2022.03.13 Unlikely Friendships. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 3/3/22

Like these unlikely animal pairs, we human beings are also capable, though far less likely to  exercise the privilege, of forming unlikely friendships. It’s safer to stay in our herd—also less transformational, less challenging, and possibly boring. 

                            *  *  *  *  

 A teacher at the Gorilla Foundation had taught an ape named Koko sign language. One day Koko signaled by drawing two fingers across her cheek like whiskers, that she wanted a cat—not surprising because her keeper had also been reading to the ape whose favorite stories were “Puss in Boots” and “The Three Little Kittens”.  Stuffed animals, however, did not satisfy Koko, so her trainer offered her the pick from a litter of stray kittens. Koko was smitten with this tiny male tailless kitten whom she named All Ball. Aren’t they a pair?

 

Koko treated Ball as any mother of  babies would—cuddling, carrying him tucked in her thigh, even playing little games—done with the utmost tender care, and all received with utter joy. Tiny Ball, alas, escaped from the enclosure one day and was hit by a car.  People working with Koko witnessed the ape’s emotions—the tremendous silence of deep grief. It showed in her face, and, pointing to a photo of Ball, she signed with her huge hands: “Sleep cat. Cry, sad, frown.” 

Now, anyone could make a case that this all was because apes and their ilk are more advanced than other animals—more like us. Or, you could make a case for maternal instincts alone. 

But no……………

Picture an English Spaniel named Sophi and an owl named Bramble from a birds-of prey conservation center in Cornwall, England. This is an amusing reversal of traditional names. Owls are usually considered wise, and Spaniels by nature are eager to hunt and retrieve felled birds of prey in their jaws, not befriend them. Still when Bramble was young the owner of the center brought him into her home. The curious three-year-old Sophi immediately started to lick Bramble’s beak. This became a daily ritual, and whenever Sophi was around, Bramble jumped about and flapped to be let out of her cage to join Sophi for a cuddling and cleaning session. This ritual became mutual as Bramble “beaked” Sophi in return for Sophi’s “kisses". Even after Bramble went off to the aviary he would swoop down to visit Sophi for their grooming sessions. They were a couple. In love? 

 

So who says animals don’t have feelings?

Then there’s the  Kookaburra and the duckling. 

I always wondered what a Kookaburra was, because my mother used to sing some goofy song about a Kookaburra sitting in an old gum tree. It was an Australian nursery rhyme. Kookaburras are not necessarily nice. They have a high-pitched cackle, sort of like, well, “girls’ night out” in a local bar. And Kookaburras often eat their young. But a wildlife center on the Isle of Wight, England, managed to breed and save some hatchlings, one of which they christened Kookie. 

This same staff had also rescued a tiny Madagascar teal duckling. To alleviate possible loneliness, they thought to pair Kookie with the wee duckling. The two oddly, became pals. The duckling burrowed its fluffy body under Kookie’s wing for warmth. The duckling, when separated for the night, jumped up and down, eager to get back to the blasé Kookie who showed no aggression. In time another litter of ducklings hatched and Kookie babysat all three. As Kookie grew up and into his adult voice, he could, and would, emit his wild guffawing and scare the feathers off his duckies—or not. 

No one really know how or why such youthful bondings form, but experts do know that they last. 

*  *  *  *

Do you remember such friends when you were a young child? I do. I also remember that there was little fear about differences until I got older and had been “carefully taught” to fear. Again, it is young children who will lead this world along the way into and through this fearful time in our history—a time when we are called to abandon cherished biases, flawed values like individualism and independence, favored warlike strategies of survival. It is time for a politics that is humanitarian not partisan, and a spirituality that re-embodies an ancient wisdom:  ALL LIVES ARE PRECIOUS IN GOD’S SIGHT.   

(I am indebted (photos and data) to Jennifer Holland’s amazing book, Unlikely Friendships about the power of friendship, in true stories from the animal kingdom.) 

