A Still Life…A Life Still

Did he fail?

That was the question my father asked me to reflect upon as I stood to receive an honor on his behalf from his academic colleagues.  Life review can be brutal, but isn’t this question, publicly undressed, going a little too far?

No, he answered calmly.  You know how I’ve tried all my life to create a more thoughtful, just, inclusive, compassionate, civically-engaged church.  I’m wondering:  did I fail?  Was I throwing all my energy at a brick wall?

I thought about the vision of community that lit his young imagination and how he gave himself over to it, even as he descended into the reality of church politics, even as a counter force rose up to fight him in a zealous campaign to down-size the mind and heart.  Things got messy. He weathered disappointments, take-overs, losses, the wreckage of a denomination.  At mid-life, he looked around at the  structures that he had loved and nurtured and saw that they were dead to him.  He had lost. His work, yes; it had failed.

He didn’t turn bitter; here’s the thing.  He didn’t blame, didn’t fold up his tent.  He stood like a lightening rod, holding the vision with which he started in one hand, and the debris of his dream in the other.  He lived in that tension with such a creative heart that now, twenty five years later, green life is breaking out from the center that he held.  It’s the people that he loved that are greening – his grandchildren passionate for justice, loyal in their love.  His daughter-in-law taking up her deepest calling in the middle of her life.  His students carving out a new community, even wider than before in it’s arm’s reach, it’s fingers on the edge.  Even as his limbs, like old branches, curve to the ground;   life reaches up through him.  It unfurls.  A whole community, a diaspora, feeds on his deep roots.

Did he fail?  Or do we all, in failing and falling, find each other, and, finally, grow into the life that is meant for us all along?  I am betting on that.  My failures are many and great, as is, still, my hope.  I will hold them both close to me, as creatively as I can.  One day, perhaps I will look down and wonder at what new green thing, without my knowing, has up and flourished from this humble, broken ground.  One day, that is, when all my losses and loves succeed in making me  who I really am.

Susan

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Stained Glass at Circular Congregational Church

So here’s how life meanders and loops back around in dizzying, mystifying circles:

I first came to Circular Congregational Church in 1993 because I’d heard of Susan Hull, or rather, I’d read about her. Susan was the associate minister at this 370 year-old church in the heart of historic Charleston, and I “met” her when I worked at Harvard Divinity School, putting my own theological education to good use raising money for the Div School and writing for the Harvard Divinity Bulletin. I edited the Alumni/ae News section, and Susan would write in, giving former classmates updates about her ministry at Circular. Susan Hull was one of the few names I knew when I moved to Charleston, and I only knew the 45 words she submitted to the Bulletin.

Seventeen years later, and fourteen years after Susan left the formal church ministry, I now share this blog with her, writing about living toward loss, and today I write about loss as it relates to Circular. Specifically about the fast approaching retirement of Bert Keller, Susan’s former colleague and our senior minister of 37 years. They used to alternate Sundays in the pulpit, and I would typically only go when Susan preached. Bert’s sermons could be heady and a bit dry, but Susan’s soared. Her spiritual insights and poetic range, as on her posts now, was fire and food for the soul.

And now. Now I ache at the thought of the church without Bert. Without his wise and courageous teachings. Without his humble, dressed down theology that’s thin on pomp and righteousness and thick with authenticity. Without his basic yet radical sense of justice, his irreverent humor, and yes, his occasionally dry but always challenging headiness. I mourned when Susan left the church, but then found myself, over time, in spiritual thrall with Bert’s ministry. And now, after 37 years, our church will be Bertless. This Sunday is his last. On Memorial Day, his much-deserved retirement begins, a lengthy Sabbath to travel, read, rest and savor.

This is real grief. The kind that leaves you vulnerable, hollowed out, stricken. The kind where the solid ground I’ve counted on crumbles to sand and bit by bit washes out to sea. I’m losing my mother to ALS, my father to Alzheimer’s, and now I’m doing this practice round with Bert, my spiritual mentor,  surrogate parent and dear friend.

