Meandering Through the Writings of Others as a Lament Practice: Ancient Rage

“The Cross and the Creche, John Lawson Park” phone photo, DS

This is the end of my Novel wanderings, for now. After all of the stories I feel strengthened to walk forward in my life. Perhaps you do also. I have thickened my calendar with arts and culture events, although I still wear a mask while singing at church.

Wiley, Mary Lee. Ancient Rage. 1995.

894 words

*** Reaching a hermitage set against the hillside, the two old mothers sat on low stools beside the door, untied their sandals, and washed their feet and hands. *** When the shofar sounded the evening, the two old women walked the half mile to Eleazer’s home. *** When people noticed Mary’s entrance, silence fell. *** Elizabeth remembered being that age: the end of childhood, the first monthly bleeding newly started, the isolation of womanhood already underway. *** Whatever happened; Mary said quietly, it’s alright. Let it be. *** Do you know there is no name for what I am? I’m a widow, yes, but there’s no word for a parent bereft of all children. *** #MeToo*** We can’t know. All we know is that we had them . . . *** Elizabeth, don’t blame God for the actions of men. *** I hold my anger because I cannot hold my child. *** Elizabeth knew that a man bound ten years in a barren marriage could divorce his wife or take another, but Zachariah said nothing . . . *** She recited psalms of lamentation she’d learned as a child . . . *** She studied Hannah’s ancient fertility prayer . . . *** If his seed is indeed sterile, why can’t I take another husband as easily as a man can take a second wife? *** Rome bestowed the ultimate honor on Zachariah by naming him High Priest. *** Elizabeth felt vindicated . . . *** Broken pieces of apples and currants speckled the bowls of honey as lamplight shone across the table. *** Elizabeth shuddered involuntarily wondering if her pride in Zachariah’s priesthood . . . *** Her soul was stitched into each priestly garment. She watched the men leaving and felt familiar longing to go with them. *** The afternoon sun slanted westward as the extended families feasted. *** I’m going to the roof to wait for evening. *** The six nights alone had not been peaceful. Dormant thoughts, old angers, new fears unfolded inside her. *** Elizabeth cleaned her teeth with the clean paste and prepared herself for sleep. She sought familiar comfort in the psalms . . . *** She couldn’t miss Zachariah’s performance as High Priest today. The other women were capable enough, she had decided, they could oversee the preparations in her absence. *** Birds began to call to one another as Elizabeth and her servants neared Jerusalem. *** No wonder the men pray every morning, thank God I am not a woman . . . , is that true? Her mother nodded. *** Zachariah was the master here, and she was his wife. *** The morning shofar blasts announced the first service of the day. The bells Elizabeth had sewn on the hem of his robe rang out in the silence. *** Three times he spoke the ineffable name, spoken only one day a year. *** Zachariah stood at the altar and filled a golden fire-pan with burning coals. *** She saw how deeply she still loved Zachariah. *** The angel spoke to Zachariah . . .  It was so long ago. *** The angel was clear. *** The servants brought willow branches and myrtle, young shoots of palm trees, citron. *** Though she had thought she was facing only age and death, God now promised a child. *** Zachariah laid his hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder and indicated that she was to recite the benediction for him. *** The dancing light of the distant flames cast wild shadows into the sukkah where they lay that night, and the angel’s promise was fulfilled. *** She thought of the rocky hillside where the blue flowers grew. *** Elizabeth sensed herself as part of the rhythm of life itself . . . *** Maybe the men needed the angel for reassurance, but you didn’t. *** I’m a practical old woman, she remembered telling Mary. *** Fields still lay green in the warm air and figs and pomegranates were plentiful. *** The tangible reality of her baby usurped all other thoughts. *** No, his name is John. *** Elizabeth had a sudden urge to flee, to hide her child . . . *** It’s a very special job that only the youngest can do . . . *** John’s attention was caught by a small bird landing on a nearby rock . . . *** This is a hyacinth she told him. *** The woman’s white garments and jewelry glittered in the lamplight and the family reclined around a huge table. *** John was only twelve now; how could he sound so sure . . . *** He refused the watered wine with meals. *** The temple is not where I belong. *** Elizabeth carried John’s decision like a hair-shirt. *** Elizabeth saw that poppies dotted the hillside like drops of blood. *** Mary responded wistfully; I remember so many leave-takings. *** Elizabeth breathed deeply, trying to stay in control, trying to weave together the threads of John’s short life into a pattern she could understand. *** The locusts hummed in the distance. *** During her childless years she had sustained a constant ache, the pain she felt after John’s death was acute, devastating, sometimes incapacitating, like a newly broken bone. *** His immortality will not come through children but through God. *** Below was the Salt Sea, blue-gray and sullen. *** 

. . .

