M & M's, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 7/17/22

Now I imagine you think, as any sane well educated person in the area of treats would, that I will be writing about the famed candy called M&Ms. These are small round multi-colored, candy-coated chocolate candies that can pop into my mouth, and do—sometimes without my knowing it. Oh, they make them with dark chocolate, ever so much better for your health. And they also make them in bulk, so you’ll never run out. They, it is said, melt in your mouth but not in your hands.

These handy candies were invented in, where else, the United States of America, in 1941, brought here by the Mars company founder, Frank C. Mars, who copied the idea from soldiers who in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) carried  British-made “Smarties”— chocolate pellets surrounded with a colored shell of hardened sugar syrup, which kept them from melting in warm climates. Possibly these little beauties saved lives. I mean imagine stopping a whole battle to share these with enemy soldiers. How could you fight after that?  I also consider this a brilliant idea for Sunday morning’s coffee hours—attracting people to your parish, dragged there through the joy of children with godly M&M's in mind. It’s gospel!

*  *  *  * 

I stand by my idea. However, I am really writing about Mary & Martha, popular sister siblings in the Christian New Testament. Luke’s gospel tells the famous story of Jesus’s visit to his good friends Lazarus’s house in Bethany, a small town to the east  of Jerusalem. Lazarus had two sisters, Mary and Martha. Martha, the elder and more loquacious, and Mary the dreamer. We all know such sibling pairs. I am like the non-domestic, introverted Mary who could in awe listen to some guru talk about God and prayer and other spiritual intensities, heedless of the time or the meal. My sister is more domestic, like Martha, bustling about in the kitchen preparing a lovely meal, and pissed at my lassitude. Even today she can cook a good meal. I married a man who cooks.  

To be serious, the real matter in the biblical story is women’s reactions to Jesus’s reaction in this story. Mary sits at his feet, soaking up his every word. Martha is in the kitchen, irritated with her sister for not helping. Jesus comments that Martha is distracted by many things and Mary “has chosen the better part.” What say you?  

On one of my preaching Sundays in a parish where I served as Priest Associate, I threw caution to the winds, read this Gospel story and opened it up to the congregation, saying “Well, what do you think?”  Dead silence. “It’s okay I’m inviting you to share your own thoughts and feelings about this story.”  More silence. One hand shot up, as if this were a schoolroom. I nodded for her to speak. “Well, I don’t like this story. Never have. Makes me angry. Why would Jesus put Martha down like that?”  And we were off and running. 

“Did Jesus think praying all day was more than important than hospitality? I bet they all ate Martha’s meal, especially Jesus. I’ve heard a lifetime of sermons on this story, and no preacher ever sides with Martha. Jesus must have had a huge ego? I’ve been to monastic retreats, and believe me, those monks and nuns spend lots of time running back and forth to the kitchen, preparing and serving meals in between quick trips to the chapel. Mary’s too passive, not my type. Well, Jesus sure started sibling rivalry here! Is this story even true? Sexist. In Bible study I heard that this was only Luke’s agenda—getting Gentiles to listen to Jesus. But why would they follow? Just to pray?  So not the real Jesus, right?  Look here (she taps her finger on her own Bible) — this footnote says that this story’s purpose is to tell us that Jesus was open to accepting women as his followers. What self-respecting woman would follow this guy? I bet God the Father set his son straight on this one. Are you kidding? “

Laughter. 

No one asked me what I thought. There were no scornful words, no sullen scowls, no grandstanding or lecturing, although a few just listened. I let this "homily-of-the-whole" go on for over 15 minutes. I was pretty sure I would have to move from the center aisle up into the pulpit to get their attention. My movement caused the hubbub to die down although the atmosphere crackled with energy. What to say? A traditional closing. 

 The Word of the Lord.

 Thanks be to God.

This back-and-forth conversation was lively and full of laughter— refreshing, and definitely the Word of the Lord. They were talking to each other, engaging with scripture as if it were their own story. It is.  

*  *  *  * 

And the M&M’s?  Each small morsel is the same on the inside. All are a different color on the outside. And all together they are irresistible—just like us. 

