It was my 74th birthday yesterday. It was also my husband’s but he’s only 71, mere child. My first birth day was in 1938, my second birth day was in 1973 when Godde woke me up to, well okay if I must say it, myself. Amazing grace!
John Newton wrote “Amazing Grace” in 1748 at age 23 in the wake of a spiritual conversion. It came to him on a storm-tossed sea when he prayed to God that the ship wouldn’t sink. It didn’t and Newton dedicated his life thereafter to God instead of to the slave trade business he was in.
(What Newton didn’t know was that God was more interested in saving the African slaves in the hold, who were also praying!)
Back in 1973 I wasn’t converted, just returned. I’d sunk deeply into the listening presence of one I called God as a very young child under a table chatting and feeling heard and accompanied. As I grew up and began my efforts to fit myself into my lovingly dysfunctional family and a world of roles and rules I lost touch with the under-the-table God. You could say I went Stepford-robotic—functional but self-less. Where could I fit as an ambitious woman with ideas unsuitable for a woman and mother? Depressed I suppose, I baked chocolate chip cookies—too many but a delicious distraction for me and a delight to my children. I didn’t pray but God “spoke” de profundis anyway, asking, “Why are you doing this?”
Though scared witless, I recognized the dear old accompanist I’d 30 years ago fallen into love with. So I followed God’s provocative question and, like Newton, became a priest. The rest of my life still is the answer to God’s question.
And this hymn, as Newton wrote it, is its theme song.
*******
Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace those fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believed!
Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.
Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
2012.08.06 A Dream and an Afterthought
Last night I dreamed of my old friend with the sad story. In the dream my friend was transfigured. She was herself, standing tall, majestic, gray-haired. Powerful I'd say. I thought the dream was a gift and I believed it.
What courage it took for my friend to call after all those years and pour her own dream and prayer out onto my answering machine.
What courage it took for my friend to call after all those years and pour her own dream and prayer out onto my answering machine.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
2012.08.04 One Sad Little Story
Writing a memoir creates a mind set for long term memory. Fine with me since my short term one is beginning to lag a bit.
Today I thought of a high school friend. Her face passed in front of me and I wondered how she had survived. She grew up with a severely alcoholic father who used to slap her behind and call her Bessie Broadbottom—then laugh with ghoulish gusto. She laughed too but I knew it wasn’t funny. I used to wonder about sexual abuse even back in the 50s in a suburban CT. shore town!
My friend’s mother was passive, sweet, and preachy religious. But she too had a steel magnolia edge. It was obviously how she controlled her internal chaos and ignored her husband. She told her daughter that she could have married Mr. Mack of Mack trucks and have lots of money and happiness. Cruel revelation I thought.
Growing up with cruelty made my friend unpopular in school because she was pushy trying to excel and be popular. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t like her much either but stayed friends because I felt sorry for her.
She idealized me and my family, wrongly really because I was in a similar cocktail situation but with far more love in it. My dad’s sarcasm was martini-induced and he never called me names or sexualized our relationship. My mom’s denial helped her kid herself and skim the surface of life. It irked me but helped me sharpen my awareness and thus my spirituality: dig deep for truth. But I never thought my parents were cruel and I knew I was loved.
When after college I got engaged my friend was excited to be invited to the party and later to be one of my bridesmaids.
I was far less excited about the idea of a big party than my mother who wanted a traditional event with lots of people; she wanted my father to announce with pride that his daughter Lynda was to be married, a little speech just for me. I felt shy and uncomfortable but my friend thought that would be the greatest thing in the world ever to happen to any girl.
She missed the big announcement arriving late to the party because her father had to have “just one more drink” at the restaurant.
I will never forget my friend’s face when she rushed in to find she’d missed what she had so wanted to be present for. It exploded, awash with pain, rage and helplessness, almost feral, when she turned on her parents like a trapped wild beast, and said “You made me miss it.”
Moments like that are ripe for despair. They are prayers.