This novel is in the form of midrash; a filling in of the lines behind or to further the story. The imagined meeting between Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, and Mary, mother of Jesus, takes place, according to the author, about seven years after the death of both sons. While many Bible studies attribute Elizabeth with an accepting attitude to losing her son, author Wiley imagines her to be bitter. In this already and not yet time between the Resurrection and the Second Coming, our attitudes too are not always settled and full of faith. Perhaps it is different for the peaceful Mary, her son Jesus, is with her in the Spirit. Elizabeth, even more ancient than when she had John, is still unsettled, but may see him soon when she dies, or if Jesus had returned then, her hope may have been to see John too. Her peace did not need to be in the future.

In this holy time, sometimes our Christmas is blue; not what we had expected, and we lack resources to live with it. Turmoil and trauma are all around us. We ask for the grace to be at peace in waiting until God makes all things well. As feelings and thoughts rage within, peace be with you, not as the world gives, but a peace that passes all understanding, as Jesus promises his followers, a deep peace, even now today. This peace comes from the love that arrives in our midst. We can ask for it too.

Meandering Through the Writings of Others as a Practice of Lament: First Century Second Covenant Scriptures

“Spirit” (detail of painting by DS)

My explorations today:

Matthew 1

These are the ancestors

Of Jesus Christ

A descendent of

King David and

Of Abraham

Abraham was the father

Of Isaac . . . 

Jacob was the father

Of Joseph who was

The husband of Mary

The mother of Jesus Christ

The Messiah

Fourteen generations from

Abraham to King David

And fourteen from King

David’s time to exile

And fourteen from the exile

To Christ

Birth of Christ

Mother Mary engaged

To Joseph

Pregnant by the Holy Spirit

Spirit dream Joseph don’t 

Hesitate to marry Mary

Fulfill God’s plan Savior

Name him Jesus

When Joseph awoke

He did as the angel

Commanded and took Mary

Into his home

She remained a virgin

Until his birth

In Bethlehem in Judea

During the reign of

King Herod

Wise men following a star

Gave Jesus gold frankincense

And myrrh and did not

Report back to Herod

An angel appeared to Joseph

Get up and flee with mother 

And child to Egypt

Until King Herod’s death

Prophecy fulfilled

In a dream warned about

Herod’s son Archelaus

So went to Nazareth

Meandering Through the Writings of Others as Lament Practice: Glassy Sea

“The Bridge from the Gallery”

Phone Photo DS

Sometimes exceptions to the novel meandering are made with forays into memoir, biography, autobiography, journalism as well as Scripture. 

Here are the explorations:

Engel, Marian. Glassy Sea. 1978.

