I’m thinking today of a little five year old girl whose hands are wrapped to twice or three times their natural size with gauze bandage.
The child is blonde, petite and has a name far more beautiful than Sprite but for privacy’s sake I’ll call her Sprite because it fits her.
Sprite is in the Shriners Burn Hospital in Boston. Naturally inquisitive and trying to be helpful, she pulled a full steaming pot of hot coffee off the counter and onto her front body. Luckily her face was not burned but her hands took a full hit.
Sprite, as her pseudonymn suggests, is a spirited girl with a shy smile and looks to kill. You think she’s one who gets lost in her mother’s skirts until suddenly she turns into a commando. Once at a celebration at our parish church, where there was more cake than anything else, she ran in first and got a plate piled high with several helpings of several cakes. As I approached I leaned down and commented on how delicious the cake looked. Sprite pulled her plate to the side, walked off fast, tipped her head in the direction of the cake table and said, It’s over there.
The most painful but necessary routine in the burn hospital is the daily changing of the dressings. It’s done with as much care and medication as possible but........ During her first ordeal Sprite began with the polite speech she’s been taught. Please stop. There were explanations and careful touch I’m sure but it didn’t stop. Stop. She howled. Nothing. If you don’t stop I’ll kick you. And she raised her small legs, the only limbs left at her service. Follow-up the next day: I hate nurses!
How hard it must be to hurt a child. Training in this work helps but it never takes away the torture and the echo of the screams. Sometimes we have to wound to heal.
People today are quick to speak of spiritual abundance, the abundance of divine love. Glib and silly, locating Godde in one place when Godde is in all places. Abundance stands at one end of a continuum with scarcity at the other. We favor abundance because it is positive and trendy but it limits the breadth of Godde’s love and sounds idiotic to someone who is in the midst of scarcity like Sprite, a five year old with no hands—to her not 2-3 weeks but eternity.
What is the spirituality of scarcity? I mean how is scarcity imbued with holiness, a spirit of goodness. I don’t know. To me it seems right to suggest that Godde is in the tiniest things. When you’re starving for real food a scrap of bread, broken and shared by people in a concentration or prison camp is divine. When you’re starving for the spiritual food of love a small gesture of caring or a touch when everyone is helpless to change things is holy.
To me Sprite's impolite crying out and the vigorous response of her legs are signs of divinity in the middle of scarcity. Alive: screaming and kicking.
Not a bad prayer either.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Mary Magdalene. Favorite Calendar Girl
Today on most all church calendars this day is the day we are to honor the person, ministry and holiness of Mary of Magdala.
She is my favorite calendar girl. I’m always disappointed this feast falls in mid-summer and that most parishes do not honor it on a Sunday. After all her day is designated a white day, an Easter day, a day when the church dresses up for hope. July 20 was suffragette and author of a women’s bible, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s, day; July 22 is Mary Magdalene’s day; August 15 is Mary the Mother of Jesus’ day. Everyone’s on vacation!
The Episcopal church calendar is a wondrous thing. It is the richest and most diverse of all church calendars currently in print. On it we designate days on which we remember holy women and men. Our saints are not appointed by fiat or according to how many miracles happen in their name. (The miracle criterion, in fact, seems unnecessary to me because today’s miracle may be tomorrow’s unquestioned accomplishment. What’s miraculous may simply be the capacity and willingness to live a good life full of flaws, forgiveness and renewed effort.)
The Episcopal calendar girls and boys are selected according to their holiness of life, miracle or no miracle. Someone nominates, a task force researches the life and work of the nominee and the General Convention , our legislative body, also elected, votes them into the calendar—or not. I love our calendar because it honors many cultures and many professions and callings that manifest holiness, the goodness of the Divine recognized in human life and work.