 

What Kind Of Follower Are You? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 7/10/22

Sometimes I feel small and timid. I was told as a child that I was shy—too shy. Truthfully, I am a natural introvert and also, shyness was one way I hid from my mother’s eager attentiveness. Still, sometimes my shyness turned into silence and then to self-deprecation. I wondered whether I was really a mouse and maybe that is why I’m frightened of mice—such tiny, skittering rodents. Why does everyone in comics scream EEEEK! at the sight of a mouse? 

I recall a poster one of my young sons, full of mischief and hormonal chutzpah, hung in his room. It pictured a bunch of hapless lemmings rushing towards a cliff, some already spilling over to their deaths—save one lemming who ran along with the doomed group  grinning, and with a life preserver around his middle. 

I doubt that my son had more than his own biological urges as a pre-teen, but I do know that the poster exactly portrayed his humor and presaged the future of his own humor-bound self-care. Professionals would call him mildly risk averse. I would call him wise.

What is a lemming anyway? A lemming is a short-tailed rodent related to voles, found in the Arctic tundra. Sometimes lemmings actually do commit mass suicide when they jump off cliffs. This is a result of their migratory behavior, driven by strong biological urges when the population density becomes too great.

Webster tells us that “lemming” also can refer to a person who unthinkingly joins a mass movement, especially one that is a shortsighted headlong rush to destruction. That description fits some individuals, or groups, or religions, or whole countries. I felt that reckless when I shed my shy cover and announced myself as a woman seeking to be a priest in the equally reticent Episcopal Church. Inside I felt scared like a mouse, or reckless like this lemming without her life preserver. Lots of loving help got me through.

Jesus the Christ is remembered as calling people to follow. Are they to follow like lemmings? Follow at all costs? Scatter like mice? Jesus also told the parable of a Good Samaritan who, for good reasons of his own, would never be a follower, but who, out of his own tradition, practiced the ethic Jesus encouraged. Jesus had a strong vision of God’s Compassion spreading, connecting beyond our differences: Everyone is your neighbor. We can absolve Jesus of any malice of forethought about his insistence that people summon the courage to follow him—not like hapless lemmings but more like courageous fools for Christ-like compassion. Jesus, however, also assigned 72 elders to go ahead to prepare the way, and told any followers to travel in pairs.  

                                    *  *  *  *

What can absolve us Americans from our own lemming-like culture, our own lemming-like lifestyles—running too fast, not getting very far, making hasty impulsive decisions, overvaluing our precious independence, collectively and individually, often bearing lethal weaponry, and always failing to consider exactly who we are, what it is we desire, why we are doing it, where we are headed, what our purpose is—not to mention tending to go on out there alone and brave without allies?

What will stop us? Will a leader who is wise and compassionate, forceful but not forcing?  Would you follow without fear or self-doubt, even when it appeared as if that leader might lead you into dangerous territory? What if you followed a leader and ended up either dead or radically transformed forever? We all have choices even when we don’t see them. Any choice involves risk. Most choices are driven by enormously inclusive visions, such as everyone’s being a neighbor.   

My son would make sure he was protected before he followed any “lemmings.” I would waffle and hesitate, asking a million clarifying questions before I set out on a visionary quest. No one wanted to follow Jesus, especially into enemy territory, like Jerusalem, or if it meant loving any supposed enemy. He kept going,, not recanting his way or purpose, and they all thought he was as foolish as a lemming. 

Everyone is  different. To follow a vision of any size is never simple unless you actually are a lemming. It’s okay to carry inner tubes, ask a million clarifying questions, take others with you. Life is a grand experiment. I steadied myself in God, and carried many supporters inside me whose voices of love and encouragement I heard, but not with my ears. My most steady companions on my way were my tears—sweet lubricants, healing my impatience and my mistakes, while keeping the vision alive.   

This image below is what I felt like, heading out alone, praying for courage, and determined on a new path, trusting the presence of God, believing in my children’s hearts— accompanied by tears and fears. I kept going like this baby snowy owl—unsteady like a toddler determined one day to fly, and not looking back —much.  

What kind of follower are you?  

2022.07.03 IN-dependence? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blogpost

We, in this country and on this Earth, are living in the midst of the death throes of patriarchy. As I stutter to understand things, a question pops up, like in the game Jeopardy. Let’s call this category: Values. 

