2014.03.15 Ashes to Ashes

It's a gray day, little vibrancy in the sky and little coloration on the ground. A boring noisy high-pitched dog yelps on in the neighbor's back yard. Her name is Eugenie, so glamorous. Nature portrays the mood of the day which for Christians is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.

A gray-as-ash day is very appropriate, although I often think Nature controls all things—such arbitrary governance! Still gray is good, because life happens most often in the gray areas, never black and white as would be easy. That is the case with this gray day when we turn to ourselves, our neighbors and our Godde to acknowledge that we have, well, blown it— in many small and big ways. Sin is no more pure than is righteousness. It's all gray like this day. 

Lent is NOT necessarily a time to give anything up, nor a time to TAKE anything new on. Rather, Lent is a time to reflect on how religious faith, prayer practices, and rituals in community enrich your spirituality, your soul's health. to 

Lent kicks off with a ritual by which we say prayers, praise the grace of God, and commit ourselves to a process of discernment and reflection about who we are, who God is for us, and how we walk with Jesus Christ in the way of compassion, even unto death, and beyond. We smear ashes on our foreheads to signify that we are mortal and, though very good, not perfect—ever. Just gray.

 Lent is serious but not depressing, not for soul-lashings. 

Just STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN. The hardest to keep of these three commands in this addictive, consumerist, rush of a culture is: STOP!!  Deep breathing might help.

Here are two offerings I will be leading to help get yourself in the gray:

ARE WOMEN GOOD FOR GOD?  The Rev. Lyn G. Brakeman will offer a quiet retreat day on Saturday March 15 at Miramar Retreat Center in Duxbury, MA. from 10a.m. to 3 p.m. Cost is $40.00 including lunch.This day is for women and any men interested in exploring the implications of the odd query above. Through meditations, quiet prayer time, journaling and spiritual direction with Lyn on request, we will focus on the biblical stories of Mary of Nazareth and the Syrophoenician Woman. What happens when a woman summons the courage to speak her mind directly, to confront Divinity, to challenge social and religious norms?  To register call Miramar at 781-585-2460 or email at miramar@aol.com.


THE ART AND CRAFT OF SPIRITUAL WRITING  The Rev. Lyn G. Brakeman will teach a course at Grub Street, Boylston St., Boston, on Saturday March 22, 10-5 p.m. Writers say that all good writing is spiritual, which is true when writing inspires us to engage our own deepest heart and mind. Yet there are nuances and particularities to focus on, especially if one uses religious content, vocabulary, symbols and ritual when it is appropriate to a character or to yourself, if it's memoir. We will talk about both differences and connections between religion and spirituality and encourage writers to be free from either/or thinking. Much of our time will be spent writing and looking at samples. To register go to www.grubstreet.org or call 617-695-0075.

2014.03.02 Whirlwind Theology

Have you ever wondered if Godde was in the whirlwind as much as in the still, small voice? Ever thought of God as chaos? Oh no, God is order and harmony! God subdues chaos. God speaks, and presto!—there are firmaments, stars, all kinds of vegetation, critters galore, and finally the piece de resistance: Us!  Ta daaa!

That’s what I grew up believing. Chaos is bad, but luckily, God always brings good order out of bad chaos. It was not until, what do they call this age?— my ripening years, that I questioned that view. What if chaos were not endemically bad?

I said this once in an EfM group and a friend who later was ordained priest had a strong reaction. In fact she exclaimed loudly, “Oh no. God brings order out of chaos. Chaos is not good at all.” I shut up. I could understand her point of view as a recovering addict. AA often turns God’s name into an acronym standing for G(ood) O(rderly) D(irection).

So there!  Yes, but.......does that mean Matter is endemically bad and Spirit is its remedy? 

The Rev. Martin Smith on a recent retreat spoke of the “new gnosticism.” He meant the dualism,  between matter and spirit: the all good and all-powerful Spirit and the all-bad, inferior helpless, if not formless matter. Smith announced provocatively, “I preach Materiality.”

I have preached relationship theology. On odd Mondays I get fearful that I’m arrogant, making humanity near-equal with divinity. Humanity and divinity are not equal or the same, yet there is an up close and personal connection—like a mutuality of desire working together. Sometimes, however, I think we humans assume that our own will is very far from, if not opposed to, Godde’s will. I wonder. My essential will is that I may be as healthy, life-engaged, and full of compassion as I can be for as long as I may live. God’s will? Likely the same as mine for myself. You?

