Church Shopping

Today we went back to the Episcopalian Church. There's something comforting and safe about it. I love the high, vaulted ceilings, and the long aisle. I imagine many people can't relate to the high-church liturgy, but there is something that arouses awe in me in the dance of liturgy; the hand motions, the gestures, the raising of the Bible over the acolytes head, the kissing of the Gospel page upon reading. The tone of the bell echoed through the dark wood and stone sanctuary after the words of Jesus at the Last Supper were remembered out loud.

I had to smile at the layperson who read the Epistle lesson while balancing a toddler on her hip, or the woman who sat next to be wearing a wide-rimmed hat with black feathers that was a stark contrast to her snow-white hair. She was... elegant. In front of me sat a long-haired man with a bald spot, wearing a worn-out Harley Davidson T-shirt and jeans, escorting his elderly mother. He knelt in reverence during the prayers and bent his knee upon entering the pew. There is holiness in all of us.
I watched the young kids come back from receiving communion, some of them sucking the wine out of the wafer, others slipping the styrofoam-tasting wafer into their jeans pocket. There was a small child chewing and chewing, trying to get it down, wincing, I imagine, at the sour taste of the wine.

But most of all I loved the music. Pipe organ music that reverberates throughtout the atmosphere. It reminded me of my childhood, where our church had a German-made organ built by the very designers. They lived in the church basement for 3 months building that organ into our balcony. I remember as a little kid hearing that music as it shook the floor beneath my feet, and vibrated in my chest. Other times I got to be in the balcony and see our organist wrestle with the musical beast, using both hands and both feet to orchestrate the music within the many pipes.

There is something of a mystic in me, perhaps it's the poet in me as well. I love mystery and magic. I love reverence and holy, standing before what is bigger than me. It reminds me of when I got to be in the new Coventry Cathedral in England and standing before the massive tapestry of Jesus on his throne with the cherubim and seraphim at his head and feet. "In the year that King Uzziah died,..."

It's nothing short of a miracle that my heart can be stirred in church. My heart is still crushed. Broken. Tentative to approach. But in the sounds, smells, touches and tastes of the holy today I was comforted and reminded by the prophet Zephaniah, "I will bring you home."

It is Advent. There is hope. Anticipation. Expectation. And lots of surprises.

I'm From New Jersey

I’m from New Jersey
the Turnpike
Garden State Parkway
the Pine Barrens
and Jersey Shore
I’m from Bruce’s state
Asbury Park
Sandy Hook
Ocean City
Across the River
from Philadelphia
West of New York City

I’m from Rollo and Margaret
British India
and Southern Mississippi
tea in the afternoon
and black-eyed peas
for supper
I’m from Homecoming picnics
after church
picnic tables on the edge of the graveyard
fried chicken
and okra
mountains of potato salad
and slabs of cornbread
pasted with butter
I’m from man-made fishing holes
and water snakes
I’m from sticky humid
country walks
dirt roads and dairy farms
Malcolm’s General Store
Coca Cola in glass bottles
redeemed for a dime
and fried catfish

I’m from mystery places
in a different land
banana trees and mango trees
cows walking the streets
too sacred to eat
cobras serenaded out
of baskets
marble temples
built for dead queens
wonders of the world
children begging in the streets
men and women
bartering in the marketplace
women in saris
red dots marking their foreheads

I’m from ancient
I’m from new
I’m from places
wanting independence
I’m from farmers and
ministers
homemakers and teachers
I’m from fundamentalists
and liberals
Baptists and Methodists

I’m from New Jersey
sand in my shoes
the smell of the sea
the crashing of waves
cotton candy melting
on my tongue
reduced to gritty sugar
salt water taffy
and hoagies
splinters in my feet
from the boardwalk
I’m from crowds
of people
six-lane highways
mulit-ethnic populations
at rest stops
the hum of various languages
the rainbow
of mixed cultures
together yet separate

I’m from New York’s
suburbs
refineries and trains
corporate villages
and business suits
road rage
where The Finger
is an official hand signal of the culture

I’m from New Jersey
Garden State
the Eastern Shore
right in view
of
Lady Liberty.

pmr 12/6/09

birthing

the first stirrings deep in
my middle

took my breath away

live person
inside of me

growing

then kicking
you’ve always hated
being hemmed in

one day there was blood
doctor casual

“might be a miscarriage”

as if my world wouldn’t
shatter
my heart cease beating with yours

as if

I hadn’t already
claimed you
named you
planned the party

you continued to grow
past that brief
near-tragedy

you stretched my skin
stretched my vision
scarring me forever with life

you arrived early
interrupting dinner out
gray and bloody

entering strong
demanding and giving

life

pmr

Church

“why toss a bird in the sky
& not allow her to fly?”
-Matthew Shenoda, Countryside

you did it
you prepared the ground
planted the seeds
watered them
with music, spirit, prayers
there was wine
there was bread
the smell of sulphur
just after the lighting of the candles

touch
taste
velvet red cushions
under my knees
symbols in rainbow colors
around my neck
you
were home, my Garden
birth and death
water and blood
ashes to ashes
palm-branch crosses
pollen-saturated altars
at resurrection sunrise

you made me fall in love
you gave me a floor to dance
find my voice

yet when I started to soar
you clipped my wings
knocked me out of the sky

but now I know the rhythm of the wind
and I will find a new way to fly.