The highest personal value in the United States.

What is Independence?  

Ding. Correct. That’s $$$$ more for you, dear Contestant. 

More Word Play 

“Throes” does not mean death itself, but rather the painful struggle, the convulsion that accompanies great change. 

“Patriarchy” does not simply mean the rule of all things male. It means a system of social organization based exclusively on the dominance of White straight maleness, often Protestant—garnished with the temptingly alluring word: INDEPENDENCE. 

“Independence” does not simply mean freedom. IN-dependence means without dependence. Consider: other words, such as IN-ept (without aptitude), or IN-animate (without animation), or IN-adequate (without adequacy), or IN-domitable (without defeat) or unbeatable, or even IN-formation (without full formation)—just a list of facts without a fully formed idea, plan, or conclusion. 

All my eccentric word-play explorations make me wonder even more about the American idolatry of IN-dependence. We even set apart a whole day, July 4th, to honor our IN-dependence. It came about historically after a bloody war, the loss of many human lives, and the establishment of our own government, based in IN-dividual (without divisions) freedom for our nation. We fought to be free of British rule, and we prize our freedom(s) without letting them evolve and ripen. Too much? 

Have we overvalued our IN-dependence?

*  *  *  * 

When I read about the move to end checks and balances in our government I feel alarmed about the return of originalism, a political fundamentalism that IN-hibits (hinders) national evolution and advocates autocratic methods and purposes—so alarmed that I have actually prayed for what Christians call The Second Coming. We need divine INter-vention (coming between). NOW. It could also open enough hearts and minds to, well, revive the ancient ethic of the good old Golden Rule: What you hate do not do to another OR Love one another as you would have them love you. 

We need INTER-dependence (sharing mutual dependence) not more IN-dependence. No one is ever without dependence, despite all of her or his dramatic adolescent delusions. 

Who is not dependent? 

Personal Spiritual Stories

When I was a child I struggled consistently to be INdependent of my mother’s over-attentiveness, not the same as nurture. She was well-meaning I know, but I needed to know my own embodied self, INdependent from her. I needed to breathe. I achieved my INdependence. I also lost much in the process, including the capacity to mother myself and give enough maternal nurture to my own children. What did I gain? I gained a strong sense of myself, strong enough to make many choices like divorce, professional success, and happiness. What did I lose?  A marriage and full IN-timacy (without timidity) with my children. 

What helped me reclaim my dependent self?  

1) The consistent and INternalized (not externalized) loving listening presence of God whom I encountered in prayer—the chatter of a small child to the God she’d seen in a picture book. 

2) The affectionate good presence of a therapist, herself suffering from excesses of INdependent sadness and anger. 

3) The abiding INtimacy and good humor of a man who taught me to love and cherish my body as if it were his. 

4) The cautious yet authentic devotion of my four biological children whose feelings and fears I have learned to listen to without condition or parental-ism.  

5) The very recent acquaintance I’ve made with a young (26) man named Jared, who, because of a tragic accident, is paralyzed by a spinal cord injury that has left him dependent on others. Talking with Jared, I admit, has felt at times emotionally paralyzing to me. He has taught me again how to be healthfully dependent, ironically through his very fine, educated mind, fully IN-tact (without tactile sensation). Jared works as a design engineer at a healthcare facility for people with spinal cord injuries such as his own. He texted to me:  “I’d say that my greatest joy is seeing my ideas become reality. Having something to build, designing it, and eventually holding it in my hands.” 

I remain dependent on all these love-factors—IN-definitely (without definition), but not quite IN-finitely (without finitude)—yet. 

Happy Dependence Day. 

 

2022.06.26 In The Beginning? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

The biblical story of Creation portrays a God who created, giving spiritual birth to humanity in the divine image. The only “rule” God set was the only “rule” humanity disobeyed: Just don’t eat of this one tree or you will open the door for evil alongside good in the world. Simple, right? Let’s check out if God is just being parental. One bite won’t hurt. Follow your bliss. It was HER idea. Turns out God was being loving not judging. This mythic story continues to be re-enacted over and over. It turns out we all have control issues. 

And again. 