I’m full of gratitude for all he means to me and to so many others, and yet I grieve. I am raw, teary, happy for him, ready, and yet…not ready at all. But I know Circular’s circles, and God’s grace, will continue to loop around in my life, connecting dots that I now can’t begin to see, not with these tears.

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Lemons, Clementines, and Oranges by Jill Hooper

Susan’s last post made me hungry. Hungry for celebration. For honoring loved ones, and the birthday boy who’s given me (though we’ve never met) platters of sustenance through raising a daughter of such wisdom and grace. It made me crave those oranges and that yummy persimmon lamp shade.

Here’s to growling stomachs and watering mouths. To Bill Hull on his 80th, and a bounty of decadent calories and outrageous flavor. And to all that feeds us — whether served in silver bowls, or dished out in classrooms, lectures or sermons; whether tasted via gently crafted words on an obscure blog, or through feeding tubes, or slow, long-chewed, hard-to-swallow bites.

May what we hunger for satisfy the deepest, truest  self.

Stephanie

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There will be oysters, plump and briny; crabcakes crumbling open, corn and crawfish chowder.  Or, maybe, a leg of lamb sinking into French lentils, poached fleshy flounder, high-rising spoonbread that caves to the server’s spoon, okra from the field.  A souffle or tart or – dazzle me – what is a brown butter almond financier?  I’m driving 500 miles for supper.

My father celebrates the art of the kitchen; never more so than now, as swallowing muscles tire; a feeding tube is scheduled.  He still snips restaurant reviews from the newspaper, reading aloud to me their signature concoctions with a smile that savors each salty morsel conjured.  As his weight plummets, his appetite grows more refined, thoughtful, passionate.  Each meal is a moment of grace; he intends to find joy in it.

For this 80th birthday this week, I’m thinking: Babette’s Feast.  Legendary Frank Stitt in the kitchen at Highland Bar and Grill crafting a banquet of savory proportions, setting a long table overflowing in pleasure, plenty, and culinary perfection.  His family surrounding him. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! said the voice of the Psalms.  Time to nibble and nosh.

What do we celebrate, after all, if not the gifts of this earth made dear by their brief season?  I have taken too many bites without tasting each exploding pungency.  Stop.  What does it take to feel the edge of appetite every day?  My father’s smile teaches me a new gusto for the green sprouting leaves of things.  It’s time to let my body know exactly what zest it craves, and then to take a curious delight in the craving. Relish it. Feed it.  Give thanks with an electrified tongue.  Try a financier should it be offered, whatever it may be.  Lick. Nibble. Sip. Smack.  The feast is everywhere.  The moment to celebrate is always now.  Go the distance to feast with those you love.  Sup like it is your last meal.

More lessons from my father’s table:
Say grace.
Taste joy.
Be willing to be dazzled.

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Tree of Wisdom, by Lisa Shimko

 To a Mac newbie, the Apple store is an orchard of technological awe.  Walking in off historic King Street, with its 18th century architecture, is like entering a time warp. I wander amidst the store’s rows of iPods, MacBooks, iPhones, iTouches and iEverything else, all planted on open, inviting counters, and can’t help but feel that Eve-like urge. Just a nibble. A smooth finger swipe across an open screen — images expand, apps enact, tunes play, the world and all its gizmo wizardry opens up. My mother is with me. She’s about to become the hippest 75 year old grandma around.

Before long she’s maneuvering her finger across the slim iPad screen. Whosh, a “page” turns. Swipe, the screen morphs. A turn of the wrist and the iPad shifts from landscape to vertical orientation, and my orientation shifts too–from “what?” to “wow.”  We download the SpeakIt app from iTunes for a buck ninety-nine, and voila, mom can now talk again.  She opts for “Heather,” an American female voice, altho “Lucy” with her tart British accent is on standby, a mere tap of the fingertip and she’s ours. Why not go out sounding like Tina Brown?

