, to a Democrat, no to a Republican; yes to the first woman/first black/first daughter of immigrants as vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, no, to an arch-conservative evangelical Christian vice-president/incumbent; yes, to a measured inclusive style of leadership, no to an authoritarian leader of excess. The voting went smoothly and deliberately. Every single vote was counted with care, efficiency, and I’d say with love for democratic process.

This is a lot of change at once—qualitative change. It’s easy to analyze the many whys and evaluate the numbers according to partisan politics and differing cultures. It’s easy to observe all the celebratory festivities on television screens, and easy to feel the general mood of those gathered to celebrate—HAPPY, simply happy. Fringes of discontent were likely present but went unnoticed. It is less easy to discern the larger picture—the deeper meaning of this historic vote—after all the minute statistical details that have provided exactitude are cleared away.

President-elect Joe Biden praised the cheering crowds, saying, as former President Obama did, “Yes, we can!” He added his hope for America now: “Lead by the power of our example not by the example of our power.”  

Further: We are the united States, not the red and blue states. Let us put away harsh rhetoric, marshal the forces of decency. Everyone needs a fair shot, just a fair shot. Let the moral arc of the universe move towards justice. It is now a time to heal, to mend, to love, as the biblical Ecclesiastes says.  Biden promised to be a unifier. He has the experience, the intelligence, the character and the personality to keep that promise. Specific plans are in the works to create teamwork and conversation.  This man knows how to cross the aisles. Good thing, because this was a close election in which Republicans did well and Democrats did well. Good for the whole.

Some of my own thoughts about broader, deeper meanings, especially those with racial implications:  
    -Partisanship itself is racist, because whites historically identify with one party, Republican, and blacks with the other, Democrat. I am not a blue person, and my favorite color is red. Blacks voted in high numbers this year. HOPE.
    -Whites are blind to the racial implications of party politics, mostly because they are concerned with what is happening with their money, taxes, and their classist lifestyle, safely bound to “whiteism”. Paying taxes is one way I contribute to that “fair shot” for all .
    -COVID is also racially tinged, mostly because black people suffer more from poverty and limited access to adequate healthcare benefits or good insurance benefits. This President-elect will immediately set up a diverse task force  just to focus on the best ways to eliminate a killer virus that knows no politics, no race, no gender, no creed.  
    -Reliance by the media on polls that assess political opinion and predict outcomes can also be racially tinged, because white college educated people respond to polls bringing their own biases, and black people are often not poll-responsive. Poll-driven statistics demand instant responses i.e., pick a detail, ask a question, and then expect a brief response.
    -American culture, it has been said, is anti-intellectual. This doesn’t mean that people are not intelligent, but that they are conditioned—by advertising, social media, i-phones, and many social media devices that provide instant stimulation and instant communications—to expect, if not demand, instantaneity. Deep and broad thinking accompanied by much conversation, listening, and exchange of ideas, is not a high cultural value. We live in a Skinnerian world of stimulus and response.
    -Religious fundamentalism contributes to this mindset. It is very selective about which texts one should live by in order to please God—and the local congregation. It discourages individual spirituality and exploration of biblical texts through prayer and the gentle guidance of spiritual direction.

The late Dorothy Day (1897-1980), convert to Roman Catholicism, activist, and founder of The Catholic Worker Movement, speaks of a politics for going forward in this Beatitude Kingdom we here call the United States of America. Day in 1934.

 

“What we would like to do is change the world — make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute — the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words — we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever-widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.”

Dorothy Day admired America's efforts to take responsibility through the government, but ultimately felt that charitable works were personal decisions that needed the warmth of an individual. I’d say we need the best of both at work together. Day said: “My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the Psalms.”

So does my own. Today’s morning prayer Psalm 96 (translated by Pamela Greenberg) begins:

“Sing out to God a new song
sing to God, all the earth.

And ends:

You will judge all people of the world justly,
all nations with steadfast truth.

By this I remember to honor each day with a new song—or mood—and to remember that there is only ONE JUST JUDGE—and it’s not me, or you, or even us.

All Saints, 11.01.2020

Today in the Christian Church we celebrate All Saints Day, which immediately confronts us with the very practical challenging question: Who is a saint? What does a saint do, or not do?  Why?

Most preachers in Christian churches will elaborate about the higher values of the kingdom of heaven of which we are citizens and whose values we live by.  YES, BUT how does this Transcendent Kingdom connect with Earthed Kingdom?  I can only think of one acceptable answer: God doesn’t stay in “Heaven.” Simply so.

I was struck with the ever-so-familiar—even trite Scripture—THE Beatitudes.These are hard blessings. Each divine blessing presumes its polar opposite: poverty of spirit, mercilessness, grief enough to suffocate a soul, persecution, torture, evil, unrequited justice, and the absence of peace. For each and all of these blessings God offers its opposite but not its elimination. In other words, dearly beloved, this kingdom of Saints is neither all good nor all bad. It’s both.  

On my home altar sits a small scallop shell. It was hinged but spread open when I first spotted it years ago on an ocean beach. The shell has traveled with me, in pockets and on altars and through a few geographic moves. Hence, the tiny hinge that held the two halves of shell together, enabling it to yawn open and clamp shut for the sake of the tiny critter within, broke. Now I have just the shell in two halves. They look exactly the same, but notice. The outsides of each half are quite distinct.

BUT when the shell is open the insides of both halves are exactly the same.

 Such is the all-blessed image of the Kingdom of God—all residents different one from another externally and all the same internally.  Beatified.



Today I remember a human saint who embodied these beatitudes of inclusion. I first met the Rev. Roy Parker at Holy Cross Monastery while on retreat. He was my spiritual director for a time. Monthly I drove over to Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, New York, where he listened well to all my palaver. I felt soothed by his presence, until one day I stopped talking and looked over to see Roy sound asleep. I woke him and we laughed, followed by my strict instruction that he see a therapist for possible depression.We laughed—together. He still laughs I believe.

Once some years later —in the mid 80s—Roy was on a meditation trip with a nun as his companion. Dick and I offered them a place to spend the night along their way. We served them a delicious dinner and gave them each one of our three spare bedrooms available at the rectory and laughed about sharing such a delightful evening with a monk and a nun.  Our two travel buddies left with deep gratitude for our hospitality. A lot of funny stuff can happen under the sign of the Cross.

We stayed friends with Roy, and I consider him still an exemplar of true sainthood. He was present at my ordination to the priesthood in 1988. We’ve enjoyed his humor whenever we’ve visited the monastery. Once he sidled up to Dick on the way to lunch and whispered: “You know this aging stuff is not for sissies!” Roy’s work hangs on the monastery walls heading toward the chapel.

 

Roy calligraphed the cover for  my ordination bulletin. The larger version of the wisdom of St. Irenaeus of Lyons also hangs above the bed where we sleep. 

Our favorite image of Roy’s calligraphy is a quote from the work of the late mystic and beatitude type, Thomas Merton, American Trappist monk. He wrote if you can't read it: "Dance in the sun, you tepid idiot. Wake up and dance in the clarity of perfect contradiction." I gave it to Dick because it, well, reminded me of him.  We will never ever reframe this to get rid of the crack in the glass!

Roy Parker died of a paralytic laryngeal disease in 2020. The disease took away his voice entirely and then his life. Just before he went silent, he did this last calligraphy.

 

 

Roy is a saint in good standing in the beatitudinal kingdom of all saints. My heart can’t help but be lifted, my cup filled to the brim, my soul drenched in the generous faithfulness of God when I remember Roy.