2024.08.18, Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, Transition Tradition Prayer.

Transition.Tradition. Prayer.

Now this, it seems to me, is a grounded and love-inspiring prayer to say in a parish church, in any gathered community, in any country, at your own dining table, even alone—anywhere.  It’s about coming together for its own sweet sake.

Gracious and loving God, you know the needs of your Church in every place; look graciously upon us, the people of All Saints, and grant us the guidance of your Holy Spirit through this time of transition and discernment. Bless us with mutual trust, respect, and courage, for each other, and give us wisdom and confidence in your timing. May we continue to be strengthened in our mission  to “come and be fed, seek and love God, and serve each person as Christ.” All this we ask in your Name. 

The prayer is being used by a parish in transition in the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe. Many thanks to the Rt. Rev. Mark Edington, Bishop of the Convocation, for posting this on his Facebook page.  

2024.08.11 COMMUNITY? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post, 8.11.24

Does it seem odd to you that so many of us talk about the need for community and peace and reconciliation for peace—and yet we often continue to preach, teach and escalate warlike behavior?

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I don’t know about you, but as I age I feel lonely, and it’s not because there are no people around, nor because I am living alone with no husband or roommate; nor is it because I am mildly disabled, nor because my dear husband is inattentive. I could be lazy of course, but………..

So why do so many of us Americans feel this isolation? Years ago I read a small and I thought silly book by Robert Putnam called “Bowling Alone.”  I remember thinking it was a strange idea  Obviously, no one bowls alone—really. 

When I was a college freshman we had to select a sport. I chose bowling, thinking it the least stressful since it was duckpins and the alley was usually empty since no one chose bowling as their sport. I was lonely bowling alone! Putnam advocated bowling teams! Social isolation is bad for one’s health. Too much INdependence increases loneliness.

The retirement community where we now live trumpets its core value: aging in place independently—an oxymoronic term in itself. Hardly a day goes by that most of us do not experience some symptom of the aging process, mentally, physically or psychologically. Some of us, including myself, live with a spouse but most live alone. 

A common fear seems to be falling. We have learned that a call to 911 will bring local police to execute a “lift assist”  should we not have the strength to get up. Some of us spend the money for lifelines to wear around our neck. Once I had to fish about in a neighbor’s bodice to find her lifeline to call for help. I am not the only one who feels sudden alarm whenever I hear the approach of an ambulance. Where is it going? Who are the sirens for? Who is on that stretcher? Who died? If I call for information I am told about HIPAA ie. we can’t legally reveal medical info about, and we certainly cannot tell you if someone died. I read the obit before the news. 

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Robert Putnam recently wrote an essay published in the N.Y Times Magazine, July 21, 2024. He asserted that we must create community which requires energy and investment—social capital. Putnam identified two types of social capital—bonding and bridging.  Bonding capital means sticking with others who are like you. Bridging capital is sticking with those who are not like you. I did not think of bowling, I thought of American partisan politics right now. 

Obviously, bonding is easier than bridging, yet we need both kinds of social capital to create COMMUNITY-in-PLACE— the only ground fertile enough for us all to nourish God, self, neighbor and neighborhood—all at once. 

2024.08.04 CORRUPTION? Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

I became so corrupted by constant discussions and varying definitions, not to mention accusations, of corruption charges tossed about, I had to look up the word in the most faithful source of accurate information I know: The New Oxford American Dictionary (laboriously edited and regularly updated by word freaks and accuracy demons like myself.)  

I don’t know if I’m right but it’s a good bet that this dictionary, over time, has as many revisions, additions, and updates as the Bible itself. Both of these resources most people trust and hold quite sacred. They evolve as we do. 

*  *  *  *

It's worth considering the original roots of the verb CORRUPT (to break altogether altogether) It means to cause to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain, to cause to become depraved for money, that is, not simply to make unintentional errors by true and correctable mistake, but rather to  CAUSE ERROR/ERRORS TO APPEAR ON A BROAD DATABASE—WITH INTENTION.  

*  *  *  *

Can the Arts save us from corruption?  During the Black Power movement in the 1960s, I wondered what made power, or music, or poetry black. Poet Robert Hayden wrote about the experience of black people, just as I wrote about the experience of myself as a white woman lobbying for the ordination of women in the Episcopal Church, and about the spiritual necessity of liberating Divinity from being corrupted by the exclusive use of masculine pronouns. 

Poet Robert Hayden, born Asa Bundy Sheffey in Detroit (1913) wrote about the experience in such poems as "John Brown's Body" and "Middle Passage," about the slave trade. He said:  “There’s no such thing as black literature. There's good literature and there's bad. And that's all!”  

When Louis Armstrong, a trumpet player of jazz, was asked what black jazz was, he replied, “Good Lord, man, if you have to ask that you don’t even know what jazz is!”