2022.03.06 Ashes, Ashes of Truth, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 3.6.22

Ashes announce the first day of the season of Lent. Ash Wednesday is a holy day for Christians, beginning the time when Jesus was driven into the wilderness to, well, consult his soul and his God about his own choices. On this day priests, or laity if no priest is available, smear ashes onto each upturned forehead to remind us that we are mortal and beloved as such. The imposition of ashes is the ritual that  springs us into Lent, a season that has nothing to do with things borrowed or lent! It does have to do with one’s own willingness and ability to, let’s say, think things over—not as a life review, but as a way to spend more time in quiet and to ask yourself: Is there anything or anyone in my life that gently tugs at me, visiting my quiet contemplative time with worry, or wonder, or regret, or simple uncertainty—or any ongoing temptation to sin, understood as anything that separates us from the goodness in ourselves, God, or our neighbor.  

                                *  *  *  *

For the last two years I have had regular, often daily, conversations with an old friend and Episcopal priest, the Rev. Lee McGee-Street. Lee was my, and many other women’s mentor, in and through the ardors of the ordination process in the Episcopal Church in the late 1970s and 80s. Although we women were finally voted “ordainable” as priests in 1976, it took years for the “law” to settle into the minds and hearts of a people formed in patriarchal language and hierarchical politics. The process felt like wiggling a fat’n happy overweight man into a corset meant for a petite ballerina. 

Lee McGee, then an Episcopal deacon from Washington D.C., had been one of those courageous women (eleven in Philadelphia in 1974, and four in D.C. in 1975) who bucked the traditional system to get ordained priest, with the "Washington Four" before the official vote was taken. These ordinations were labelled “irregular”. They were not illegal, because a bishop carried out the sacramental rite. Still, these women had to endure another ceremonial liturgy to get “regularized” so that they could function as priests with sacramental authority: to bless, consecrate and absolve. 

The ordaining male bishops suffered no consequences of course. (Amazing what you can do after you retire, your pension is secure—and you’re a man.) Nevertheless, every institution has it rules and regulations to create a sense of order. The Church is no different. 

Lee, herself, had first been against the idea of pushing the Church into taking action on gender justice, but she soon changed her mind. She had a rich career as a chaplain, counselor, parish priest, and professor of pastoral studies at Yale Divinity School. She was very present to me and other women as we floundered into and through the journey to priesthood in Connecticut, encouraging us to persist, informing us about the dynamics of the double standard, and later helping us to understand how hard it was for male clergy, who had controlled the sacramental life of the Church for centuries, to lose that primacy and to suffer a “breach of collegiality”—aka old boys’ club. One meant loss of power, the other loss of intimacy. The Church today is not the only institution still learning to live with the idea of shared power. 

Dick and I had left Connecticut for Massachusetts in 1997, and in 2020 returned, just as the COVID pandemic was taking hold, to live in a retirement community in Simsbury. Lee and I resumed our connection and had daily telephone conversations, rich with humor and debates about church politics, and feminism. We were moving from our mentor/mentee relationship to good old friendship.  

In these last two weeks, I continued to call and leave messages, yet received no callbacks. This was not usual. I knew that, Lee as she aged, became housebound with painful arthritis, had regular caregivers, experienced some depression, was grieving the death of two husbands, and lived with a form of macular degeneration that had left her legally blind since her late twenties. I also knew that she was one of the more resilient women I’d ever known. She never talked—except I imagine to her therapist of years, her several beloved guide dogs, and perhaps God—about her disabilities. It was never easy to, well, be empathic or feel Lee’s own pain with her. She was always “fine,” and she always turned the conversation away from herself to me. Each time we talked, I pressed her a bit about how she was—really. She consistently assured me, “I’m all right.” I wondered. I doubted her “all-rightness” and felt helpless.

On Tuesday, March 1, I saw a message on an online site for Episcopal clergywomen that Lee, at 78,  had died on February 20, 2022. My heart crimped with grief, and also some anger. Why could she not have told me she was in that much decline?  I was slow to remember that this was how Lee had managed her difficult life all along. She helped others, period. My grief would have some ambivalence; no grief is ever pure. Nevertheless, Lee and I had been, and would always be, connected enough through God, our seminary, and our passion for the causes of women in the Episcopal Church, to make my grief whole and holy. 

Thank you, Lee McGee, and bless you always. 

So what has this remembrance  to do with Ashes and Lent? 

*  *  *  * 

I suppose I will never get over the allure of ashes, black smudges on the forehead in the shape of a cross. It is a powerful ritual to acknowledge the beginning of Lent, yes, and also to remember how small, silly, and yet how beloved we all are in God’s eye.