The voice of despair came some 30 years later after I was ordained and through my phone answering machine. My friend located me because of a high school reunion list and dialed. I got the message and recognized her voice, drunk with alcohol and pain.
“I want to do what you do,” she said twice and hung up leaving no number to call back.
Oh, God.
Today I thought of a high school friend. Her face passed in front of me and I wondered how she had survived. She grew up with a severely alcoholic father who used to slap her behind and call her Bessie Broadbottom—then laugh with ghoulish gusto. She laughed too but I knew it wasn’t funny. I used to wonder about sexual abuse even back in the 50s in a suburban CT. shore town!
My friend’s mother was passive, sweet, and preachy religious. But she too had a steel magnolia edge. It was obviously how she controlled her internal chaos and ignored her husband. She told her daughter that she could have married Mr. Mack of Mack trucks and have lots of money and happiness. Cruel revelation I thought.
Growing up with cruelty made my friend unpopular in school because she was pushy trying to excel and be popular. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t like her much either but stayed friends because I felt sorry for her.
She idealized me and my family, wrongly really because I was in a similar cocktail situation but with far more love in it. My dad’s sarcasm was martini-induced and he never called me names or sexualized our relationship. My mom’s denial helped her kid herself and skim the surface of life. It irked me but helped me sharpen my awareness and thus my spirituality: dig deep for truth. But I never thought my parents were cruel and I knew I was loved.
When after college I got engaged my friend was excited to be invited to the party and later to be one of my bridesmaids.
I was far less excited about the idea of a big party than my mother who wanted a traditional event with lots of people; she wanted my father to announce with pride that his daughter Lynda was to be married, a little speech just for me. I felt shy and uncomfortable but my friend thought that would be the greatest thing in the world ever to happen to any girl.
She missed the big announcement arriving late to the party because her father had to have “just one more drink” at the restaurant.
I will never forget my friend’s face when she rushed in to find she’d missed what she had so wanted to be present for. It exploded, awash with pain, rage and helplessness, almost feral, when she turned on her parents like a trapped wild beast, and said “You made me miss it.”
Moments like that are ripe for despair. They are prayers.
The voice of despair came some 30 years later after I was ordained and through my phone answering machine. My friend located me because of a high school reunion list and dialed. I got the message and recognized her voice, drunk with alcohol and pain.
“I want to do what you do,” she said twice and hung up leaving no number to call back.
Oh, God.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
2012.08.01 Chick-fil-A??
Hey, hey it’s Chick fil A day. Not on liturgical calendars anywhere btw. All I can think of is the “dance” we do at weddings flapping our elbows wildly. This flap is about as funny.
Is it me or is anyone else thinking that Chick fil A is a sexist slur not very well disguised?
Chickens don’t immediately come to mind with the name, even though I know this is a, reportedly delicious, fast food operation, their top draw a buttered BUN with a pressed and breaded chicken BREAST. Think mammogram.
My associations go like this:
Chick=woman but maybe with unsophisticated tastes. Think chick lit or chick flix.
Fil= just short of a filly, also a female object of devotion or ogle—with great haunches.
A=a top academic grade, or, as I remember some of us teen chicks would say to flirt with the boy who drove a Model A Ford in high school, “Hows’ your A?” —and then roll over with laughter.
This all could be my own perverse sense of humor, my feminist ardor, northeast liberal prejudice, or displaced anger because the CEO of Chick-fil-A has openly “come out” against same-sex marriage. In a gutsy statement, Boston’s Mayor Menino blasted Chick-fil-A for its bias and said the Chick would not be welcome in Boston where plans to open a new restaurant are afoot.
Of course Menino has admitted he can’t prevent the permits issued for a new Boston business, but the chick, or the filly, is out of the barn. Who would eat there now? Kinda leaves a rotten chicken taste in your mouth—or mine at least.
