2023.02.26 Ashen Days/Dusty Path, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

 

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. 

The repeated refrain on Ash Wednesday echoes in my mind. Is it just this one day called Ash, or is it all of Lent, or is there something more universally true about this dusty theme? Is the spiritual life one long unpaved path—straight, curved, twisted, hilly, full of distractions, temptations—tedious and irresistible? What keeps us on this path and why? 

People stream forward up the aisle and stand or kneel before a priest whose thumb, dampened with blessed healing oils presses into a small bowl of black ashes that stick. Over and over the priest smears the black ashes onto each upturned forehead, making the sign of the cross and saying: Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. 

This ritual kicks off the season of Lent, and shapes the whole season, one of reflection self-examination, grace and grit all the way to its climactic tragedy of Good Friday. Gloomy to say the least.    

Why is this ritual so popular?  You’d think it would fearful, depressing, overwhelming. Who wants to be reminded of their mortality? Many apparently do. 

When I worked as a chaplain in hospitals, staff would seek me out to get their ashes. Just the one phrase with the smearing and they hurried off to finish their day. Patients as well often requested ashes. I knew there were some who weren’t even Christian, including former Roman Catholics and young agnostics who had left the institutional church long ago, constrained by its rules and its gloom, not to mention their resistance to “organized” religion. Name me something that isn’t organized? Yoga, the spirit-calming practice, is very organized!  

Once the ashes I smeared floated down onto a recipient’s nose. She laughed. So did I. No point in being overly solemn or pious, as if we actually knew exactly what we were doing.  While working as chaplain in an alcohol/drug rehabilitation hospital I added a phrase to the traditional line: Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. And God by grace will restore you to fullness of life. It was cheap grace, arrogant idolatry, and playing at God, I know, but some of these people were so beaten down by disease. And I had difficulty leaving them in ashes.

I left my own ashes on all day long—profoundly convinced that Ash Wednesday is the most true and honest day of the Christian year. 

-There is not a single soul who doesn’t mess up, clean up, mess up again, and clean up again. 

-No one does anything without two motives, one truly altruistic and generous, the other secretly self-serving. 

-God does not lead anyone into temptation. We do! Then we pray for help from God and others to get back on track, to save us from ourselves. God is far more generous than we are.  

*  *  *  * 

Do you know that our bodies can actually be composted, turned into rich, fertile soil, in which new green life grows? Tis true. Far less costly to the environment than cremation. Now there’s a new beginning!    

2022.02.19 Transfigured? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

I am attracted to words, and today to  words that begin with with the prefix trans. Trans means across.  Transfigure means to move across, as the sun moves across the sky, crossing over the earth and thereby causing the earth’s light to shine. As its light passes it changes, transforms, enhances, illuminates, enlightens the whole landscape. This process is a transfiguration. I ponder trans word, transmogrify, which adds an almost magical dimension to my trans word games ie. a cucumber becomes a pickle. 

All those who witness trans movements feel changed in the moment.

There is a moment we Christians call THE Transfiguration, a time when Jesus chose the big three disciples (Peter, James, John) to accompany him up to the mountain called Tabor as he prayed. (NOTE: Israel is hilly, full of mounts, hillocks, rises, but not huge mountains like The Rockies or Giant Mountain in the Adirondacks in NY)

Imagine that you are one of those chosen disciples. You’re pretty exhausted as you trudge and climb, but you follow, imagining that something may actually come of this futile climb. You have not been forced to come on this journey, but you come—because Jesus invited you. I’d follow out of curiosity and my pride at being a confidante of Jesus whose light I would soon see for real and feel inside myself, for myself. The other two said they also saw Moses and Elijah in that light, but you didn’t, and Jesus seemed to be clueless about it. He just hustled you all down the mountain and continued with the ministry of listening love for all in need. 

Would you follow the light you saw? I would dash home and write all about it as if it might vanish or be forgotten. Would you wonder what it meant? I would. I would never forget it whether I understood it or not, yet I would remember that it all had something to do with prayer. Others in time wrote it all up, and still others would build a lovely Christian Church at the top of Tabor for future pray-ers, because prayer is what connects us all to one another and to God. See?

Mountainous transfiguring grandeur alone is enough to sweep you up, out of your fears, out of your doldrums, for just a minute or ten? You can experience it spiritually without climbing, and even without a mountain. 

Some mornings I gaze at the usual daily scenery outside my bedroom window: lines of tall trees, clipped golfing greens in the background and a few cars grounded in the parking lot. And then I see movement. Birds of course as usual. But this day there are many birds, not swarming but gathering. I count eight. They perch all at once, close and separate, on different branches atop the highest trees. They sit completely still—immobilized. I sit still—posed, paralyzed. I do not reach for binoculars. I just stare. Suddenly, without sound or any detectable warning signal, the birds all take flight at once—in unison, off and gone, vanishing into the sky for the day. I have just witnessed the morning meeting of the birds.  

