Liturgy & spirituality in feminist perspective: online course

As I noted in the previous post, which announced the Merton retreat, I have begun (since last year) to offer online courses and retreats.

We have a course about to start in a week. It is called Naming Mystery, Living Justice: Spirituality and Liturgy in Feminist Perspective. It will feature Christian feminist as well as some Jewish feminist and Goddess/Pagan readings. Full information is here. 

All genders are welcome. You don't have to be a woman to be interested in feminism.

Note that there is a discount if you register by tonight! (Sunday, January 20.) If you don't read this till Monday morning, ask for the discount then too. 

The home page of my professional website (really a blog acting like a website) is here.

Now back to our (ir)regularly scheduled blogging...

Joseph of Arimathea Speaks: A Meditation on the Fourteenth Station of the Cross

Joseph of Arimathea Speaks

a meditation on the fourteenth station of the cross

"Jesus is laid in the tomb."

St. Mary's House, Greensboro

Good Friday, 2012

I am Joseph. I asked for the body.

I could not let it lie and be desecrated.

Not on the Sabbath.

Not anytime.

I asked for the body.

I asked for it

from the Romans who occupy our land,

the torturers,

who rule us

and tax us

and make sure

that we are afraid,

even the rich citizens

like me.

I asked for it

from Pilate,

the governor,

who would rather see Jesus,

like the other crucified ones,

rot in the sun,

a reminder to all who pass by

–Sabbath or no Sabbath—

that this is what happens

to insurrectionists: to those who revolt.

I asked.

I, a member of the Council,

I asked for the body.

We know.
We all know.

After the stripping,

the shame,

the beating,

the pain,

the thirst,

the agony,

this is what happens:

the body rots in the sun;

the birds come;

and then, after a while,

sometimes a long while

the soldiers

or their slaves

throw the body in a common grave.

I could not let that happen.

I asked for the body.

I am a Jew.

To us death is the great equalizer.
So burial must happen to all

with equal respect

and to none

with more respect than others.

But there must be respect.

I acted fast.

I know why,

But I am not sure how.

I was in shock.

I did not witness the worst,

not like the women.
I still had a voice in my throat.

I asked for the body.

Often it is the women

who wash a body for burial,

in running water if there is any,

and if not, with water poured

from a jug,

making the body clean

after the often messy struggle toward death,

the last struggle.

But I did the washing. 

I did it fast.

I had help, of course.

I could never have done it alone.

I asked for the body.

I was the one who bought the linen,

the same garment I will wear,

the one my sons will buy for me,

later, if God grants me more years.

I bought it for this man younger than I.

I bought it

as I did years ago for my little girl

when she died of a fever,

long before her mother and I

had met Jesus.

I asked for the body

and I washed it

and I wrapped it.

I buried the body.

I buried his body

in my own tomb,

the tomb waiting for me.
It was the least I could do.

Now I am walking home,

numb.

Walking.

I am not even sure how I got this far on the road.

I had my wits about me, enough of them

to act, but I was acting

as if in a dream

or walking through water.

I only know

he is dead and I had to

I had to ask for the body.

The road is ahead of me

and I am walking.

About the rest of life

I do not know.

I do not know.

    

Though all four gospels record the presence and actions of Joseph of Arimathea, the Gospel according to Mark is the one on which I focused my meditation during the writing and research for this spoken-word piece.

(c) Jane Redmont 2012 

Last year's Good Friday meditation (also from Stations of the Cross at St. Mary's House [Episcopal], Greensboro) is here.

Bread

Today I made and baked bread for the first time. Bread made with yeast and kneaded by hand. I have of course made all manner of quick breads: corn bread, muffins, that sort of thing. Not real bread, though. I do have a memory of making little loaves in my mother's oven for some kind of school project, and the funny thing is I don't remember yeast or kneading, but I do remember that the bread rose. Maybe my memory is faulty.

I have two roundish loaves cooling on a rack and of course I could not resist cutting into one and tasting it before it was completely cool. It was good.

