SPARK Round 15: done and done

So, despite the scatteredy-ness of my brain these days what with work and so many other things, I did manage to produce a couple of poems for SPARK. Greatly appreciated working with Jenny Mathews on this round, and love both of her pieces.

Jenny's inspiration piece and my response are here, and my inspiration piece and Jenny's response are here.

If you're interested in participating in SPARK at some point, there's deets on the getsparked.org site. I never fail to find this a really nourishing and encouraging experience. Plus, it makes me write, which is sometimes a challenge.

Peace out.

Lament – for what is and what cannot be

(Image to the right is "God Speaks to Job from the Whirlwind" by William Blake, and I found it here.)

The below is a piece I wrote this morning for our "Liturgy for Anxious Times" at Church of the Common Table. People responded really favorably, some with how they resolve these tensions in themselves and some by merely acknowledging how it resonated with them, so I thought I'd share it here.

Lament - for what is and what cannot be

Sometimes I fear that You will speak to me out of the whirlwind
and sometimes I fear that You won’t.

Thank You for my job. Thank you for my paycheck… oh dear Jesus, THANK YOU for my paycheck. Thank You for my beautiful nieces. Thank You for the miracle of my little church community. Thank You for my generous, caring, and gentle friends. Thank You for my warm and cozy apartment. Thank You for my health. Thank You for my pleasant and safe walk from the Metro to my apartment and back. Thank You for the cherry trees in the courtyard outside my window.

Sometimes I fear that You will speak to me out of the whirlwind
and sometimes I fear that You won’t.

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about the women repeatedly raped by the members of the LRA in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Not a day.

I force myself not to think of the burned bodies of Christians murdered by Islamic militants in Nigeria.

I try not to think too hard about the Government slaughter of innocents in Syria, Iran, and even in Egypt as those people press for change. I try not to think of all the horrific murders in Mexico and Colombia, victims of the drug war. I try not to think of the torture of dissidents in China. I try not to think of those who are “disappeared” all over the world for speaking out against the Governments of their nations.

Every day I live with this, Father, “comfortable” at the top of the food chain –and truly, truly grateful for what I have-- but sick with what I know happens in this world. I know that for many people, I –a privileged white American— have a causal connection to the rest of the world’s suffering… that, to some, I am an enzyme in the gut of the American monster, parasitic and pointless as she goes about ravaging the world.

Sometimes I fear that You will speak to me out of the whirlwind
and sometimes I fear that You won’t.

I cannot shut out the suffering I read about.
And I can’t believe that all those who suffer are among the “unrighteous”
And I cannot do much to help them at all.
And I am afraid that if I complain too loud that I will suffer, too.

And the truth is I struggle to get through the things that concern me in my life. My own life is enough stress for me to deal with. Work, bills, health, life decisions, relationships, chores, the mere getting back and forth between places in the DC metropolitan area… it’s all enough pressure, and sometimes it seems like too much.

I really thought I’d be helping more, LORD. I thought I’d be doing more to help the world.

Sometimes I fear that You will speak to me out of the whirlwind
and sometimes I fear that You won’t.

I love You and I long to believe in Your goodness, and I know that the world’s evil can’t be blamed on You… that it also has to be blamed on the failure of people to act for justice. I know that someone sold the LRA their guns. I know that many of the arms on the world market are there because they were sold after the Cold War. I don’t blame You for that.

But, but… I have seen the righteous forsaken, and their children begging for bread. Not my family, not anyone around me. But I don’t believe that the “righteous” are only those who go to my church. I can’t believe that those who suffer deserve it. And I can’t make it make sense. I can’t just live with it and not feel anxious.

Sometimes I fear that You will speak to me out of the whirlwind
and sometimes I fear that You won’t.

LORD, I want to be a force for hope. I want to be so much more than I am, to be able to take the gifts and the immense privilege that You have given me, and to share that, somehow... to make up for what I have that the vast majority of people do not. On good days, I feel like Esther, with Mordecai saying “you were put here, in this place, for this hour, so that you can influence those in power.” But LORD, I feel so powerless… physically comfortable, psychologically very uncomfortable, and unable to influence *anyone* of importance.

