Category Archives: Community

Dec19

Lamps and Light from Three Traditions

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Don’t you feel, just a little, pricked and prodded with hope by the tiny lights that flicker around us at this time of year? So many people put lights in windows, wrap them around stairs, weave them through evergreens, hang them outdoors to sway in the wind … making the darkness a little brighter.

And it’s not so much that darkness is unwelcome … there is a slumbrous, restful quality to deep velvety darkness … we can close our eyes and sink into it. Rest. Find peace. Yet we can be warmed, held, and uplifted by each small light that is kindled within it, too.

So I wanted to share sacred texts from three traditions about lamps and light. This idea crosses many cultures and faiths. It is a reminder that we are all deeply connected.

In the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, we find this passage: Psalm 18.28 —
“It is you who light my lamp;  the Lord, my God, lights up my darkness.”

And also, Psalm 119:105 —
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

In the New Testament, we find this verse: Matthew 5:14-16 —
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

In the Qur’an, we find the following passage: Qur’an 24:35, Ayat an-Nur, The Light Verse —
“Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The Parable of His Light
is as if there were a Niche and within it a Lamp:
the Lamp enclosed in Glass: the glass as it were a brilliant star:
Lit from a blessed Tree, an Olive, neither of the east nor of the west,
whose oil is well-nigh luminous, though fire scarce touched it:
Light upon Light! Allah doth guide whom He will to His Light:
Allah doth set forth Parables for men: and Allah doth know all things.”

Dec17

Comings and Goings: Light and Silence

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Last night, Chris and I stood at the international exit gate of Boston Logan’s Terminal E and awaited Sarah’s return from a semester of college abroad. She came home from Greece with lots of stories and a great craving for iced coffee! We welcomed her home. It’s our first Christmas re-assembling ourselves as a family that must travel to find each other. Sarah is an adult off and about in the wide world, and Chris and I are both living in Ipswich … but always busy somewhere else … so our family rhythms are now timed, in some ways, to her comings and goings.

And Jessie … she is all around us. But there will not be a reunion here. She will not, on this earth, flash her passport at customs, wink at security, and waltz in glittery red shoes through an airport gate, back to us.

There are many sorts of comings and goings.

One week ago, we climbed the swaybacked granite stairs to the top of hill and visited Jessie’s grave. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a small pink stone set flush with the grass that spreads itself between the roots of two towering maples. It was an international night sponsored by Compassionate Friends, an organization for bereaved parents, to light candles for departed children everywhere. Many communities hosted vigils. Chris and I sat together. Laid on a blanket, staring up at the starry sky clasped between the crooked fingers of the naked winter trees. Lit candles. Put a tiny fir tree by the headstone, and hung one crane on it. Said a prayer full of thorns and hurt and sharp-edge stones and starry nights and hope. There

jessie_headstone

One week later, it seems as if we should hold that vigil again. In fact, its been held over and over, across the country and many other places, to remember the families in Connecticut. We’ve made circles, said prayers, wept, wondered, argued, shouted. I would also say, lighting a candle has its place.

I just don’t have any soft and gentle words for this. I don’t want to light more candles … for little ones … ever, for any reason. Not because of disease. Or starvation. Or natural disaster. Or violence. Not for any cause.

On the other hand, when Toni Morrison spoke at Harvard a few weeks ago, she reminded us about the silence of the Amish community after their own trauma. How they would not speak to the media. Instead their beliefs were enacted through deeds. They attended the funeral of the one who took away the lives of their beloved children. They comforted his widow and children. They raised funds for his family. They razed the schoolhouse full of unspeakable memories, and built a new one. They lived out their compassion and forgiveness, in the midst of their own great sorrow.

I’m not saying that’s the solution for every loss. Just that it is another path, another way, another example among many responses to devastating circumstances.

This weekend, I don’t have words at all. And maybe that’s best. Oh, so many voices already speak into this space, this trauma, this irrevocable tragedy.

And some are comforting. My colleagues found the inside themselves the prayers we all needed to acknowledge the darkness we felt and a reminder to reach, like the winter trees, for the starry night, the promised light.

Yet for me? Though my family knows much about loss, it is not this kind.

So rather than fill the air with more words, I will listen. Listen to silence. Listen to sorrow. Listen to songs. Listen to stories. Listen.

And yes, I will light a candle. It is one act I can offer, when I feel powerless, for my own family and so many others.

Oct27

Boots, Birds and Good-Byes

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On a difficult pair of days, I wore a pair of high heeled boots, hid behind a costume, became vulnerable, wept, prayed, painted my nails, felt incredibly lonely, connected with special people, remembered those who are gone, and was visited by a winged messenger.

There has been a long silence from my end. Again. It’s been a few weeks of logistics such as deadlines, papers due, mid-term exams, and also … yes, pushing through difficult milestones such as the birthday of a departed friend and the anniversary of the fifth year since Jessie died.

Once upon a time, I wrote every day of Jessie’s treatment, and continued every day after she went on ahead of us, recounting the journey of the living. Now it takes me a week to reflect, in writing, about such moments.

Two days come close together last week. Both are difficult. One is the birthday of my friend Rebecca, who died of breast cancer a few years ago, after a long and gracious life, making a difference in the world of so many people, but especially her family, and most of all her two beloved children Ben and Anna.

Her headstone is only a few yards from Jessie’s, beneath a row of maples, at the top of the hill in the cemetery. Rebecca knew their spots would be close together. We visited those cemetery locations together. Stood while Rebecca was alive under the long shadows of old maples on young green grass, listened to songbirds, felt the stir of the wind, heard  its murmur through the leaves. Made memories up there. Had conversations we often couldn’t share with anyone else, about worries and wishes, realities and dreams, sorrows and hopes. Rebecca lived with a persistent form of breast cancer, and navigated a fine balance of hope in the possibility of a cure or new treatment, the wish for longevity and survival, edged with awareness of a threatening and mortal condition. Rebecca talked about a visit she had made to the cemetery with her family; wanting them to have a living experience with her there, as well as a place to visit in later days. We talked about where she and Jessie would both be (Jessie had already died, but we hadn’t interred her ashes yet), and how they’d be close to each other in the spaces between the maples, and imagined how maybe they’d find each other in the place beyond this one. We believed that Rebecca and Jessie would continue to visit those of us that they left behind, back here on earth.