*  *  *  *

There’s no such thing as black or white, male or female preaching. There are just good, lively sermons and flat boring ones. Good Lord, people, Jesus wasn’t a Jew who converted, corrupted his own religion, or started a new religion. He was simply a wise itinerant Jew exposing an already present Loving Divinity. We are to act accordingly. 

 

2024.07.28 "Daft. Desperate. Undaunted" Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

 

The phrase "daft, desperate, undaunted" popped into my mind as I talked with a poet/friend about the chaos of my own struggles trying to “ease” my swollen legs into compression stockings. Such things are spoken of with casual confidence by professional surgeons and nurses who do not live inside the ugly bulged up skin of my lower legs? They call such swellings  seromas. Write, said the poet.

Nurse friends suggested that I should tackle this problem BEFORE I arose from my supine position in the morning. Perfect! But what about my equally pressing need to urinate, not to mention the disruption I’d cause my sleeping-beauty spouse. To toss or to turn that was the question. I wet my "dependables" and went back to sleep. Daft. 

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Do you think this might be exactly how the followers of Jesus felt when he popped onto the scene beckoning them to drop everything and follow him? What? Why? What’s in it for me? Are not these the questions most of us would ask when confronted with what looks like an impossible situation?  Would we not laugh?  Would we not judge this stranger daft and desperate? That’s what I thought when my vascular surgeon advised me to bind up the bulbous swelling underneath the skin of my lower legs where fluid had re-accumulated, even after the surgeon had already pierced and drained them. And even when these stockings were so stiff I couldn’t even insert my toes into them without herculean effort and the strength of my nurse/spouse.  

The obvious response would be to say, NO I’m outta here. I grabbed my walker, followed my beloved spouse to dinner, and ate my fill of everything in sight. Desperate.

*  *  *  *

In the morning we got the compression stockings out to stretch them. They are actually now on my legs by dint of will power, humor, loving camaraderie, and downright orneriness. Also, by adding one word to my repertoire: undaunted. 

 

I have more energy. No wonder! It’s all driven from my lower legs straight up to my whirling brain, the one that daily dabbles in mystical cogitations.   

“Apprehend God in all things.” Meister Eckhart (1894-1963), a German mystic and teacher interested in the commonness of things, was considered dangerous in his day. Apprehend means to capture, arrest, grasp in order to appreciate, not as a prisoner but as an object of affection, adoration, and yes, some hesitancy of apprehension.   

Today I will imagine myself apprehending God, catching the tailwind of divine energy.  

2024.07.21 GROUNDED. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post

Life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts and minds of those who travel the way with us, so be swift to love and make haste to be kind.   Henry-Frederic Amiel

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When I lie in bed in the morning waiting for the courage to heave myself up and onto my walker to then tackle my urge to self-empty, I first watch the birds. I notice how long they stay still, eerily immobile, before they burst into flight. Are they sizing up their flight plans? They soon spread their broad wingspan and push up and off. As they trust the support of their wings they flatten their spindly legs up and under against their bodies, so their legs become quite invisible. (Look Ma, no legs!)  Then they are ready to soar. 

Kids are so enamored of this flight process they entertain themselves making paper airplanes to pitch and soar about planting messages of love or taunting wherever they land.  

My own legs await take off. They’ve just been freed of swollen seromas, (collections of fluid under aging thinning skin.) The fluid had gathered uninvited under the skin to create ugly bulges and keep me from wearing any summer shorts. I am more dependent on my own twiggy legs to support my “flight” than any bird. I cannot tuck my suddenly overweight legs up and under for a smooth flight like this Tern can. (Don't check the abs, check the wee legs tucked in tight.)

Yesterday I went to see a vascular surgeon who’d promised to take care of my swellings. He did, and now one of my legs is covered with white compression bandages. The other leg shed its wrappings and my live-in nurse/beloved spouse created a makeshift bandage while I called out critiques. 

The process was fascinating. Dr. D’Addario, whose first name is not “Hi Ho”, sat on a stool at my feet while I posed on the examining table and extended my legs. In a slow and dignified manner, the doctor, punctured my seroma with a razor sharp surgical knife—“just a little prick.” 

As he gently pressed, a perfectly curled fountain arched out until my seroma was flat-out emptied, leaving behind a bunch of aged wrinkly skin around which the surgeon wound or unwound gauze bandage to cover and compress my legs, newly returned to their twiggy best.  

But will these spindles hold me up so I can walk without assistance? Or will they be forced to tuck under while I fly like a bird?  Perhaps I shall grow wings next. Because no one really knows what “aging-in-place independently” will look like for me as I approach my 86th birthday.  

2024.07.14 Me and Charles Dickens and Mr. Adams. Lyn G. Brakeman, Spiritual Lemons, blog post.

It is not hard to imagine how scared, mad, and abandoned Jesus’s eager followers felt when he announced his plans to turn and head to Jerusalem, leaving them to continue the mission. They went from followers to leaders, just like that!

