2011.08.10 Something Always Good

Today I said to my favorite nonagenarian, “Well the world if falling apart but damn the weather is superlative!”

She replied. “Something always has to be good.”

This caused me to remember Danny. Danny, a child with Down syndrome, was the “always good thing” in a former CT. parish where I worked.

Danny would come running up the aisle his arms akimbo, spread wide, and with a grin to match the sun’s warmth on his face, screaming, DaddyDaddyHeyDaddy—all run together.

Danny might happen in the middle of a sermon or solemn moment or if his mother held him hostage he’d get his run at the time of the announcement, which is where he belonged announcing his presence and his love.

Research today on finding ways to improve Downs is progressing slowly. There’s not much funding. I read in the NY Times July 31 magazine about a physician with a Downs daughter named Tyche (pron. tishy) He has changed his medical focus and devotes his life to research to help his daughter who in fact can solve algebraic problems. (I tried one myself and had to think a lot.) He wants to use his skills to add to Tyche’s repertoire because he loves her, nothing else.

No one denies the difficulties these children and adults present: shorter life span, adept at disruption, tempers, flinging things about to make messes.

BUT... no one denies their loving natures either, or that they can make you love in ways you never thought you could.

Many people who love a Downs child or adult feel hesitant about changing this syndrome much. Why? Well, I suppose it’s because despite its intellectual limitations Down adorns its bearers with capacious souls that can shine with love and bring the “something always good” into a day, or a room, or up the aisle.

Spiritually, I’d say they are endowed with gifts of personality that help Godde remind us that love can be more valuable in life than success, broad horizons, or intelligence.

2011.08.07 Our Birthdays

It’s startling in some ways to think that a man I fell into love with, almost without will like you fall into sin, was born on the same day I was. It gives pause.

At least it wasn’t the same year, too. I’m 73 and he is 70.

I don’t know if stars aligned as some say or even planets. Or maybe the gods, whoever these heavenly ciphers are, arranged this bashert, this marriage made in heaven, meant to be.

I don’t believe any of those clichés but I don’t disbelieve them either.

All I believe is that we have stayed dwelling in love through stress and strains and spats. So far in the angst of aging our biggest fear is that one of us will die and leave the other alone—ahead of time.

Secretly each of us hopes she or he won’t be the one left behind. How hopelessly harmlessly human.

Happy Birthday to us!

2011.08.03 Writing for Pac Man

Once at a writers conference an agent on a panel commented about the first page of an author’s manuscript:“Don’t make me wait too long to get under the table.”

The first page reading was mine and I was thrilled that agents liked it. “Under the Table” is the title of my second chapter. I reference the experience on my first page where I am in the scene of my ordination recalling what happened under the table 47 years ago. The hint lets a reader anticipate the under the table scene but wait till the next chapter.

Under the table in Chapter 2 I detail the childhood spiritual experience that drew me to follow a path to the priesthood happened.

I wondered if I should put my under the table scene first. Was it too long to wait? Should I follow the comment of the agent? I have actually found a snapshot way to do that. I got the idea from Patti Smith’s, Just Kids.

Still, the dismal thought occurred to me that in this consumerist culture perhaps publishing is in danger of co-opting to a pac man market. Pac man dates me. It was an early video game, probably now judged as too slow, in which a bunch of racing little faces with open gobbling mouths pursued an escapee—you!

Do we presume a bunch of readers so driven by instant gratification that they can’t tolerate waiting? Ravenous like pac people?

It sounds so infantile. Is this a disservice to serious readers? A handicap to serious writers?

Take Tinkers the novel by Paul Harding. I loved the book. I had to wait a lot, to read through a lot of context-building detail near the beginning and throughout before I got to an action scene.

And you could expire waiting for Pulitzer prize novelist Marilynne Robinson to tell you what happens—unless you let the mastery of the prose itself fascinate you. And it will.

I did feel some impatience at first, until I re-learned the first lesson of spirituality: stay steadfast, trust, be alert and notice whatever the Spirit is unfolding on every page. There’s a lot of Religion there as well—and Feminism.