Here’s a tweet from a buddy pilgrim (to Israel) and seminarian at the Virginia Theological School (in the south last time I looked): “I hope nobody asks the CEO of Chipotle his view on same-sex marriage, I’d be devastated to have to stop eating there.”
I should fit Godde in here somewhere. Some day I’m sure it takes all of God’s energy just to hold back divine laughter so the world won’t explode—prematurely.
Is it me or is anyone else thinking that Chick fil A is a sexist slur not very well disguised?
Chickens don’t immediately come to mind with the name, even though I know this is a, reportedly delicious, fast food operation, their top draw a buttered BUN with a pressed and breaded chicken BREAST. Think mammogram.
My associations go like this:
Chick=woman but maybe with unsophisticated tastes. Think chick lit or chick flix.
Fil= just short of a filly, also a female object of devotion or ogle—with great haunches.
A=a top academic grade, or, as I remember some of us teen chicks would say to flirt with the boy who drove a Model A Ford in high school, “Hows’ your A?” —and then roll over with laughter.
This all could be my own perverse sense of humor, my feminist ardor, northeast liberal prejudice, or displaced anger because the CEO of Chick-fil-A has openly “come out” against same-sex marriage. In a gutsy statement, Boston’s Mayor Menino blasted Chick-fil-A for its bias and said the Chick would not be welcome in Boston where plans to open a new restaurant are afoot.
Of course Menino has admitted he can’t prevent the permits issued for a new Boston business, but the chick, or the filly, is out of the barn. Who would eat there now? Kinda leaves a rotten chicken taste in your mouth—or mine at least.
Here’s a tweet from a buddy pilgrim (to Israel) and seminarian at the Virginia Theological School (in the south last time I looked): “I hope nobody asks the CEO of Chipotle his view on same-sex marriage, I’d be devastated to have to stop eating there.”
I should fit Godde in here somewhere. Some day I’m sure it takes all of God’s energy just to hold back divine laughter so the world won’t explode—prematurely.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
2012.07.29 Dream On?
I dreamed a lot as a kid, day and night, always about things I wanted to do or be or accomplish. I was lucky enough to have enough happiness, enough creativity and imagination, and enough intelligence to dream—and read many books.
After the fairy princess/ballerina/moviestar phase, I settled into the dream of having children and being a mother. The children made my dreams. Then I discovered no one paid for motherhood or gave it much recognition, so I thought it would be better to be a man. That one didn't last long, but I did invade the sanctuary of an all-male profession, priesthood, and discovered it wasn't that much fun to be a parish "Father"—too lonely.
Every dream I've had I've worked hard to help along, revise and tweak, and get help with.
We all dream dreams. It's what keeps us alive and vital. Even on my death bed I bet I'll be conjuring heaven and dream of meeting God and Jesus.
America was founded on a dream: liberty and justice and land, land, land. It was once bright and shiny and inviting— available to all citizens. Now it has turned to pablum spooned out by the unawares, the power-hungry, the ignorant, and the too-busy-scraping-basic-livelihood-together-to-notice.
Liberty has turned into license and arbitrary violence. Justice is an illusion because there is no peace on our streets. And land has morphed into private property that includes trophy homes and gated communities where we get isolated and insulated and mistake it for individual freedom.
The Occupy Movement of 2011 raised awareness about classism and increasing economic inequity, which means less mobility. Less is available to a greater number of citizens than ever before. 99% of us is falling fast out of the amenic middle class. It scares me to read about it but I am able to live comfortably enough not to really feel it.
Paul Krugman in his NY Times commentary on Jan 16, 2012, Martin Luther King day, wrote: “Mitt Romney says that we should discuss income inequality, if at all, only in “quiet rooms. There was a time when people said the same thing about racial inequality. [They said it about gender inequality, too, and still are.] Luckily, however, there were people like Martin Luther King who refused to stay quiet. And we should follow their example today. For the fact is that rising inequality threatens to make America a different and worse place — and we need to reverse that trend to preserve both our values and our dreams.”
Has our so-called dream become a lie?
