When my grandson ( or one of them) was four (he's five now), he wanted to come see my church, "with no one there."
"It's the one where you get all dressed up on Sunday and give us bread," he says. I tell him he can come on Sunday, but he wants a private tour. So we go.
Will, always speedy with words and legs, runs in ahead of me and heads for the sacristy. "This is your special closet, Grammy," he says. The sacristy is where clergy, acolytes and other servers at the altar don robes for the service. Will wants to see all the scarves. He means stoles, long narrow, colorful strips of fabric clergy wear over their shoulders. Will wraps himself round and round in stoles—red, green, white, blue, paisley and more and asks me to open the door, "Grammy's secret entrance," that leads into the sanctuary. He hops up one step and into the high altar area, which in ancient temples used to be called the "holy of holies."
What happens next surprises me. I listen for Will's speed run around the altar area but hear nothing. Silence. Has he fallen? I go to see and find Will standing still, staring up at the reredos, the wooden carving that fits over the altar, an altar we no longer use. In our day it doesn't make sense to invite people to a holy meal in Godde's name and not allow them to gather round the dining table.
Will is still. His widening brown eyes roam the sculpture: a large wooden crucifix surrounded by niches in which stand Jesus' many followers stand, some looking straight out at us and a few, including Jesus' mother Mary, looking up at Jesus. I worry Will will be frightened by the image. Then I half expect him to drop to his knees and wonder if he has a vocational calling.
"Grammy, look," he finally says.
I look.
"Look. Look," he pulls my hand and walks me back and forth tracing the rows of niches with his finger. He see something wondrous. His eyes are alive with light. I wait.
"There are no doors," he says. "There's no doors."
Will is not at all interested in Jesus and has no questions about what must be an odd image to him. It is the array of saints in their doorless rooms that mesmerizes Will. I know he is learning about time-outs, and I know he is able to turn his temper around fast, repent and begin over, as long as his parents leave the door to his time-out room open.
No closed doors.
Before I can hug him he's off, dashing down the aisle, then hurtling his tiny body as fast as it will go in and out among rows of pews down one side and up the other and back again shouting to me, "Watch this. Watch this."
I watch. I clap. I think to myself that Jesus' wisdom about children was right: " It is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs." (Mark 10:13)
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Young and Old Bodies Got Spirit
I've discovered something quite wonderful as I age— and it's not all my aches and creaks.
I watched my grandchildren, the latest one only six months old, begin to see, smile, sit, hitch, crawl, toddle, fall, run, skip, leap and dance. There is such joy in every bodily achievement. No need for a grade. The pure exhilaration of movement, praising Life itself, if enough.
Just recently I was privileged to witness the same bodily joy in a person age eighty two. She suffers from physical ailments all of which keep her a little depressed and mobile but with pain. But this day she came to see me with a smile. "I can walk!" She had always walked I thought.
She told me she'd decided to "take hold of her body and stop all this sitting around."
One of her loves is gardening. "I was afraid to get down there. I might never get up," she says. "But watch."
She did a demo—put the stool in front of her, rolled over it, got her one good knee positioned, curled her toes under, telling me she knew this move from yoga, braced her belly on the stool and stood up. She was overjoyed with the feat. "I'm walking better since I did that," she said as she strode, sort of, across the room as full of grace as a toddler in between falls.
Childhood and elderhood are ages of embodiment, times when the body's movements, not the mind's, are the chief source of and witness to soul. Maybe that's true in between too.
I watched my grandchildren, the latest one only six months old, begin to see, smile, sit, hitch, crawl, toddle, fall, run, skip, leap and dance. There is such joy in every bodily achievement. No need for a grade. The pure exhilaration of movement, praising Life itself, if enough.
Just recently I was privileged to witness the same bodily joy in a person age eighty two. She suffers from physical ailments all of which keep her a little depressed and mobile but with pain. But this day she came to see me with a smile. "I can walk!" She had always walked I thought.
She told me she'd decided to "take hold of her body and stop all this sitting around."
One of her loves is gardening. "I was afraid to get down there. I might never get up," she says. "But watch."
She did a demo—put the stool in front of her, rolled over it, got her one good knee positioned, curled her toes under, telling me she knew this move from yoga, braced her belly on the stool and stood up. She was overjoyed with the feat. "I'm walking better since I did that," she said as she strode, sort of, across the room as full of grace as a toddler in between falls.