The Supreme Court just ruled that the constitutionality of rights secured for 50 years by the Roe V. Wade ruling was, yes, unconstitutional. Make no mistake, this ruling is about women, none of whom get pregnant alone, some of whom get pregnant not by choice but by immaturity or crime. All of them are held responsible for the consequences of their putative “sins”, and many suffer abandonment, poverty, racial bias, classism, and ill health. Oh yes, others are condemned in the name of God as well.  

I think of the biblical story in the New Testament (John 7:53-8:11) about the woman brought to Jesus for condemnation. She has been accused of adultery. Assuming the accusation is true, did she commit this act all by herself? Jesus famously bends over and writes something in the sand. What he wrote no one knowe The crowds bellowed for her execution by stoning. Jesus rises and challenges the crowd:  “The one among you who is without sin may cast the first stone.” The crowd disperses—each heading home carrying their “toys.”  The woman is told to go and sin no more. 

Was it a “sin” to be a woman? Well? She didn’t commit adultery alone or get pregnant alone. As to what Jesus wrote in the sand, I bet he wrote: “So where’s the guy?” 

*  *  *  *  

This statement below was posted on June 24, 2022, by Kathleen McCartney, the President of Smith College, a woman’s college and my alma mater. There are many concerns and fears generated by the Supreme Court’s decision, and one of them of course is higher education, especially women’s education. 

“Today the Supreme Court issued its ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case. As reported by The New York Times, “the decision, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion after almost 50 years, will lead to all but total bans on the procedure in about half of the states.” Decisions about reproductive rights are now relegated to the states, which will exacerbate inequalities in access to reproductive healthcare. In the words of Gloria Steinem ’56, “medical needs should not be distributed geographically. They're way too distributed by class and economics as it is because we don't have national health care as we should. And this makes it far worse for the female half of the population.”

In an amicus brief in support of Jackson Women’s Health Organization, economists noted that “there is a substantial body of well-developed and credible research that shows that abortion legalization and access in the United States has had—and continues to have—a significant effect on birth rates as well as broad downstream social and economic effects, including on women’s educational attainment and job opportunities.” Research in the years since Roe v. Wade became law has shown that access to abortion increased the probability that young women finished college by nearly 20 percentage points and entered a professional occupation by nearly 40 percentage points; it also found that teen motherhood was reduced by 34% and teen marriage by 20%.”

*  *  *  *

I am not in favor of abortion. Nor am I in favor of pro-life arguments that claim to save the life of the fetus but fail to consider all other lives, especially the mother’s life as one of those lives to consider in the pro-life arguments. I am in favor of LISTENING to many stories told by women about their experiences. I am in favor of compassion all round, in church and state. I am in favor of lobbying the Congress to codify Roe v. Wade so it becomes federal law, not to be regulated by states with wildly different moral and religious cultures. I bet that’s what Jesus would do. President Biden agrees, too—not about Jesus necessarily, but about restoring the rights and choices Roe v. Wade secured.   

As far as I can figure, women and men are equal by Constitution, by Democracy AND equal under the rule of law, AND equally created by a Creator-God who gave a nod to the other tree in the garden, the Tree of Life—abundance of food and life for ALL living things. Here is an image that depicts this forgotten Tree of Life God placed in Eden. 

*  *  *  *

Personal Stories

 

In my  ministry and in my counseling, I have sat, on more than one occasion, with a young teen who is pregnant, in tears, and terrified. She has no money. She looks forward to higher education and to pursuing her dream vocation. She is not equipped to take care of a child. She is afraid to tell her parents, and certainly her very Catholic boyfriend. She feels condemned and all alone. I have helped such children make decisions, choices each could live with. And I helped one girl find a doctor who helped her abort.  

And once I sat with an older woman who, in midlife, confessed her earlier abortion and sobbed with grief over the loss of her unborn child, a son, she felt sure, whom she had named. I listened with compassion. Further, I suggested that we could baptize this unseen, unborn son. She looked at me in amazement and then knew this was exactly the right thing, the right kind of absolution if you will. So she held her invisible son while I consecrated water and baptized him in the name of God. I think I have never presided over a holier baptism. 

May we begin again, please. And may we remember that God is not a gracious puppeteer but a gracious indweller. 