Writers today are encouraged to write to the chase; that is, to get a reader to some dramatic scene as quickly as possible in order to keep her or him turning the pages. Gobble, gobble.

Do you need Pepto-Bismol yet?

2011.07.31 Ha-Motzi. "Who Brings Forth"

Today’s gospel reading was the story about the loaves and the fish, a strange miracle-like story in which Jesus, surrounded by a large crowd—5000 men “besides women and children” (Imagine!)—blesses God, who brings forth enough from what looks like not enough.

The blessing over grain products in Hebrew is:
BARUCH ATAH ADONAI, ELUHEINU MELECH HA-OLAM
HA-MOTZI LECHEM MIN HA-ARETZ

BLESSED ARE YOU LORD GOD CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE
YOU BRING FORTH BREAD FROM THE EARTH.

Ha-motzi means “who brings forth”— as good a definition of what God does as any.

Jesus, like all great holy men, besides many women, blesses God first BEFORE asking God to bless. Before you deliver your bill or particulars in prayer, bless God FIRST. To do so is neither an asking nor a presumption of result but a simple acknowledgment of the nature and possibility of the God HA-MOTZI. Then do your own part to assist the bringing forth.

The motzi is used in formal Temple liturgies. It is also used in homes. It’s a bridge blessing, It connects church and home. Anyone can use it. Once I went to a Jewish friend’s home for lunch. We made tuna fish sandwiches. She made ha-motzi over them and I swear that was the best tuna fish sandwich I’ve ever had.

Christians do not bring home the words of our eucharistic liturgy, the words Jesus would have said, the words he did say on the hillside, words addressed to God first.

What would happen if at our home meals, big gatherings or small, we first made our own ha-motzi?
BLESSED ARE YOU LORD GOD SOVEREIGN OF THE UNIVERSE.
YOU BRING FORTH BREAD FROM THE EARTH

And if we then added some words from our Christian Eucharist?
TAKE AND EAT THIS FOOD. IT IS GIVEN FOR YOU.
EAT THIS FOR THE REMEMBRANCE OF JESUS CHRIST.

Might this spiritual practice in time BRING FORTH humility, gratitude, re-enlivenment, hope, courage, a new chance— just as it does in church on Sunday?

2011.07.27 Blessings on the T

Last Sunday I boarded the famous or infamous red line to go into Boston to attend church. The T was empty at its last stop before it headed back inbound.

Empty save for one large gentleman with a Red Sox cap a backpack, also large. It was the last stop. I waited for him to get off but he stayed on, likely riding back and forth like “Charlie.” His head nodded and bobbed and I prayed he would find solace or a home or sobriety a job, or whatever he needed for love.

As the train moved along it filled up. At Porter Square two young women who had just left girlhood got on. They were all primped up, cute and perky in their shorts and tees and sandals.

As the train took off a young-ish man, disheveled, seemingly disoriented but not drunk, began his speech. I’ve heard many such painful stories and I believe them all even if all the facts aren’t quite correct. “Excuse me ladies and gentlemen. I’m so sorry to take your time like this. God bless you. I’m so grateful you’re listening to me. God bless you.I just want a little change, couple bucks to get something to eat. Haven’t eaten in ___ hours..........” No one responded. The young women listened and looked at each other a little embarrassed giggles.

At the next stop the man got off leaving us all God blessed and thanking us all for nothing. Another occasion for prayer.

The girl/women commented. “Wasn’t that weird?” Yeah, really, like...weird.” “Yeah you never hear anyone say that anymore.” “God bless you. You don’t hear it ever.” They shook their heads in amazement—not at the man’s plight or his strategy but at his blessing. So weird!

God bless you, every one!

2011.07.22 Another Amazing Holy Woman

Today is our Episcopal calendar day to wear Easter white, feast, and hallow St. Mary Magdalene.

Mary of Magdala, a town near Capernaum, was very close to Jesus.

In her day it would have been unusual for a single woman to hit the road like that. But that’s the kind of trust Jesus inspired and the kind of risks people took to catch a portion of his spirit.