These are whole wheat loaves, 100% whole wheat. The recipe is the "Plain and Simple" bread from the Cheese Board's book. I don't own loaf pans, and I don't like pan-shaped bread anyway, so I made rounds (one is actually an oval) and I sprayed the loaves, as they say you should to get more of a crust. It worked, but I need an oven thermometer. I think the oven was too hot. I followed the directions religiously because I wanted to make the basic recipe first and then fiddle with it once I had the hang of it, and the directions said 450 degrees for 5 minutes and then 400. Crust nearly burned. Anyway, I am pleased with myself and with the bread, the house smelled a little like France all of a sudden, and kneading really does get out your aggressions.

I still have writer's block, though. My latest Facebook update says "baking bread and battling writer's block." I need to stay off Facebook. Which mostly I do when I am writing. I am working on a book chapter and now that it is late at night and the bread is out it will probably start "cookin'," but I am trying not to stay up too late, so I'll have to go to bed trusting that the words and more importantly, the sentences will appear in the morning.

Some of this, as I mentioned in the last day or so, is undoubtedly related to the way in which my job drains me of my own writing voice and of much of my energy, but there are other causes too. At any rate, analyzing my writing process is not my purpose here and does not belong here.

The wonderful Fran (formerly of FranIAm blog), who is a dear friend and spiritual sister, now has a blog called There Will Be Bread and there she writes with great fluency and beauty, straight from the heart, and with a good mind, too. I on the other hand am rather dry these days. At least, though, there is bread with crust and crumb, right here, tonight.

Holy One of Blessing, your presence fills creation, bringing forth bread from the earth.*


* Contemporary translation, in inclusive language, of the traditional Jewish ha-motzi, the blessing over the bread.

Photos: Jane Redmont

September 11, 2010: reflection for a student-initiated "interfaith solidarity" gathering

In light of recent events and less recent ones, some students at Guilford College, where I teach, organized a gathering for reflection and meditation. The event was simple and included readings from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim holy scriptures followed by Quaker-style silence with opportunity for anyone to speak. It began with a spoken reflection by a faculty member, who happened to be your friendly Acts of Hope blogger.

Here is the reflection. Bear in mind that

1) it was addressed to a particular audience --in this case, mostly "adult-escent" students and one or two faculty, including a variety of religious, non-religious, I'm-not-religious-but-I'm-spiritual, and other folks, so "pitching it" was tricky;

2) it has some repetitions and will seem a little rambling in places, with questionable sentence structure. I wrote it to be spoken aloud, slowly and somewhat meditatively.

In spite of this, perhaps some of this reflection will be useful to you.

As you may surmise from the words below, I've been teaching Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dorothee Soelle, Diana Eck, and Eboo Patel these days. And the early centuries of the Christian church.

Shalom. Salaam aleikum. Peace be with you.

Reflections on Interreligious Solidarity
Today and in the Long Haul

We welcome each other to this gathering
to which we come in peace
with both our common humanity
and our profound differences.

I always smile and take a deep breath
when someone says to me
“Well, all religions are the same.”
Actually, they are not.

Our gathering today
is an invitation to open our hearts and minds
and (as Thomas said in his invitation letter) our arms
to those who are
not us.

To learn:
Allah is worshipped by Muslims,
as all-merciful and compassionate.

To learn:
There was a Muslim nonviolent leader
Kahn Abdul Ghaffar Khan (known as Badshah Khan)
in what is now Pakistan
in the same era as the Hindu nonviolent leader
Mohandas Gandhi
(known as Mahatma Gandhi).

To learn:
Jewish law is not a set of rules
but a path of life.

To learn:
The Torah and the whole Tanakh
and Judaism
are not just a prelude to Christianity.

To learn:
Jesus was not a Christian.

To learn:
Orthodox Christians who venerate icons
of Jesus, Mary, and the saints
are not worshiping idols.

To learn:
There have been times and places in history
in which Jews, Christians, and Muslims
have killed in the name of God.

