P is for Past

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana

Does the past shape us? Or maybe the better question is to what extent does the past shape us?
I used to love holding my grandmother’s hands. I always felt that by touching her hands I was touching the past, reaching directly back into history. My grandmother died when she was 101 and I loved all the history that she held in those hands…history that belonged to me, especially when her hand was in mine.

In my life I have two very opposing perspectives on the role the past plays in our present. My husband believes we are solely responsible for our present, more specifically he believes that we are solely responsible for our behavior in the present. Our past makes for good and sometimes not so good memories but memories don’t define us nor control our behavior unless we let them. He believes that as adults we know right from wrong, even if we weren’t taught some of those lessons in our youth and that blaming our youth for poor decisions is simply a cop out.  On the other hand is my best friend. She believes that our past is 100% responsible for our present and that unless we closely examine our past and heal old wounds we can never fully grow up and live in the present.

I am somewhere in the middle. I know that my past shapes who I am.  I carry all those experiences of my childhood, youth and all the years through yesterday into my today.  Those experiences influence my beliefs, my hopes, what weighs me down and yes, even at times influences my behavior. And I actually love knowing that.  Some of those experiences in my childhood were difficult. I was bullied when I was in the sixth grade and think that experience led me to be a bit of a bully myself at times. Nothing I am proud of.  Thinking about those times when I was bullied still makes my stomach knot but I can choose not to be a bully despite that pain (and I am succeeding).  But not being a bully did require a bit of thinking about my past to determine what may have been pushing my buttons in my present.  The difference between me and my best friend is that I don’t dwell in the past.  I don’t think every decision I make today is controlled by my past nor do I believe that every childhood hurt has to somehow be healed before I can move on. The difference between me and my husband is that I acknowledge how the past does influence my present, actions included, and that at times, that’s really a good thing.

Another aspect of the past that I love thinking about is my family’s past…my ancestry.  My mother grew up very close to her cousins so I grew up very close to my grand aunts and uncles as well as my second cousins.  I never knew my great grandparents but I heard some of their stories, stories of hardship and stories of love. When we were in Sicily, my mother and I went to my great grandparent’s church in the little town of Sambuca (not the town famous for the liquor).  I loved touching the pews where they may have sat, touching the past, my past.   I loved knowing that somehow I was connected to that church, to that town.  I think of my ancestry as this amazing group of people standing just behind me, people whose strength is my strength, whose story is my story.  One of my sister-in-laws is especially good at instilling a gratitude for the past in her children. They bake things their grandparents and great grandparents baked; they celebrate holidays with some traditions pasted down from long gone relatives.

When people ask where I come from I still say Brooklyn even though I have lived away from that city for more years than I actually lived in it.  But it IS where I am from even if it is part of my past.  I think each of us carry our past into our present, the good, the bad, and everything in between. It’s what we do with it that matters. And just maybe taking a look at our past will open new possibilities for our future.

M is for Mend

M is for Mend…I am on the Mend! Last week I was felled by a wicked stomach virus. I was truly knocked out. Is there anything worse than stomach stuff? Well of course, but seems like not when you are in the throes of such an illness.  My poor husband got it the week before while I was out of town. The illness is why I skipped the letter L in this meme series and hopped onto M.  We think the culprit was one of our peanut sized grand-nieces who came over one evening and promptly informed us that the night before she “spitted up a lot!” Thanks for sharing Dani!

For as miserable as I felt ( I am not a good sickie, just ask my husband), the feeling of joy was even greater at the moment when I realized I had turned the corner, when I reached that point in time when I realized that I was in fact  on-the-mend! With a little help from a prescription my wretched stomach had calmed itself enough to begin the process of mending. I couldn’t have been happier though tired, wiped out even, but indeed grateful that the worst was now behind me.  I was on the mend to being made whole again.

We spend a lot of time as human beings on-the-mend, though I am not sure we realize it. We spend much of our time healing from the small and not small tears in the fabric of our well-being. Those scrapes and bruises that come from daily contact with other human beings.  We bristle at the coworker’s indifference, get irate at being cut off on the highway, frustrated by the young person’s teenage eye rolls, or whatever happens to get under our skin. For the most part we are able to release these things and not even realize that our bodies processed pain, released it, then, even on a cellular level, began to repair the damage that the stress has caused. We are in a state of constant mending.