And in truth, I don’t know that justice can be done as long as I stay at the top of the food chain. I don’t know that.

Sometimes I fear that You will speak to me out of the whirlwind
and sometimes I fear that You won’t.

Forgive me, LORD, if my questions are a sin. I know that You know all and that I don’t. I know that You know of the plight of the suffering around the world. But what scares me is I’m sure that those women in the Congo pray, and pray fervently, every day… unless they’ve stopped because they’re too traumatized to pray. What scares me is that I am sure that everyone who is oppressed and terrified prays. So why are the nightmarish, parasitical leaders of so many nations still so powerful? I know that my country has upheld dictators in the past when it served our strategic interests. I know that everywhere that there is (or might be) oil, my country has a strategic interest. This makes me sick.

I mourn for what I thought was possible in my life. I mourn for my own contradictions. I mourn for those who suffer, and I mourn for the blindness of some who do not. I mourn for the vision of America that I was raised with, that is so complicated to me now. I want to hope, I want to help others hope, but I have to be honest with You, LORD, I am afraid for this world. Please forgive me.

Sometimes I fear that You will speak to me out of the whirlwind
and sometimes I fear that You won’t.

Resurrection

This is a poem about being beat half to death by life, and of looking God in the eye and daring Him to heal you. For my best friend.

(This poem came so quickly that I suspect I'm copying at least part of someone else's work. I hope not. If so, I'm sorry.)

Resurrection

Raise me up from ashes, burning...
Dreams that fall from me like stars,
scars that mark where I have tried
and failed, and bathe myself in ashes.

Raise me up from ashes, crying
tears like tiny raindrops, dropping
down to earth and watering
the flowers that will grow around my feet.

Raise me up from ashes, clutching
pain, and teach me how to let it go.
I wear the past like a coat of skins.
I'm tired of blood. Set me free.

Raise me up from ashes, lighting
a fire to fuel me forward, towards
resurrection. Ascending, I will rise
towards You, and reach out my hand.

Raise me up from ashes, singing.
Raise me up from ashes, dancing.
Raise me up from ashes, battle-weary,
scarred, with fire in my eyes.

Raise me up, let me shine,
and I will sing Your praise.

Hail Mary, Bad-Ass Queen of Heaven

(image from http://stwalburgas.blogspot.com/2009/01/mary-queen-of-heaven.html)

So next Sunday at Church of the Common Table, the Fabulous Dr. Weave and I will be leading a service on Mary. Mary and I have some Issues, so I thought that rather than make my contribution to next week's service a giant therapy session for Moffitt, I'd hash this out on the blog. Because, you know, the internet is a great place to work out one's Issues. *cough*

So, a couple of things have happened lately that have me re-hashing The Catholic Years. I know I've mentioned this before on the blog, but I was received into the Roman Catholic Church on the Feast of St. Lucia (December 13), 1997 at St. Mary of the Angels in Bayswater, London, not very far from Notting Hill. As part of being received into the church, I took the name Elizabeth after Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American to be canonized by the church, and an American woman who, like me, had found the Church while living in Europe. I remained Catholic until I was received into the Episcopal Church in November of 2001.

I was a Very Good Catholic, particularly when I was living in England. I prayed the rosary regularly, prayed morning and evening prayer almost every day, went to Mass at least once a week and spent regular time in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. I was always in at least one choir in one church. In the summer of 1997, while I was in the process of converting, I fasted and prayed the rosary (often in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament) for three separate intentions, all three of which were answered. My friends at the time joked that I should be canonized. I became engaged to my Catholic boyfriend in July of 1998, and moved the following month back from the U.S. (where I'd returned to finish college) to the U.K. to marry him.

A year later, all three of my intentions had reversed themselves, meaning that two people who'd been "healed" were dead, and another situation that had righted itself had gone completely off the tracks again. My fiance had dumped me three weeks before our wedding and four weeks before my visa for the U.K. expired. After much discussion, I found that the main reason that my fiance had ended things was because he felt I would not make a good wife and mother. His main reason for asserting this was because I told him that I wanted to travel and see the world at some point.