Maybe we need to focus less on owning homes and more on being at home together.
Loneliness is a first sign of the waning of a dream. Are Americans lonely?
I'm lucky not to feel loneliness much, in part because I'm an introvert, and in part because I have a spouse I like. We convene the day and the evening together. And my dream of getting a memoir published, though dim, isn't extinguished.
Also I have a church community, a bunch of people who come together weekly to pray, sing, learn, and gather around a table to eat blessed food, after which they gratefully move to another no less sacred space to drink coffee or lemonade and eat "tapas."
The Christian church has a dream, of a God whose spaciousness knows no bounds. We learned it from Jesus. We try to practice the vision, yet sometimes we are too isolated in our own ways and community that, just like the nation, we forget to dream beyond ourselves. To complicate matters the church has gotten allergic to much if any mention of sin, awareness of the dreams of others.
Israel, like America, had, still has, a dream. Call it a home of your own. It's less about ownership than it is about identity, meaning, self-governance, and healing a long history of displacement, persecution, execution, and being scapegoats. I asked a young rabbi once why Jews kept getting blamed, almost no matter what happens. “It’s because we’re exclusive, think we’re special,” he said. Well, my God, listen to the braying of some Christians! And some Americans!
But once Jews got their homeland in 1948 their homeland security politics have run wildly beyond security. Palestinian land has been seized; refugee camps are established with curfews and locked gates; moving from place to place requires going through checkpoints, some of them now “flying” (you don’t know where they will pop up); mountaintop surveillance station feeling like”big daddy;” Palestinians who dream of a return to their land, elected a terrorist regime Hamas: and worst of all a Wall of Separation, the amen to mutual loneliness. I saw it and wept.
I asked a local politician, a liberal one, about U.S. Israel/Palestine policy. I received a firm reiteration of our alliance to Israel and a justification of military power tactics as "maintaining a qualitative military edge."
Are we as appallingly ignorant of the spaciousness of our own dreams as we are of Israel/Palestine's?
The feeling of threat, whether real or imagined, kills the soul and with it the land. Sin is as organic as love; it multiplies.
Israelis are, once again and understandably, afraid. So are Americans. So are Palestinians. So am I. I pray daily that God, who created land and leased it to humanity as blessing, will transform the hearts and minds of leaders and people ( it doesn’t matter which comes first) from fear to humility.
***
Either dreams are not a good idea at all, except in sleep, or we need help to listen to and respect the dreams of our neighbors, far and near.
Our Jewish next-door neighbor, the one who is a beautiful singer and who has never been to Israel, came over to sing a Christian liturgical chant she’d prepared for us as a send off on our Israel pilgrimage.
Yes! Dream on.
After the fairy princess/ballerina/moviestar phase, I settled into the dream of having children and being a mother. The children made my dreams. Then I discovered no one paid for motherhood or gave it much recognition, so I thought it would be better to be a man. That one didn't last long, but I did invade the sanctuary of an all-male profession, priesthood, and discovered it wasn't that much fun to be a parish "Father"—too lonely.
Every dream I've had I've worked hard to help along, revise and tweak, and get help with.
We all dream dreams. It's what keeps us alive and vital. Even on my death bed I bet I'll be conjuring heaven and dream of meeting God and Jesus.
America was founded on a dream: liberty and justice and land, land, land. It was once bright and shiny and inviting— available to all citizens. Now it has turned to pablum spooned out by the unawares, the power-hungry, the ignorant, and the too-busy-scraping-basic-livelihood-together-to-notice.
Liberty has turned into license and arbitrary violence. Justice is an illusion because there is no peace on our streets. And land has morphed into private property that includes trophy homes and gated communities where we get isolated and insulated and mistake it for individual freedom.
The Occupy Movement of 2011 raised awareness about classism and increasing economic inequity, which means less mobility. Less is available to a greater number of citizens than ever before. 99% of us is falling fast out of the amenic middle class. It scares me to read about it but I am able to live comfortably enough not to really feel it.