Marriage is filled with times of being on the mend. Not major events of some consequence but rather moments filled with simple opportunities to mend. We tick each other off only to realize that  we were wrong, by our action, inaction, or reaction, then apologize and begin the mending process. A simple heartfelt apology sets in motion momentous mending.  Most often it’s something so inconsequential that it doesn’t even warrant a discussion but the mending process is no less real. 

Marriage isn’t a series of negotiations but rather an ongoing recognition of the need to mend. It’s the recognition that both partners are fragile, easily torn but that with each tear, the person and the marriage become stronger by the opportunity to strengthen the binding. Of course some of the tears are deep, but fortunately rarely so permanent that love’s binding qualities can’t repair. I am not saying the repairs are always instantaneous; the tear may stay torn for awhile. No doubt about, we are not perfect, just people on-the-mend.

This Palm Sunday (actually every Palm Sunday) the Passion was read. At the moment of Christ’s death we learn that the curtain in the temple is torn in two, from top to bottom. This is the curtain which separated the Holiest section of the temple from the rest of the sanctuary. Prior to this only the High Priest was allowed to enter this area and he only once a year.   The tear of course symbolizes the end of the old ways of keeping the people from accessing God. Christ’s death opens a pathway to the Father. HE IS the pathway. Although it is symbolized as a tear, Christ’s death and resurrection actually heals, binds, mends.  His resurrection sets in motion the process by which we continually seek healing from our often self inflicted tears because we are people always on the mend. Fortunately, we believe in the great tailor who is capable of mending whatever shredded garments we bring His way. 

I is for Intuition

I is for Intuition

Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.- Jonas Salk

I have a feeling about this…a mother’s intuition…a hunch…

We have all heard the phrases and more importantly experienced those moments of clarity when you simply knew what to do in a particular situation. You didn’t need to give it much thought, the answer came from within:  Intuition. Intuition comes from the Latin word “intueri” which means to see within. Although I think it is more about listening than seeing within. Intuition is listening to that place within ourselves where God dwells. It is listening to the soul 

In the fall of 2010 Harvard researchers published the findings from a study indicating that people with a more intuitive thinking style tend to believe in God more deeply than those with a more reflective thinking style. A reflective style of thinking is weighing the pros and cons, looking at all the options carefully, or approaching decisions from a purely logical frame of reference. Intuitive thinking is an approach to decisions or assessments where one trusts one’s gut or intuition; where one looks internally for the answers more so than weighing facts. The study didn’t indicate which came first --intuitive thinking or deep faith-- only that those who tend to trust their intuition have greater faith than those who did not generally rely on intuitive thought. Both intuition and faith have been described as knowledge without reason. Faith is often unreasonable. Faith is an intuitive belief in a power greater then ourselves, a Divine Power. Faith is its own kind of cognition.   It makes sense then that those with a deep faith would be less inclined to solely use reasoning as a means of processing information.

For me, intuition and faith are inseparable, integral components of the Holy. I believe faith feeds our intuition.  Both are manifest in that small voice that speaks continually even though we, or at least I, do not always trust it or can even hear it. Learning to listen to our intuition and trusting it, it seems to me, would lead to greater faith. And the greater our faith the more likely we trust that inner voice. But that small voice too often gets drowned out by all the noise in our head. It gets pushed aside by logic that says that doesn’t make sense, it hasn’t been thought out enough. Grace is the courage to listen to the voice no matter what the mind thinks.

A Mystic is anyone who seeks a deeper relationship with God though most are known for their extraordinary experiences and expressions of faith. I would say that Mystics are experts at tuning into their intuition.  Through their faith and disciplined practices, Mystics readily connect with God within themselves.  Not seeking God out-there-somewhere but the God within. Intuition in this sense is that place where the mind listens to the voice of God dwelling within; its listening to the soul.  No one would call mystics logical and many did call them crazy.