Childhood and elderhood are ages of embodiment, times when the body's movements, not the mind's, are the chief source of and witness to soul. Maybe that's true in between too.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Post- is in!
So now we are in a post-election nation, if not world. Is that like post-modern, post-Christian, post-Bush or just plain post-American?
I don't know, but anything with post- prefacing it is over, done, finis. We've moved along. Yes, we've moved along taking all that went before along in different order. Change isn't pure.
Whatever comes after will always contain some of what went before. For example, I no longer suck my thumb, but when worried I can pout and go secret. Prayer has replaces thumb-sucking as my preferred practice.
I've written a memoir. In writing I realize that who I am now is in every way continuous and discontinuous with who I was. I was bossy, submissive and afraid, defiant, powerful, wise. I still am with different emphases. Older and wiser is true. But I'm still a composite of myself, a post-Lyn Lyn.
This nation is rewriting the American dream, moving from "you can be anything you want" to "you can be anything you want with a lot of consideration for your neighbors near and far." Independence and striving won't disappear but higher values will be interdependence and rest. Peace will become a more effective way than war. The ladder will look more like a broad stretch of highway.
Our President-elect Obama uses the pronouns "we" and "our" when he speaks of leadership, national goals, political policies and dreams. And he uses the word "slow" a lot and "taking time."
I like this post-American way. It is ours not Barak Obama's. He only got the vote. I'm not naive about the baggage that will blur the vision and even make violence, but I am hopeful that post- really means post-.
My hope is founded in election day's tears on many different faces.
I don't know, but anything with post- prefacing it is over, done, finis. We've moved along. Yes, we've moved along taking all that went before along in different order. Change isn't pure.
Whatever comes after will always contain some of what went before. For example, I no longer suck my thumb, but when worried I can pout and go secret. Prayer has replaces thumb-sucking as my preferred practice.
I've written a memoir. In writing I realize that who I am now is in every way continuous and discontinuous with who I was. I was bossy, submissive and afraid, defiant, powerful, wise. I still am with different emphases. Older and wiser is true. But I'm still a composite of myself, a post-Lyn Lyn.
This nation is rewriting the American dream, moving from "you can be anything you want" to "you can be anything you want with a lot of consideration for your neighbors near and far." Independence and striving won't disappear but higher values will be interdependence and rest. Peace will become a more effective way than war. The ladder will look more like a broad stretch of highway.
Our President-elect Obama uses the pronouns "we" and "our" when he speaks of leadership, national goals, political policies and dreams. And he uses the word "slow" a lot and "taking time."
I like this post-American way. It is ours not Barak Obama's. He only got the vote. I'm not naive about the baggage that will blur the vision and even make violence, but I am hopeful that post- really means post-.
My hope is founded in election day's tears on many different faces.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Political Genetics
Imagine this! In the nation of jittery politics in the midst of a crucial national election to be decided TODAY, I learn that politics is in part controlled by genetics. I thought I was so good to get myself informed and as objective as I could to prepare to vote. But I might be kidding myself.
Catching up on the Sunday (11/2/08) papers I read in the Ideas section of the Boston Globe an article by Eve LaPlante about new brain research that suggests that political bipartisan politics, aka red or blue, is influenced, if not determined, by one's inborn response to threat.
Who knew? I thought I was a liberal Democrat because of my response to my parents' staunch Republican overkill, their FDR paranoia, and the like. I remember when I snuck into the Town Hall in Canton, CT. to change my voter registration from Republican to Democrat, I looked around every corner to make sure my father wasn't lurking there to see the heresy I was committing. I was even a little proud of my carefully reasoned rebellion.
There's a new scientific group called political physiologists. There isn't space here for much detail, but it seems that brain research studies indicate that so called political liberals react less vigorously to threatening stimuli and are quicker to provide a new response, read change. Conservatives, au contraire, are more easily startled by such stimuli and have more difficulty switching to a new response. It's all about "blink-startle" and sweat, both measurements of responses to stimuli.
In the old nature/nurture debate it seems that politics is more of an inborn instinct than we thought. Liberals tend to support less protectionist policies like abortion, gun control, open immigration. Conservatives tend to support more protectionist policies like capital punishment, school prayer, the Iraq war. and conservative. This I know, but I thought it had to do with culture, geography, religious leanings, and whatever your parents said.