To learn:
There have been times and places in history
in which Jews, Christians, and Muslims
have lived together and learned from each other.
Cordoba. Sarajevo. New York.

To learn:
Muslims worshiped peacefully
on the 17th floor of the World Trade Center
and were among the dead 9 years ago
along with Christians, Jews, Buddhists,
humanists, agnostics, atheists, and
many people whose faith we will never know.

To learn:
On that day,
an openly gay Franciscan Catholic priest
was one of the people who died
not because he was working in the twin towers
but because he rushed over there
and went in
to help care for and pray for
the wounded and the dead.

To learn:
Long before 2001,
September the 11th was the day in 1973
that a coalition of military generals
toppled the democratically elected government in Chile
and established a dictatorship that ruled with terror
for 16 years, banned trade unions,
exiled 200,000 dissenters
killed thousands of others,
and used its laws against a million native people,
the Mapuche.
The U.S. government, except during the Carter era,
supported the dictatorship.

Now,
having said all this,
let me make something clear.

Knowledge alone will not save or heal the world.
Higher learning will not guarantee justice
or alone teach compassion.

That would be to say
that only educated people can be holy
and that all educated people are righteous.

That is not true.

The Nazi doctors had lots of education.
They had medical degrees
from distinguished universities
and they used their knowledge
to torture and kill other human beings
both children and adults.
And then they went home
and listened to classical music.

Education is important
and truth and accuracy do matter.

but I want to raise the question for us today
of what kind of education we need.

More specifically,
I want to ask
what practices
–I’d like to call them spiritual practices
and I hope this is a phrase that has meaning
to all or most of you—
I want to ask what spiritual practices
we need to cultivate
in order to live as compassionate neighbors
in this conflicted world.

The world in which we live
is dangerous as well as beautiful.

The hate which we have witnessed in so many ways
--poverty that kills,
violence that kills,
cultural violence,
the threat of burning scriptures, the Qur’an, in Florida,
the burning of bodies in New York and Washington (and Pennsylvania),
the bodies maimed and raped and murdered in wars
right now
in so many countries,
the hasty language in the comments on news websites,
the swastika that showed up on someone's door
in Binford dorm the other day, right here on campus—
all that hate is not going to go away.

The hate is not going away,
though the good news is that there are
many people and groups
from many religions and places and cultures
who do the work of love,
who embody solidarity,
who exercise humility and who labor for justice.

In this world
you will be asked to stand up
for the same values and sentiments
for which you stand today
here in this circle.

You will need to do so
in hostile environments.

Will you be ready?

How will you prepare yourself?

How are you preparing now, while you are in school,
for the kind of witness we give today?

On what (or on whom)
will you draw to help you?

Let me use a word
that will not have a benevolent meaning
to all of you;
it is the word "tradition."
Thank you for bearing with me.

What tradition
or traditions
will you drawn on?

You see, we have company here.

We have company in the way of peace:
in religious peacemaking
and in secular groups devoted to peace.

We have to forge new paths
but we do not have to reinvent the wheel.

People have been here before us.

This is part of today’s good news.
We are not alone, here in our little group.

Both the dead and the living
walk with us and teach us and encourage us
if we will only listen.

We can’t do this work
without community.

And we are not the first.

Our particular community
may be a community of faith and practice,
or a humanist community.
Our communities may be
communities of struggle,
communities of peacemakers,
long established
or fairly new groups
(like the Interfaith Youth Core).


Some of us here
believe that our way
and our community’s way
is the best and the holiest.

Others
are not sure what we believe
or where the way is for us.

Whether we are one or the other
or somewhere in between,
encountering the other
is part of our work in the classroom.

It is also our work everywhere else.
Everywhere.

Think of how often
you –let me say “we” here
since of course I do it too.
Think how often we
respond hastily,
inwardly or outwardly,
jump to conclusions,
think first of our own good.