pmr

thanksgiving

it's like a long
string

that connects them all
at any point

I can go to any place
any time

again

games of Trivial Pursuit
and Pictionary
near the ocean

B. accusing Dad
of cheating

N. hiding in
the living room

because she's scared
of our family

smart girl

adopted family
other people

who had stories

of why they were here
and not there
with Them

the year the turkey
didn't thaw
and we ate all the sides

with turkey as a
late-night snack

all those years
the menu rarely varied

as if it were
recipes

that kept us connected
through time

and every year
I remember

all of it

family tensions
misfits at our table

group games
that offered us reprieve
from whispered analyses

of why

it all comes back
with the smell of
turkey cooking

the way Mom always
cooked it

and I
give thanks.


pmr 11/27/09

East of Eden

Last week was the first time my family and I attended worship since the beginning of October. Life is different out here. Sometimes I imagine looking back over my shoulder and seeing the cherubim at the gate, spinning, spinning, with flaming swords guarding the gate. Not that the United Methodist Church is in any way parallel to the Garden of Eden, but it was my spiritual home for 44 years. How does one begin again outside the gates?

Have you ever had the sense that you can't go home again? You can't go back and so all you can do is go forward, and yet forward means going into the mist, into the unknown, the vast wilderness. Kind of reminds me of when I first moved to Nebraska and Larry drove me through the Sandhills of Nebraska. I could see nothing but vast openness before me and it terrified me. But now, after all these years, I can't imagine living anywhere else but Nebraska.

And so I will find my way in this new wilderness. I can't go home again. I've been too burned. It's kind of like being married for a long, long time and one day being told by your spouse, "I don't love you anymore." It takes awhile to trust enough to build new relationships and not be afraid that they will leave you too. Fortunately, I don't know that specific experience firsthand.

I have a new job, after 19 years of being employed by the Church. That, too, is another venture outisde the gates of home. I realize now how somewhat cloistered one can be working for the Church. Somewhat sheltered. People treat you differently when you're a pastor. They don't cuss around you or if they do, they immediately apologize. They don't talk about their every day lives so much; the annoying co-worker, the pressures of work, the fight they had with their spouse. They talk more spiritual talk as if that's all a pastor would be interested in. I used to see people's Sunday Self.

Now I work in an office full of nurses and social workers who know what I used to do for a living, but they never really knew me as that. They know me now as a colleague. They are simply themselves around me, they treat me like anyone else, and I can't adequately describe how refreshing that is. I'm a little nervous at times, just because it's a whole new, bigger, wider world outside the Church. Real life. New rules. During the process of ordination, they talked about pastors being "set apart" as if that was a good thing, a holy thing. But truthfully, it's an isolated thing. I was set apart from people, when I just wanted to be a person. Now I'm not-- I'm plunged into the center of life and activity and it's dizzying at times! But I wouldn't turn around and go back for anything. I can adjust to my new surroundings. I can expand my vision to wide-open spaces and experiences, even if I hyperventilate once in awhile!

Already in my new job I come across people and whole families that have been turned off by the Church-- hurt by it or even abused by it. They therefore aren't interested in spiritual care or religious talk. I can understand that and can certainly empathize. Perhaps I can be a help to them. They don't know unless I tell them that I was a pastor. My job is Bereavement Coordinator; to listen to their pain and help them find a way forward. I think I can do that, because I've had to do that myself.

Today we visited the Episcopalian Church in Kearney. I was enamored by the beautiful old sanctuary with its long aisle leading forward to an ornate altar and chancel. I confess I love the liturgy, the prayer books, the robes, processionals and music. When I was in college I had to spend a semester in Philadelphia, PA to take classes at Temple University. I lived on the North Side of Philly, which is a very decrepit and dangerous side of town. Amdist the stress of finding my way on the subway, hearing gunshots down the street, stepping over the homeless on my front step, I found peace and spiritual food at the Episcopal Church in South Philly, the historic section of the city. It was in the neighborhood of Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, Franklin Institute, etc. The oldest United Methodist Church in the United States was within blocks. Ben Franklin was buried nearby. The church was beautiful, majestic and ornate. I loved the ritual, the singing, and the preaching. I loved taking communion every Sunday. It was a spiritually rich experience, outside of my own tradition.

Today I re-experienced some of that. I didn't always know when to sit down or stand up, I needed a little coaching in what book to pick up and what page to turn to, and I didn't catch on to all the responses, but somehow the liturgy fed me. I loved the ornate robes, the processional, the crosses, the acolytes who were intensely trained for worship.

Besides that, it was the friendliest church I've ever experienced. People talked openly and freely with us, inviting us to join them for fellowship time. They were very kind and welcoming. It didn't matter who we were or where we'd been. I still feel somewhat wounded and broken walking into any Church, I confess, and today I felt like the community tended my wounds with grace without even knowing it. A woman asked me if we were Episcopalian, and I blurted out, "No, we're not anything right now." There was some pain when I realized what I said, but also some freedom. I'm not anything right now. I don't have to protect any institution, keep its secrets and act like it's all hunky dory. I don't have to lie for anyone anymore or put on a game face. I am searching. I'm finding my way. I'm not bound, but floating on a river waiting to see where the water will take me. The future is open. The path is wide open.

Moonwalk

mesmerizing
you danced us
into a drug-like stupor

swirling, floating on air
bending, twisting
coming alive again and again
responding to the music
through another dimension

your other-worldly passion
and fever
burned you up
as if a fire not meant
for our atmosphere

you wore your darkness
on your skin
on display
your deepest vulnerabilities
a public fodder

we watched
like voyeurs
witnesses to murder
and torture

but its your starburst
that outshines it all
the fairy-dust
still settling on the stage

and we know that
what we saw
was pure magic.

pmr