Unfortunately, it isn’t an easy thing to tap into our intuition, at least not for me. It requires quiet and time, it especially requires pray erthat quiets the mind. Without practice it is easy to confuse intuition with an initial reaction to something.  I am guessing that most of us have had a first, gut reaction to something or someone that, upon further reflection, was proved wrong.  First thoughts are too easily tainted by prejudice or misinformation. One clue that what you hear is God speaking through your intuition  and not an initial reaction is that intuition will evoke a sense of peace whereas an initial thought may be disquieting or push us to ask even more questions. I think it is also easy to confuse intuition with the ego. The ego will also prompt us to act but its voice usually isn't so small and rarely quiet. 

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." - Albert Einstein,

Einstein points out that the logical mind should serve the intuitive mind. The quote indicate that both are important but indicates that one should serve the other…logic should serve the higher mind…intuition. St Thomas Aquinas argued that faith and reason must coexist. Thus, we find evidence of God in nature. For those of us with faith we see God in all creation: creation becomes evidence of God.  God doesn’t ask us not to think, he doesn’t want us leave our brain at the church door. He gave us that brain so expects us to use it. But our ability to be reflective must serve a higher purpose. We are thinking beings but our thinking, even for the best of brains, is limited. God isn’t limited and intuition channels God for those willing to undergo the discipline to learn to listen.

Borders, Mary, Joseph, and Bad Books.

I will miss many things now that Border’s Book Stores are closed; I will miss the time spent pouring over potential purchases with a good cup of coffee or two.  I must admit however, that I probably did help put Borders out of business with my many purchases via Amazon. Hmmm, sorry about that. One of the things I will miss the most though, something you simply can’t do at Amazon (or at least it’s not nearly as much fun) is shopping the after-Christmas sale. 

Oh how I loved to shop Borders for those great Christmas bargains!  I have quite a few nieces and nephews for which my favorite gift to give is books (it’s my favorite gift to give anyone!).  I am especially fond of Christmas books and would use that sale to stock up. At last year’s sale I actually purchased two stuffed moose (mooses? Moosi?)  with Christmas lights on their antlers for two babies not yet born. Both these infants were to be the first-born child of two of my nephews and I wanted some fun things for their first Christmas (both families are big skiers in areas where moose are common).  I almost couldn’t find them this year but finally dug them out and shipped them onto their six-month old recipients. 

At last year’s sale I also picked up a book by Elizabeth Berg The Handmaiden and the Carpenter.  And while I didn’t recall reading any of Berg’s books, I did at least know she was a well received author so I purchased the book with high hopes.  For reasons I can’t remember, the book was packed up with our Christmas decorations and I only rediscovered it after lugging the boxes down from the attic a few weeks ago.

I have no problem with fiction based on the Bible and recognize the story of Mary and Joseph as one with great potential for a rich elaboration. Unfortunately, this book was one of those rare volumes that I simply could not finish.  While we do not have a wealth of historical information about Joseph and Mary, we do have some insight. Berg chose to ignore all existing information on these two people. Rather than tap what we do know, Berg recreated Mary and Joseph into an oddly modern couple.  It was trite, contrived and worse; it totally disregarded known customs and culture of the ancient people of Judea. 

If Berg wanted to modernize this story, she should have put them in a different era, different location; she didn’t.  She characterizes Joseph and Mary as two teens playfully courting in ways that are completely counter to the times. While they may have been aware of each other prior to their betrothal, it is highly unlikely that they spent any time alone together, let alone actually engage in the playful banter of Berg’s writings. 

While the Bible is silent on Joseph’s age, most scholars writing at around  that time, or about that time-period, strongly suggest that Joseph was likely much older than Mary; it is quite possible that he was a widow with children.  Berg’s Joseph was 17 and a very restless young-man.

Both Mary and Joseph were devout Jews, familiar with Scripture and with the ways the Holy Spirit can intervene in one’s life. Joseph was from the Jewish royal line of David. Both were orthodox in their understanding of the Bible and how it guided, even ruled their life. (Joseph)…As an honorable and humble man, as well as faithful in his observance of the Israelite ordinances and feasts (Luke 2:21-24, 41).  Berg not only ignores this but actually seems to want to flout the depth of this couple’s faith.