Especially those of us who are privileged
by virtue of our education,
our race, our gender,
and yes, our religion,
if we are members of the majority religion.

Others
are our teachers.

The poor and the uneducated will teach you.

The one you fear will teach you.

Your own fear will teach you.

We have to school ourselves
for solidarity.

It is hard for all of us.

Those of us who are older,
who have some experience and perhaps some wisdom
can lock ourselves inside that experience
and wall off new insight.
We need to remember that wisdom will come
from those half our age
and from territory
where we have not ventured
over the years
out of fear
or habit
or laziness.

Those of us who are younger
who are still figuring out who we are,
building our egos,
shoring them up,
and in the process resisting and reacting,
which is good and part of the journey,
may find out we need to ease up
to let wisdom in.


Solidarity:
this will cost you.
This will cost us.

Wherever we draw our inspiration and our strength,
whatever our primary community,
of faith
or blood
or friendship
there will be a cost.

So again,
ask yourselves:

Given the state of the world,
given the misunderstanding, the bias, the hatred,
and given the hope and vision that others
here and elsewhere
have shared with me,
how will I spend these college years?

I urge you,
spend these years equipping yourselves.

And do remind us who teach
that we need to equip ourselves
and school ourselves as well
for the path of peace.

Solidarity is not just today.

Solidarity is a long road.

Learning about each other takes time.

The Torah and the rest of the Tanakh,
the Christian Bible,
the Holy Qur’an:
the riches in them,
the commentaries on them
the disagreements about them
take years to study.

The traditions of the children of Abraham
take years to understand.

So do the traditions of the children of Sarah,
of Hajar (her Muslim name – Jews and Christians call her Hagar),
of Mary, who is also Mariam and Miriam.

Some traditions are written, others not.
They are also part of our collective story
and may take even more discernment and insight
to learn and understand.

Can we take the time for this?

Can we learn
not to make assumptions
about why someone covers her head with a scarf?
Can we learn not to make fun of people
who live by a different calendar from ours
or won’t do business one day a week?
Or of people who lay a mat on the floor to pray
or fall into the joyous ecstasy of Pentecostal Christian worship
or use images in prayer?

Can we learn not to make haste?

How do we learn to discern
when to choose holy patience
and when to choose holy impatience?

How do we learn to listen?

All this requires practice.

Daily.

More than daily.

Zen Buddhists would call some of this
the practice of mindfulness.

How do we take a breath
and not rush to reaction?

Can we learn
what gives the other person sorrow
but also what gives this person joy?

Can we try to understand
the whole person before us?

Will we also learn to understand systems and communities?

Can we acquire understanding of how
the many media and modes of communication
work
and of how they shape our perceptions?

Can we learn to understand
our own emotions and reactions?

We can’t do this alone.

We can’t do this without community.

It starts right here.

Holocaust map - Europe and the teaching of 20th century theology

The link to this map doesn't work, but I saved the image as a jpg.

I am linking a Facebook post to this since the link is cranky and refuses to show up on Facebook.

Make sure you click on the image to enlarge it. (Click twice and it will get really big and detailed.)

Post on Facebook:

Map for the little darlings to study. Yeah, I'm teaching a Christian theology course and they are also getting a good dose of theological vocabulary & questions. But woe unto those who study European theologies in the mid-20th century & after without looking this in the face. And without asking whether & how this affects the questions & the language. And how we understand God. And how theology & ethics are related. And what responsibilities Christians bear.

End of speech. I'm off to edit the Tome.

Why Mexico City

Someone on Facebook asked why my parents got married in Mexico City.

Since it's too long an answer for Facebook, here goes.

My father got his master's degree at the Columbia University Journalism School. He was not yet 21 years old. He graduated at the top of his class (1939) and was one of three recipients of a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. This gave him the opportunity to travel and write for a year.

He headed for Europe in June. He knew by then that he wanted to be a foreign correspondent. He traveled through Western Europe, then Eastern Europe and the USSR and back to Western Europe. Well, if you remember your world history, you remember what started happening on September 1, 1939. World War II broke out.