When I worked in the 1980’s as a chaplain at Hartford Hospital, a big bustling city hospital, and later at an addictions treatment hospital, I used to bring a small vial of blessed ashes to work on Ash Wednesday. I was astounded at how many people, staff and patients, wanted me to smear their forehead with ashes. They chased me down. When each one stood before me, some much taller than I, I tiptoed or they bent. I said to each: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  Oh, how I wanted to add a little phrase of reassurance, something silly like, like don’t worry, God always loves you and will resurrect your soul forever. Oh, how fearful so many of us are of dying and being gone—just gone. 

On Ash Wednesday I felt, and feel, like a small child again, hoping someone will just pick me up and hug me forever close. All I can do is grieve for my friend, Lee, and ask another friend to smear my own forehead with black ashes and remind me. 

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. 

There is something astonishingly unifying about this visible ritual—an outward gesture of our common humanity, the tattoo that marks our common nature. Without exception.    

Either/And/Both/Or? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 2/27/22

We seem to have trouble in this “united” states of North America deciding whether to be pluribus or unum, but rarely both. It’s the same with religions and political parties. 

I am Either

shake my hand

I am And

All hands are banned

I am Both

Full of sloth

I am Or

Without an oar

Wishing more

Daring less

I confess

Oh, do stop playing silly games

We have no time for fuss or fame

We’re all the same

In this raggedy game

both tag or tag-along

and either will do.

*  *  *  *

At the end of my February 20, 2022, blog post, I posed this question: What if there is no either/or, but only both/and?  And what if there is neither but all? 

I wonder if connective and oppositional words are simply of no use in a world that continues to insist on conflict no matter what. We create wars, presumably for the sake of promoting our ideals, and for helping to liberate other radically uneven and unfree societies, and yet war accomplishes neither. War only sows all seeds for more war. In fact, power and might over against self or others for purposes of change toward a shared outcome, such as peace or communication, does NOT strengthen mutual growth, but retards it, breeding only resentment and humiliation. Ask any parent.

For example, Harvard instructor, and researcher, Jessica Stern, herself a victim of rape and the author of a memoir, Denial, interviewed terrorists in an effort to understand their violence. She uncovered consistent underlying feelings of humiliation—the emotional underpinning of terrorism. 

There is a community ritual practice in South Africa called Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a way of thinking about humanity. Young boys are trained in this practice, probably to ensure tribal survival. Ubuntu derives from the Zulu language and roughly means: “I am because we are.”  I became acquainted with this process and practice from church gatherings. I know it has to do with the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity.

Even enemies? Or terrorists and rapists? Neither? Both? 

While I was reacting with rage and disgust to the recent Russian invasion of the Ukraine, I thought of ubuntu. I also thought of Jesus, of whom I am quite fond. He not only  advocated for non-violence but also prayed for enemies. All of them? Some days I think Jesus was absolutely nuts! How could I pray for Russian president, Vladimir Putin? Prayer, I discovered, makes me uneasy more times than not. I finally settled on asking God to soften Putin’s heart toward his own humanity and to that of his people. Economic sanctions, after all, hurt innocent Russians as much as war hurts innocent Ukrainians. 

Now I needed comfort. Oh, send me something terrific, I begged. 

And God sent me the Pope. What, you expected a Transfiguration? 

On St. Matthias Day, February 24 of 2022, there was a conference called “Building Bridges: A Synodal Encounter Between Pope Francis and University Students.” Matthias, was the Judas replacement, duly elected by Jesus’s disciples after his death, because of course the work must go on, and they needed to have the correct number: 12 (tribes of Israel, apostles of Christ). The Bible is nothing if not organized disorganization. 

We have 12 grandchildren—irrelevant here but lovely.   

And so I watched the Pope and the young students assembled from all the Americas, including Mexico, and Canada. Was this my consolation from God, or was it one more distractor in my spiritual journey? But I like bridges better than tunnels so I tuned in. The meeting was sponsored by Loyola University’s Institute of Pastoral Studies in Chicago.

In this brief and fascinating two hours I learned nothing new and everything renewed. First, I had to look up synodality. A SYNOD is a meeting, an assembly of clergy and appointed or elected laity. Such meetings make decisions for everyone else. They are usually boring. But this one wasn’t. 