 

2022.06.19 Divine Empathy. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

I used to think that with God as my father I would always be safe and loved. I also used to think that my own father, whom I loved without reserve, had no fears or flaws. That was until he took a course on assertive training that I offered at our parish church when I was in my thirties and he was in his seventies. Turned out he was shy. Turned out he trusted his oldest daughter to teach him how to love himself as much as his own “Father” God did. It also turned out that God is much more than a father. God is the Creator and Source of ALL Being—all living beings not just fathers or sons or daughters or mothers or Whites or Blacks or sinners or the righteous. Creation itself is an act of divine Empathy.

*  *  *  *

The other day as I sat on one of the many benches strewn along our walking paths at McLean Village retirement community where I live, I witnessed a poignant and typical scene.

Two children were riding bikes, a young boy of perhaps six and his older sister on her bike riding behind him. I watched them progress and overheard snippets of conversation.

She: Wait. Don’t go so fast. You’ll fall!

He streaks on ahead. 

She mutters: “This was my mother’s idea that we go out and ride bikes. What a stupid idea! He’s too far ahead now.” 

She is about to fall off her bike, so she stops and shouts after her small brother: WAIT! He’s so stupid I know he’s going to fall. She shrieks at the nearly out of sight brother, as she tries to mount her bike and can’t steady it. She mutters: “This is so dumb! I’m done.”  

She catches my eye, and I smile. I think to say, “It’s not easy being the big sister, huh?” But I don’t say it out loud. A simple nod with a loving intention is all I can manage in the face of a deep sorrow at this child’s life-plight. 

She mounts and rides off wobbling. God, don’t let her fall. 

*  * *  *

I think of the parable in Luke 9 about Jesus’s being confronted by a man possessed by countless “demons” all of which, or whom, Jesus banishes, making the man well, lightening his burden. My imagination plays fast and loose with this story. What rivets me is not the apparent miracle of an exorcism, but Jesus’s single-minded focus on the possessed man’s misery—not only derived from his illness, but because his terrified community had shackled and exiled him because of it. Of course he also feared more torment from Jesus. Jesus is slow to react. This is an emergency! Jesus should flee for his life. Still, he pauses to ask the man his name, and does not act before he gets a response. “My name is Legion,” the man cries.  Legion is the name his frightened and ignorant community have labeled him. It is also the name used for the Roman military, a fear-inducing name. You know how it is in adolescent years when certain teens are called sticky names like wimp, bully, nerd, queer, lard-ass, fraidy-cat, sissy, on and on. Such names are like glue, hard to live down—legion. 

But Jesus wanted to know all these names before he banishes them all, sending them to find a new host—a herd of pigs that suddenly race pell mell down a steep slope of land to their death in the sea below. 

Many people hate this parable, because they feel sorry for the farmer who has lost his whole herd and his livelihood, and/or they are overtaken by cruelty to innocent animals, or, yes, they are horrified at Jesus’s own careless insensitivity to local needs. I wonder. 

Eventually they called Jesus the Christ—anointed as healer/savior, not because of magic powers but because of extraordinary, dare I say divine, empathy. It turns out Jesus was much more than a son.

          *  *  *  * 

I’ve referred to my sorrow about this child’s “life-plight”. Of course I’m projecting from my own experiences, and no exorcism is called for, yet I wonder: Does she battle legions of invisible “demons” such as shame at being plump, anger about her caretaker role assignment, resentment about the cute, disobedient little brother’s freedom, hurt by her mother’s apparent favoritism, and her own enslavement—this child in hot pursuit of an assignment she feels compelled to do and hates but does clumsily, hastily, out of duty not faith?  

I don’t know. I pray. God’s grace I trust far exceeds my small momentary concern. After all God is a good “father,” right?  Okay, I’m kidding, something I do when I feel a little wobbly inside like the girl on the bike, or like my own father on occasion, or like Jesus before he heads to Jerusalem, facing execution.   

My dad was shy like me, but he kept it hidden. Once at a party for my seminary graduation he announced: “We’re not sure how this happened, but Lynda has graduated from Yale Divinity School.” He raised a glass to toast me and said how proud he was. I knew he was “just kidding”, so I too laughed along with Dad and everyone else. And I never forgot that “joke”. Dad wasn’t a cruel man, just a man with a few leftover “demons” of his own—like most of us really.   