My father had hoped to stay and find work as a war correspondent, but despite his letters of recommendation, he couldn't find a job, and he went home, not on a Cunard liner as he had on the way over, but on a freighter taking refugees back to the U.S. Among the passengers was my father's cabin-mate --not by choice-- who turned out to be, so he said and my father had no reason to doubt him, Prince Felix Yussupov. You may remember him as the man who killed Rasputin. My father notes in his memoir that he "had never before met anybody who had killed a man, let alone boasted about it. Sharing a cabin with him was fun on an otherwise tense voyage, but I didn't sleep too well thinking about my new friend, the murderer." (p.23)

FoAoH decided to finish up his fellowship in Mexico City, so off he went. There were many estadounidenses there at the time: Mexico was warm, welcoming, and inexpensive. It was also, as my father discovered, desperately poor, and the Mexico City metropolitan area was already crowded then with a population over five million. He started freelancing and stringing (working part-time) for several newspapers and news services.

After he'd been there for a while, MoAoH got sick of waiting up in Brooklyn. She'd finished college by then, so, as I like to tell it, she said to her parents "Bye-bye, I'm going to marry FoAoH!" Okay, it wasn't entirely like that. My parents had both turned 21 by then, it was now early 1940, and my father saw that they could live quite well on under $15 a week, so they decided that they would get married sooner rather than later. My father wrote a letter to my mother's father, as one did in those days, and promised he would take good care of her. They had known each other for years so my mother's parents knew my father was a trustworthy sort, and they knew my parents wanted to get married. People didn't "get engaged" in those days, at least in my parents' circles. It was the Depression and nobody was buying or showing off diamonds on their left ring fingers, and my mother's family was never terribly conventional anyway, though they certainly believed in marriage.

My parents met at James Madison High School in Brooklyn, New York. They didn't become sweethearts till college but were in the same group of friends in high school. Like many in their high school --mostly children and grandchildren of Jewish immigrants-- they attended public colleges: she went to Hunter College, which was all women at the time; he went to City College, which was all men. Both of those schools were way uptown in Manhattan, of course, and my family's version of "In my day we had to walk five miles to school in the snow, uphill in both directions!" was "It was the Depression, we lived at home, and we took the subway to school an hour and a half in each direction." Three hours of commuting a day to get an education. My mother is the one who talks about this.

My father was editor of the college newspaper and helped get a corrupt college president on the road to resignation, but that is another story and you can read it in FoAoH's memoir. He went on to a private university (Columbia) for professional journalism study. My brother also went there, years later, and I contemplated doing the same but didn't.

Back to the Mexico story. My mother took the bus down to Mexico City from New York. Yes, the bus. More like buses. I think her first stop was Indianapolis because she had an uncle there. Not sure whether or where she stopped after that, but it was a five-day trip. At any rate, she got to Mexico City safe and sound on a Friday, and the following Tuesday she and my father were married.

They married at the American Embassy because they were patriotic young people and wanted to be married on American soil. But the Ambassador wasn't empowered to officiate at weddings (unlike some other foreign diplomats) so they got a Mexican Justice of the Peace. Only civil marriages were valid in Mexico. A wedding at the JP's Registry office would cost two pesos, but they decided to splurge and go for the 32-peso wedding, which is what it cost to get married outside the Registry. 32 pesos in those days was about 8 dollars.

Foreign Service officers couldn't officiate at marriages but they could witness them (in the church that's the same thing, so I don't quite get the distinction, but there you have it) and issue a certificate of marriage so in addition to the Mexican wedding certificate, my parents got a U.S. certificate (for one dollar extra). I'm not sure whether the Consul General or the Ambassador signed the piece of paper, but they were both there. The Ambassador at the time was Josephus Daniels, a former Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson who was a former newsman -- how appropriate. I remembered he was a Southerner, but what I had forgotten and just re-read in the Mexico chapter of the memoir is that he was the founder-editor of the Raleigh News & Observer. That's Raleigh, North Carolina.