I blamed him for wrecking my life with his last-minute revelation, but I also blamed Mary. I'd prayed countless times for her intercession for this relationship in addition to other intentions. I didn't see how I had an option but to believe that praying for her intercession had been a bad idea... not only had I not gotten what I'd asked for, but I'd hoped more than I ever would have had I not believed there was something extra-special about her prayers.

But more than that, I blamed the constant teaching of the Church about Mary and about her example for women. Almost every statue or image of Mary I'd ever seen, she was demurely looking down, either at Baby Jesus or just... down... like the Queen of Heaven was afraid to even meet *my* eye as I prayed for her intercession. Over and over again in sermons during Mass, I heard the phrase "she said yes" (referring to her response to the Archangel Gabriel) folded into messages that painted the Perfect Woman as passive, quiet, subsuming all her desires (and, evidently, her personality) to the whims and wishes of her husband and children.

I was pretty sure I knew that, on a level maybe he wasn't even aware of, Phil was comparing me to this Perfect Woman. *Mary* wouldn't want to travel. *Mary* wouldn't want to work outside the home, and Mary sure as hell wouldn't be spending time writing poetry or looking for singing gigs outside of the church (both of which I was doing). Oh, and Mary wouldn't swear. Or drink as much as I did (and do), or laugh as loud. Or talk at all, actually, unless responding to a direct question. I REALLY tried to be what Phil wanted me to be, tried to live up to all the unsubtle messages about the archetype to whom I was expected to conform. But I couldn't.

Of course, over time I've become convinced that neither did Mary.

When I turn away from the Church's later teachings on Mary, and instead just go to the New Testament, I don't find a lot about Mary, and what I do find does NOT suggest a person of passivity. This is what I find:

- A young woman who looked THE FREAKING ARCHANGEL GABRIEL in the EYE and said "Yessir, I will give birth to the SON OF GOD." What the what?? This gives me chills even while I'm typing it. The word "precocious" doesn't even begin to cover the kind of Stone Cold Badassery it would take to

a) TALK TO one of the FREAKING HOST OF HEAVEN and

b) calmly agree to give birth to THE SON OF GOD.

She had to have known that doing this was going to put her seriously on the outs with everyone in her family, who would have absolutely zero motivation to believe her story about being impregnated by GOD and not by the cute boy that lived down the street. And she said yes *anyway*. This may be because she had a rock-solid faith and understood her relation to God as God's servant, but also because she was confident in her ability to make this decision and to deal with the inevitable shit-storm that was going to follow.

- A woman who, directly before her due date (and after above-mentioned shit-storm, which involved, among other things, being sent packing by her fiance so she didn't get stoned to death for adultery), was informed that she had to make a long journey because of some impersonal ruler in a far away place, and upon arriving at the destination, gave birth to her first-born possibly unaided by anyone except her husband and in a BARN. No pain meds, no birthing pool, just push that sucker out in a pile of hay surrounded by animal dung a few steps from the hooves of Bessie the Cow. Again, it took serious physical and mental strength to get through this ordeal.

- A woman who, only a year or so after giving birth was forced to flee to a foreign country and live as a refugee until the Insane King who wanted to murder her son died.

- A pragmatic problem solver who was not afraid to ask Jesus to step in and be Mr. Fix It in a Situation of Social Awkwardness. There is no story about Mary I relate to more than the Wedding Feast at Cana. I could TOTALLY see myself doing what Mary did. The conversation reminds me of the kind of conversation I might have had with my brother when we were teenagers (I kind of acted like his Mom... he'd be the first to acknowledge this):

Me: Ben... BEN, listen to me.

Ben: (annoyed) What??

Me: They're getting ready to run out of wine. (raising eyebrows) We can't let that happen now, CAN we??

Ben: (even more annoyed) What do you want ME to do about it??

Me: (to the waitstaff) Do whatever he tells ya.