I appreciate what I think was Berg’s intent to give the back-story about Mary and Joseph, tell us more about what they must be feeling by relying on something we all could relate to…their humanity.

What could be a more common human experience than fear and doubt? While Berg attempts to explore these emotions, she does so in a way that diminishes their faith. Zechariah, Mary and Joseph all experience fear when they first learn of the events surrounding the birth of John and Jesus. And all were told by the angel Gabriel Be Not Afraid. Mary’s response to that command is was confusion but ultimately acceptance (where Zachariah doubts and gets himself in trouble). Accepting what she was chosen to do doesn’t negate her fear. Berg’s Mary was an I-can-do-anything sort of teenager. We have so much evidence of Mary’s true strength, strength that comes from her faith. This was a woman who watched her son grow up to be a rebel-of-sorts; she watched her son become despised and tortured. She stood at his feet, forced to watch is murder. Why did Berg need to create a Mary whose strength seems to come from being precocious and even contrary?

Mary was most likely around 13 years old, her marriage was probably an arrangement between the two families. And while this was customary and something she probably knew she was destined for her entire life (an arranged marriage), knowing what is coming does not negate her fear. This is who young Mary most likely was…full of Grace but also with some fear; humble yet strong; devout yet fragile.  This is a complex woman, not the flirty teenager of Berg’s creation.

After Mary hears Gabriel’s message, filled with all these emotions, she heads out to see her cousin Elizabeth. …Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste (Luke 22).  She beats a path to see her older cousin probably in search of comfort and to see if her older relative could shed some light on what was happening to both of them.  I think that Elizabeth represents a safe haven for Mary in part because travel was definitely not easy at this time, so heading out in haste, without great preparation, wasn’t typical for the time period.  It was an arduous trek but she needed/wanted to see her cousin. She was young and scared and not really sure of what was happening. Like all of us, when we feel overwhelmed, we seek out the comfort of a loving friend or relative.

Berg does explore Joseph’s understandable confusion and doubt.  Much of her narrative centers on a conversation between Mary and Joseph as Joseph lay dying. I think the Bible does a good job telling us just how truly human Joseph was. His first reaction to Mary’s pregnancy was to decide he would “quietly” divorce her. What a good man. In a time when he could have had Mary stoned for adultery and the shame of her actions would have brought down her family if made public, he being an upright man, and not desiring to make her a public example, had a mind to break their brothel  (Matthew 1:18-19).  He could have just left; by law, he needed to be in Bethlehem. But he didn’t, he married her. Again his acceptance of God’s call doesn’t negate his fear or confusion. It is never made clear in the Bible if Joseph ever “got” who this child-Jesus was or was to become. We know that even as Christ makes his bar-mitzvah at 12 years old, Joseph and Mary still do not understand the God-nature of their son. Regardless of his confusion, Joseph was a father committed to his son, he taught him his trade that he would have a secure life.

Berg does much to down play faith in an effort to “disclose” the couple’s humanity. She uses doubt, anger and even sex to show us how human Mary and Joseph really are…but she misses the mark by far. Rather than expand on what the Bible and scripture scholars have shown to be their great humanity, she belittles their faith and takes a great story and writes it into a very poorly written tale with little imagination. I am far from a fundamentalist and I don’t believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible but I am guessing Berg has some issues with Christianity

Some Room at the Inn

We don’t often think of the Christmas passages or birth narratives from Scripture as stories of hospitality. Tradition holds that for Mary and Joseph, there was no hospitality. We are told that the Holy Family was turned away, not welcomed in at all. The Gospel according the Evangelist Luke is the only Gospel that tells the story about the Holy Family facing no room at the Inn. There is no mention of such an inhospitable experience in any other Gospel.  And yet despite the fact that the story of being turned away only appears in Luke, these simple words - -  no room at the Inn- -have become the ubiquitous if not the defining Advent/Christmas narrative.