ALS takes you to unexpected places, like the Mac store with your mom. My sisters and I hope the iPad will become her verbal wheelchair, keeping her in the traffic of life, able to express her wants, needs, hopes and fears. The iPad is everything one wants to be: sleek, fast, thin, sophisticated, sexy, intelligent (with the complete works of Jane Austen just a finger touch away). Compared to the clunky, 20-lb antiquated devices with droid-like computerized “voices” that we tried at the ALS clinic, this slim slice of Apple is a marvel, and a gift. And so is the 75 year-old reformed technophobe who carries it around in her purse, waiting to be heard.   

Stephanie

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The phone call comes to a slow and careful end, as they all do now; he, measuring out syllables, weighing only words worthy of the energy they exact.  He chooses words plump with praise and affection, even though the voice is skeletal and frail.  For a moment after, I stay still in the chair by the window, in the muffle of high noon, while men dig irrigation channels in the soil not far below.  My chest expands with the new grief which rises up, like a cloud, each time he loses another muscle of independence.  This time, his arm failed to raise him up.  It, too, is seceding from the union that he was.

We talked about the book that he wants to finish writing by the end of summer; how this illness threatens like a coming thunderstorm to dissolve everything before the words are planted.  And could I help? I wondered.  “I need all the help I can get to finish” he said gently, meaning the book, I think.  But I am hearing, and wondering, about the help we need to finish a life.

I will go and read the manuscript with him, of course; will get on my knees, if need be, and press his words into the heart of the earth, where they will take root.  Is that the secret to finishing, to dying, at last?  That we take up the best of the conversation we have been living and plant it, with a wild and unspoken hope, in the world, in the service of life again, the birth of something new?

I am taking note.  I am learning about living, about finishing, about spending every word well.  Notes from today:

Distill the conversation down to what you love.
Plant it in the world, not holding back, no, not a muscle’s load of who you are.
Let go, and let the mighty powers of earth and heaven bring it to its sweet fruition;
whatever that may be,
wherever it may grow,
far,
far beyond your powers to see, or plan, or know.

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In a few hours the calendar turns another page. April has done its duty for yet another year, and on comes May. So long to April’s pea green freshness, its tenderly folded buds and jazzy hot pink azaleas, showing off their stuff.  In May, spring’s promise begins to playout. The flowers planted in April’s optimism now need tending, nurturing, in May, the maternal month. It’s Hallmark’s banner month, the florists’ and masseuses’ make-or-break month — May, our annual homage to motherhood, yet ironically the month when moms are run ragged with end-of-school activities, and then there’s the big blank of summer staring us down.

April to May is a jumping off point, and for me this spring, a literal one. I wake up tomorrow to a big challenge. My May 1st moment will be 6+ hours of physical truth-telling, of exploring and pushing my edge.  Here’s my ode to May, my hope for all tomorrows and the obstacles and opportunities they bring to each of us:

an excerpt from “Praise What Comes”

…At the end there may be no answers
and only a few very simple questions: did I love,

finish my task in the world? Learn at least
one of the many names of God? At the intersection,
the boundaries where one life began and another

ended, the jumping-off places between fear and
possibility, at the ragged edges of pain,
did I catch the smallest glimpse of the holy?

from The Light of Invisible Bodies by Jeanne Lohmann

Stephanie

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In the dream, an orange cloud spreads at my feet high on a desert mesa, as I pause alone on my trek home.  It ripples and shimmers, tissue thin and wide as the darkening sky – as though a feast might be served upon it, or a body folded into sleep.  I stoop down and finger the edge of its luminosity; the gentlest tug sets off pleats and ruffles of light.  More boldly, then, I wave and air it in the unburdened sky, a flaming bedsheet holding the coming night.

In the exodus of all of us who are headed home – whether in our living or in our dying – it seems like there is always a desert to cross alone, wandering in the half-light.  I have been forever on the move toward that land of my true belonging, where all my selves breathe free, counted and claimed in the shelter of my being.  And in the desert places, a solitude of spirit descends; I am fed by the manna of quiet mysteries, of dreams.