As a liberal I of course love this new finding, no matter how inconclusive. Why? It leaves room for nuance, ambiguity, new life and, I admit, divine grace. Safety isn't the highest value. It expands the horizons; it douses worn out stereotypes, such as: liberals are soft in the head/touchy feely and conservatives are strong, steady and rational.
The other thing I find hopeful about this new complexity is that obviously we do need each other. Conservatives, for example, in the Church help the community preserve the finest art, or spiritual practices, or the most elegant old language for certain occasions; whereas, liberals can foresee atrophy unless some things die by choice to make room for new souls and new occasions. Instead we mostly call each other, silently or aloud, "dummies" and wring our hands.
It takes great grace not to try to make lemonade out of your own or your neighbor's "lemons"—just for your own comfort. But there is spiritual health in communities that can accommodate reds and blues in the same pews without loss of integrity and maybe a bit of love.
Talking and listening help.
Catching up on the Sunday (11/2/08) papers I read in the Ideas section of the Boston Globe an article by Eve LaPlante about new brain research that suggests that political bipartisan politics, aka red or blue, is influenced, if not determined, by one's inborn response to threat.
Who knew? I thought I was a liberal Democrat because of my response to my parents' staunch Republican overkill, their FDR paranoia, and the like. I remember when I snuck into the Town Hall in Canton, CT. to change my voter registration from Republican to Democrat, I looked around every corner to make sure my father wasn't lurking there to see the heresy I was committing. I was even a little proud of my carefully reasoned rebellion.
There's a new scientific group called political physiologists. There isn't space here for much detail, but it seems that brain research studies indicate that so called political liberals react less vigorously to threatening stimuli and are quicker to provide a new response, read change. Conservatives, au contraire, are more easily startled by such stimuli and have more difficulty switching to a new response. It's all about "blink-startle" and sweat, both measurements of responses to stimuli.
In the old nature/nurture debate it seems that politics is more of an inborn instinct than we thought. Liberals tend to support less protectionist policies like abortion, gun control, open immigration. Conservatives tend to support more protectionist policies like capital punishment, school prayer, the Iraq war. and conservative. This I know, but I thought it had to do with culture, geography, religious leanings, and whatever your parents said.
As a liberal I of course love this new finding, no matter how inconclusive. Why? It leaves room for nuance, ambiguity, new life and, I admit, divine grace. Safety isn't the highest value. It expands the horizons; it douses worn out stereotypes, such as: liberals are soft in the head/touchy feely and conservatives are strong, steady and rational.
The other thing I find hopeful about this new complexity is that obviously we do need each other. Conservatives, for example, in the Church help the community preserve the finest art, or spiritual practices, or the most elegant old language for certain occasions; whereas, liberals can foresee atrophy unless some things die by choice to make room for new souls and new occasions. Instead we mostly call each other, silently or aloud, "dummies" and wring our hands.
It takes great grace not to try to make lemonade out of your own or your neighbor's "lemons"—just for your own comfort. But there is spiritual health in communities that can accommodate reds and blues in the same pews without loss of integrity and maybe a bit of love.
Talking and listening help.
Friday, October 31, 2008
What's Your Mask?
It's All Hallows Eve; aka the eve before All Saints Day, a time to honor and remember all those who have died but still live in our hearts and sometimes beyond; aka Halloween. It's a night for masks, scary masks. What's your mask?
I heard a beautiful de-masking story recently. I was touched. A friend told me of a woman who was a religious atheist and trusted only science but went to church with a friend—for the sake of friendship.
There she heard a voice speaking to her within herself and remembered the biblical story of the Hebrew prophet Elijah who had heard a "still small voice."
She thought: I have a still small voice within. I have it and therefore others have it, and that's a soul, and what is the purpose of a soul but to be in touch with God.
A rare kind of conversion but beautiful. Also an example of how the spirit of holiness comes to us in ways and words that we already know and love, in her case reason, scientific deduction. The spirit of holiness is within us.
My friend added that often what we most want we most scorn.
No masks can scare away the divinity in your soul. Dare to take off your mask and let your holiness show.
I heard a beautiful de-masking story recently. I was touched. A friend told me of a woman who was a religious atheist and trusted only science but went to church with a friend—for the sake of friendship.