In Mary’s case there was also gratitude. Luke reports (8:1-2) that Mary and some other women had been healed of infirmities and evil spirits, “Mary, called Magdalene from whom seven demons had gone out...”

Seven was/is considered a mystical number, whole in itself and indivisible except by itself, like Godde. Seven means Scripture is saying something important about this woman. People have speculated about her “demons.” I wrote about multiple personality disorder; others have conjured addictions and incurable seizures. On and on.

We interpret things according to our context. Today's context is nothing if it's not psychopathologistic. (What a word!) Mary's culture was about exorcism and demons.

But the favored conjure has been that she was a wanton woman, bound by her shameless sexual behavior— a prostitute, seductress, temptress and, god forbid, the undoer of men.

Luke wrote none of that, though we are to know that her life was radically transformed in many ways by Jesus and she stayed steadfast to his end, was a witness at the crucifixion, and wept at his mysteriously empty tomb. She mourned so deeply she almost missed meeting the image of Christ resurrected who spoke her name and commissioned her to tell the good news to the others.

If you identify with Mary and make her your biblical prayer partner try this spiritual practice: list seven “demons” of your own and ask Jesus to heal you. Be sure to say exactly what YOU want........ then leave the results up to Christ.

Also . . . suggest to your parish church that they transfer Mary Magdalene’s feast day, July 22, to a Sunday so the whole congregation can remember her, hallow her closeness to Jesus, and bless her role as the first apostle of resurrection.

2011.07.21 Amazing Holy Women—More

SOJOURNER TRUTH

She was born into slavery and passed from household to household until at 28 she fled. With the help of some Quakers she landed in New York and joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

But she never forgot her family and all the slaves still in bondage back home. And she never forgot her Bible.

The name story fascinates me. Sojourner Truth was named Isabella and called Belle. When she was 46 she heard God tell her “Go east.” A nice switch—men west, women east. She headed for L.I. and CT. and stopped at a Quaker farm on the way.

“What is your name?” they asked.

“My name is Sojourner,” Belle relied identifying quickly with the biblical injunctions to welcome traveling wanderers who only stay a little time, a sojourn.

“What is your last name?” they asked.

Belle thought of all the names her many masters had called her,. Then an idea sprang from nowhere into her mind, “the only master I have now is God, and His name is Truth.”(An example of the bath qol, Hebrew for the voice of God whispering truth into souls, quiet, the daughter of a voice.

A traveling preacher with wit and wisdom, Sojourner Truth became an abolitionist. Her charisma and six foot height drew many to listen to her truth.

She once said “If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again.”

Best remembered for her speech “Ain’t I a Woman” at a Women’s Rights convention in Ohio, Sojourner spoke out against male clergy misusing the Holy Word to oppress women saying women were weak and blacks were weaker still.

She died in 1883. She had told her people she wasn’t going to die, just shoot straight up home like a shooting star.

Now there’s a star in the east I would follow!





HARRIET ROSS TUBMAN

Harriet Ross grew up in a pretty stable but always anxious family of slaves in Maryland. She suffered serious injuries from beatings but grew strong in the hurt places. At 24 she escaped to Canada but never forgot her family and brother/sister slaves back home.

Known as “Moses of her people” Tubman followed her favorite biblical hero and story of liberation. She made trips home, worked with Quakers and freed 300 people leading them into Canada.

$40,000 was offered for her capture. On the head of a small black woman? No one ever collected the reward. Grin.

Tubman moved to upstate New York where she joined up with Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to promote women’s rights and always encouraged black women to stare their own organizations. She provided hospitality to orphans and the helpless old and founded schools for African American children.

Moses would have signed Harriet on. She championed justice for women and for own black women in particularity, taking on both sexism and racism in one 93 year long life.

You know the Bible may not exaggerate so much about age and Godde’s grace. Wasn’t Abraham 75 when he headed off to start a nation?!

When this Holy Spirit of reversals touches down, age, race, gender, ability know no limits.