I felt comfort from God through Papa Francisco, as the young, bright, and brisk Roman Catholic students called him. This group of 20-somethings was diverse in gender and race, and eager for just what I myself longed for at 80-something: a little affection with clout. 

The “Papa” began his time with the students by telling them he would speak to them as a priest—not as bishop or pope. He acted friendly—yes, like a friend.

I heard many things. I listened to a few. I comprehended even fewer. I retained some:

-The Pope feels like a fish in water. A fish, he said, runs and exercises very fast. He wiggled his hand like a fish. “I feel like a fish”  And so he was— swimming with us all in the same waters, seeking and seeking, just as we all are.  

-On migrants: “A migrant is a person. I was alone and you welcomed me. First, eliminate the stigmatization. I am a migrant. So are you. It is very important that all of us know our deepest roots. The old ancestors gave us base for the tree, and now you are young, and you must grow the tree.”

-“We say violence for violence. There must be NO violence. Violence destroys. It never constructs.” At Easter, you offer the other side of your faith.” (Remembering the gospel saying about turning the other cheek, I took this to mean that one should never get one-sided and rigid about one’s religious faith. 

-Several students expressed concern about the distance they felt from their clergy. No one speaks to us from the pulpits about climate change and other things that we care about, they told Papa who responded: “The pastor must not manage, but be in front, in the middle, and behind the people.”

-One young woman made this plea: “Please don’t close any more churches. Transform them into our homes.” The Pope grinned and nodded. 

- Most of us have heard the metaphorical image of Christ knocking at the door of the church, or of our own hearts—trying to get in. “The Church must knock at the door from the inside. We have to go out, to change from the inside out.”

-Finally, a theological question, implied throughout but stated by one student: We are to replace violence with goodness. How?”

-Answer: “How is God?  Close, merciful, tender, and compassionate.” 

As he left, the Papa’s zucchetto shifted on his bald head. He resettled it. No bobby pins!

*  *  *  *

So I guess that God is neither AND all. Amen.  

Such Visions, Quests and Questions? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

She’s six feet tall

striding the mall

Thin as a rail

leaving a trail

Shoppers awake

each one agape

Is her skin white—

hardly, though light

What does she want?

What doesn’t she want?

Why is she here?

What is her gig?

What’s her m.o.?

Is she a robot?

No . . . but

are you?

I must have glimpsed the above image somewhere among the array of online images that fly past my eyes as I skim quickly down the line of internet posts. Was this from an ad? I have no idea, but I woke up with this image dancing before my mind’s eye this morning, and these words followed, so I jotted them down. What? The thought that I may be going daft, or demented, or any number of strange ailments, crossed my mind, because I could not make sense of this image, or analyze its meaning.  

*  *  *  *

Another image came to mind without warning. It was an analogy articulated by a patristics (studying the early theological writings of the old boys) professor, the late Rowan Greer of Yale Divinity School, back in the early 1980s.  He told us students, emphasizing the intellectual futility of any analogy of course for how Creator God interacts with Creation, that the relationship between divine grace and human free will or agency was like sailing. 

Grace is like the wind, available at all times for better or worse, and free will was like the sailor (or crew). The tighter you pull the sails in, the less play you give to the wind, and the more likely you are to capsize the sailboat, and possibly drown. Conversely, if you let the sails flap wildly in the wind, you and your boat will flounder aimlessly about, getting nowhere. The wind is always there, to one degree or another. Your job is to cooperate with the wind, to allow its omnipresence to work with you and for you.

Your job is to manage the sails/your life artfully. It won’t happen well if you’re too uptight, or too loosey goosey, about your choices and your destinations. Ya gotta know what you’re doing and be careful doing it. Freedom is a precious and extremely difficult gift to manage—and you’re not alone. Ever. 

This as many of you know had been my experience from early childhood, and believe me I’ve been pretty awkward at times managing those “sails.” But I managed them through storms and painful losses and trauma—sometimes very close to capsizing altogether, giving up my own desires and passions to traditional roles. On occasion I have felt  becalmed, abandoned by God and everyone else, even myself—too helpless to go on.

Still, I always picked up the ropes of those life-sails again, and managed to go on. 

