2025.03.02 IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll—

Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to know

It is well, it is well with my soul.

This old hymn rings inside me. It is both as grand as an operatic tenor in full voice, and as minuscule as the flutter of one wing of one tiny lady bug making her way slowly across the carpet going nowhere or other.

I am supposed to prepare myself for the somber season of Lent. I am supposed to notice transfigurations. And yet what seizes my soul is sound— voices and sounds all around me‚ all within me, some timid and hushed and some booming with rage and frustration. I listen to all these voices. I hear the sounds of silence, my late first husband’s favorite song. I sorrow his tears, my heart cries too. 

The lyricist of this old hymn, Horatio Spafford, lost all his real estate investments in the Chicago fire of 1871. His toddler son died of scarlet fever, and his four daughters died in a collision at sea while crossing the Atlantic. His wife survived and wrote to her husband, “Saved alone. What shall I do?” Horatio set sail to go to her and, while crossing, the ship’s captain told him they were just passing over the spot where the shipwreck had occurred. 

These words flooded Spafford’s soul. Mine too, the tears and fears of all the years.   

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll—

Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to know

It is well, it is well with my soul. 

2023.02.23 TOTTERING. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

As I stood at the foot of the Town Hall steps in my small Connecticut town, about to enter to change my political party affiliation from Republican to Democrat, I froze. What would Dad say? He was in my heart, not my politics.  

Over the years Dad and I had bickered about differences. He was a staunch Republican, preaching his fear of more war, apparently all caused by Democrats. I’d argued, then voted Republican. But it was 1972. Everyone paid attention. Votes mattered as much as party affiliation. For the first time I put a partisan label —Democrat—on my voting. I couldn’t vote Republican as usual. I couldn’t tell Dad. How he voted mattered less to me than my affection for him. 

Now in 2025, similar issues face our country. Will we be able to live as if we actually are We the People? Will we have the courage to  stand up straight and forgive political rivals like President Ford did when he pardoned Nixon? Many thought Ford foolish. I thought him courageously compassionate.

As an Episcopal priest, now retired, I still remember holding my breath in 1976 when the Episcopal Church voted in favor of ordaining women as priests. I had also wept when my long-Presbyterian dad knelt before an Episcopal bishop to be received into the Episcopal Church.

All Creation, I now believe, is non-partisan, politically ordered, and equally blessed. Oh no? Consider the politics of Divinity envisioned by the biblical Job after a lifetime of politicking his particular version of God.  

2025.02.16 EVEN THE POET LOBBIES, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886), one of the most influential American poets, is known for her introspective and innovative poetry. Despite her reclusive nature, Dickinson explored profound themes such as life, death, nature, and personal responsibility. Her poems often feature unusual punctuation, capitalization, and a distinctive meter, all of which have contributed to her legacy as a unique voice in American literature.

"If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking" is one of Dickinson’s more straightforward and brief poems, yet it carries a powerful message about the human capacity for empathy and the value of small, compassionate acts. The poem reflects her belief that life’s purpose is found not in grand gestures, multiple activities, or fame, but in simple, selfless kindness as you simply LISTEN to those who actually do live next door, or at least live next door to your heart. 

2025.02.09 ODD EPIPHANIES. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

’Tis the season to be wary. Grim and gruesome, scary and sudden, wild and weird, beloved and bewildered, insane and inane, in flight and buried—all at once and never before.  Here I am.  

Our President makes sweeping plans for lands and people not his own, not in his jurisdiction, not in his heart. All these people want is the same thing we all want, already bestowed by Divinity on ALL creation from the beginning. What is that gift?  FREEDOM? Deeper than that.

One of the most beautiful recordings I’ve ever heard is one someone taped from within a womb—the steady gentle thrumming of a mother’s heartbeat. When I heard it I felt instantly serene, calm, gentled no matter what was going on. Odd. 

Do most children obey as they grow, because they are afraid?  No, it is because they receive and give LOVE. Love is the most precious gift anyone can receive, and it is the most precious gift anyone can give, and it is what Divinity first gives. Such is the divine mystery.

Intimacy precedes independence.  

In the beginning.  

2025.02.02 Presenting For Real? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

I wonder what the Jesus story of Presentation we love to tell was like in real life?

We ought not allow him his divinity unless we also allow him his humanity.