971 words

*** Since then I’ve been sitting in an exhausted reverie. *** I feel very strong, very calm, as if indeed grace had been conferred. *** Interesting mind he had. I didn’t expect that in a psychiatrist. *** Because I have robbed you of a certain amount of your past, I have given you a future. *** Why should I get my authority from men? *** You said it was perfect by the sea. *** There is a ceremony that confers authority, authority like a bird arrives. *** Oh, are we supposed to be avoiding pain now? *** I have set up a card table on the porch so as to be outdoors . . . *** It is shabby and comfortable, nothing to bother describing, just a farmhouse . . .  a summer place. *** Will my outstretched hand be bitten? *** I have been indulging in a great deal of sloth. *** There are a hundred grass colours . . . *** There are lupins and Queen Anne’s lace is opening. It’s a life’s work to keep an eye on the field. *** I go for walks . . . on the shore  there are gulls nests. *** Sometimes I just sit and stare at the sun . . . *** And so now I write and send you greetings, particularly from these roses. *** I came of a plain people not made of mysteries. *** She used to like to brush my hair in the sunlight. *** The priest would have let the mother die while the baby lived. *** Never marry a man because he is a good dancer. *** Anyway, my father wasn’t big enough to beat him up . . . *** We had food, we had clothing, we had heat. *** The wind came from the west, from across the American border (fools to blame their weather on us) . . . *** My father was permanently tired from that war. *** It was the hymns that made the theology, not the preaching . . . *** My mother had fur cuffs o her winter coat . . . *** I knew I was a girl, but that hardly seemed relevant. *** The boys, raised to believe they were certainly superior have had to deal with women they were unable to prove their superiority to . . . *** Lace was something that got torn in the wringer. *** Our social life was the family and the church, and in our own limited way, we were very happy. *** I had understood heresy but I had not yet understood charity. *** Once my knees learned to bend, my ears snag with the poetry of the service . . . *** I’m willing to be that from most anchorite caves there was a view. *** My Keeper informs me that my social standing here is based on one’s acreage in potatoes. *** I had no money for make-up and wouldn’t have asked for it. *** I always liked being looked after. *** Gym was the only thing I got a D in. *** And last child at home I watched my parents grow close, so close their voices became interchangeable. *** You don’t have a come hither eye, my mother said, and I accepted her judgement contentedly. *** It was a soft summer night and I loved the music and the wind when we went outside. But we were shy of each other. *** We were like French and English in Montreal, looming invisibly over each other’s shoulders. *** One knew very little, one walked alone. *** My parents fixed for me one year to work in the library in Pekin . . . *** He was in luck; he had found me. *** Boris, always a gentleman, came to see me in the library. *** Birds who wouldn’t leave the nest had to be shoved, she knew that. *** I looked up shyly and said I wanted to be a philosopher. *** But there must be appoint Philip, a point or a pattern. *** I worked at the Hydro office sorting out electric bills and liked the job. *** clothes for a scholar *** Nobody was going to rumple me. *** She was one of the rare creatures whose beauty is sustained by no artificial aids. *** All her underwear was made of lace. *** When she was bored, she went to the bookstore rather than the library; she liked her books new. *** She had seventeen term papers leftover to write and had none . . .  to my amazement, she shut herself up for a week . . .  and wrote them all. *** I began meeting other readers in the stacks, some of whom took me to coffee and to dances. *** I remember now the smell of roses, the smell of furniture polish . . . *** I am very busy, very busy wasting time. *** People are always sending me back to university Philip, I have one of the great unfinished minds. *** But I continued to teach, and in fact got a little better at it. *** The shell of innocence was broken. *** I suppose that’s what sex is for, isn’t it? It increases the will to live. *** We spun into each other’s arms. *** Somebody like me. The idea went through me like fizzy ginger ale. *** What’s the use of grieving? The birds fly high. *** We laughed and laughed at that and it did something good for me. *** Where do the discarded go? *** Leave me here, please, to dream my redemptive dreams. *** I remind myself that it is mortification to return here as Martha when I so much wanted to be Mary. *** What are my dreams . . . *** 

…

Heroes

 

 

Last evening the “Women in Waiting” workshop series began with a friendly but rough start. People were stressed from difficult lives of juggling children, jobs, court cases and memories. A couple arrived late and some were no shows – or so we thought.

The contemplation part got off to a belated start with a rushed quiet time. We listened to some soft Taize music and breathed or not breathed, as was our need. I gave them the heads up that the instrumental piece was 5 minutes long. It was a good way to re-orient us from our busy lives and the long commute to get there. Amidst sisterly annoyance, hugs and ‘no you’re not late’, joie de vivre begins.

Much of the contemplation time was taken up by telling the stories of women. We imagined ourselves into the life story of Mary the mother of Jesus. She was a devout Jew. Her life was difficult too. We recognized her courage in telling the angel that she would willingly bear God’s Son. She found comfort in her visit with Elizabeth who was pregnant miraculously in her old age (as prophesied). We talked of her feelings atop that donkey at almost 9 months pregnant and finding no place to give birth right away. We see her mystified when Jesus at 12 years old teaches in the synagogue. Her grief was discussed when she was present at the cross and the strangeness and joy she must have experienced at the resurrection. We recalled that Jesus had asked John to look after her.