The very next day marked the morning, five years ago, when my daughter Jessie died. Every year our family approaches this milestone differently. It is a markedly individual and separate experience for each of us as sister, father or mother. And of course, it is a day marked by our extended family, friends or her community, too.

This year, on the eve of the anniversary of Jessie’s death, I found myself locked in memory loops and traumatic flashbacks of the last 24 hours of her life. Vivid images or sensory memories came back. They blur together like this: her lung x-ray looking worse that last full day in ICU, followed by visits of specialists to her bedside, and a phone call conference from a small meeting room to consult with Chris and several medical team leaders to decide a recommended course of action, an evening visit from one transplant care team nurses who believed she’d make it, Jessie waking up that night and braking through sedation to kick and reach for me as I told her we loved her and named each member of her family, holding tight to her hand, 2am worries and conversations with a night-shift nurse as we changed her bed padding and checked IV lines and monitors and breathing tube, later kissing her as they took her off the floor — still medicated to a level of unconsciousness while on a portable ventilator — to undergo a lung biopsy, pounding on doors to get through to the room where a doctor waited to tell me she was dying, sitting in a numb disconnected state while a white-coated medical fellow knelt before me to deliver the unthinkable narration of events that transformed a scan room into an emergency operating suite, knowing our friend and minister Rebecca was beside me every step of that morning, and that Rebecca made the calls I couldn’t make, knowing that Jessie died while Chris and Sarah were en route to the hospital, walking with Chris and Sarah together as if through a gauntlet one final time down the hallway to her room in ICU, where it wasn’t Jessie waiting anymore, just her lovingly arranged body under a quilt, so we could say good-bye.

This year, those scenes – running on endless replay in my mind — recurred over and over. Sometimes scene-by-scene as they really took place. Sometimes as if I rewrote history and changed fate.

If only we had the power to change the script, stop the camera, halt the action, decide to make a different ending, give all the actors new lines, new roles … if only it was make-believe, fiction, theater … not real. But it isn’t. It happened. And there are no sequels or second versions of this particular story.

Of course, I have other beliefs about what comes next. About a spiritual life beyond this one … but admittedly, there is a difference between that spiritual and emotional comfort and the very physical and mortal reality of a child you can read to, speak with, hold close, argue with, sigh about, worry over or dance with.

During the anniversay of Jessie’s death, I always set aside productivity. I don’t do school work or client projects. I cancel any appointments, skip most commitments.

Instead, I give myself permission to be in the moment and experience whatever comes. To make space and go through this, because it will catch up to me one way or another.

It isn’t a day when someone needs to fix what’s wrong. It is simply … an unspeakably sad and moving day. A time when we are permitted to weep or pray or be pissed off or act off-the-charts giddy or stay silent. A time when we experience the feelings that are natural to such milestones; and almost every possibly emotion is likely to surface, visit and be expressed along the way.

On such an anniversary, I don’t have many expectations about what will or should happen. I may lose myself for part of the day. Or find Jessie all over again. Connect with Chris or Sarah, if possible, on this day. Retreat. Or be in the company of friends. Mourn. Remember. Acknowledge. And yes, celebrate.

We often try to experience some of Jessie’s best-loved activities on this day. For instance, my friend Martha got me started on the self-care and healing of pedicures and manicures. You may scoff at this self-indulgent choice, but it is a place of respite where no one expects anything of you, someone takes care of you for a little while, you float and let go, and you even feel a little better (or prettier, or something) on the other side of it. I did it again this year.

And this year Chris and I attended the Rotary Masquerade fundraising ball that evening. It happens every year; it just fell on the same night as Jessie’s anniversary. And what better way to celebrate her vibrant spirit? She loved dressing up, going out to dance, to be with friends.

I dared to wear a pair of black high-heeled boots and a short skirt and a wig. I was someone else: pretending, letting go, running away, wishing, and forgetting. And I was myself: grieved, sad, lonely, determined, giddy, connected, remembering, and living ‘in the moment’.

Underneath the black lipstick, fake eyelashes and sequined outfit, I was a mother thinking about both of my daughters: my beautiful intelligent grownup daughter putting away her textbooks and going out with friends to the night-life of cafes in Thessaloniki during her first semester abroad in college in Greece and my younger child whose ashes rest beneath a headstone graven with her name, marked that day by a blossom and a crimson leaf. Under the red-and-black wig, beneath the black spider rings, I was a friend who asked the opinion of girlfriends about makeup and party outfit, wanting someone to cheer and encourage me for risks to self-image when I wore an edgy costume. In the black boots and red silk top, I felt like a vamped-up sexy wife on a date with my husband, spending time together on a day that holds deep and surreal connotations for both of us, in a year that has been full of exhausting transitions, some wonderful, some challenging. Dancing among peers in masks and feather boas, capes and fedoras, applauding the band and jumping to the rockin’ music, I was one member of a club and a community that showed up to raised funds for local causes.

We aren’t binary: black-and-white, one-or-the-other, either-or. We, as humans, are so much more complex and layered and intricate and impossible to unknot or explain. We are just … who we are. And different, every moment, every day.

The next morning, I woke to the rush of wings as a bird fell or was knocked down my chimney. It emerged, eventually, from the hearth in our bedroom to circle and perch in our room. A common bird, familiar and full grown. Dark-tipped, pale-chested, bright-eyed. We caught it in a net and released it safely out the front door.

What do I believe about the sudden fall and flight or that common backyard bird that often visits the feeder outside our kitchen window? For me, its sudden arrival represented the visitation of a winged messenger, a spirit guide. A reminder that she’s here in many ways, and somewhere else, too. (You’re welcome to your own thoughts about it … whether you believe its coincidence or meaningful.)

The eve of Jessie’s anniversary, I relived nightmares. The day of her anniversary, I ‘got by’ in fancy nail polish and high-heeled boots she would have liked a lot. The morning after her anniversary, I participated in a startling and sacred moment.

And I am reminded, and I remind you, that we are connected. Body, mind and spirit. This world and the next world. All of us, always on a journey, perhaps in different places along the way, but not so far apart as we sometimes feel or imagine. Nearer than we suppose.

Oct17

Losing Your Voice, Saying Yes, Making Wishes

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This week, I virtually lost my ‘voice’, but I also made wishes, and reminded myself why I have said YES to so many opportunities.

First of all, it’s been a while since I posted, because I have spent so much time lately writing school assignments, that my hands hurt and my throat is sore. I think I’m losing my voice … my writing voice, that is … ha-ha!

But seriously, I haven’t dared consider blogging for a several days, because I needed every productive hour to meet other obligations. Right now, sleep isn’t always on the agenda! I pulled at least one all-nighter this week and stayed awake until 5am completing a paper for a deadline, since I had two papers due on the same day. In the days leading up to that deadline, I’d also delivered a sermon, facilitated a women’s spirituality group, assisted with an ‘Amazing Race’ youth group activity and launched Jessie’s floating wish lanterns onto the dark Ipswich River as part of Ipswich Illuminated … all in the same few days.

Why didn’t I work on the papers and deadlines sooner, you might ask? Getting fresh, aren’t you? Well, I did prepare in advance. Pages of notes. Re-reading books to analyze them. Creating outlines. If I hadn’t done that much preparation, there wouldn’t have been any ideas to plump up and submit as finished works yesterday.

So in fact, I did prepare. But time just … well … there was just enough time, if I didn’t sleep. Phew.

After all, there’s keeping up with regular class assignments: weekly essays, whole books to read each week, and various other assignments including oral presentations, debates and even (yes, it’s true) occasional art projects.

Plus working freelance. Plus, as some of the activities above will have indicated, field education as a seminarian working at a church in Beverly.

And yes, during the week, I actually sit down with Chris and spend a few hours being a person who is married with a husband. Or I take a walk or sip tea with a pal, and behave like a person with friends.

It was the perfect storm of deadlines and other activities this past weekend. More than usual. And you know what? I loved every part of it, even though I was very tired last night!

What did I do, when I wasn’t writing? I laughed, being with teenagers on a scavenger hunt to learn about community service and social justice organizations all over downtown Beverly, then racing to be first back to their church for a prize. I held my breath, and then delivered a sermon at First Church with just an index card as an outline, and powerful stories alive in my head and heart, waiting to be shared. Read an autumnal Mary Oliver poem and lit candles with a community of women I’m just getting to know. Applauded after watching my husband Chris and other good friends perform in the 16 Elm Street historical play.

Ipswich Illuminated? That was magical. So many people work all year, and then overtime on that weekend, to make it as beautiful as it is.

Each year, I stand boot-deep in cold river water, lighting hundreds of candles and nudging origami wax paper boats filled with wishes out onto the tide (thanks, Aileen Ang, for folding those boats). Again this year, they winked like nearby stars in a night sky: a constellation  spilled down to earth. (Thanks to friends Miri and Sadie and other cohorts who helped again this year, assisting people as they chose candles, wrote notes and gathered up their dreams to set afloat on the river.) Jessie’s Floating Wish Lanterns are the one activity we perform specifically in her memory each year, and I wouldn’t be anywhere else on that night.

Two weeks ago, we had friends Mark and Lesley visiting in our home from England. For a few glorious days, I set aside reading assignments, classwork and deadlines. Put graduate school on hold for one long weekend, to be with friends that I only see every few years. In other words, time for important activities and relationships remains a priority.

Yes, my writing voice is a little tuckered out, from finishing all school papers yesterday. Yet the subjects lit fires in my brain, and sparked questions in my heart. Despite the pace and the tension, I am where I want to be.

And I am making time, regardless all these deadlines, to do what’s important. To be with those I love. And just to be. Be.

My Harvard professors, even the intellectual ones who pile on work, will always say … take care of yourself. Find a balance. Don’t read every assigned page. Pause. Meditate. Get something to eat. Take a walk. Catch a nap in a quiet corner. And talk to someone, if it’s all too much. Always take care of yourself.

So I remind myself, and now I remind you … when you get wound up tight by schedules, deadlines, appointments, and activities … and we all do … the question is whether these are commitments that you have agreed to do … said YES to … because you care about them. Because you are moved by their purpose or use of your time. Because you believe by doing them, you make a difference, and it rekindles a light inside you, or connects you to something bigger than yourself. Or simply because it feels good to do this activity or be with this person, and restores your own internal sense of balance.

Check in with yourself. Can you say YES to those questions? Pay attention to the answer.

Me? I’m tired. I’m run down. But right now, I can still say YES when I ask myself those questions.

Sep24

Home

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Yesterday I started field education. That’s an internship, so to speak, working at another church. I’ll gain valuable parish experience and perform new and familiar roles in a congregation that isn’t my home church.

The difficult part of this transition is that Chris and I spend every Sunday morning together, and we have so few chances to spend time in each other’s company, that I miss those mornings … even though we’ve only spent one Sunday apart. In addition, First Church in Ipswich is the longest I’ve ever been rooted in one faith community. We’ve belonged there for 18 years. To spend a schoolyear away from my own congregation, working elsewhere, feels as if the ground is shifting under my feet.

Along with all of the other transitions, it feels as if parts of me are being torn away.

Yes, I know intellectually, that this stretching and moving away from what’s familiar and easy, is all necessary. To work and grow in this new vocation, I must step outside my comfort zone, which in this case is my own community.

It’s what I want. That’s what I tell myself, though I miss what I must give up to be there. Even after one morning away.

So yesterday I spent my first morning in a new congregation. Spent time with both pastors, who have already welcomed me onto their staff. Met some of the congregation’s compassionate and committed lay leaders and community members. Witnessed the youth of this church presenting their summer mission trip to Maryland.

It was all quite nice. Safe. Just not my own faith community.

Finally, at the end of yesterday’s worship service, a friend of mine appeared. I hadn’t expected to see her there. She belongs to this new church where I’m working (I didn’t realize it). One of the ministers is her daughter (I didn’t know that either).

This friend of mine used to be on staff at Winthrop Elementary years ago, where both Sarah and Jessie attended school. She was especially instrumental in Jessie’s successful interludes at school. We all shared an intense journey together each time Jessie made the re-entry to Winthrop classrooms and culture. Her office was often a retreat, when Jessie needed a safe sanctuary to collect herself. They developed a special friendship independent of my connection to this woman. She represents, even now, some of the most wonderful and tempestuous experiences in our long journey with childhood cancer.

So when she appeared unexpectedly in front of me, at the new church, we leaned across the pew and hugged each other. I think I yelped with happiness.

Then I burst into tears. Held onto her much longer than the embrace of friends exchanging greetings. Hung on as if she was holding me up.

I think a knot of emotions all rose to the surface. Every loss and transition I’ve experienced in the last few weeks and months. And maybe ever years.

So much has changed. So much has fallen away. Jessie is gone. Sarah is off at school. I’m starting college again. Chris and I are struggling to find times to maintain connection. And I’m spending a lot of time away from my entire community, including the church which sustained us through everything.

My friend received that grief with a hug. And then I was laughing, overjoyed that I know someone in this new place, this new congregation with whom I’ll sojourn for the next two semesters. Growing. Reaching outside myself for something more. Connecting with something greater. Trying to remain rooted in what continues to be important to me: family and community.

When my friend greeted me in that new house of worship, suddenly I felt as if this new church could also become home.

Can you be at home in two places? Or even more places? Of course you can.

I have many homes. My house on North Main street in Ipswich is intimately familiar, though rather empty now. Ipswich is where I feel connected. First Church’s congregation has been our extended family for years. Already the Harvard graduate school campus feels comfortable.

And now this new church? When I first sat through the worship service, it felt just a little off-kilter and strange. As if I was trying to transpose my former surroundings — the place and feelings of worship among old friends — onto a new and different congregation. Perhaps I was. I * want * to feel comfortable and connected there. But as we all know, as I must remind myself, that comes with time and experience.

Then my friend reached over the pew, and held onto me while I acknowledged everything I’d lost. And everything I’m trying to reclaim. Suddenly, it began to feel more like a new home. Another circle of belonging.

Sep21

Autobiography … What Faith Do I Claim?

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One of the homework assignments in a few of my classes has been to write and present a Spiritual Autobiography. Hmmm. It feels self-absorbed and narcissistic, in many ways, to focus inwardly and then to talk about oneself in this context. To an audience of peers and professors.

Yet it’s an important question to pose for ourselves. We need to be familiar with this story. To know why we arrived at a Divinity School to study. And what we want as the outcome of this time in graduate school. What is our connection to the Sacred?

I think it’s a question that all people pose for themselves at one time or another. What does my faith mean to me? What do I believe? What makes meaning out of the world to me? What do I hold as Holy or Sacred or bigger than myself?

As students and facilitators, we discuss milestones. Events or people or experiences or texts that shaped our faiths. Or raised questions that we’re still trying to answer.

Many of us consider our personal views of the sacred or the divine. Identify the language and images we use around those ideas. For some of us, the language might be a Trinitarian Christian concept (God-Jesus-Holy Spirit). For others it might be monotheistic Allah or Yahweh. For others it is a Boddhisatva, or a Goddess, or a different deity.

For some folks, there isn’t a specific deity or name that defines what is sacred. Maybe there’s a “Creative Force.” Or for some of my classmates, connection with the Sacred is inseparable from being human.

Some of these ideas may sound like heresy, if you are uncomfortable with the reality that people around the world follow many different religions. If you believe, or your faith tells you to believe, that there is only “one true way.”

I don’t put the idea of “one true way” into quotations to belittle that concept … just to acknowledge that not all belief systems require that people follow their way of thinking, being and doing. Not all belief systems consign everyone else in the world to Hell if they don’t convert. I’ve never been comfortable or okay with the concept that my faith is the only faith, and that everyone else is outside the circle and isn’t going to be okay, isn’t going to heaven, isn’t going to evolve to the next phase of being … I cannot reconcile that. Never could. Still can’t. Maybe it’s not my job to work out that dichotomy. I’m just admitting that I don’t embrace it.

Interestingly, many people in this era consider themselves to be spiritual, but not religious. And it’s a fair distinction.

Religion, as such, is the human-made institution that grows up around the seeds of a faith. For example, Christ and his first followers, for instance, were Jews. They were not Christians. And initially, Muhammed and his people weren’t Muslims with a capital “M.”

These Prophets didn’t necessarily believe they came to start new religions. Simply to bring a message to the world.

What evolved afterward, the codifying, the creation of a structure of authority and governance, administration and policies and laws and practices … those aren’t the original parts of any faith. Those are Religion with a capital “R.” They are systems developed and put into place by humans around the original messages brought to us by Prophets. At least, that’s my simplistic definition of it, but I think it’s a reasonable one.

I’ve learned, in the past few weeks, that saying that there’s one version of any Religion is also naïve. Is there one acknowledge and universal experience of Christianity? Christians would chuckle if you ask that. There are so many variations on what Christianity means and how it is experienced, starting with the major division between Catholic and Protestant. And you can go on from there.

The same is true of Judaism and Islam. Do you belong, for instance, to a temple that is Orthodox or reformed? Is the Judaism of a temple in Brookline, Massachusetts similar to the Judaism on a kibbutz in Israel? Unlikely.

Some contemporary scholars say that is it more accurate to acknowledge many Islam(s) rather than one Islam. Because again, these Religions, though springing from the seed of one origin, have developed within varied social, historical, ethnic, political, economic, and geographical contexts. Islam practiced in the neighborhoods of Chicago is different than Islam experienced in London or living in a nation such as Turkey. It has markedly different interpretation and practices in Afghanistan or Iran than in parts of India or Indonesia.

Some people following a specific Religion (with a capital “R”) will say there is only one true version, and all other schools that fall under that same umbrella or label are false. Not the real thing. But which version of any Religion is real? True? The only authentic one?

Those sorts of schisms and arguments are probably another reason why so many people in the world don’t want to be called Religious. For a lot of folks, technicalities lose sight of the whole point of faith. It sounds something like this. “Who cares about the semantics? Can’t we just pay attention to the original message? Can’t we get back to the bigger reason for why we worship and pray?”

Spirituality, on the other hand, seems to be a more universal impulse in humans to seek a connection with something greater than oneself. Something that some of us would call Sacred. Maybe some others would call it Nature or the Universe.

More people consider themselves to be Spiritual than to be Religious. Many people don’t want to be categorized, labeled or aligned with a particular tradition. It’s feels like a bad word or way of imposing limitations, for a lot of people.

And in a way, although I realize I am fundamentally Trinitarian (Christian), I am also connected to other practices. Yoga traditions, which can embody Christian references as well as others. Aspects of Buddhism that I have been taught. Native American beliefs that I find in poetry, art and stories. Teachings handed down from Asian origins by mentors who instruct us about spiritual practices as well as physical ones in martial arts classes such as kickboxing or karate classes. Jewish and Islamic offerings that I share during special holidays with my community. Other influences.

I don’t discount or turn away from the beauty and truths that I find in other places, other faiths. I incorporate them. I learn from them. I listen to them. Maybe I learn their practices, when those may help to offer balance or healing in my life.

Yet I am also learning not to make the mistake that all these Religions or practices are, underneath it all, the same. That’s a dangerous mistake. These are different faiths. The people who claim them also experience and view the world through a somewhat different lens.We live in a pluralistic world; that’s okay. In fact, that’s complex and amazing.

Yet we can inform and inspire each other. We can live peaceably. Build community. Share a world together.

Sep19

New Things, New Year: Encountering Other Faiths

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On one of the first days of Rosh Hashanah, which is THE (or one of many, depends on whom you ask) Jewish New Year, I tried something new. Part of this graduate school time is to work and study and play among people of many faiths. Develop chances to visit, to dip my toe, into other experiences.

Along the way, perhaps to better understand and embrace different traditions as something akin to my own cultural identity … connected, related … though not the same. I’m learning to make that distinction.

Yes, we can share many facets of history, belief and experience in common. Yet we don’t have to be one homogenized, same-everything confluence of cultures. The days of the immigrant melting pot, when we shed our pasts, changed our names, and tried to be like everyone else (usually in a white American-European-Protestant-Christian context) are over. In the past several decades, it has become increasingly safer for people to claim their roots, their ethnicity, their language, their religion, their race, their gender identity, their individuality. That should be okay.

Does this sound idealistic? Yes. Possible? Yes. Easy to do? No? A work in progress? Always.

We should be able to live side by side, yet be different from each other. Coexist in a pluralized society that respects and wrestles together with constructing a civilization that accommodates and welcomes diversity in many forms.

As part of this journey, I want to de-mythologize other faiths. Remove the stereotypes, biases and assumptions that I have internalized, or at least carried with me as an unconscious filter.

One of the forms of education I am receiving is to recognize other religions, practices and beliefs as different, but not as something that occurs “outside” a spectrum of societal patterns. Not “apart” from what we define as culture and civilization. Not “other” or “alien.” Not wrong, bad or in any way unacceptable.

One way that I’m grappling with this goal is to take classes. To study other religions through their history, art, development in different nations and languages, their connection to governments and politics, and through a glimpse into their sacred revelation. To understand each religion in its role as part of our broader American (Western) tradition, as well as its presence in other parts of the world. To this end, I’m taking two classes on Islam. It makes me look differently, already, at world events and the media coverage of them, political rhetoric, and our responses to them.

On the other hand, it’s best to get to know diversity up close. To form relationships with people who identify themselves in association with a variety of race, ethnicity, nationality, religious tradition, gender association, cultural affiliation and other characteristics. To make friends. To get to know each other, and put a face on “differences.” To study and learn together. Ask each other questions. Share each others’ traditions. I can do so with my classmates. We all learn and share with each other, and it’s safe to ask questions and explore diversity in this setting.

Back to the “new thing” I experienced.

Yesterday I attended a Rosh Hashanah New Year’s service. It was an improvisational service led by one of the students, Jeremy. It included many readings and songs in Hebrew. Jeremy’s voice rose, rich and redolent, to the rafters. His face shone with happiness to share this time with us.

We participated in some responsive readings in English. We recited a statement of faith (This rarely happens in the  annual Jewish tradition, since this is a religion of practice versus creed, unlike Christianity, but much like Islam. In fact, it may only happen in this service each year.) We remembered the departed. We considered and let go of our trespasses from the past year, since this is a time of letting go and starting anew.

Side note: My friend Miriam, however, celebrated somewhat differently. Among other rituals she and her children participated in Tashlick, which is the act of releasing crumbs or pieces of bread in a moving body of water. Naming regrets or transgressions, and letting them go. Setting new intentions for what you can do right, better and with more integrity in the coming year.

At the end of the worship service Jeremy sounded the shofar. This is a ram’s horn. It makes a blatting cry. It resounded through the chapel. We all listened to its echoes fade.

I cannot say I understood or connected with all aspects of the service. The parts in English resonated with me. They’re akin to my own statements of faith, and align with my beliefs. I felt bound in community.

Here’s the frustrating part. Admittedly, I was restless, listening to long passages in a language I don’t understand, regardless of how beautiful they were.  I felt, right then, like a little kid attending a classical orchestral concert, with no education or appreciation for what I’m listening to, and a tendency for my mind to wander, even while I try to pay attention and let it all soak in. * sigh *

A fellow student Lauren explained that much of the language (Hebrew, so I didn’t understand some of it, though we were provided with translations) of the service is a metaphor from archery. The intention is to recognize where we have “missed the mark” and improve our “aim” through our actions and intentions, so we will be “on target” in the coming year.

Another student, a Muslim peer, also attended the Rosh Hashanah service.  Like me, she’s trying to learn. To expand her understanding on an experiential level. She asked permission to record Jeremy’s recitation. I haven’t asked her why she wanted to record it, although I suspect that the Hebrew chants echo with the art and practice of oral recitation of the Qur’an.

The echoes fell silent. The year has begun. It is a sweet time, these High Holidays, in the Jewish year. We dipped apples in honey. Left the room, a little lighter in spirit, and perhaps a little wiser … or more foolish and opened-up … than we’d arrived.

Sep11

Be an Instrument of Peace

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I cannot pretend to have wisdom on a day like 9/11. Nor to truly understand the depth of its impact. Simply to acknowledge that it shook not just those who were hurt or lost, and their families and communities, but all of us. It changed our world view. It rippled out in layers of distrust and violence, but also in ever-growing rings of hope and resilience.

Just yesterday a friend and I remembered being together on the day that the Twin Towers came down. We’ll always remember where we were that day. Wanting to scoop up our children and hold them close. Not sure if the world was ending.

We recalled worrying for a friend who traveled internationally on American Airlines flights to London. Was she alive? As it turned out, she was okay, but she attended the funerals of several colleagues — crew members — for weeks afterward.

We remembered the arrival of a little boy from that devastated Manhattan neighborhood to our daughters’ school in New England. His home was not habitable; his school was closed.

This past weekend, our neighboring town of Rowley dedicated a memorial to 3 townspeople who were on one of the flights. They used as their monument, a piece of steel from the site of the crash. It was moving, yet can never express all that was taken away on that day.

In my father-in-law’s town in New Jersey, where the ferry leaves every morning for Manhattan, the memorial is larger. Too many folk were connected from the small seaside town to the large city center; their passengers worked in those buildings, and many never came home.

And finally, our minister Rebecca Pugh Brown uncovered and recounted for us the story of Andrew Rice, and his journey of loss and forgiveness. His brother David was in the second tower. Andrew was a journalist at the time, and much of the rhetoric after the day of 9/11 didn’t fit his view of the world. He was angry, but he sought some sort of resolution or healing step. His story is shared on the site of The Forgiveness Project.

Then, as David Rice’s summary tells us, “Later, a group called Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation were contacted by the mother of the alleged 20th hijacker, Zacharias Moussaoui, who has been held in solitary confinement in Northern Virginia since September 11. She had a unique request. She wanted to meet some of the families of the victims and ask for their forgiveness.”

We were nervous; scared of our Government finding out, and scared it would be just too upsetting. But finally a small group of us agreed to meet Madame al-Wafi in New York City in November 2002. As we waited in a private university building, a mother whose son was killed in the World Trade Centre went down the hall to meet her. We heard footsteps, then silence. Then we heard this sobbing. Finally they both came into the room, both mothers with their arms around each other. By now we were all crying. Madame al-Wafi reminded me a lot of my own mother, who had cried so much after David died. She spent three hours with us and told us how the extremist group had given her mentally ill son a purpose in life.

One day I’d like to meet Zacharias Moussaoui. I’d like to say to him, ‘you can hate me and my brother as much as you like, but I want you to know that I loved your mother and I comforted her when she was crying’.”

Today I’ll sit in a class at Harvard University called “Understanding Islam.” There is so much education, awareness and bridge-building to be done.

I want to work side by side with Muslim brothers and sisters, to create a world that has space and hope for all of us. That’s part of my work and purpose by attending Harvard. That’s why practitioners of Islam are studying alongside me, for the same reasons.

Today is a tense, emotional, difficult day. It’s easy to step awry.

Instead, breathe. Listen. Pray.

Pay attention to what you’re feeling. Honor it. Acknowledge it. Then let it wash through you. Let it arrive. Let it go. As much as that is possible for you.

Be an instrument of peace today. For yourself. For others. For our world.

Sep8

Beyond Appearances

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Did I ever tell you? About my first time getting painted toes, and my misconceptions about the woman getting a pedicure in the next chair?

First of all, I was introduced to pedicures at the age of … I’m calculating … give me a second to do the math … um, age 41. Basically many “salon” grooming experiences such as waxing, massages, hair-coloring, manis and pedis … are relatively new to me. I wasn’t exposed to them growing up.

As an adult, my girlfriends have slowly introduced me to these wonders. Or talked me into having my own firsthand experiences, and deciding for myself whether I want to invest in them regularly as a personal habit, rather than a one-time indulgence

So one of my dear friends took me out for a day of pampering.

There was an extra reason for this outing. It was just a few weeks after my youngest daughter Jessie had died. I was still shell-shocked and trying to cope with loss. My friends were taking turns getting me out of the house in gentle ways. Going to the salon was a chance to let go, let someone else take care of me. To escape and float.

First we ordered frothy chai tea lattes from our favorite coffee shop: Zumi’s. Carried them next door the nail salon. In our flip-flops, because of course you don’t want to ruin your paint job at the end of the session by shoving them into closed-toed shoes. (That’s one of the things I learned.)

The biggest decision of my day was what color to paint my toes. Should I choose something feminine and pink? Something bold and crimson? Something dangerous and midnight dark?

Or something else? I plucked through the bottles of color. Chose five pigments. Mentally recited middle school science lessons: ROY G BIV. (Hint: that’s the acronym for the colors of the rainbow.) I gathered up a palette of visible light.

After selecting our polishes, we settled into overstuffed chairs and put our feet into tubs of hot soothing water. Sat side by side with books and magazines. Sipped our tea.

Staff women knelt down and started scrubbing and massaging our feet and talking to us. I tried not to think about issues of class and subservience, of manual labor and contrasts of privilege. Me in a chair, and someone crouched low before me. Me paying money for someone else trained to soften my feet, rub off the callouses, and make me pretty and desirable

It was so different from the hospital. From necessary invasive procedures and toxic drugs introduced into a body by highly trained nurses and doctors to save or extend life.

I didn’t want to talk. I retreated into silence. Used my book as a shield to ward off conversation.

The pedicurist settled down with a brush and file and clippers. I held my breath and tried not to mind having someone else handle my feet. But I couldn’t distract myself by reading.

So I glanced up from a novel to peek around. I looked at the woman fastidiously cleaning my toenails. Glanced left at my girlfriend reading her magazine.

Peeked right at the salon’s other pedicure client. She had sunk comfortably down into the upholstered wingback chair next to me. Relaxed. Chatting with the woman doing her nails.

She’d chosen a bottle of lady-like pearlescent pink polish. It seemed to fit her. She was tidy and trim, the glint of silver and precious stones a subtle wink on fingers, wrists and ears. Her short perky hair, tucked behind shell-like ears, was almost platinum. To hide her grey, I told myself, guessing her age to be least two decades beyond mine.

She wore linen. Kept a designer clutch tucked down into the cushions by her side. Lifted one hand and shook a Tiffany bracelet down over her wristbones.

You get the idea. She came accoutered in labels and brands. Ones I don’t own and may never be able to afford.

I couldn’t read anymore. So I closed my eyes and tried to relax through the filing and clipping of my own toenails.

And eavesdropped on the salon client’s amiable banter with the staff member giving her a pedicure. I learned that the woman on my right lives a few towns away. She likes this salon, however, and comes here regularly. She and the staff members are on a first-name basis. They talk about pets and kids and vacations and doctors. She’s comfortable here.

But she has a lot more money than the ladies that own or work in the salon. Or me.

I made assumptions about her. It’s amazing how catty you can be, even in the midst of grief. I wanted to find fault with her…maybe I was understandably irritable, poised to be annoyed and critical. Maybe my judgments were out-of-proportion, because all of my reactions were extreme right after my child died. Or maybe I’m just a selfish and petty person.

The town this salon client lives in has a noticeably higher tax bracket than ours. More conservative politics. Lots of wealth and generations of breeding.

From my perspective, she comes from a bastion of privilege … and I was predisposed to think poorly of her because of it. Or at least to think that she couldn’t possibly comprehend the depth of my loss, and the great yawning chasm that was broken open inside me, just below the surface of my closed eyes and clean toes.

I assumed she was shallow and spoiled.

After all, she was sitting in a nail salon on a weekday afternoon. Gossiping. (I was in the nail salon at the same time, but I was silent, and we were here for different reasons, right?)

Although we were seated side by side, with women crouched in front of us cleaning our toes, we didn’t really have anything in common. Not like my girlfriend sitting in the lefthand chair, who is a college-educated working mom like me, with kids about the same age, and enough flexibility in her schedule to make a date with me in the middle of a workday. A friend who knew my whole broken family and my deceased daughter and was gently trying to draw me out of the house and back into the light of day.

The woman on my right, talking about Cancun, was not like me at all. Obviously she had plenty of time and resources to indulge herself.

She couldn’t possibly understand why I was in the salon. Or that it was my first-ever pedicure. Or that I was living through hell.

Or what hell even felt like.

I tried to stop listening to their stories: the client and pedicurist. I didn’t want to know more about their plans and their lives. I just didn’t have any tolerance for mundane, everyday experiences. Like which doctor to visit to have a mole removed. What airline to take to Mexico. What yogurt to keep in the fridge.

Behind my closed eyes, didn’t I radiate waves of pain and anguish? Couldn’t everyone just SENSE my grief and loss as I sat in the overstuffed chair?

How could they talk about their normal lives when I was mere inches away, full of turmoil and sorrow and anger?

I was in the salon because I was fresh from the pediatric hospital and its traumas. Recently recovering from the experience of planning my child’s funeral. I had a reason … a good reason … to take a break. What was everyone else’s excuse?

The pedicurist dried my feet, put the foamy separator between my toes to spread them out as she worked. On her worktable were the colors I had chosen. I planned to wear red-orange-green-blue-violet on the tips of my feet.

When the pedicurist saw my array of colors, she hesitated. One on each toe?

Yes, a rainbow. I didn’t explain why. I couldn’t, without weeping. But my girlfriend knew the reason. The colors were selected in celebration of Jessie and her bright spirit and her flare for fashion and her favorite song “What A Wonderful World.”

The smallest toes would be bright red.

I opened my eyes as she uncapped the first bottle and dipped the brush into the sunrise-colored pigment.

The woman on my right was just about to have her color applied, too.

She looked my way. Noticed the rainbow of colors down by my feet … because honestly, during a pedicure, you always want to know what color your neighbor has chosen, and wonder if you’d be brave or foolish enough to wear what they have dared to put on themselves.

She arched a plucked brow. Lifted her left hand, curled her fingers into her palm, and adjusted the silver links on her wrist by waving it gently in the air.

She smiled lopsidedly at me with coral lips. This woman with plans to go to Cancun, and a mole that needed attention, and children off at college. And time for a pedicure on a weekday afternoon.

She wanted to chat. I didn’t want to, but I was curious what she’d say.

“You’re using a lot of colors.”

Her sentence lilted upward at the end. An innocent question. Why so many colors?

I inhaled before replying. The honest answer took an act of will and lots of practice. But I was determined not to back away from the truth, even if it was uncomfortable in casual public and social settings like this one.

“It’s in memory of my daughter. She died recently. Leukemia.”

“Ah.” The woman lifted her eyes to meet mine. Tucked a strand of artificially blonde hair behind her ear. Winced and nodded slightly.

I thought that would be the end of the conversation. Death is often of a conversation-killer.

But her eyes held mine, and she continued. “I started coming here a few years ago. Just to treat myself.”

I nodded back politely. Tried to smile. Nicely.