Can you imagine Jesus as an infant going to temple for the first time and not squawking and howling in protest?  There were no pacifiers in those days. His poor parents were just trying to obey the laws of the Temple and hush their baby at once.

My mother always told me that when I was baptized I was “a little lamb” never bleating or peeping.  I did not believe her. Later she told me she always kept her pinkie finger/pacifier handy to put into my mouth when I got restless. 

By the time I really could squawk or bleat was when she insisted I “come out”, that is, be a debutante. I clutched my father’s arm as tightly as I could and we paraded forth. “Coming out” they called it. Out of what ? Out of my mind, I thought.

Traditions are worthy and often lovely, yet sometimes we simply need to honor Divinity alongside Humanity in equal portions.  

2025.01.26 A Story For All Seasons, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

This story was originally told back in the 1970s by the Very Rev. Francis Sayers, one-time Dean of Washington National Cathedral. It was dusk, and the last tour of the day was winding down. The Dean was waiting to lock up when he spotted this scene.

A small girl, maybe six or so, bored with the drone of the tour guide conducting the last tour of the day, became fascinated by the light reflected from the round Rose Window at the West end onto the floor below. It represented Creation/The Beginning.   

The child glanced back a few times to make sure her mother wasn’t looking and had not yet spotted her straying. Not yet. She kept walking towards the light. When she reached the edge of its circumference, she looked up at the window and down at the light’s reflection. She stood there simply gazing, her small head bobbing up and down. Finally, she put one toe into the light and drew it back quickly. Several times she checked the light’s omnipresence. At last, encouraged, she stepped into the circle of light on the floor. Still checking its presence above her, she began to move about, cautiously at first then with confidence.    

It was then that mama realized her child was not at her side. She began her own frantic search for her child whom she spotted far away. Mama began the journey, first running then slowing to a walk, then faster again, all the way down the long aisle. The dean, still in the shadows, watched intently as this mother reached her goal then stopped, entranced by the sight of her small daughter moving safely and gracefully about. The child, uninterrupted, looked up at her mother and said:  “Look mommy. Look! I’m dancing with the light. I’m dancing with the light”  

With the light.  

I ALWAYS THOUGHT. . .BUT Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 01/19/2025

I think too much sometimes. It could be obsessing, as in racy mind, or it could be careful concern about some important topic, such as why am I so old, or am I just too old even to think about being old? My wise mind wondered whether Jesus performed miracles. Or was he a phony? Was all this adoration/adulation a hoax? 

Today I am obsessing, gently of course, about the utter foolishness of the adolescent Jesus proudly showing off his divine gift as a “miracle” worker. There had been rumors in this messiah-driven culture. Who would God send? Could this gifted boy be Messiah? Save Israel? Perform magic? Do something no one else could to make Israel shine?  Such a messiah, they all knew, might also threaten their own security—social and political, not to mention spiritual. By spiritual I mean their own deep-down feelings of absolute security, superiority. Being Messiah would do it.

*  *  *  *

The Reverend Professor Dr. Kamal Farah led our tour in Israel in 2012. He surprised all of us who were hungry-for-truth as literal as possible to secure Divinity-on-earth: who, why, where, what, how and whose? 

The professor asked what this story was about deep down? We held our breath. This story is about Mary, the mother of Jesus. What? Our collective and well trained patriarchal egos stiffened, ready to dispute this atrocity. My natural curiosity perked up. 

According to the social etiquette of first century Palestine, the host or hostess of the party was responsible for its organization, its etiquette and its manners. Mary was a mother who, like any mother, wanted her son Jesus to shine. She knew him well. When he failed to comply she drew him aside and told him the proper behavior for a would-be messiah. BINGO!  He turned to his mother, offered some resistance, as in “Come on, Mama, I don’t wanna do it!” Mama prevailed however and obedient son turned about, told the wine caterer of this party that the host, his Mama, was upset because they were about to run out of WINE. Jesus called for more wine, and presto the wine kegs filled up—plenty for all. 

I love such impudence and Mary’s firm maternal authority. No mention of God the Father. I don't care much about the water-to-wine miracle, but rather about the greater miracle that this adolescent boy listened to his mother and obeyed. To be true to the laws of proper hospitality, guests come first. This was a woman’s clarity and triumph. The church tradition thinks of it as Jesus’s miracle.  

It is about nothing more, or less, than honoring hospitality for its own gracious sake. Divine.