Not suggesting that my brother is Jesus, of course, but it just feels familiar to me as someone who fixes problems quickly and often really doesn't care how it gets done. This is not the action of a passive, shrinking violet, or someone overly concerned with propriety. Mary was not the slightest bit afraid to ask the Son of the Almighty God to fix an immediate, practical problem involving a shortage of alcohol. *This* is a woman after my own heart.

- A woman who, upon hearing that her son had been lead away and sentenced to death, went to the foot of his cross to watch him die in one of the most gruesome ways possible. I know that mothers love their children to the point of death, but watching your child bleed to death slowly is, again, not the action of a person with your normal amount of stamina. I can see a mother not being able to handle this, or not being able to remain in front of it.

I can also imagine that it took quite a bit of doing to get to Golgotha, since Jesus' execution was kind of a Thing and there were undoubtedly a ton of people there to witness it. Mary was no spring chicken by this point, but she got herself there through the crowds and the chaos and probably a security checkpoint or two (there was a healthy amount of fear about Jesus' followers) because there was no other place she could possibly be but beside her dying son (who had, by the way, three years earlier refused to settle down and have grandkids, quit his job, left her and his home and the family business and wandered around for 3 years causing trouble with the religious authorities [which would, of course, equal trouble for his family... we don't have this in the scriptures but I can't imagine they were left alone through all of this]).

The bottom line for me is that I believe I and many other women who have loved (or been raised among) Catholic men have suffered directly from being compared to an image of Mary that doesn't fit what little there is about her in the Bible. I find this an abuse of Mary, and an abuse of women who aren't particularly demure or soft-spoken... not that I'm hating on women who are demure and soft-spoken, but as it so happens I don't really possess either quality, and neither do most of my female friends. To me, these are character traits, not moral qualities... but in my experience as a Catholic, they were raised to the level of virtue. I consider this to be tragic for women whom God has made with gifts of vision and leadership, women who are eloquent and talented and who shine even when they're not trying to. I'm not talking about myself, by the way... I'm thinking of specific women I've known who have suffered greatly beneath the Church's teaching on women... have suffered as they've attempted to emulate a neutered, silent, weak-spirited version of Mary not supported by the Scriptures. Women who, unlike me, chose to stay and suffer.

When I envision having peace with Mary again, I imagine a Mary who would look me in the eye and tell me to get my shit together... with love, but also with a gleam in her eye that would let me know she was serious and would open up a can on me without a moment's hesitation if necessary. I imagine Mary with a firm jaw, saying "Yes, if I could bear the Son of God, bear the shame of my pregnancy and all of the difficulties with and questions around raising Him... and then watch Him die, then you can handle what God places in your life." I imagine a Mary who even now says "that's not too trifling a problem for me to take to God for you. Hold on, I'll be right back." I imagine her tough and strong and a little weathered. She was a carpenter's wife, after all. It's not like she had it easy.

And I also imagine her slowly shaking her head at all of the people who have promoted an image of her as weak and passive and demure... and I imagine her having a word or two with God about THAT, too.

If I make peace with Mary, it'll be with Mary, Bad-Ass Queen of Heaven... and I'll ask her prayers for a Church that accepts women as they are, quiet or loud; leaders or followers; with many children, few or none; married or single. Maybe I could go to that Church again someday. Maybe.

the optimist, waiting

So, my friend Richard Russeth wrote and posted a beautiful poem today, which inspired me to try and write a poem, too, since it's been a while. It's not great, but it's what I have today.

the optimist, waiting

Hope sits out here, glittering,

like a hill of ruby quartz

in the middle of a plain of

dry grass, the wind blowing.

The sun strikes it, and it sparkles,

casting light like shooting stars

everywhere, everywhere,

blinding and brilliant.

And then the clouds grumble in,

blocking the light. Rain falls,

tears sliding

down

the ruby rock.

...but also, washing it clean

of dirt, dead leaves and ashes.

The sun shines again,

and it glitters, brightly.

How long until the rains wear it down?

How long can hope hold out,

sitting alone,

and waiting?

Not forever.

Not forever.

Not forever.