Mary Magdalene is a biblical holy woman. She doesn’t have a clear story all her own though she is present at Jesus’ passion and on other important occasions. Although she doesn’t have her own narrative, many stories have accrued to her name. Mary Mag is famous for having had seven demons from whose power Jesus liberated her. Seven is a big number, also a symbolic number meaning generative. How many people out there either did or do think that Mary was a prostitute, a sexual sinner or at least a penitent woman laden with sin and needing absolution as her healing? This is not in the bible but a later interpretation of her big seven. How easy it was, maybe is, to assume that her “demons” were sexual. It could have been metastatic cancer, or multiple personality disorder from trauma, or multiple birth defects. Ah!
What I love about Mary Magdalene is that she is in me spiritually:
-She is familiar with Jesus. They know each other. It’s mutual. Mary calls him my Lord, not the Lord. Recognition is an astonishing gift, a sign of intimacy, especially when you recognize the holy in another and in yourself.
-Her tears. She stays at the tomb after the other have gone. Lot’s wife in an earlier story is turned into a pillar of salt for looking back at Sodom and Gomorra, her former home. God had told the family to leave before it was burned because of sin. Mary turned back to the tomb to peer in, let herself grieve, sob, wonder, search, remember. It’s important not to hop too fast over and beyond your grief. Tears are a spiritual gift. Follow them. Magdalene was not punished but rewarded with a powerful vision.
-Mary was the only biblical woman to be commissioned as an apostle. In John’s gospel, written as late as 100 CE this story is remembered. Mary is told to go and tell the others what she has seen of resurrection life and hope. She told.
-Mary according to tradition started her own community of Christians and wrote her own gospel. Bits of it have been retrieved. Scholars pieced together her message about things Jesus told her that the others didn’t hear, chiefly that the working of God’s spirit are internal. Mary witnesses in her gospel to the immanence of God not just the transcendence. (In fact there is a humorous scene in her writing about a dispute with Peter who is angry at her insights and her uppity woman nerve telling what Jesus said to her that wasn’t what Peter heard. Peter was told to go feed the sheep. Mary was told to witness to the powerful inner working of divinity. Levy comes to Mary’s defense and Peter goes off to sulk.)
Both commissions are of equal importance for us today. Know and care for your inner religious/spiritual life and know how to take it forth to manifest goodness and compassion in whatever you say and do.
How is Mary Magdalene in you?
She is my favorite calendar girl. I’m always disappointed this feast falls in mid-summer and that most parishes do not honor it on a Sunday. After all her day is designated a white day, an Easter day, a day when the church dresses up for hope. July 20 was suffragette and author of a women’s bible, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s, day; July 22 is Mary Magdalene’s day; August 15 is Mary the Mother of Jesus’ day. Everyone’s on vacation!
The Episcopal church calendar is a wondrous thing. It is the richest and most diverse of all church calendars currently in print. On it we designate days on which we remember holy women and men. Our saints are not appointed by fiat or according to how many miracles happen in their name. (The miracle criterion, in fact, seems unnecessary to me because today’s miracle may be tomorrow’s unquestioned accomplishment. What’s miraculous may simply be the capacity and willingness to live a good life full of flaws, forgiveness and renewed effort.)
The Episcopal calendar girls and boys are selected according to their holiness of life, miracle or no miracle. Someone nominates, a task force researches the life and work of the nominee and the General Convention , our legislative body, also elected, votes them into the calendar—or not. I love our calendar because it honors many cultures and many professions and callings that manifest holiness, the goodness of the Divine recognized in human life and work.
Mary Magdalene is a biblical holy woman. She doesn’t have a clear story all her own though she is present at Jesus’ passion and on other important occasions. Although she doesn’t have her own narrative, many stories have accrued to her name. Mary Mag is famous for having had seven demons from whose power Jesus liberated her. Seven is a big number, also a symbolic number meaning generative. How many people out there either did or do think that Mary was a prostitute, a sexual sinner or at least a penitent woman laden with sin and needing absolution as her healing? This is not in the bible but a later interpretation of her big seven. How easy it was, maybe is, to assume that her “demons” were sexual. It could have been metastatic cancer, or multiple personality disorder from trauma, or multiple birth defects. Ah!