Why, in that moment, did I not grab for the binoculars? Why did I delay my own purposive daily routine? Why didn’t I even glance at my schedule, check for appointments, make phone calls, bustle about as I usually do?

I saw something slightly different from what I expected. I felt internally transfigured, transfixed. I had no thoughts at all, which tells me that my mind was blanked, halted, yanked away from its thrumming drumbeat of a task: managing my life’s agenda in time and space. And I was conscious. Don’t tell me trance, dissociative shock, fixation or day-dreaming absent-mindedness. Don’t even tell me it was definitely God. 

No. I have no idea what happened to me. None. I just know it was a trans moment, inexplicably mystical and quotidian at once. 

2023.02.12 YES? NO? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

Let your YES be YES and your NO be NO. 

So it is written in the Bible, both Jewish and Christian testaments. Go look it up. We tend to think that the word of God is absolute and clear. Perhaps, in our limited moral capacity, it is that clear and easily obeyed.

Jesus and other sages all through time are consistent in saying something that is designed to set up a panic in any vulnerable heart, a heart that wants to get it right, that longs for justice, would die to please any and all authority figures, any and all loved ones, and avoid the delicate nature of choice, the impossible gift of freedom. 

Let your word be YES /YES or NO/ NO be the same; anything more than this comes from evil.  (Matthew 5:37). Say YES when you mean YES and NO when you mean NO.

*  *  *  *

Just after I received a Masters of Divinity from Yale Divinity School in 1982, and imagined myself as pretty smart—maybe a know-it-all, I was invited by our Connecticut local high school to teach a class on religion. This class of course was not required, but offered nonetheless. I imagine the schools were pretty desperate, because suddenly the school board decided to be whatever “liberal” meant. They could offer an optional class or two on religion which was off limits, because, after all, we Americans were still pledging allegiance to our nation as if it were God or at least “under” God. 

There I stood, quavering before a junior high school group of students, inquisitive and potentially hostile. They weren’t hostile, but they definitely wanted clear and definitive answers to their questions about faith, religion, church, sin and more. In those moments I felt alone and absolutely devoid of any and all knowing. 

A young girl waved her hand in the air and asked: “How do you know when you sin?” The room fell silent. I did too. Out of my mouth came these words: “You feel it.” I’m sure I elaborated a bit, but all I can remember is that these young students were satisfied, and I was saved. 

*  *  * *

YES and NO and MAYBE are matters of heart. or emotional intelligence. If you feel something to be wrong or right, it probably is. You are free to choose over and over. Likewise, 

God is free to choose love— over and over no matter what. 

 

2023.02.05 Shining a Light on Bruised Grace, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

How often do you say, aloud or to yourself, Well, it depends. . . 

Pope Francis tends to stay away from formal changes in Catholic Church doctrine, but, according to op. ed. writer, E.J. Dionne, Jr., “Pope stood up for LGBTQ lives” Hartford Courant, 2/4/23. The pope regularly moves the conversation from judgment to mercy, and from condemnation to encounter. 

He does a pretty good job of it. He wrote a handwritten note to clarify his remarks on homosexuality as sin. He said he was speaking of the official Church moral teaching about sexual acts outside of marriage as sin, intrinsically disordered. In itself it's not a crime. The Pope then distinguished between crime and sin, noting that "It's always a sin to lack charity with one another." Now this caveat tops all the rest. It also insists on case-by-case processing. It depends. 

Just think of all the absolutized doctrines—moral laws. They are many of them about sex with the onus on women and their bodies: no pre-marital sex, no divorce, no remarriage, difficulty getting annulments, no birth control, no abortion, not to mention celibacy for all religious vocations—priests, monks, nuns. Personally, I do not think we worship a God whose nature is defined as “moral”—not to suggest that God is immoral, but to say that God is never trapped by moral rules made by human minds.    

It may be cagey to resort to the “golden rule” to silence all protests or lobbies, but consider the office he holds and the multitudes he represents. He does not abandon Catholic moral teaching about sex outside marriage (I and many could be doomed or damned for that one!) At the same time, Pope Francis insists on a case-by-case approach, as in “one must also consider the circumstances. which may decrease or eliminate fault.”  It depends. 

When criticized, Francis responds:”Criticism helps you to grow and improve things, providing protection against a dictatorship of distance…where the emperor is there and no one can tell him anything.”  