Both Mathew and Luke speak of Christ being born in Bethlehem. Mathew puts the family there from the start; Luke creates a reason for the Holy Family to travel to Bethlehem.  According to Luke

Caesar Augustus decrees that every person living in the great Roman Empire had to return to their familiar city of origin So Joseph, being from the line of David, takes his young bride and heads to Bethlehem, the City of David.

While there is no real evidence of a census at the time of Christ’s birth, Luke probably used the idea of mandatory census to convey that Christ was born under the dictates of Roman rule.  So the family travels to the City of David because Joseph is from the line of David, a line of kings.  In essence, Joseph is bringing his family home and would therefore have been related to many of the families and households within Bethlehem.  We do know that the cultural tradition of the ancient people of Judea was one of hospitality, especially if you were family. 

As good Jews, the people of Bethlehem knew that Scripture called them to welcome the friend and the stranger alike: “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” Lev 19:34.  Indeed, Leviticus is replete with directives to be hospitable, to share food and lodging with those who appear at your door. The ministry of hospitality abounds throughout the Bible.  Abraham opened his tent to those he thought were strangers. Abraham’s story reflected a formal code in the desert, people were expected to provide some comfort for the Bedouin in return for safety, that is the community would rally to ensure harsh punishment should someone take advantage of one’s hospitality.  Hospitality is the likely response for people returning to their familiar home in the time of Christ’s birth. Doors would be open, not closed. A meal would be set; feet would be washed, the donkey given hay and so on. 

Despite what tradition tells us, we do have some evidence that in fact the Holy Family was welcomed in and even given a special place in someone’s house. It is likely that the term Inn for  Luke’s referred to a guest room and not a B&B. The guest room of that particular house may have been full so the relatives had to make do with other available space.

We know that Mary “wrapped the infant is swaddling clothes and placed him in a manger…” Luke 2:7. A manager could, and often was, built into the family’s home. Many homes in that day were built so that the animals were kept within the confines of the household.  One might envision something a kin to what we would call a loft, although the loft would be a bit lower than modern lofts. Animals were kept in the lower part of the dwelling and people slept in the loft area, a guest room, what we might even call an upper room. The manger was at the end of the loft for animals to feed.

What does this all have to do with me…beyond existentialism?

About a year ago we moved to an area that could be considered our familiar town of origin in that we spent our childhood summers here (Erskine Lakes). We bought a house which we thought would meet our needs but after we settling in we realized that it wasn’t quite our dream home.  We were concerned that while it was plenty big for the two of us, it became a bit tight when all three kids came for a visit. 

Our concerns grew as we thought of future husbands/wives/kids coming to visit…was this a place that could accommodate all comfortably?  We thought possibly not, and so attempted to sell the house but unfortunately the market didn’t support the sale.  And here we are three weeks before Christmas…in the same house after we decided it wouldn’t work for us…

This Christmas Eve, the three kids, one boyfriend, and a cousin-of-the-boyfriend will be again returning “home”; or at least to their parent’s somewhat new home. (Actually, like Joseph, for my oldest step-child Elizabeth, Erskine is her city of origin! She was indeed born here and lived her earliest years in a house a few tenths-of-a-mile from this one).   And while there is no “upper-room” there is guest space.  And we will make it work. We do have two full baths, we do have three bedrooms (though one is more of a storage room), and the family room has a pull out couch and plenty of room for air-beds.  Which is to say , we have a great deal more room than what was offered to the Christ-child.

In fact, we will more than make this Christmas work. We will have plenty of food, drinks, warmth, and love. It will be our second Christmas Eve in this home; the second time ALL of the kids/friends will have spent the night or nights here, together (they have all been here other times as well, just only one other time ALL together).  Each time we inflate the air-beds, fill the fridge to watch it empty, and see the towels pile up on the bathroom floor, our house becomes more of a home. 

And making this house a home is a big deal for my family because we are a step-family and as such we may be a bit more fragile than traditional families, especially when it comes to things like home.

It seems that especially at Christmas, I might do well to focus less on the actual square-footage and more on the hospitality, because I am welcoming in some very important children to celebrate the birth of one very important child.