So, happy father’s day to anyone who fathers, mothers, parents with good grace, and prays like crazy anyway. 

God bless the girl child on her way. 

God-in-Jesus, named Christ, who knows fear, empathizes, names, and disempowers all our big or little “demons,” to save us in spite of ourselves, bless this girl and all children.   

God is Creator of the TREE of LIFE—the one left in the mythic Garden of Eden to continue to flourish no matter what for all creation—forever.  

     

2022.06.12 Trinity Sunday. IT'S THE LANGUAGE!

For years I have squawked and lobbied, consistently and at varying levels of intensity about the need to change traditional theological language—words and ideas we Christians use to describe the image of God.  HE, HIM, HIS, ALMIGHTY, TRANSCENDENT, SUPERMAN OMNI-EVERYTHING. 

We have for millennia worshipped this Divinity, voiced from afar, presiding from above, empowering from without. Oh, I do know that there are many people, especially women, who wonder and protest such a patriarchal Divinity, even as they sing and praise otherwise. I know that many academics teach new ideas. Every Sunday School I ever attended and most preachers anywhere told me God was Love. And, yes, the Bible tells us so, too. 

What’s a girl to do? I fretted and even wrestled with this issue in my waking sleep. In my mind I howled at God, fretting about upcoming Pentecost and Trinity Sundays. What to say in my weekly blog? I thought God was silent because I could take care of this issue by myself. As I tossed about in my half-sleep I heard this: IT’S THE LANGUAGE!

It’s the language? The language?  I already know this. But what if this were God speaking directly to me? I thought it might truly be the bath kol  (Hebrew for the voice of God). If it were simply my own inner voice speaking to myself I’d have heard: “It’s the language, STUPID!”  

But God does not call anyone stupid. We do. 

*  *  *  * 

Feeling spiritually bolstered, I calmed down and considered exactly how and why words matter and words about God matter deeply?  I cringed at the number of times a good editor would write “WC” in my margins. WC= word choice, as in find a better word to make your point.  

It’s Trinity Sunday. I love the idea that God is One, a Creator whose singular divine immensity is shared with humanity and in all living things, yes flowers and weeds.

Now consider the language we Christians use to express this amazing mystery. 

FATHER=GOD  This WC is both gender-bound AND role-bound. Divinity is restricted.

SON=GOD        This WC is also restricted to male roles and gender. Jesus was a man. Christ, his title, is gender-free. 

HOLY SPIRIT = GOD  This WC is more free yet still is masculinized in some liturgies, some credal statements, and, though more mobile, remains exclusive. Some churches change the Spirits’ gender to She, but that feels condescending, a kindly and unofficial nod. 

This Trinitarian formula and its traditional language must be used by Episcopal clergy to baptize.

I used the required formula, adding another such as:  “I baptize you in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God, Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit.” My much longer-ordained spouse did the same.

Why quibble and bother? For me, the theological idea behind the Holy Trinity means the joining of humanity and divinity through sacramental grace—in Baptism and in Eucharist. When our WCs  bind BOTH divinity AND humanity into role and gender language, they undermine God the Creator’s immensity, restrict humanity and all nature, and generally fail to communicate what the Holy Trinity—three in one AND one in three— means. 

*  *  *  *

I’m an Episcopal priest, a spiritual director, and pastoral counselor, retired. I believe in the healing power of sacraments, music, and beautiful liturgy. I am not alone in feeling frustrated about the consistently patriarchal imaging of God in Christianity. I am also in my eighties, and I’m tired with not enough stamina to be a Job. 

Michael Hudson, Episcopal priest writes a meditation on cosmogenesis for Trinity:

The union of created life and God

eludes our understanding, but we trust

that here and now and through the sweep of time

we each exist in God. And God in us.” 

It is simply not that hard to get our WC’s together, to accurately represent an already beautiful idea, and to listen to God saying: IT’S THE LANGUAGE,  BELOVEDS.

Not only is the traditional language idolatrous, worshipping not God but the culture from which this language derives, it is also aesthetically clumsy. Try Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit.