Six months old, father dancing with me in the kitchen. A man racked with secrets, lies and hypocrisy, steps in rhythm, swirls my tiny body, lifts me in the air and catches me on his breastplate. I was his third born, born of a love affair outside of his "real life." I remember the white tiles of the kitchen floor that matched the white whiskers of his goatee. He was an old man already, but I could still feel the vitality of his masculinity as he moved about with me in total privacy. I remember the sheer joy and terror of being in the hands of something powerful enough to make my flesh feel entirely vulnerable and entirely protected at the same time. Some say that's the essence of fathering. I wouldn't know.

Thirty years later, three weeks after my first daughter is born, i have a dream where a younger version of my father sweeps me off my feet. Comes up to me from behind and lifts me up in the air and doesn't miss a beat. In the dream I never see his face, but I know it's him because our bodies fit together perfectly, almost as if one originated from the other. And because now that he's dead, as I move, he moves, in the spaces where spirit and flesh are no longer separated by generations. Some call that space heaven and earth colliding. I wouldn't know. In the dream, I feel a freedom that I have never felt in my creaturely life. I wake up crying, knowing this is the longing etched in my bloodline. To be free enough to dance.

I have spent most of my life thinking that the absence of my father was something internal to me. Something I had to fix because it was irrevocably wrong. This message of internal blemish is deeply connected to a message that women receive all of their lives; a message about their worth being determined solely by their connections to men. But the world teaches men to hate women. To simultaneously lust after them and want to kill them. So it is a connection that is elusive at best, impossible at worst. Something about being the mother of a daughter has given me infinite clarity into this nonsense, but most importantly I have forgiven myself  for internalizing a 30 year old lie about my own worthlessness. 

This morning I dance with my daughter, girl body to woman body, on the kitchen floor. I step in rhythm, swing her in circles. I throw her in the air and catch her on my breastplate. She delights, smile so wide it takes up her entire face. Our genders and our bodies may change throughout our lives. But this is enough, right here. We are free enough, just the two of us in the kitchen, no secrets, no drama, free enough to just dance, in the spirit of love. Together, entirely vulnerable and entirely protected.

Last night I watched the widely-broadcast memorial service for the students, teachers and principal, and mother who lost their lives in Newtown Connecticut on Friday December 14th. It was an interfaith, ecumenical, political, media event that took place in what appeared to be a school auditorium.There were all kinds of traditional religious offerings: opening words, comforting prayers, scriptures, homilies, benediction, etc. The Quran was quoted right along side The Book of Romans. Women clergy officiated right next to Catholic priests. It was diverse. The best of each tradition got poured out of each representative leader. It’s not often that such displays of cooperation and pluralism shine from American religion. Perhaps it takes such a devastating tragedy for us to get over our petty squabbling. Who knows? What I do know is that given my values, my deep and abiding commitment to interfaith and ecumenical solidarity, I should have been proud of what was happening. But I wasn’t.

And it wasn’t an all together unfamiliar feeling. It’s something I feel almost every time I officiate a funeral. It’s a recognition of the unsolvability, the sheer un-utterablility of loss. Is there anything that can be said, about God, about heaven, about this life of sheer precarity, from scripture, from tradition, from even the most devout clergy person--that helps us make sense of the murder of children?

No there is not. And that's why even the most well-orchestrated interfaith, ecumenical display of solidarity fell short. How dare we even speak? Words become filler. It's rather pathetic. And yet, where are the spaces for genuine morning if we don't create them?

There was only one moment during that entire CNN-televised service when I felt connected to what’s sacred: it was the moment President Obama (not a person of the cloth) began reading the names of those who were lost. As he was saying their names, one by one, slowly, tears began to fall. Soon the weeping that’s necessary in order for us to remain human in the face of such inexplicable loss could be heard from those in the auditorium. Charlotte. Daniel. Olivia. Josephine. Ana. Dylan. Madeleine. Catherine. Chase. Jesse. James. Grace. Emilie. Jack. Noah. Caroline. Jessica. Benjamin. Avielle. Allison. Say them out loud and see if it doesn’t shift the energy in your spirit.

I often notice that when families have lots of unresolved issues, funerals become battlegrounds. The details of the service become a point of tension, of unworked rage finding its way to the surface. Or worse, family members, clergy people, or old associates use the ceremony for their own ends: to make lofty speeches, to get in their last digs, to host an altar call. These misuses of sacred space, space designated for the holy work of grieving, are beyond disturbing not only because the healing work of the heart’s repair cannot begin, but because the dead are not mourned on such occasions. Someone famous once said you could measure the character of a culture based on how they treat their children and how they mourn the dead. America, how do we measure?

The discourse in our nation since the elementary school tragedy reminds me of a family with way too many unresolved issues. We’ve been attacking each other about guns and mental illness. We’ve been hoping people with power--religious and cultural and political--will say something or do something to ease the pain. But they can’t. What’s done is done and more horrifyingly, what’s gone is gone. Kids. Educators. Lives. Gone. And fighting each other isn’t going to solve anything. Don’t get me wrong; I think it’s time to reconsider our gun laws and I believe mental health care is essential for a thriving society. But now, now is the time for saying the names. Now is the time for silence and weeping, together. Because if we don’t grieve, and I mean truly grieve, each and every one of us, anything we say or do to ease the pain will be short-lived and insufficient. It is only the wrecked heart, the heart that has nothing left to lose, that can be transformed in the ways we need to be transformed.

Back to Sabbath (again)

There seem to be 5 or 6 lessons that I must learn again and again in life. Lessons like, "when you're angry, you're probably just avoiding grief." Lessons like "the disavowal of feminine power is toxic." Lessons like, "don't ever ever ever stop working out or spending time in vast expanses of green/nature." And the one I learned again this week: "there is a rhythm to life and it's all about the steady flows and steady steps of giving and receiving; both/and--not one or the other." 

Real talk: I know all this stuff in my bones. But I forget. Lose touch. 

Usually these lessons are reborn (again and again) because I find myself out of whack. That's a nice way of putting it. Crazy as hell is more like it. For instance, this week, I forgot about the rhythms of giving and receiving. Seems that the steady flow of institutional religious production--preaching every week (sometimes more than once a week), pastoral care, planning events, managing crisis--had gone into overdrive and I hadn't even noticed. I should have noticed. It'd been months since I'd read a novel or poetry, or lifted weights. I haven't been walking outside (I do live in Michigan; and it's winter, to my credit) and don't have enough money to pay for therapy. These are the things that make me sane, the stuff that fills my cup. So on Tuesday when someone said something irritating to me, first thing in the morning at my place of employment, I snapped. Thank God I have a loving, wise boss who knows an empty cup when he sees one. He sent me home and told me to do the things I need to do to be restored. 

I actually listened to him. I know, right? This is progress...

For three days I've been listening to the cello and oboe non-stop. Dancing with my daughter on the kitchen floor. Writing letters to people in my family (living and dead). Reading Junot Diaz and Allison Bechdel like my life depend on it. Consuming, devouring--the music, literature and writing processes that place me right into the stream of life where cup and water become one. And suddenly the God I yearn to serve is apparent to me again. 

Here's what gets me: I was running on fumes, seriously. Empty. Depleted. Without resource or energy. Out of touch. Forgetful. Here's what scares me: I didn't know. That rage I felt about the stupid comment in the office Tuesday morning--it felt totally rational to me. It never occurred to me that I was lacking inspiration. The idea of being on the receiving end of deep thinking, wise, hilarious, truth-filled writers, artists and creative projects never crossed my mind. I just wanted to slap that snarky woman in the face and get on with it. And yet, when I stepped away, when I took time out and apart and allowed myself to be the recipient of beauty: it became crystal clear where the problem was. 

If you want to be seduced into thinking that working/serving all the time is the "right" life, become a pastor. Was there EVER a more out-of-rhythm institution than the white mainline protestant church? Help me, Jesus. For real. It's insiduous yall. Seriously. It's not biblical or faithful. But its insidious and every one will thank you every step of the way. Until you do something crazy, like slap an auditor or cheat on your spouse or kill yourself one day because it just got to be too much. And then everyone will say, "I don't know what happened; s/he was such a wonderful person." 

And so I'm back to this Sabbath law. This literal commandment to rest. To STOP PRODUCING. To STOP WORKING. To stop DOING ALL THE TIME. It's not an archaic law. It's wisdom, the truest spiritual precept for those of us needing meaning and value and love. For those of us honest enough with ourselves, our community, and our God to admit that though serving others is a necessary and faithful part of spiritual life, it's not all there is. There "is a time to break down and a time to build up." Yes, in(non)deed. 

Lesson learned. Again. 

Hush: Winter's Arrival Nov 23 2012

Hush. Hush. The snow fall is beginning and (of course) echoing. Look. Listen. Wonder. Remember. Lean into loving the living. Soak with grief your longing for the dead. Hush. Hush. Winter, in all her horrendous simplicity and silent elegance, descends. Arrives. Invites. Compels. These contradictory element/ary juxtapositions in their stark bare here-ness. Don't shop. Don't stuff. I'm talking to you America. Just hush and plunge. Into this tender comatose, this solemn last breath. Hibernation time will come soon enough. For now, just hush.

Nov 25th 2012

you choosing mystery. because you've got it like that, you relentless erotic pull. you red carpet and temple and throne. unlit candle. devouring flame. you yearning for delight. desiring the chase. knowing i will. come after you. bow before you. even though you mock me again and again and again. confronted, disturbed, intrigued by ignorance, i feel your touch, whispering "you'll never know. but come closer."

Comings & Goings November 12 2012

Comings: bursts of surprise. Gifts unexpected. Wide open eyes.
About your business like every other day,
then some kind of wandering wanderer wanders your head-buried way.
Not too much later you wonder how you ever lived before
without that wandering wanderer you've learned to unashamedly adore.

Goings: a rip your guts out, a robbery, life's necessary yet greatest sin.
Wretched apartness, I curse you from underneath my skin.
All this missing and missing again.

These humans, these creatures who make up my self.
Gone beyond gone, only half absence felt.
Where to reach? Where to reach?
There's nothing in this everything where love becomes breech.

No distance because they live inside, but out there they reside too.
No reaching equals touching but no gap releases you.
Yoked. Held. Just here all alone
haunted by (the gone) others who made/make this life a home.