There she heard a voice speaking to her within herself and remembered the biblical story of the Hebrew prophet Elijah who had heard a "still small voice."
She thought: I have a still small voice within. I have it and therefore others have it, and that's a soul, and what is the purpose of a soul but to be in touch with God.
A rare kind of conversion but beautiful. Also an example of how the spirit of holiness comes to us in ways and words that we already know and love, in her case reason, scientific deduction. The spirit of holiness is within us.
My friend added that often what we most want we most scorn.
No masks can scare away the divinity in your soul. Dare to take off your mask and let your holiness show.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Lemon wisdom
When I was a small child an auntie gave me a wee rocking chair all my own. I was told it was an antique and to be very careful with it. That bit of advice took hold and I treated it as if it were a sacred object, but not too sacred to sit in and rock, rock, rock.
The little mahogany chair became my perch. I would sit there, rock and absorb as much adult conversation as I could. Most fascinating were adult ways. I became an observer and later discovered that my totem is an owl. The dangers of being an owl are that you can be accused of rude staring and/or you can become so nocturnal that you never leave your branch.
Owls are traditionally associated with wisdom. In my little chair with my owlish ways I developed the gift of wisdom. For example, I noticed quite early that my mother wasn't all joy and happiness as she advertised; nor was my father all silent and martini-sipping as he advertised. They were much more than their ads. Mommy could be quite sad in her eyes and angry with a smile, and Daddy could be quite talkative and playfully humorous, not always sarcastic.
In my chair I learned that people were mixed and good in their mixedness. That I imagine was the source of the lemon wisdom I wrote about in my book years later. I learned that people want to make lemonade, want to pretend they are sweet and nice as life "should" be, but the truth is they can also be sour and nasty.
The funny thing about it all was that I decided I liked people just as they were and that Godde didn't want to destroy the truth of lemonhood by making something as fake as lemonade out of a good zestful lemon. The Godde I met didn't scold me either when I was in a mood or filled with childish pique at some offense. It was all me and it was all. That's lemon wisdom. I think it has something to do with integrity.
Sundays in our parish we sing a gospel troparian (a musical response to a biblical reading from one of the gospels, stories of Jesus' life and teachings.) The wise words, by Renée Miller, seem to me to be a definition of the Godde within. "Walk the way of ancient wisdom etched and patterned, deep within. Walk the way of holy freedom, find your soul made whole again."
The little mahogany chair became my perch. I would sit there, rock and absorb as much adult conversation as I could. Most fascinating were adult ways. I became an observer and later discovered that my totem is an owl. The dangers of being an owl are that you can be accused of rude staring and/or you can become so nocturnal that you never leave your branch.
Owls are traditionally associated with wisdom. In my little chair with my owlish ways I developed the gift of wisdom. For example, I noticed quite early that my mother wasn't all joy and happiness as she advertised; nor was my father all silent and martini-sipping as he advertised. They were much more than their ads. Mommy could be quite sad in her eyes and angry with a smile, and Daddy could be quite talkative and playfully humorous, not always sarcastic.
In my chair I learned that people were mixed and good in their mixedness. That I imagine was the source of the lemon wisdom I wrote about in my book years later. I learned that people want to make lemonade, want to pretend they are sweet and nice as life "should" be, but the truth is they can also be sour and nasty.
The funny thing about it all was that I decided I liked people just as they were and that Godde didn't want to destroy the truth of lemonhood by making something as fake as lemonade out of a good zestful lemon. The Godde I met didn't scold me either when I was in a mood or filled with childish pique at some offense. It was all me and it was all. That's lemon wisdom. I think it has something to do with integrity.
Sundays in our parish we sing a gospel troparian (a musical response to a biblical reading from one of the gospels, stories of Jesus' life and teachings.) The wise words, by Renée Miller, seem to me to be a definition of the Godde within. "Walk the way of ancient wisdom etched and patterned, deep within. Walk the way of holy freedom, find your soul made whole again."
Monday, October 27, 2008
Courtesy Offensive?
All the world's religious traditions have at their center the only wisdom we ever really need in life: Love Godde by whatever name; love your neighbor; love yourself. That's it. Simple. Not easy.