Paul Krugman in his NY Times commentary on Jan 16, 2012, Martin Luther King day, wrote: “Mitt Romney says that we should discuss income inequality, if at all, only in “quiet rooms. There was a time when people said the same thing about racial inequality. [They said it about gender inequality, too, and still are.] Luckily, however, there were people like Martin Luther King who refused to stay quiet. And we should follow their example today. For the fact is that rising inequality threatens to make America a different and worse place — and we need to reverse that trend to preserve both our values and our dreams.”
Has our so-called dream become a lie?
Maybe we need to focus less on owning homes and more on being at home together.
Loneliness is a first sign of the waning of a dream. Are Americans lonely?
I'm lucky not to feel loneliness much, in part because I'm an introvert, and in part because I have a spouse I like. We convene the day and the evening together. And my dream of getting a memoir published, though dim, isn't extinguished.
Also I have a church community, a bunch of people who come together weekly to pray, sing, learn, and gather around a table to eat blessed food, after which they gratefully move to another no less sacred space to drink coffee or lemonade and eat "tapas."
The Christian church has a dream, of a God whose spaciousness knows no bounds. We learned it from Jesus. We try to practice the vision, yet sometimes we are too isolated in our own ways and community that, just like the nation, we forget to dream beyond ourselves. To complicate matters the church has gotten allergic to much if any mention of sin, awareness of the dreams of others.
Israel, like America, had, still has, a dream. Call it a home of your own. It's less about ownership than it is about identity, meaning, self-governance, and healing a long history of displacement, persecution, execution, and being scapegoats. I asked a young rabbi once why Jews kept getting blamed, almost no matter what happens. “It’s because we’re exclusive, think we’re special,” he said. Well, my God, listen to the braying of some Christians! And some Americans!
But once Jews got their homeland in 1948 their homeland security politics have run wildly beyond security. Palestinian land has been seized; refugee camps are established with curfews and locked gates; moving from place to place requires going through checkpoints, some of them now “flying” (you don’t know where they will pop up); mountaintop surveillance station feeling like”big daddy;” Palestinians who dream of a return to their land, elected a terrorist regime Hamas: and worst of all a Wall of Separation, the amen to mutual loneliness. I saw it and wept.
I asked a local politician, a liberal one, about U.S. Israel/Palestine policy. I received a firm reiteration of our alliance to Israel and a justification of military power tactics as "maintaining a qualitative military edge."
Are we as appallingly ignorant of the spaciousness of our own dreams as we are of Israel/Palestine's?
The feeling of threat, whether real or imagined, kills the soul and with it the land. Sin is as organic as love; it multiplies.
Israelis are, once again and understandably, afraid. So are Americans. So are Palestinians. So am I. I pray daily that God, who created land and leased it to humanity as blessing, will transform the hearts and minds of leaders and people ( it doesn’t matter which comes first) from fear to humility.
***
Either dreams are not a good idea at all, except in sleep, or we need help to listen to and respect the dreams of our neighbors, far and near.
Our Jewish next-door neighbor, the one who is a beautiful singer and who has never been to Israel, came over to sing a Christian liturgical chant she’d prepared for us as a send off on our Israel pilgrimage.
Yes! Dream on.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
2012.07.25 HItler. Another Perspective?
When I traveled in Israel I thought I might get a glimpse of my maternal grandfather’s heritage. I got some flavor for the land and its contentions and troubles as well as its mystique. Jerusalem actually does gleam like scripture says. It sits on a hill 2500 feet above sea level and in the sun looks as if it has a halo.
If I thought the land belonged to me I too might try to take possession. The problem is that too many people think God meant it for them— and God meant it for everyone!
People I guess fight over what they hold most dear and desire most strongly. This land is doomed to be shared.