The conversation progressed to a recognizing of more modern heroes: Malala, Queen Elizabeth II, Gabby Giffords. The name of Anne Frank was raised and a World War II personal family story was told. I thought of Corrie Ten Boom, Teresa of Calcutta, and Teresa of Avila, Julianna of Norwich, Kim Campbell, Adrienne Clark, Alison Redford… All were women with feet of clay – some celebrated, some not so much. Our desire as women of seemingly ordinary lives is to live well, to flourish, and to be heroes if only of our own stories.

The evening continued with more people arriving and being let in on stories and instructions. The ideas of saints and collagists and the era of Dadaism filled the excited air. Our times too are filled with uncertainty and turmoil. Some have life decisions in the hands of judges, of doctors and of counselors – and some of God (if not all).

We collaged women and shadows, text and flowers, colour, paper, images all a seamless mash-up of art mixed with life. Once there, no one wanted to leave. As I drove home tired and happy they chatted in the halls and dark driveway of the church. A Dieu dear ones – until next week.

Messy Christmas

“Are you ready to have the perfect Christmas? No? Don’t worry, you are in good company. The first Christmas was hardly perfect, so maybe the mess and muddle of an imperfect Christmas is the best situation in which to welcome.”  Roger Dawson SJ

As an oldest child in sibling order, I do not like messes.  I feel calm when things are clean, tidy and in place.  Paradoxically, as a collagist, a confusion of paper, paint and found objects are the tools of my trade.   Yet the experience of Christmas – that holy culmination of all that is good – is expected to be pretty close to perfection.

 

 

Christmas Desk 2013 DS

I watched the movie “On Strike for Christmas” (2010) and it did my heart good.  Why not strike if we have to pull off the perfect Christmas by ourselves?   However, even with the family learning the lesson of helping and giving at Christmas, the ‘perfect’ Christmas came up short for me.

I have spent time this season oscillating between positively answering if I am ready for Christmas and the negative self-talk that goes with trying to bring order out of chaos.  I am ready.  My gifts were bought and wrapped early, the cards sent by (the soon to be extinct?) Canada Post or by e-cards.    The house is as clean as it gets.  Food is bought. 

 

Christmas ‘Tree’ 2013 DS

Yet my complaints are there.  My ‘tree’ is not a tree but a bouquet of branches easy to assemble.  The beautiful white snow for Christmas Eve is now replaced with slush.  People are not coming on the right days.  Some people are missing.  Someone sneezed on me yesterday.  I could go on.

Over the month of December I told the story of Mary in the workshops.  I read and discussed from the book of Luke.  My presentation was enriched by having watched the movie “Mary” (Maria di Nazaret 2010) on Netflix.  Mary, on close inspection, and contrary to the beauty of Christmas plays, must have had a very messy Christmas.

Things were definitely not as they ‘should’ have been.  First of all, even though she was from a good family with a godly upbringing, she became pregnant without being married.  Many women throughout history can attest to the grave difficulties that can bring.  Case in point is the story of “Philomena” now playing in a theatre near you. 

Mary had to face her fiancée, her family and her community alone.  Mary could have been sent away or even stoned to death in that ancient culture.  I am not sure that her reputation ever recovered.

Mary needed to travel on a donkey to a foreign country when she was almost due to deliver her child.  (I can remember how painful a bumpy car ride was for me when I was pregnant.)  The place where they thought they could stay turned them away in their hour of need.

 All of this was discussed by the women in the December “Contemplation and Christmas Collage” workshop series.  They remembered their own difficulties and fears in pregnancy and childbirth.  They spoke that final workshop.  One precious woman seated next to me ‘sang’ the requested carols with only sounds.  That touched me and in a way validated my being there.

(Romans 8:26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.) 

Before I left the collage workshop that last day we also recalled how the messiness of the First Christmas was energized by the Holy Spirit into a collage of great love come down.  “God with us – Emmanuel” was his name.  Mary’s story was filled with messages from angels.  God’s provision kept her calm in her difficulties.  The presence of Jesus brought the true meaning of Christmas.  Only God’s order could make sense of that chaos.

It is always so.  The messy Christmas that we all more or less experience is only truly made peaceful by not just the story of ‘God with us’ but by God’s very presence.  May we notice the difference in our celebrations and in our disappointments that not being alone brings in Christmas 2013.  A collage of love right now sounds good.

Christmas Still Life 2013 DS