* *  *  * 

I may never fully understand the flash image that came to me this morning, but I am pretty sure the tall woman is not a robot, nor am I.  And I’m pretty sure she has life to live, and that she will live it with grace—no matter what. 

*  *  *  *

The last morning image that ran into my mind’s eye this morning was another remembered  image of children at play. These kids were in a Palestinian refugee camp in Israel. Unlike the well groomed, privileged children in Cambridge, these refugee children were unkempt, often scantily clad, living with anxious parents, unfree, and scared.  And still they played with vigor and passion enough, I pray, to, set “sail” even in the face of political and economic upheaval, not of their doing. 

*  *  *  *

Many are fond of bemoaning God’s absence, less fond of praising that presence when things go wrong. They ask: Where was God?  Others are fond of using most all their energy, individual and collective, to praise God’s presence, less fond of expending much of their own energy on the task at hand, be it recovery from trauma or grieving one’s losses with grace. God asks them: Where were you?  

I dare to believe that all these images came to me this morning to spark hope for this world. It’s irrational, I know, but I also know that God does not solve problems. We do, with the help of God whose grace lives within us—in our flesh, as well as beyond us. BOTH/AND.  

What if there is no either/or, but only both/and? 

Still, I do know that God's Spirit does send sparks of energy my way— doses of trust in that windy presence I call God.  

2022.02.13 I Saw It On The Playground. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 2/13/22

One of my own happiest memories from growing up in Manhattan was the daily trip to the Central Park playground at 94th Street. To my delight, there in our North Cambridge neighborhood just blocks away from where we lived for the first ten years of our retirements, was the “queen” of all playgrounds, Danehy Park, a 55-acre park named after a former mayor. Not only is it spacious, with several athletic fields, three tot lots for young children, walkable paths throughout, with benches along the way for chats or rest, and of course a sprinkler, because there must always be water play for cooling off and wild splashing. 

I loved to walk over to the park, sit on a bench, watch kids play on swings, slides, and climbing devices, witness the occasional spill, rejoice with their exuberant shouts, often in several languages, for praise: “Look at me, Daddy, Papa, Auntie, Grandma” as their small legs pedaled trikes at astronomic speeds. Play that includes daring challenges like monkey bars is essential for the souls of children, if somewhat nerve-wracking for parents or caretakers. Probably the most frequently heard adult shout to a child was: “Be careful!! You’ll get hurt if….”  Hurt happened, yowling in pain happened, bloody knees and noses happened, even the occasional spat about whose turn it might be. Without exception, some kind of rescue, comfort, arbitration happened as well. I did not see much scolding, lecturing, shaming, or punitive consequences. The kids were comforted, cleaned up, and off they sprinted right back to play exactly as they had been—not a single warning heeded. And often children themselves stopped their games to make sure a playmate who fell was okay. I also saw gracious sharing of food. I mean most kids know what to expect in their lunch bags, they know what their own preferred adult would have prepared for them to munch on. But other parents, of course, made better snacks. One must learn, after all, to develop one’s cuisine—an appreciation for different foods and fluid ethnicity. I’m sure I missed ambulance arrivals and more, but I never saw them. I’m also sure that I am an idealist, yet I will not deny that what I did observe lifted my hope quotient, reinforced my faith in God, and warmed my heart.  

What I saw on the playground was children’s playfulness let loose. There were children of many colors, languages, and cultural or religious dress in this neighborhood. Such diversity must be the gift of this USA, I thought. If only we could honor this gift. If only we could, well, NOT grow up and into the prejudices of our assigned group. No wonder Jesus pointed to a young child and told his followers to be like a child in order to realize the poignant words many of us so glibly, thoughtlessly, pray: “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” 

My limited yet profoundly real experience in this playground led me to think about play as a spiritual gift, a blessing best embodied by young children. I saw mutually enlivening play. I saw such play as proof of the sanctity of Being itself—proof as well that our cherished biases, and all -isms, are not inborn, but they are taught and learned as if they were hard and fast and aggressive social rules—reasons to justify ignorant enmity and war. But they are not present in young children at play. 

 

Mutually enlivening play is a passport to Heaven, understood as a metaphor for complete, all-embracing, no-holds-barred Love. Only in heaven can you ride a trike at Mach whatever. And be caught if you fall by an angel just your size.