Janet Flanner who wrote for the New Yorker Magazine is best known for the Letters from Paris column, but she also provided commentary during World War II. She wrote about European politics and culture, published a piece about Hitler's rise to power in 1936, and covered the Nuremburg trials in 1945.
She once said that of all the work she did for the magazine, she was most proud of her 1936 piece on Hitler.
In her profile, titled "Führer," she wrote:
"Being self-taught, his mental processes are mysterious; he is missionary-minded; his thinking is emotional, his conclusions material. He has been studious with strange results: he says he regards liberalism as a form of tyranny, hatred and attack as part of man's civic virtues, and equality of men as immoral and against nature. Since he is a concentrated, introspective dogmatist, he is uninformed by exterior criticism. On the other hand, he is a natural and masterly advertiser, a phenomenal propagandist within his limits, the greatest mob orator in German annals, and one of the most inventive organizers in European history. He believes in intolerance as a pragmatic principle. He accepts violence as a detail of state, he says mercy is not his affair with men, yet he is kind to dumb animals. ... His moods change often, his opinions never. Since the age of twenty, they have been mainly anti-Semitic, anti-Communist, anti-suffrage, and Pan-German. He has a fine library of six thousand volumes, yet he never reads; books would do him no good — his mind is made up."
I can only say three things. In a book called “For Your Own Good” by psychologist Alice Miller I read that Hitler’s mother was a Jewish housemaid; and 2) As a spiritual practice I must name gross distortions of human goodness, even if I know that’s not all there is. Hitler was “kind to dumb animals” for god’s sake. Hitler was also a sociopath. 3) The power imbalance between Israelis and Palestinians is unjust and oppressive, and the U.S. is part of the problem.
I never knew my grandfather who died in 1924. Still, maybe some of his relatives, and mine, died at Hitler’s command. What I wonder would he have said or felt?
As a Christian priest I should forgive. I’ve not forgiven the old pervert who abused me when I was eight, unless you count forgetting and healing as forgiveness.
I doubt that Jesus forgave from the cross while gasping and dying, but those who knew him in life knew it would be like him to forgive—and also like him to ask God to do it for him. I don’t know if anyone forgave Hitler or other perpetrators of arbitrary genocide.
Some things only Godde can forgive.
And some forgiveness is a forever process.
If I thought the land belonged to me I too might try to take possession. The problem is that too many people think God meant it for them— and God meant it for everyone!
People I guess fight over what they hold most dear and desire most strongly. This land is doomed to be shared.
Janet Flanner who wrote for the New Yorker Magazine is best known for the Letters from Paris column, but she also provided commentary during World War II. She wrote about European politics and culture, published a piece about Hitler's rise to power in 1936, and covered the Nuremburg trials in 1945.
She once said that of all the work she did for the magazine, she was most proud of her 1936 piece on Hitler.
In her profile, titled "Führer," she wrote:
"Being self-taught, his mental processes are mysterious; he is missionary-minded; his thinking is emotional, his conclusions material. He has been studious with strange results: he says he regards liberalism as a form of tyranny, hatred and attack as part of man's civic virtues, and equality of men as immoral and against nature. Since he is a concentrated, introspective dogmatist, he is uninformed by exterior criticism. On the other hand, he is a natural and masterly advertiser, a phenomenal propagandist within his limits, the greatest mob orator in German annals, and one of the most inventive organizers in European history. He believes in intolerance as a pragmatic principle. He accepts violence as a detail of state, he says mercy is not his affair with men, yet he is kind to dumb animals. ... His moods change often, his opinions never. Since the age of twenty, they have been mainly anti-Semitic, anti-Communist, anti-suffrage, and Pan-German. He has a fine library of six thousand volumes, yet he never reads; books would do him no good — his mind is made up."
I can only say three things. In a book called “For Your Own Good” by psychologist Alice Miller I read that Hitler’s mother was a Jewish housemaid; and 2) As a spiritual practice I must name gross distortions of human goodness, even if I know that’s not all there is. Hitler was “kind to dumb animals” for god’s sake. Hitler was also a sociopath. 3) The power imbalance between Israelis and Palestinians is unjust and oppressive, and the U.S. is part of the problem.