What I love about Mary Magdalene is that she is in me spiritually:
-She is familiar with Jesus. They know each other. It’s mutual. Mary calls him my Lord, not the Lord. Recognition is an astonishing gift, a sign of intimacy, especially when you recognize the holy in another and in yourself.
-Her tears. She stays at the tomb after the other have gone. Lot’s wife in an earlier story is turned into a pillar of salt for looking back at Sodom and Gomorra, her former home. God had told the family to leave before it was burned because of sin. Mary turned back to the tomb to peer in, let herself grieve, sob, wonder, search, remember. It’s important not to hop too fast over and beyond your grief. Tears are a spiritual gift. Follow them. Magdalene was not punished but rewarded with a powerful vision.
-Mary was the only biblical woman to be commissioned as an apostle. In John’s gospel, written as late as 100 CE this story is remembered. Mary is told to go and tell the others what she has seen of resurrection life and hope. She told.
-Mary according to tradition started her own community of Christians and wrote her own gospel. Bits of it have been retrieved. Scholars pieced together her message about things Jesus told her that the others didn’t hear, chiefly that the working of God’s spirit are internal. Mary witnesses in her gospel to the immanence of God not just the transcendence. (In fact there is a humorous scene in her writing about a dispute with Peter who is angry at her insights and her uppity woman nerve telling what Jesus said to her that wasn’t what Peter heard. Peter was told to go feed the sheep. Mary was told to witness to the powerful inner working of divinity. Levy comes to Mary’s defense and Peter goes off to sulk.)
Both commissions are of equal importance for us today. Know and care for your inner religious/spiritual life and know how to take it forth to manifest goodness and compassion in whatever you say and do.
How is Mary Magdalene in you?
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Sacred Ambivalence
I’ve had a lot of eccentric spiritual experience. Lots of people have. It’s not crazy just something that’s hard to talk about, hard to nail down and validate. God has spoken to me from within many times. God uses questions, short sentences and even one word comments.
Recently God interrupted my obsessive mental monologue: What if my memoir is just another achievement for my ego? And God-in-me said, So? One little word-question stopped me cold, silenced my fear and shame, and told me the truth: So what if it’s an achievement, can’t I also give it to you as a gift?
You might think that these kinds of “voices” have brought me clarity, a stronger religious faith, some surety.
But that is not the case.
Thank God, for if it were, what would there be for me to question, nag God about, write fierce words about, preach on, teach, fuss, obsess, lament and wrestle about for the rest of my days?
Oh, I have given and will keep giving answers to open-ended questions, because I love to do that; I just don’t have answers of the kind people long for, answers laced with certitude.
And I have told and will keep telling of resolutions to struggles, and try to nail peace down because I love happy endings that are true—and not.
I’m not disappointed by this ambiguity. Ambivalence seems to me to be the only sane stance in life, because when I move too far to one side (zealotry) or the other (atheism) of religious expression I end up not liking myself much, and I’m one of the wisest agnostics I know.
I call my ambivalence sacred, because it tempers my drive toward omniscience; it keeps me balanced; it helps me maintain a spirituality that is both intellectual and compassionate; and it reminds me of the one thing about which I’m not ambivalent: the first “eucharist” at which I was “ordained” to preside under the dining room table as a “priest” with Ritz crackers and a tiny invisible congregation who listened to my words and received the sacrament.
Under the table I found my vocation, my hopeful soul as a child, and enough power to keep me going until I could come out from under the table as a woman and priest.
Under the table I fell in love with a God who who wasn’t afraid of authority or cocktail hours, a God within me whose love never dies even when I betray it, a God who gave my my vision for the Church and maybe for all humanity.
To be both political and mystical as the Church in all its expressions should be we will find a table big enough for everyone to crawl under and sit, either to chat or be in silence.
As it is now we spend too much time on top of the small table fighting for position and power.
Will it happen? Probably not, but there’s nothing wrong with asking.
Recently God interrupted my obsessive mental monologue: What if my memoir is just another achievement for my ego? And God-in-me said, So? One little word-question stopped me cold, silenced my fear and shame, and told me the truth: So what if it’s an achievement, can’t I also give it to you as a gift?