My father is heading home, also, in that long circle of completion.  Surrounded by a company of friends, yet he is necessarily alone.  The slow walk of ALS means that the desert crossing may be long, and the way, dark.  Platitudes cannot carry the weight of it.  Silence is preferable, and preparatory.  For alone in that long night, a soul may, just may, feel the moment trembling with a strange incandescence.  As Moses did, in the harsh grace of the desert.  Here, there is no milk and honey,  nor the familiar shape of life we had grown accustomed to.  But out in the in-between, sometimes, the gift is in this burning presence, frightening and alive beyond the edge of our thoughts.  This cloud of unknowing.

Suggesting everything.

Susan

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I’m 11 weeks into what has been for me an intense training plan, and the race is now a week and a half away. Eleven weeks of predawn swims, hours on the bike and on weekend distance runs, prepping my muscles and mind for my most physical challenge since childbirth. This triathlon will be an endurance test — mile after mile, 70.3 of them. The training has been a test already for my husband and kids, who’ve endured my sweaty disappearance on weekends and later-than-usual weeknight meals as I drag in from a ride. It’s been indulgent and yes, selfish, but the discipline has been rewarding. I like having a prescribed routine (thanks to Dawson Cherry, coach extraordinaire), and I’ve enjoyed the time to zone out and think during long workouts. I think about why I’m doing it, can I do it?, will I be humiliated?, how to pace myself so I don’t bonk, how to keep my crazy feet from cramping, how to eat Gu without barfing, and is it worth it?? Lately this last question gets coupled with another one: how to outswim an alligator?  Because the big news is that gators may be lurking in the pond some 400 of us will be swimming in.  

Risk and effort. Effort and risk. The two go hand in hand. Danger looms submerged, unseen, in any endeavor that requires plunging into the challenging unknown. It was one thing when what I risked in this race was coming in absolutely last, or not finishing at all. It’s another when risk has mighty jaws and teeth. 

For me this race is about saying Yes when there are a million reasons to say No. It’s about perservering, when everything rational says Just Don’t Do It. Officials assure us the pond will be safe, and I convince myself the effort will be worth it. Not in the least because of everything else that  is lurking.

It doesn’t take Freud to recognize that I’m confronting and pushing my limits as my mom and Susan’s dad are confronting limits of an opposite extreme. The alleged alligator is a below-the-surface reminder that nothing is a given, that safety is never a guarantee.

Stephanie

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I asked you to teach me about dying, sitting knee to knee on a flowered sofa and a wheelchair in the mild afternoon.  You took me round about.

Your grandparents farmed hand to mouth in the barren backcountry of Alabama.  I knew this, but listened.  Your parents moved to the city, with a bold zeal for education that met the harsh setbacks of the Depression; they eked out their best for their only son.  It was you who finally graduated a university, the first in the family, and earned a doctorate, and the world began to open; how wide the banks of the river grew.  And then I came along, and my brother, entering schools you never dreamed of, traveling worlds, living in houses our farm folks would not have bothered to imagine.

You didn’t speak of dying, but of the force of living; and wondered about why we are so cautious to stake out new ground for ourselves.  From your placement now, where the river runs into the sea, you seemed to be saying:  flow!  Don’t look back to the farm for permission to swell with currents deep and demanding – but look to what moves through me now, larger than my imagining.  You took your daughter’s question and spun it into a story of family and fate, and gave it back.  Here is your thread:  weave your own life as luminous as you dare.  The colors passing through you are alive and want to be chosen.  Choose, then, what is yours, if not mine, and make of it a cloth of wonder.

I, unsuspecting that afternoon, received the grail every daughter seeks from her father:  Go, freely and with joy, to love and serve your life; for I have found you worthy of it. Fresh waters came from below as from an unknown spring; life began to rise, to swell the banks; to flood the plain, taking back the red clay that I was born to, twisting toward the next bend I cannot see around.  Your blessing as vigorous as ever:  live well, live all you have been given; and well you will die.

That is all I need to know, for now.

Susan

photo by Peter Griffin:  <a href=”http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=1107

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