*  *  *  *

So here we are once again confronted with what can be called situational ethics. It depends. See Romans 14: “Do not pass judgment on your brother or sister.” Paul elaborates to say that nothing in itself is unclean, yet if someone thinks it’s unclean it is unclean to that person. For example, if you know that your neighbor believes that pork is “unclean” then, do not serve pork chops for dinner, even if you do not think them unclean. To prove what? Your own superior knowledge? Now, that IS sinful!  Paul calls for “mutual upbuilding.” We cannot absolutize specific laws as applicable to everyone. It depends. I guess that is how the Bill of Rights began.  This is also why God does NOT share judgment with us. Only God may judge. Thanks be to God. 

In the beginning God created "original mixed"—my own bottom line for all this squabbling. Institutions have a very hard time making general rules or dogmas because they represent and legislate for so many different and varied members, without considerations.  It depends. 

The Episcopal Church does quite well with trying not to absolutize or dogmatize its canons, and yet the good old C of E (Church of England) just voted against allowing their clergy to officiate at same sex marriages, even though of course no individuals are condemned or rejected. And of course clergy may bless anyone. Such sleight!

*  *  *  *

I recommend the late Brian Doyle’s (1956-2017) Eight Whopping Lies and Other Stories of Bruised Grace. It takes the galloping energy of a poet who cares deeply for his faith to speak of unjust institutional biases with radical honesty and with faith. Bruised grace AND bruised faith. 

Doyle, former editor-in-chief of Portland Magazine, journal of Portland University, Portland, Oregon, cited eight classic lies as examples:  1) This won’t hurt a bit. Said with the large novocain-filled needle hidden at his or her side.  2) It is a peacekeeping operation. The alternative word is WAR!  Human sacrifice is alive and well. 3) My campaign is all about family values. “No it isn’t. If that were the case, why are there fifteen million American children who don’t have enough to eat today?” 4) God is on our side.“No, he isn’t, or she isn’t, and how incredibly foolish to even assign human gender to something we all admit is so unimaginably epic that any shred of claim to knowledge let alone intimacy is lunatic, not to mention murderous.” 

May we move our conversations from judgment to mercy and condemnation to encounter.  AMEN.  

2023.01.29 On Following—Many Beatitudes

We read in the New Testament that a small band of Jews followed Jesus of Nazareth around as he taught and preached and healed. He advocated and preached a radical renewal of the covenant between God and the people—a covenant to love God, self and neighbor in the constant, peaceful ways Jesus taught, and for which he eventually was crucified. It is a covenant of hard blessings that challenge power politics in all cultures and in all religions. 

God promises to provide grace divine with and for ALL human conditions as we try to use our freedom to love not hate, as we try and fail, and fall and flail, as we stumble and straighten, as we live and die. The delicate balance between divine grace and human freedom is precarious to say the least. So how do we respond?   

Using some natural metaphors offered by Episcopal priest and hymnist Michael Hudson, I offer some elaborations.

The grace of God is like a road—it beckons but does not drive or force.

The voice of God is like the wind—it comes and goes as we manage the “sails” of life.

    If we pull too tight, trying to control the wind, we capsize. If we don’t pull at all, fearing the wind’s power and our own, 

    we go nowhere—becalmed.  

The strength of God is like a stone—cold, hard, eventually worn thin. 

     Pick up many stones as you grow and go.  

The hope of God is like the sun by day and the stars by night—alway there 

    to guide.

The love of God is like a stream—slaking all thirsts.

The peace of God is like a friend—constant company, 

    attuned accompanist, weakened strengthener.  

Road, wind, stone, sun, stream, friend.  

You really will—never be alone, always be blessed.     

2023.01.22 Transcendence? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

For a long time, I’ve wondered about divine transcendence, or at least its defining dominance over the image of God. 

My wondering started when, as a toddler, I sat cross-legged under a large dining room table and shared all my intimate chatter with a God who, according to my favorite book, listened to all “weeny” sounds, including mine. Thus I learned that I mattered. I followed my listening God looking in all the traditional places—Sunday School, church, seminary, retreats, Bible study, getting ordained priest to be closer to the Christ. Everywhere I looked God was always portrayed as transcendent, far off, high, almighty. There was the idea of divine immanence—the God who existed and operated from within, of whom I’d heard, and about whom I write. It gets published, yes, and I do not hear or see much about this close-up God for whose presence I’ve so longed. Was there something wrong with me? Or was there something wrong with traditional teachings, imagery and language?  I had swallowed transcendence, yet never really digested it.  

I’m old enough now to make up a new word: transimmanence.  God should be both transcendent and immanent in public prayer. Is it time to bring the God I met under the table out from under in transimmanent language and song?