You might think that these kinds of “voices” have brought me clarity, a stronger religious faith, some surety.
But that is not the case.
Thank God, for if it were, what would there be for me to question, nag God about, write fierce words about, preach on, teach, fuss, obsess, lament and wrestle about for the rest of my days?
Oh, I have given and will keep giving answers to open-ended questions, because I love to do that; I just don’t have answers of the kind people long for, answers laced with certitude.
And I have told and will keep telling of resolutions to struggles, and try to nail peace down because I love happy endings that are true—and not.
I’m not disappointed by this ambiguity. Ambivalence seems to me to be the only sane stance in life, because when I move too far to one side (zealotry) or the other (atheism) of religious expression I end up not liking myself much, and I’m one of the wisest agnostics I know.
I call my ambivalence sacred, because it tempers my drive toward omniscience; it keeps me balanced; it helps me maintain a spirituality that is both intellectual and compassionate; and it reminds me of the one thing about which I’m not ambivalent: the first “eucharist” at which I was “ordained” to preside under the dining room table as a “priest” with Ritz crackers and a tiny invisible congregation who listened to my words and received the sacrament.
Under the table I found my vocation, my hopeful soul as a child, and enough power to keep me going until I could come out from under the table as a woman and priest.
Under the table I fell in love with a God who who wasn’t afraid of authority or cocktail hours, a God within me whose love never dies even when I betray it, a God who gave my my vision for the Church and maybe for all humanity.
To be both political and mystical as the Church in all its expressions should be we will find a table big enough for everyone to crawl under and sit, either to chat or be in silence.
As it is now we spend too much time on top of the small table fighting for position and power.
Will it happen? Probably not, but there’s nothing wrong with asking.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
What in the World is EfM?
I have been a mentor for the Education for Ministry (EfM) program since 1984, and I write to say that it is, in my un-humble opinion, the best program of Christian spiritual formation that the church has come up with since, well, whatever you think the best thing is.
EfM is my favorite way of being a priest. A mentor is not a teacher but more of a guide and accompanist to students in a small seminar group who study together, pray together and engage in a process of theological reflection on their lives over four years.
There is a small tuition ($340 a year with scholarship aid available upon request) for which a student gets all the reading materials, thirty-six lessons a year, and the mentor a tiny honorarium.
The curriculum comes out of the Episcopal seminary of the South, Sewanee, TN. It is sophisticated material but not inaccessible. A student signs up to be in the seminar one year at a time. Most students love EfM and stay to graduate in four years. The diplomas are handsome and frameable. It is quite an achievement to graduate and grow in grace.
The Bible turns out to have much relevance to your soul; church history astounds and enlightens; theology up to today teaches you it is a verb, something you do; your own spiritual desires, quests, gifts and questions are known and loved.
EfM is ecumenical and most groups have students from a variety of faith traditions. In our groups we have had Episcopalians, Methodists, Unitarians, Roman Catholics, a Quaker or two, United Church of Christ, and even an ordained pastor who wanted a small group of prayer, learning and community outside her own parish work.
The word ministry sometimes creates anxiety. People think about ordained ministry. The premise of EfM is that all Christians are ordained to ministry at baptism and further, that every encounter or happening presents an opportunity to enhance or impede the flow of divine Love.
Over the four years we discern our gifts, inclinations and passions together. Each student comes out with a sense of what her/his ministry is, often what they are already doing. Ministry after all is what you do, with whatever you have, as who you are, wherever you are—inspired by Love.
Sometimes a student will come to the truth that her or his ministry is to herself; sometimes a ministry is the skill and pleasure of encouraging others; sometimes one desires further study, even moving toward ordination; sometimes a ministry is taking a major step in a new direction altogether. Often a student decides to take the training to become a mentor him or herself and start a group.