One could get all ego-centric about this symbiosis, but beware. The view of opposing wills and desires sets up a dangerous and false split between spirit (all good and all-powerful, named God) and matter (formless and worthless in itself, named Man...nary a woman in sight). Over time in religious traditions and beyond, God became masculine and superior, and Matter became feminine and inferior. This is ungodly politics, and for an ungodly number of centuries. 

Catherine Keller, Professor of Constructive Theology at Drew University, in her book, The Face of the Deep, A Theology of Becoming, makes a well-supported case that biblical creation is a beginning. The beginning is a relationship between the heavenly/up-there and the earthly/down-here that will evolve and unfold in many complex ways over time. Matter matters.

I'd say we are not divine, but we are divinely equipped to stay in this chaotic relationship.

Novelist Chaim Potok began his novel, In The Beginning, “All beginnings are hard.” Well no kidding! Remember your first day of school, first date, first cooking disaster, first realization that your kindergarten teacher actually went to the bathroom, first experience with death? My first labor pain, my first birthing, my first book. A friend of mine remembers the first time a date exposed himself (flashed it all)— his “subtle” way of asking if she wanted sex. At 12, she was so appalled at the sight she threw up all over the poor guy, and his member.

If, as Keller and other scholars suggest, evolving life is dynamic—an always-unfolding process of non-linear multi-dimensionality. We have a model of perpetual becoming—a theology of becoming. I find this appealing and scary.  Is nothing secure? Who is in charge in this model of permanent becoming?  It feels like a whirlwind—all churned up. 

A whirlwind? Wait.........didn’t Godde speak to the biblical Job out of a whirlwind? Yes! Job wanted to know where the heck God was while he, a good righteous man, suffered and spun in the torment of his own pain and fear. And the Lord spoke finally to Job out of a whirlwind. I’ll be damned! My relational line of thought wasn't half bad. But a whirlwind?

“Whirlwinds in meteorology are complex chaotic systems that suggest not pure chaos but rather turbulent emergence of complexity at the edge of chaos.”   

Complexity emergent, just the beginning of something new—all the time? So chaos is not pure, eh? So this is how Spirit and Matter interact? 

Listen up! The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.

2014.02.23 Spiritual Chivalry

In Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen, there is one tale titled “The Old Chevalier” (chivalrous type) in which a young man is thinking back on an old love affair that happened during the early days of the"emancipation of women."

"I have always thought it unfair to women that she has never been alone in the world. Adam had a time, whether long or short, when he could wander about on a fresh and peaceful earth, among the beasts, in full possession of his soul, and most men are born with a memory of that period. But poor Eve found him there, with all his claims upon her, the moment she looked into the world.  That is a grudge that women have always had against the Creator: she feels that she is entitled to have that epoch of paradise back for herself. "   Poor Eve. Poor women. Poor me.

When I first read this small clip from Isak Dineson, I laughed out loud and thought YES!  This is just the way we should approach holy scriptures—with curiosity, a sense of humor, and clear-hearted prayer. Some women have worked hard and prayed for women to be fully included in religion’s ministries, and recognized—even if between the lines and with a dose of provocation—in the Big Book Bible. We are meant to ask questions of the biblical texts, to make these words live and re-live, holy for every generation. 

Would I even want to have my “epoch of paradise?” Paradise could get boring and lonely. As an introvert I do love my space and admit that occasionally  it's nice to come home to an empty-house “eden” and be alone to relish the freedom of not even having to say a cheery hello or smile—to be free to eat Cheerios for supper or fry a disgustingly delicious hot dog.

Dinesen’s idea has merit. To be “in full possession of my soul” has been for me a state I’ve had to fight for, to assert over and over—in and through my own doubts and wounds, and also the arrangements of a patriarchal world and its sacred and secular institutions.

The Eden myth isn't factual, yet it is powerful. It is culture-bound, true, but notice how God wiggles around human mindsets in astonishing ways.

For example, God gives the exiled couple clothing when they leave Eden. Even more remarkably, in the other Creation story (Creation in seven miraculous days), God gives humanity equality: male and female God creates us. 

Oh yes, Eve does not quite get her "Olympic Gold." In Eden there are no awards. How odd!

Still, let's play with it. If Godde had placed a woman first in Eden, would there be any expectation that Adam could lay claim on her soul, not to mention her rib cage? No, but....... the goodness of God would immediately even out the playing field, giving Eve a helpmate named Adam. And where would Adam come from? Out of which of Eve’s body parts would Adam be fashioned?  Surely not the rib thing again. But I’d spare some belly flesh. If Eve had been created first, the sex life would probably have been different—no less intense but less violent, and rape not in the picture. Yet there might have been cat fights, the politics of besting, anyway. Women are not exempt from being human.