*  *  *  *

We recently watched a Netflix documentary, “Pope Francis, a Man of His Word”.  It is a well done movie about, let’s say, the travels of Pope France around the world. Details of his travels are  interspersed with some of his own words of wisdom. He knows and speaks many languages, but he speaks mostly in his own first language, Spanish. Subtitle captions are provided. As I watched mesmerized, I chuckled thinking, “Is the Pope Catholic?”—a phrase that describes something we think to be unquestionably obvious. After I watched this magnificent film, I found myself in awe at the catholicity of this man’s actions and message, and at the same time I thought: “This isn’t even that Catholic!”  What I meant was that this amazing leader, by direct word and action, knocked the stuffy, stiff, preachy, rule-bound rigor right out of the tradition-bound institutional Church’s backbone—in an intimate, kind, and wise way. He simply did this with his own presence. He was never not the Pope, that is, not trying to pretend he was not who he is, holding the high office he does. He was authentic, that’s all. I remembered Vatican II and Pope John, 23rd in 1970, saying something like: ”I want to throw open the windows of the church so that we can see out and the people can see in.” 

Perhaps Pope Francis dares to embody this transimmanence? 

I recall the early Church “Fathers” struggled to define orthodox Christianity. They had similar ideas about the nature of Christ. 

Wanting more, however, I shall continue to beleaguer my listening God with my battering ram mind, the same at 84 as it was at 4. 

Some people call this nagging. I call it faith.  

2023.01.15 A First Waking, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

So much of what we all hear and see in the news, from our pulpits, and in our biblical stories is basically: WAKE UP people. WE gotta change. There are differing definitions and interpretations about what that change should be, but it’s pretty clear to me that the change is internal, changes of hearts, in the flesh—not rioting and street violence. This is a very tall order given our differences and our attachments to individualISM and INdependence.  For this change we gotta include ALL Mama Earth. We gotta do it IN the flesh. And we gotta include GOD, by every name known.  

*  *  *  *

Birthing comes to my mind, specifically, birthing my first child—flesh of my flesh— and my own first-time realization of the power of my own uterus to push life itself from the dark inner womb into the glare of the light of the world. This process was full of excruciating pain and shock for mother and child, and it is I think too glib, or at least it is for me, to toss aside or minimize the impact of the monumental change that takes place at birth.  It can only be completed in and by a woman’s flesh. My husband was present, standing by, watching me groan and howl and push with all my might—for hours, eternity I thought. In this joint creative effort, he got all the pleasure, and I did the work.  

Of course I was overjoyed with my amazing 8 lbs 13 oz squalling infant daughter. I was also terrified, partly at teeny undershirts and huge diaper pins (1963, no Pampers), and partly at the commitment to being a good mother, which meant losing my independence. Yes, I chose that vocation, and yes, often I failed and flailed, and no, I do not regret the ongoing painful intimacy of loss and joy motherhood brings.    

In giving of your own flesh you simultaneously lose the control you thought you had in the running of your embodied life. Child-bearing, more than marriage or vocation, or any other vowed bodily commitment, means signifiant loss of independence—freely undertaken, usually though not always.  The only way to live with this loss is to weep, and in the tears find the necessary lubrication to see Beauty, just as God as Creator shows the biblical heckler, Job: Look. Take it in. All this creation I accomplished without you and for you!! This is where it’s at.

Such profound change is both brilliant with hope and frightening with challenge—all at once.  All I could do was follow my heart and love my dear daughter to the best of my ability. For her, coming into life was the trauma and shock of Being itself, first the slap and scream, then the cleansing, then at last a warm, womb-simulating blanket, in this case pink, and finally her mother’s arms and breasts. (There was no advice on nursing in 1963, and my equipment wasn’t equipped enough. Not wanting to starve my daughter, I fed her with bottled formula, which she loved.) In time there was Baptism in which a big man took her out of my arms (kidnapped), tried to drown her with water (Baptism), then called her “Christ’s own forever” while a whole congregation clapped, and cameras flashed. Shocking! 

From Kahlil Gibran’s book The Prophet:  On baptisms: ”Your children are not your children. / They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. / They come through you but not from you, / And though they are with you they belong not to you.”    

*  *  *  *

As limited as my personal analogy may be, I imagine that God experiences this ongoing entire mix of pain and joy in giving birth to all life, sharing the divine nature with every living thing, all of which, comically and expectedly, goes instantly out of control. But that’s the point and the purpose isn’t it?  The only way to live with such loss is to weep, and in the tears find the necessary lubrication to see—and love— Abundant Beauty.    

God gives God’s own life into Creation, and in this act of radical sharing relinquishes control over project Life. The best definition of the nature of God I learned from Anglican priest/theologian, John Macquarrie who described God this way:  

     

GOD IS LETTING-BE AND DRAWING-NEAR.