A seminar group offers support but not judgment, advice or problem-solving. What happens in a weekly seminar? We begin with a brief worship (prayers, poems, music, silence, meditation) each student taking a turn. Occasionally there will be a Eucharist, sometimes even a group Eucharist. We share what has amused, attracted, stunned or confused, angered us in the week’s lesson. We take a break to EAT!!! People bring amazing food to go with our spiritual food. We engage in a process of theological reflection, often amazed to discover how rich our tradition, especially biblical, is and how it sheds light on our lives and gives us wise insights we’d never thought of.
The joy students often experience is knowing themselves more deeply, appreciating their ministries, and getting comfortable with questioning their religion. We eat, pray, laugh, love and learn together.
“It’s the most important thing I’ve ever done for myself my whole life.”
“Just to learn that there were actually three popes at one time freed me!”
“I never understood the Bible just from listening to little snippets in church.”
“Wow! Really eye-opening to get to know Jesus so well. Never understood that whole thing and now I consult Jesus like a friend.”
“I can pray out loud for a group and create a little worship service without clergy help.”
“I see my school teaching as ministry and my own students in the light of grace. It helps my patience.”
“I have learned to trust my relationship with myself.”
“I’m really awake in church because I recognize stuff.”
(And one I can't resist from a disgruntled teenage son who is now forty: "Mom! It's all over the calendar! EfM, EfM, EfM.......eternal (expletive deleted) meeting!"
As a mentor I find that congregational life is enlivened by an informed laity.
EfM is nationwide and international in scope with students all over the world participating. Check the website on how to find a group or call your local Episcopal clergy or diocesan office to inquire.
EfM is my favorite way of being a priest. A mentor is not a teacher but more of a guide and accompanist to students in a small seminar group who study together, pray together and engage in a process of theological reflection on their lives over four years.
There is a small tuition ($340 a year with scholarship aid available upon request) for which a student gets all the reading materials, thirty-six lessons a year, and the mentor a tiny honorarium.
The curriculum comes out of the Episcopal seminary of the South, Sewanee, TN. It is sophisticated material but not inaccessible. A student signs up to be in the seminar one year at a time. Most students love EfM and stay to graduate in four years. The diplomas are handsome and frameable. It is quite an achievement to graduate and grow in grace.
The Bible turns out to have much relevance to your soul; church history astounds and enlightens; theology up to today teaches you it is a verb, something you do; your own spiritual desires, quests, gifts and questions are known and loved.
EfM is ecumenical and most groups have students from a variety of faith traditions. In our groups we have had Episcopalians, Methodists, Unitarians, Roman Catholics, a Quaker or two, United Church of Christ, and even an ordained pastor who wanted a small group of prayer, learning and community outside her own parish work.
The word ministry sometimes creates anxiety. People think about ordained ministry. The premise of EfM is that all Christians are ordained to ministry at baptism and further, that every encounter or happening presents an opportunity to enhance or impede the flow of divine Love.
Over the four years we discern our gifts, inclinations and passions together. Each student comes out with a sense of what her/his ministry is, often what they are already doing. Ministry after all is what you do, with whatever you have, as who you are, wherever you are—inspired by Love.
Sometimes a student will come to the truth that her or his ministry is to herself; sometimes a ministry is the skill and pleasure of encouraging others; sometimes one desires further study, even moving toward ordination; sometimes a ministry is taking a major step in a new direction altogether. Often a student decides to take the training to become a mentor him or herself and start a group.
A seminar group offers support but not judgment, advice or problem-solving. What happens in a weekly seminar? We begin with a brief worship (prayers, poems, music, silence, meditation) each student taking a turn. Occasionally there will be a Eucharist, sometimes even a group Eucharist. We share what has amused, attracted, stunned or confused, angered us in the week’s lesson. We take a break to EAT!!! People bring amazing food to go with our spiritual food. We engage in a process of theological reflection, often amazed to discover how rich our tradition, especially biblical, is and how it sheds light on our lives and gives us wise insights we’d never thought of.
The joy students often experience is knowing themselves more deeply, appreciating their ministries, and getting comfortable with questioning their religion. We eat, pray, laugh, love and learn together.
“It’s the most important thing I’ve ever done for myself my whole life.”
“Just to learn that there were actually three popes at one time freed me!”
“I never understood the Bible just from listening to little snippets in church.”
“Wow! Really eye-opening to get to know Jesus so well. Never understood that whole thing and now I consult Jesus like a friend.”
“I can pray out loud for a group and create a little worship service without clergy help.”
“I see my school teaching as ministry and my own students in the light of grace. It helps my patience.”
“I have learned to trust my relationship with myself.”
“I’m really awake in church because I recognize stuff.”
(And one I can't resist from a disgruntled teenage son who is now forty: "Mom! It's all over the calendar! EfM, EfM, EfM.......eternal (expletive deleted) meeting!"
As a mentor I find that congregational life is enlivened by an informed laity.
EfM is nationwide and international in scope with students all over the world participating. Check the website on how to find a group or call your local Episcopal clergy or diocesan office to inquire.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Goodbye Margaret
Recently, NOT via Facebook or google, imagine! . . . I have reconnected with two best girlfriends of old, one from first to sixth grade, Margaret, and the other from high school and college years, Annie. Just when we found each other through old school connections we have had to say good bye, God be with ye. Annie died a year after our grand and talkative reunion in person, and Margaret is in the process of dying and too far away for a visit except by email. My farewell e-letter I share for anyone in a similar situation.
Dear Margaret,
What a loving thing for your son to do creating a Maine nook so you're able to be there and gaze at your beloved summer place as you lie in your bed in hospice care resting and dozing in beauty.
I am so sorry we won't be able to meet in person, but I want you to know what a powerful influence you were on my childhood, mostly one of mischief, laughter and just being girlfriend-to-girlfriend as we grew up together and managed to survive even the gunny sack blue serge lower school uniforms.
You made my young life, growing up in a family where there was love and caring and also alcoholism and anxiety, joyful. Thank you Margy with a hard G as I used to call you.
In addition to you I counted on God. As a kid I would often find refuge from the eternal and everlasting, or so it seemed, evening cocktail hour under a large dining room table where I chatted (gave little sermons) with my imaginary friends and a fourth friend I called God. I'd snitch Ritz crackers from the cocktail tray, eat one and leave the other four lined up on the table's cross beams waiting there for my friends and God. Later I would come to understand this childhood ritual as my first ordination as a priest and a call to a vocation I didn't pursue for years. Being a mother came first (two daughters, two sons, all grown with families of their own.)
That's a tiny but formative piece of my story. I wish I knew more of your story and the joys and sorrow that have filled your life over the 60 years since we last saw each other. I did google you and see that you did a lot of philanthropic work in the arts and consulting. Also your info sounds like you are a feminist or at least a promoter of women's gifts and passions. There's a reason we were such soulmates! I saw your photo in the yearbook and you hadn't changed a wit from sixth grade to graduation.
I hate to have to say goodbye just as we're saying hello again, but such is the unsteadiness of life and death.
Perhaps I will put this in a card also as I'm not sure how much email time you will want to spend as you rest and move into your death. Be sad but don't fret for there is nothing, even death, that can separate us from the Love beyond all loves some of us call God. I send you this ancient blessing and, although I don't know of your own religious journey or faith, I send it in the spirit of grateful memories for our short but lively friendship.
God bless you and keep you;
the face of God shine upon you and from within you
and bathe you in peace
this day, this hour, this minute and for ever. AMEN
I love you my bright childhood friend.
Lyn
Dear Margaret,
What a loving thing for your son to do creating a Maine nook so you're able to be there and gaze at your beloved summer place as you lie in your bed in hospice care resting and dozing in beauty.
I am so sorry we won't be able to meet in person, but I want you to know what a powerful influence you were on my childhood, mostly one of mischief, laughter and just being girlfriend-to-girlfriend as we grew up together and managed to survive even the gunny sack blue serge lower school uniforms.
You made my young life, growing up in a family where there was love and caring and also alcoholism and anxiety, joyful. Thank you Margy with a hard G as I used to call you.
In addition to you I counted on God. As a kid I would often find refuge from the eternal and everlasting, or so it seemed, evening cocktail hour under a large dining room table where I chatted (gave little sermons) with my imaginary friends and a fourth friend I called God. I'd snitch Ritz crackers from the cocktail tray, eat one and leave the other four lined up on the table's cross beams waiting there for my friends and God. Later I would come to understand this childhood ritual as my first ordination as a priest and a call to a vocation I didn't pursue for years. Being a mother came first (two daughters, two sons, all grown with families of their own.)
That's a tiny but formative piece of my story. I wish I knew more of your story and the joys and sorrow that have filled your life over the 60 years since we last saw each other. I did google you and see that you did a lot of philanthropic work in the arts and consulting. Also your info sounds like you are a feminist or at least a promoter of women's gifts and passions. There's a reason we were such soulmates! I saw your photo in the yearbook and you hadn't changed a wit from sixth grade to graduation.
I hate to have to say goodbye just as we're saying hello again, but such is the unsteadiness of life and death.
Perhaps I will put this in a card also as I'm not sure how much email time you will want to spend as you rest and move into your death. Be sad but don't fret for there is nothing, even death, that can separate us from the Love beyond all loves some of us call God. I send you this ancient blessing and, although I don't know of your own religious journey or faith, I send it in the spirit of grateful memories for our short but lively friendship.
God bless you and keep you;
the face of God shine upon you and from within you
and bathe you in peace
this day, this hour, this minute and for ever. AMEN
I love you my bright childhood friend.
Lyn
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Blog Snacks With Lemons
This blog is NOT a diary!!
It’s not full of trivial personal anecdotes with no soul, meat or meaning. I hear that is a reason some folks avoid checking in on bloggers and hope I have moved beyond the heaving narcissism of my “Dear Diary . . .” days. My spiritual lemons are meant to awaken, provoke your reflection and call you to your depths.
But they might make you pucker up in case you expect some can-do or how-to spiritual advice that will last as long as your nose.
This week I offer these spiritual snacks.
-Boston Globe headline quote, 5/22/09, from President Obama’s speech, a necessary corrective to the Cheney same-old rant. Obama: “ I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values . . . “ Lemon: We cannot keep this country safe from our enemies without the power of our enemies.
-Jim Wallis: “New vision is always what any society most needs, and the edges of society have always been the most likely place for it to emerge. To generate something new, one must be listening to voices other than the loud voices of mass society.”
-Feminist Lemon: The feminization of any institution is no better for humanity than has been its masculinization.
-Ani Di Franco: “Someone you don't know is someone you don't know
Keep a firm grip girl and don't let go
Behind every hand extended another lies in wait
Keep an eye on that one - Anticipate”
-Jesus of Nazareth: “Be innocent as doves and wily as serpents.”
-Wily Lemon: There is little or nothing evil but that we make it so.
-Spiritual Lemon Policy: There is only one thing more important than individual rights and that is the common good.
Lemony wit/wisdom, oldie but goodie: “My grandfather knew the exact time of the exact day of the exact year that he would die.” “Wow!, what an evolved soul! How did it come to him?” “The judge told him.”
Lemon: Godde has no way to you but through you.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
The Priest Wears Dangling Earrings—Still
Just three known-to-me times in my twenty-some years of being a priest, active in parishes, counseling, spiritual direction and chaplaincy, have my earrings made the headlines in someone’s mind—once for scandal, once for shock, and once for delight.
The Episcopal Church voted that women could be ordained in 1976, a very good year for church and USA. I was ordained in 1988 after some struggle, but women were still not regular fixtures at parish altars. We just didn’t look right. To some we were an offense.
When I started celebrating at the altar in my first parish in Connecticut I wore the correct uniform except for one thing—my dangly gold earrings. They were delicate, teardrop-shaped like a fish, the Christian symbol after all, but they raised eyebrows. No one said anything to me personally but by Monday morning the moribund, covered with dust and cobwebs Suggestion Box contained two slips of paper. We knew there was new life for this old box because the messengers had carefully left the edge of the white message paper sticking out of the slot.
The messages were for me. One note said, “The priest should NOT wear dangly earrings,” and the other one was like unto it. I gave them to the male rector, told him they were for him, went home, fumed to anyone who would listen, asked Godde what to do, and wore buttons not danglers the next Sunday and several more until the people knew me and liked me behind my danglers. Then I wore the danglers again without comment. It was okay to be an anomaly but not wise to flaunt my gender ornaments in anger and just to mock others. Motives count.
The second time my earrings drew comment was when I officiated at the wedding of my former spiritual director, a French Jesuit priest who had left his country, his religion and his order to marry a sweet young thing named Mary. He hadn’t left his Roman Catholic priesthood, just transferred into Episcopal priesthood. A priest is a priest is a priest. Okay for him to have me officiate but the shock for at least one Catholic wedding guest jumped unbidden out of her mouth. “Look! The priest has earrings!”
The third time my earrings became the center of someone’s attention was in the yes of a six month old child at her baptism. She was screeching, her parents blushing and shushing when I reached for the child to get it over with quickly. Suddenly she stopped her wailing and stared at me with smiles and coos. That was just before she grabbed at one of my danglers and yanked. In spite of the endangerment to my ear everyone laughed. How cute!
The moral of this story is that dangling earrings can be dangerous, but isn’t that true of all adornments? They stand out, command attention, turn heads.
Scripture has a tradition of adornment. Godde adorns with beauty those whom society casts out. Godde raises them up, saves them from the muck of human degradation and abuse, calls them beloved, and dresses them in garments of fair linen, and fits them for halos—and the women get dangly earrings.
The Episcopal Church voted that women could be ordained in 1976, a very good year for church and USA. I was ordained in 1988 after some struggle, but women were still not regular fixtures at parish altars. We just didn’t look right. To some we were an offense.
When I started celebrating at the altar in my first parish in Connecticut I wore the correct uniform except for one thing—my dangly gold earrings. They were delicate, teardrop-shaped like a fish, the Christian symbol after all, but they raised eyebrows. No one said anything to me personally but by Monday morning the moribund, covered with dust and cobwebs Suggestion Box contained two slips of paper. We knew there was new life for this old box because the messengers had carefully left the edge of the white message paper sticking out of the slot.
The messages were for me. One note said, “The priest should NOT wear dangly earrings,” and the other one was like unto it. I gave them to the male rector, told him they were for him, went home, fumed to anyone who would listen, asked Godde what to do, and wore buttons not danglers the next Sunday and several more until the people knew me and liked me behind my danglers. Then I wore the danglers again without comment. It was okay to be an anomaly but not wise to flaunt my gender ornaments in anger and just to mock others. Motives count.
The second time my earrings drew comment was when I officiated at the wedding of my former spiritual director, a French Jesuit priest who had left his country, his religion and his order to marry a sweet young thing named Mary. He hadn’t left his Roman Catholic priesthood, just transferred into Episcopal priesthood. A priest is a priest is a priest. Okay for him to have me officiate but the shock for at least one Catholic wedding guest jumped unbidden out of her mouth. “Look! The priest has earrings!”
The third time my earrings became the center of someone’s attention was in the yes of a six month old child at her baptism. She was screeching, her parents blushing and shushing when I reached for the child to get it over with quickly. Suddenly she stopped her wailing and stared at me with smiles and coos. That was just before she grabbed at one of my danglers and yanked. In spite of the endangerment to my ear everyone laughed. How cute!
The moral of this story is that dangling earrings can be dangerous, but isn’t that true of all adornments? They stand out, command attention, turn heads.
Scripture has a tradition of adornment. Godde adorns with beauty those whom society casts out. Godde raises them up, saves them from the muck of human degradation and abuse, calls them beloved, and dresses them in garments of fair linen, and fits them for halos—and the women get dangly earrings.
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