2025.06.22 Tragicomedies or Simply Life—Both. Lyn Brakeman Spiritual Lemons, blog post

Who cares, and yet everyone cares—enough to laugh and weep together with every passing sigh or groan? Yes?  YES!

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Any abrupt and sudden death is shocking. We rarely understand it, and yet, our grief is deeper than it would be if we’d known all about it, if we understood. And too, we do not know exactly what to do or say. What is most important I believe is to gather and talk with those who are also shocked. No, you will not figure it out, never fully understand it, but yes, you may embrace each other anew and weep together before you leap back into life and doings. Sometimes it is helpful to ask the immediately bereaved what would help them.

I recall one such situation when the only thing the bereaved said was: “Please just sit with me and don’t talk.” 

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In 1979, my youngest sister died suddenly post surgery. She was 35. I suddenly could not breathe, literally gasped and gulped. I guess my body could not take in the shock. My mind, despite medical explanations, could not make sense of this death, could not find someone or something to blame. Time and people in sight, at hand but silently, held me in a net of caring, until my lungs gulped air, and a medical professional diagnosed and treated my asthma. “Probably dormant,” the doctor said. 

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Remember the small scene in the biblical New Testament when Jesus, accompanied by his close friends, looked out over the land, his beloved Jerusalem, and he wept?  He’d just heard that his best friend Lazarus had died.  Dominus flevit. means The Lord wept. 

And here in Israel today stands a small church shaped like a teardrop. It honors Jesus’s tears, his grief. Simply so.   

2025.06.15 FATHERS ALL. HAPPY AND BLESSED DAY. Spiritual Lemons, Lyn G. Brakeman, blog post.

Just this week when my husband, Dick, and I were watching some humorous Brit television, I had a spontaneous thought: “I love your father!”   

I do not know exactly know where my thought came from, except that I trust spontaneous “blurts” like this, because they are always meaningful and always engage my heart. That’s why I love biblical stories, because they tell me something about Divinity, something about Love, and something about myself—all in one blurt!

In this moment I suppose I was thinking about Father’s Day as I glanced at a framed photo of Dick’s parents on their wedding day. I thought how elegant they looked, how much I love their son, and how I wished that I had known them better.  

Nevertheless! I followed my inspiration and recalled a couple of tiny Dad stories.

-When Dick was a young child of four he got a fever and the doctor said he had to be in bed, kept warm and immobile. The world was waiting for penicillin. His dad of course worried and felt the need to “do” something, so he braced the cold day and went out. He returned to his son’s bedside bringing with him a street Santa with a little bell and all the trimmings. It was all he could do as a dad who loved his small son. Santa Claus had no gifts except the magic of his message: Merry Christmas. Ho. Ho. Ho.  Soon the little child did get better. Miracle? Who knows and who cares. The child lived. The small spontaneous gesture was enough.

-Another remembered story was about when Dad as a young boy working part-time as a boy with a broom in some factory. They paid a pittance to sweep up the dust and dirt on the floors. In the process the boy overheard some men talking secretively about ways to sabotage the business. He sensed it was wrong and told others. Courage.

-Another story I loved to hear was that, although Dad was wary of flying, he agreed to a flight for the sake of his business. Before he boarded the plane, he went round the airport and put coins in every insurance-selling machine and addressed the payment slips to Dick’s mom. Tragically, and NOT by divine design as some people think, the plane crashed killing everyone on that flight, including this dad. Dick was a junior in college. Faculty and friends helped him get a flight back home to where his mom was. Within a month all those insurance checks arrived, all of them valid and honored. These monies in time helped to pay for Dick’s children’s college tuitions. It was a tragic accident not organized by Divinity. It is humanity with the freedom given at Creation, that can turn such evil into good.  

-Just today I saw a father and son. Dad was helping the child to learn golf. Finally, this wee toddler, after several futile swings with his small club, connected with the ball, and whacked it good. Dad gave him a big hug. The child toddled on down the hill to the waiting golf cart where he stayed while Dad hit his own ball with a whack. It was a win for both of them. How do I know?  I simply felt its truth in my heart. 

A miracle is something Divinity does for you that you cannot do for yourself, and yet, ironically, it often bears unexpected good fruit.  Silly small things that matter big.   

2025.06.08 PENTECOSTAL BIBLICAL DISSONANCE, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

If the Holy Spirit is anything it is full of hot air!  

William Brown, Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur Georgia, reminded us all that if the Bible is anything it is off key and filled with dissonance. 

Personally, this is precisely why I do trust the Bible, and its many translations, to leave room for me in it. I can always squeeze my perspectives in, because I do not take every word literally, ipsissima verba, though I take every word seriously.  

Women who experience a call to the sacramental ministry of priest are organized and have been lobbying for ordination in the RC Church for many years, are still hopeful, and still waiting, and still failing to understand precisely why their gender disqualifies them from ordained ministry.

I was at a grandson's college graduation recently. There were many women who have served in executive positions sitting on the platform. 

I also remember the politics and the pressures for a female presidency way back in the 1960s—at an all-women's college no less!!! 

Now I live with my husband at a residential retirement community. The entire administrative staff is made up of women. Let me say that a leadership team that is exclusively female is ALSO not the best model. 

Effective leadership is not either-or, or both-and, regarding gendered pronouns, but rather, it is according to vocational qualifications, educational and experiential qualifications, training, and yes, a deep inner calling, some of us would identify as divinely inspired—none of it bound by gender. 

Thank you, Holy Spirit!  

2025.02.29 WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN. Lyn G.Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

Oh yes, we know. Or do we? 

What we Christians call THE ASCENSION of Christ is a sign of the holiness of Jesus the Christ heading on home to Pop, and etc. Lovely idea, I suppose, and yet………

Think of space travel. I remember praying and worrying about the delayed return of the male and female “astronauts” in space for so long. I  know they were busy, and yet I wondered if they made love in some ways. Honestly, the traffic in my imagination is entertaining! Nevertheless, I can’t imagine ascending sperm, not to mention one of those enormous helium balloons of Jesus on parade. How can he leave them, us? But never fear, he quickly returned for a cookout on the beach, wanting something to eat no less. 

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What you hate do not do to yourself or your neighbor.

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Only ONE rule!  The first part is easy..   BUT……………..I feel resistance arising, and exceptions, etc. You get it. Getting literal about certain “neighbors” is easy. But ALL? Even rats? You get the point. 

I just re-read the story of Joan of Arc, and finally could see why they sainted her. Despite threats and tortures and, yes, also some praise and worship, AND death threats, AND contemporary speculations about her transgender status, this girl never abandoned her vision. Never. Never.

She died to be born to stay alive.  

2025.05.25 DID YOU KNOW? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

 

Did you know there are no fences in the fields of Divinity? There are no boundaries, only Presence. AND always a story. 

When I lived in Cambridge, a terrific small city under the wing of a big city called Boston, I used to walk downtown often passing by Harvard Yard, its huge iron gates open. Occasionally I’d wander about inside the Yard, absorbing the air of the Academy. Harvard, however, wasn’t academic or elite, just unlocked.

I learned all this from a street beggar named James. He sat in his wheel chair. He always smiled and muttered something unintelligible, as his trembling hands searched for his cup. At first I felt afraid of James. I passed him by. One day I stopped. I don’t know why, but James beckoned. I gave him a smile and a coin or two. He grinned. I walked on. All of this against the backdrop of the stately Harvard.

One day James motioned me closer and managed to tell me a story in his halting way. He told me that his wheelchair was stolen out from under him by some “hoodlums”.  He teared up. I braced myself. But then he pointed at the great gates of Harvard Yard and said “They saved me.” 

Some Harvard fraternity students had pooled their money and bought James a brand new wheel chair designed for someone with his palsied and mentally challenged condition. James could manage his new chair easily, and it did give his life work—begging—meaning. He lived in a special care home, and begging was his own chosen way of contributing. 

James and Harvard students also healed my habit of making judgmental assumptions about beggary without knowledge of the inside story and the truth. I gave James my last $20 and walked the rest of my way home, begging Divinity to inspire generosity and peace for healing the world over.  

2025.05.18 A WEE SNAKEY STORY ABOUT TRUTH-TELLING, Spiritual Lemons, Lyn G. Brakeman, blog post

I woke up one recent morning with a strange prayer running about in my mind: “Well, dear God, do you dare pray for yourself, or is such an idea preposterous?” I pray for myself. And also with you. Jesus prays for himself, but he’s not female. The Holy Spirit is up for grabs, so to me SHE is feminine. Perhaps SHE IS prayer.

So I guess that praying for oneself is a good practice of holiness, eh? 

These awakening thoughts propelled me first to the bathroom for self-emptying and then back to my warm bed, next to my dearly beloved sleeping spouse. He I know would say, “You think too much!” He is right of course, so I grin and go back to sleep. 

Such is me brief anecdotal story. Story, I conclude, is the building block of faith, not doctrine but true-of-heart story. It is the stories we all remember.

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The Holy Bible is full of stories. In fact they are the glue, the connecting links. They are not forgettable. These stories are why people love to read memoirs—stories in the flesh. It’s important to notice what or who in a bible story wakes you up. 

When I read Genesis, for example, about the beginning of all Creation I notice, not Adam’s loneliness, nor God’s giving Adam a hot soulmate named Eve, nor the fruit of the tree, likely a pomegranate, because of course Israel is Middle Eastern, thus too hot for apples. 

I DO notice the little snake. I’m not afraid of snakes like my mother who taught me snakes were hostile and poisonous, a curse, especially to women. I did not believe her fear, but instead took note of the snake’s valuable role in this story. This snake curled and coiled around the tree trunk in Eden. This snake told the truth: You won’t die if you eat the forbidden fruit.   

Thus began my sin career. Thus as well began my love for this Creating God who created NOT rules and punishments but truth and freedom. This Divinity created even snakes for truth-telling. This snake made me laugh. She too was there in the beginning. She told the truth. I love this story, and I love the role of Ms. aging snake whose truth-telling is there in the beginning.  

 

2025.05.11 Letter To My Mother On Mothers Day, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

Dear Mom,

This, I know, is late in arriving, yet I hope, or rather I know, that the God we both trust will make sure this is delivered.  

I have learned over the years that mothering is the hardest job and/or vocation that exists in the whole created universe. 

It is not restricted to any one gender.  

It is not dependent on sexual intercourse, anatomical wombs or anatomical penises.

It is not dependent on marriage between a man and a woman.

It is not dependent on childbearing in any traditional way with all its moral baggage. 

It is not even dependent on perfection of character or catechetical behavior, from a rulebook. 

It does depend on LOVE, and love is of God by whatever name you give to Divinity.

*  *  *  *

All this preamble is to let you know that you were a good mother to me even though we both doubted it along the way. You embraced me as a “miracle” when I was born in 1938 after many miscarriages. Only now can I imagine how terrifying that must have been for you. Yet you gave me a definition of “miracle”—something God does for you that you cannot do for yourself.  Obvious perhaps, but very clear. And only now do I feel enough grace in myself to understand and to forgive and to love.

When, at the end of your life, you applied such mothering skills to all of your nine grandchildren, you go down in history as the best grandmother in the world, or better! 

Here is a quote from a Michael Hudson hymn text for Hymn # 306.   

There are no fences in the fields of God,

to come an go is an abiding choice;

but like the flock before we’ve come to trust

the supple tether of a shepherd’s voice.

Or perhaps, the supple tenor of a mother’s voice.

So, dear Mom of mine, from me to you wherever you are in the heavens of God, know that I love you dearly and thank you profoundly for being my mother, forever and ever AMEN.