Inside, I ranted at her. So what? Do you think I care? You and me. We don’t really have anything to say to each other. We’re not going to bond over these personal truths that we share in a salon. We have nothing in common.

Yes, I was also here for a break … but our reasons for needing the respite … I could only imagine that they were dramatically different.

Then this woman from a wealthy community a few towns away, from a background of breeding and privilege, and a life that involved tropical destinations and indulgent salon appointments, said, “My older daughter and my husband were diagnosed at the same time. They were both treated. My daughter survived. She’s back in school now, but I had to take time off and go take care of her for a while. My husband didn’t make it. That was a few years ago.”

She looked down at her toes. Wiggled them in the water. She added softly, “I like coming here.”

I swallowed every assumption I’d made about the pampered matron in the chair next to me.

We sat next to each other. Didn’t make eye contact again. Or speak anymore. But we both relaxed, or at least it felt that way to me. As if we were suddenly comrades. With a shared experience that assured that we understood each other on a gut level.

Not strangers anymore, but intimately connected by a common experience. Side by side in the salon, letting someone paint our toes bright colors.

I appreciated – suddenly – that the color of our toes was our warrior’s paint. And the late afternoon moments in the nail salon are a strangely private opportunity, removed from the usual demands of life, to acknowledge sorrow. To breathe and let go. To retreat.

And that this woman, despite all the contrasts between her world and mine, her life and mine, has a lot in common with me.

I was humbled by what I learned that afternoon in the salon.

I realized – all over again, because I had clearly forgotten it — that appearances really don’t tell the whole story. That the woman next to me … whether we meet in a doctor’s office or in a grocery store aisle or on the bus or by the sidelines of a playing field or sitting in a nail salon … has her own story. And each story is worth hearing. And that it’s much more beautiful and colorful and poignant than all the fiction and preconceived narratives I might allow to fill my head.

Her story was right there, waiting to be shared.

Every woman has a story to tell. And we may have more in common than we’d ever guess. If we’ll just listen. Oh, and take the time to sit down and choose some colors and get our nails done.

Never apologize for a good pedicure or “spa day” at the salon. It can change your life. And you deserve it. We all do.

Sep6

Belonging

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I just read, in an essay by Karen Montagno entitled Midwives and Holy Subversives, her description of the many circles of belonging in her life. She says, “My story is one of overlapping contexts. … I am an African American woman … instructor and practitioner of pastoral care, an Episcopal priest in a local parish, a seminary dean, and a parent. My communities are multiple, significant, and formative.”

It resonated with me. It’s really true for all of us as humans. I don’t mean that I identify with Karen Montagno’s unique and specific context, but with the more universal observation that we all belong to many overlapping circles.

Today I reflected on some of my circles.

In my life, you won’t be surprised that I put family first: my own birth family of grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings. My husband, with whom I have shared a longer relationship than anyone else in my world, except my mom, sister and two brothers. My nieces and nephews. My extended family through marriage, with whom many special moments (happy and sorrowful) have been shared. And foremost, my daughters Jessie and Sarah.

Then there are so many other webs of connection. For instance, there are circles of social ties. Personal friendships developed across years of proximity and shared experiences, forming complex bonds that include raising children together, being single or inside marriages or partnerships, changing careers or relocating homes, setting and reaching for personal goals, and so many other milestones that we share with our intimate ones. Acquaintances through different organizations or shared interests … maybe we waited together in the schoolyard while picking up or dropping off children at class, met in line at Zumi’s, or sat side by side on the sidelines of a soccer game while our kids played in a game.

Then we have ties to our colleagues and peers in the workplace or the professional field; we share significant time together and many responsibilities. Plenty of us also dedicate time to service or volunteering in different organizations: mine happens to include Rotary Club and some civic organizations. And for many of us, this also includes our faith community, where we spend a rich amount of time that is deeply emotional and intellectual, but also involves engagement of much time and talent: many folks invest a lot of their lives in this sphere. And there are other connections to mentors and coaches and teachers. Plus more occasional and yet oddly intimate transactions with other people on whom we depend in some way, whether it’s a medical caregiver or a counselor, or perhaps the person working at the cash register in our neighborhood, or the train on which we commute, or the circulation desk of the library we visit. (I’ve also recently added a campus community. My professors, students and advisors. The staff and peers with whom I now spend several hours a day.)

And of course, we can identify with larger contexts. By ethnicity. By gender. By faith tradition. By sexual preference. By political affiliation. By nationality. By so many “markers.” I thought a lot, this past week, about the labels that are placed on us. The categories used to define us. The ways we are perceived by the world, and the ways in which we describe ourselves. Some of these labels and tags may be welcome. Many are probably weighed heavily with assumptions and preconceived ideas that we would prefer not to accept or have applied to us. It is wise to be thoughtful about these labels and categories. And to challenge how you many be applying them to others as well.

Today I’m glad to be the following things:

  • Mother
  • Wife and partner
  • Woman
  • Sister, daughter, cousin, niece, aunt
  • Friend
  • Christian with an open mind about other faiths
  • Member of First Church, Ipswich, UCC
  • Rotarian
  • Professional website developer and writer
  • Director of non-profit foundation working with cancer families
  • Graduate student at Harvard University’s Divinity School
  • Commuter by foot and train
  • Resident of Ipswich, Massachusetts in New England, USA
  • Independent (political party)
  • Writer
  • Artist

There are lots more circles of belonging, I’m sure. I belong to so many communties, large and small. And I have responsibilities to all of them. I feel a little overwhelmed when I consider all that I’m trying to balance right now. I bet we all do, at one point or another. So I consider my communities. I make checklists and put dates and commitments on the calendar. Prioritize. Do one thing at a time. Breathe. And try to do what’s possible and relinquish what I cannot do right now.

Meanwhile, here’s something that all adults who are legal citizens can do for their community. Vote! In Massachusetts, the primaries are today.

Voting is not just a privilege. It is a responsibility. It’s your chance to act. To speak with your vote. To care and be engaged in issues that affect you and your community. To the places where you live, work and play. The people with whom you belong.