So I don't care who got created first, though I have lusted to be first and still do at times. I feel lucky and grateful to have someone to come home to, a companion who cares where I am, a lover who also cooks, a brother priest who understands the Church—sort of.

I bear no grudge against God. Pamela Greenberg's translation of Psalm 108:12 has a striking phrase. The psalmist goes on and on, begging for help in affliction, when suddenly into the litany of griping bursts this insight: humankind is useless when it comes to salvation. We pray; we hope; we do everything we can; we pray some more.  We till together.

In the beginning, according to the biblical vision, Godde gives us.......
    the protection of clothing
    the warmth of relationship
    the gift of equality

How much more chivalrous can you get?

2014.02.16 THANK YOU

                 

                         

=     THANK YOU LOVE


Unless you’re six and perfectionistic about your large misshapen letters, then it takes a minute to write a thank-you note to your grandparents for your Christmas gift.

It takes even less than a minute for your grandparents to read your missive, and the rest of a swiftly aging lifetime to re-read it and inscribe it on their hearts.

My mother hounded me as a kid about writing my thank-you notes to my grandparents after a birthday or Christmas. I thought it was stupid, since I had already thanked them on the phone when they called.

My note was especially hard for my paternal grandparents, because, from birth to about ten, they gave me government savings bonds. When I was old enough to pick a silver pattern at Tiffany's, they gave me one piece of silverware in my pattern with my initials on each piece every birthday and every Christmas. The forks and knives came first, followed by teaspoons, soup spoons, and butter knives. 

As soon as I learned basic math, I figured out that to accumulate a whole set of 12 place settings, each set with 5 pieces of the most basic silverware @ the rate of 2 pieces a year, one for a birthday and one for Christmas, it would take over 30 years to complete my set. By then I'd be an old woman of forty; plus, the completion would happen only if my grandparents didn’t die before my set was complete, which they did.

All my careful calculations aside, I still wrote my thank-you notes every year. I never figured out ways to make my notes creative, or even enthusiastic. Thank you, I thought, didn't seem enough.

I think my parents, or an aunt, completed my set eventually, save some soup spoons and two dessert forks. After I was married I did use my good silver at holidays and to entertain, an activity I do not do well and avoided if possible.

Today my set sits in a lined silver chest where it stays more or less free of tarnish. It is beautiful. I don’t use it much any more. I’m about the age my grandparents were when they died. I hope one of my grandchildren will love and use my set.

My maternal grandmother was widowed and gave gifts that she, a prize seamstress, had made. I loved the specialized clothes she made for my favorite doll, Lucille. Those notes were easy.

One year an aunt sent each member of our family a single place mat, one of a matching set. We each had to write a note for our single mat.

Thank-you notes today from our grandchildren, sometimes two on a note, some in pencil and some boldly in ink, are more precious than a phone call or an email. I have a couple of samples.

“Dear Grampy and Grammy, Thank you soooo much for the sleeping bag. I sleep with it every night  they are so comfy. Everyone has been asking me where I got it. and also thank you sooo much for friendly’s (where we took them for ice cream).  Love   Her name in cursive.  See you soon”  Bold flower illustration in purple and signed by her two brothers, six and three, who also got bags.

“Dear grammy and grampy, I love the gift cards that you got me. I am planning to use them wisely. thank you.  love, ” Big smiley face illustration.

As they get older the notes are the same with a little more formality and content, and usually a small open circle to dot the i’s (girls). Then they include some reference to our “thoughtfulness” and maybe a sentence hoping we too had a Merry Christmas. And one teen super-shopper described the outfit she had already bought: “Thank you for the card. I bought a really cute outfit at Forever 21 that I love. Love you guys!” Some say “I love you,” and some have xxx and ooo.

They write to both of us, but Dick’s biological grandchildren put “Grampy” or “Grampy Sim” first, followed by “Grammy” or "Grammy Lyn.” My biological grandchildren put my name first. This tiny sensitivity may be on parental advice, but I don’t think so. They are all naturally good-hearted—not so easy to remain so with second marriages. I remember one of them asked, when she was about seven and trying to make sense of the family flow chart, whether her grandmother’s second husband had first been married to me, her father’s second wife?  In other words was there a swap? 

We adore every single one and all of these small and growing souls and, if all goes well, by next summer we will have our twelfth, six girls and six boys. 

We keep our thank-you notes in a basket for a long time. The children have no idea what these love- notes mean to us.

Thank + you = two words. They are as essential to the work of Godde as are the famous “three little words.”