Recently I read an article in the Boston Globe that our beloved metropolitan transit authority (aka the MBTA, aka the T, aka the subway) was starting a "courtesy offensive." I thought aloud, "What the hell is that!? It doesn't make sense. Those two words don't go together. Offensive as a noun is usually a military term. Are we in such dire straits spiritually that we have to get aggressive about courtesy? How unmannerly is that?"
As I fumed I thought of my many T rides. I'd seen people shoving others aside to get on a crowded car; I'd seen people unconscious enough of their neighbors to sit buried in a book, ears plugged with ear buds taking in the latest musical enchantment; I'd once slid, almost lost my balance, on a newspaper someone had tossed on the floor as she exited the car. There does seem to be a painful unconsciousness of neighbors. The behavior on the T is a microcosmic. It's why we have wars and nuclear arsenals and border guards and great walls.
Now I see clever posters slapped up on the subway cars. They say things like "Don't dash without your trash" or "Be sweet give someone your seat." Courtesy-lite.
All this is a big fat spiritual and social ouch.
Then I remembered a day when I was getting smooshed on the late afternoon T out of Boston. A young attractive African American woman rose slightly, smiled and gestured to offer me her seat. I declined politely noticing that my jaw had clenched. I thought a much worse expletive than darn. I've arrived. I'm old, or at least I'm seen as older than I want to be seen as. I felt my temples as if I could discern by touch whether I had more gray hairs than I had when I glanced at the bathroom mirror this morning.
For days I thought about the woman and my age. I began to think of her small offering as a courtesy offensive without the offense. I think that is this kind of love is what all the religions talk about: courteous love—not amorous, not even liking or knowing or duty-bound. Just courteous. Having a warm heart and friendly smile is good. Having an action to go with it is better.
The woman's courtesy toward me I realized was more about her capacity for courteous love than about my age. What started as a seed of anxious irritability sown inside me was transformed and flourished into a deep appreciation for the woman and for people like her who actually notice their neighbors. It was about her love not my age.
So, as an old blessing prayer goes: Life is short and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts and minds of those who travel the way with us; so be swift to love and make haste to be kind. And the blessing of Godde be with you this day and always.
Recently I read an article in the Boston Globe that our beloved metropolitan transit authority (aka the MBTA, aka the T, aka the subway) was starting a "courtesy offensive." I thought aloud, "What the hell is that!? It doesn't make sense. Those two words don't go together. Offensive as a noun is usually a military term. Are we in such dire straits spiritually that we have to get aggressive about courtesy? How unmannerly is that?"
As I fumed I thought of my many T rides. I'd seen people shoving others aside to get on a crowded car; I'd seen people unconscious enough of their neighbors to sit buried in a book, ears plugged with ear buds taking in the latest musical enchantment; I'd once slid, almost lost my balance, on a newspaper someone had tossed on the floor as she exited the car. There does seem to be a painful unconsciousness of neighbors. The behavior on the T is a microcosmic. It's why we have wars and nuclear arsenals and border guards and great walls.
Now I see clever posters slapped up on the subway cars. They say things like "Don't dash without your trash" or "Be sweet give someone your seat." Courtesy-lite.
All this is a big fat spiritual and social ouch.
Then I remembered a day when I was getting smooshed on the late afternoon T out of Boston. A young attractive African American woman rose slightly, smiled and gestured to offer me her seat. I declined politely noticing that my jaw had clenched. I thought a much worse expletive than darn. I've arrived. I'm old, or at least I'm seen as older than I want to be seen as. I felt my temples as if I could discern by touch whether I had more gray hairs than I had when I glanced at the bathroom mirror this morning.
For days I thought about the woman and my age. I began to think of her small offering as a courtesy offensive without the offense. I think that is this kind of love is what all the religions talk about: courteous love—not amorous, not even liking or knowing or duty-bound. Just courteous. Having a warm heart and friendly smile is good. Having an action to go with it is better.
The woman's courtesy toward me I realized was more about her capacity for courteous love than about my age. What started as a seed of anxious irritability sown inside me was transformed and flourished into a deep appreciation for the woman and for people like her who actually notice their neighbors. It was about her love not my age.
So, as an old blessing prayer goes: Life is short and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts and minds of those who travel the way with us; so be swift to love and make haste to be kind. And the blessing of Godde be with you this day and always.
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