I never knew my grandfather who died in 1924. Still, maybe some of his relatives, and mine, died at Hitler’s command. What I wonder would he have said or felt?
As a Christian priest I should forgive. I’ve not forgiven the old pervert who abused me when I was eight, unless you count forgetting and healing as forgiveness.
I doubt that Jesus forgave from the cross while gasping and dying, but those who knew him in life knew it would be like him to forgive—and also like him to ask God to do it for him. I don’t know if anyone forgave Hitler or other perpetrators of arbitrary genocide.
Some things only Godde can forgive.
And some forgiveness is a forever process.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
2012.07.22 Writing the Whole Arc/Staying the Course
I have trouble sticking to the direction when I write. I love to riff. I write as if I were a jazz musician going off on tangents that may be relevant but take a reader off the path of the narrative/melody. It’s a bad habit I’m trying to curb because not everyone likes or can follow all that jazz.
Mary Magdalene, a biblical hero of mine whose day it is on our liturgical calendar, stayed the course. Her life choice was to follow Jesus of Nazareth. She’d benefited from his healing gifts and, instead of running off to do her own life (something I know I would have done after I remembered my manners and said thank you) she hung out for more.
She soaked in his wisdom and, from what we can tell, Jesus held her in esteem and held her dear. She was present and named for all the big events of his life including his death, and the church honors her as a saint and the first messenger of the good news of resurrection— even though few parishes remember her day. Why? Oh, don’t ask.
Here is brief but wonderful advice about such undistracted purpose of life. I will tape it to my computer desk, my fridge, my forehead. It comes from one of my favorite actor’s Judi Dench in her 2012 memoir, “And furthermore.”
Dench, as a young aspirant learned to speak Shakespeare from the great British actor Sir John Gielgud. She writes: “I have always said to students that if you really want to know how to speak Shakespeare, Sir John and Frank Sinatra will teach you. Because one used to present the whole arc of a speech, and the other presented the whole arc of a song, without any intrusive extreme emphases.”
That wisdom hit me up side the head. Let me not forget. Let me be so in love with my story that I do not sacrifice its arc for my tantalizing distractions. Let me write in rainbows—the whole arc.
And let me not stray from the arc of divine goodness but write it with clarity and as much brevity as I can muster, so my ideas and stories won’t drown in the rushing pace of this culture—or that of my distracted mind.
Mary Magdalene, a biblical hero of mine whose day it is on our liturgical calendar, stayed the course. Her life choice was to follow Jesus of Nazareth. She’d benefited from his healing gifts and, instead of running off to do her own life (something I know I would have done after I remembered my manners and said thank you) she hung out for more.
She soaked in his wisdom and, from what we can tell, Jesus held her in esteem and held her dear. She was present and named for all the big events of his life including his death, and the church honors her as a saint and the first messenger of the good news of resurrection— even though few parishes remember her day. Why? Oh, don’t ask.
Here is brief but wonderful advice about such undistracted purpose of life. I will tape it to my computer desk, my fridge, my forehead. It comes from one of my favorite actor’s Judi Dench in her 2012 memoir, “And furthermore.”
Dench, as a young aspirant learned to speak Shakespeare from the great British actor Sir John Gielgud. She writes: “I have always said to students that if you really want to know how to speak Shakespeare, Sir John and Frank Sinatra will teach you. Because one used to present the whole arc of a speech, and the other presented the whole arc of a song, without any intrusive extreme emphases.”
That wisdom hit me up side the head. Let me not forget. Let me be so in love with my story that I do not sacrifice its arc for my tantalizing distractions. Let me write in rainbows—the whole arc.
And let me not stray from the arc of divine goodness but write it with clarity and as much brevity as I can muster, so my ideas and stories won’t drown in the rushing pace of this culture—or that of my distracted mind.
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