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A Tale of Two Cities begins, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way …"

This is why I love, loved and still love the world of the crotchedy old master, Charles Dickens. I was hesitant, critical, not impulsive—yet deeply, shyly, compassionately in love with every morsel of Life, no matter its status.

This was why Mr. Adams, my favorite English teacher in high school, challenged us to think and write true/new thoughts. To every senior who made it into his English class, he assigned a writer for our final research paper. Mine was Charles Dickens. Did he want me to write about Ebenezer Scrooge or Tiny Tim or both at once? I wrote about myself, my own great expectations as a girl, about Miss Havisham raging and raving in her torn wedding dress, and, accidentally, about God or Jesus or some such. How did Mr. Adams know?  

Contemporary theologian, the Rev. Brian McLaren, writes: ”Before Christianity was a rich and powerful religion, before it was associated with buildings, budgets, crusades, colonialism or televangelism, it began as a revolutionary nonviolent movement promoting a new kind of aliveness on the margins of society.” 

I bet it was as hard for Dickens to write his cranky critiques as it was for me to listen to the God/Holy Spirit buried deeply in my own soul. Dickens died in 1870. I’m still alive and writing in 2014, my latest upcoming book is: “My Racisms in Snapshots”. There are saving solutions and hope, despair and ruin all at once. 

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When the novelist Charles Dickens died, he had a stroke and fell off his chair at the dinner table. Dickens asked to be buried "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," so even though he was buried in Westminster Abbey, it was a secret funeral, early in the morning, with only 12 mourners. But the grave was left open for a week and thousands of people, all types of people, came to throw in flowers for the man whose tomb is inscribed with these words: "He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world.”

AMEN. 

 

2024.07.07 Who DID Write the New Testament Anyway? Lyn G. Brakeman, blog post

When I read biblical readings about politics, the politics of St. Paul stand out! Paul  frantically wrote to fulfill his calling to spread the good news preached by Jesus of Nazareth, or Galilee, or Ephesus, or Corinth, or in your heart. Paul was a convert, not programmed to endear many, and admitting he was wrong—sometimes.   

I remember the omnipresent and ever-irritating examination question in the final exam for the course in New Testament at Yale Divinity School. Students knew it was coming. We had been well prepared. We knew our stuff, yet everyone quivered.

WAS there a “right” answer? 

The question:  Who wrote the New Testament, Jesus or Paul? 

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I plunged fearlessly in with every intention of making my case for Jesus. I ended up with Paul. Why? In short, my personality is just like Paul’s. Thanks to the patriarchal culture of  his day (mine as well!) it took time. This Jesus was not selling yet another religion, or himself as THE Messiah, but rather a gospel full of parabolic stories about people who broke rules for the sake of justice. It got Jesus crucified of course, but Paul picked up the roots and the wings by which ALL Creation could connect and live peacefully. 

The Great Commandment: Do NOT do to others what you would not have them do to you. God, how boldly simple that is?  To call it LOVE is dramatically misleading. You simply have to treat all living things (land, plants, animals, yourself, all neighbors) with compassion and respect, just as their Creator does.  

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In the 1970s in the Episcopal Church, I jumped into my own simmering desire to stand behind an altar as a priest of the Eucharist, rather than kneel at a rail, my hands up, my tongue extended, begging to be fed. I know “they” called such a posture humility, but I experienced it as humiliating. 

The Episcopal Church had its own hoops through which an aspirant would jump.The screening committee told me I would be embarking on a “dual vocation.” I could not be a mother AND a priest. I thought of Paul rushing about nagging anyone who would listen, grabbing himself a travel companion, revising his manuscript as he went, and traversing a huge desert called “holy.” I followed. 

It took me well over the expected time it took anyone to get ordained. I did not get tossed into prison like Paul, but if I had I’d have tried to sing hymns, as Paul did. Like Paul, I found friends and allies along my way. Also, I wrote letters to God who from the beginning had listened to my ramblings, dwelled in my heart, and taken me seriously. 

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My memoir, God Is Not a Boy’s Name. Becoming Woman. Becoming Priest, was published in 2016. Like Paul, I’ve continued to hammer and chisel away at the patriarchal armor through which the expansive love of God continues to shine, no matter what. Like Paul, I trusted divine omnipresence more than divine omnipotence. Paul’s first letter to the squabbling new churches in Corinth felt familiar. “The Spirit searches everything—even the depths of God. . .” (I Cor. 2)

Paul never gave up, broke every law on the books, fiercely and naively insisted that divinity was greater than all our imaginings. He did not found any single church! WE did. 

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So who did write the New Testament? Paul of course! Jesus didn’t have time to write!

Now I’m 85 years old. I’m still talking and writing without ceasing about that steadfast God Paul trusted. Me too.