Meanwhile, my paternal grandparents had expressed the desire for my parents to have a Jewish wedding ceremony, so several days later PoAoH located a rabbi, which in Mexico City was not so easy, and he witnessed and officiated at a religious ceremony. It was in Spanish and Hebrew and they had a sheet or a tablecloth for a chuppah (the traditional wedding canopy) and my father didn't have a kippah (yarmulke) so he used a handkerchief tied at four corners. The part of this story I love is that the rabbi lived on Jesus Maria Street. Now there's a title for a novel: The Rabbi on Jesus Maria Street.

Parents of Acts of Hope did have a little reception with a wedding cake. The cake was the work of two Greek-American pastry cooks from Manhattan who after fighting in the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War (i.e. against Franco's forces) had settled in Mexico and opened a restaurant and bakery.

My father's memoir doesn't say and I haven't asked my parents, but it occurred to me a few years ago upon re-reading my father's description that these guys, Nick and Mike, were probably a couple. But maybe they weren't.

The cake had two white doves on top.


The big story in 1940 in Mexico was, of course, Trostsky's assassination, and my father, as a freshly minted journalist, got to cover it. There was a substantial cast of characters in the background shenanigans leading up to the assassination, including an American woman who had been one of Trotsky's aides. My father was stringing for the Jack Starr-Hunt News Service and among their clients was the N.Y. Daily News tabloid, which could care less about the politics of the story. Who cared if Stalin's arch-enemy had just been killed? The Daily News fired off to my father a cable that read "RUSH 1,500 WORDS GIRLIE ANGLE." Welcome to highfalutin foreign correspondent work.

After a few months in Mexico, with the fellowship year over, my parents returned to the U.S. and Brooklyn, where both their families lived. My father got a stop-gap editing job at the Brooklyn Academy of Music while hunting for a real job in journalism. At last, after six months, a real job materialized, and off my parents went to Herkimer, New York (for those of you who don't know, that's in the boonies, at least from a New York City perspective) where my father worked on the Evening Telegram newspaper for the magnificent sum of $35 per week.

The following year Pearl Harbor happened and my parents moved to Washington.

But that is another story.

Updating the book list, and a plug for Anita Diamant's new novel

I am digging out from under all manner of things. In the midst of this and the usual house-cleaning, literal and metaphorical, that accompanies the advent of Advent, I am updating this blog. I hadn't updated the reading list at the right in months. It isn't complete, but it gives you a snapshot of what I'm reading or re-reading these days.

The Aquino and Rosado-Nunes book is composed of the proceedings of the first Inter-American Symposium on Feminist Intercultural Theology. This was the first ever formal gathering of Latin American and U.S. Latina feminist theologians. Some social scientists also participated in the meeting. Why is this book significant? Because, one of its introductory essays notes, for the first time in the history of Christianity in the Americas, feminist theologians of the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean were able to meet together to share our common concerns and visions about the present and the future of our theological work, on the basis of intercultural hermeneutical frameworks. ("Hermeneutical" in this case means "interpretive.")

The book by Renate Wind (which is way overdue at a certain library in California) is a biography, the first, I think, of the late Dorothee Sölle. {This next sentence added a day later after the original post:} Wind has previously written about Dietrich Bonhoeffer; it's not surprising she would be drawn to Sölle, who in so many ways was spiritual and theological heir to Bonhoeffer. The eco-books by McFague and Ruether (the Ruether one is an edited volume featuring writings from Asia, Africa, and Latin America) are triple-purpose books: they are part of my reading and referencing for the Big Tome; I have students reading a couple of them; and I am looking at them as I ponder my sermon for this coming Sunday, the first in Advent. I haven't preached since September. What does the environmental crisis have to do with Advent? You'll find out after I preach. Unless the Holy Spirit sends me in another direction.

I actually cheated by listing Anita Diamant's new book, Day after Night, because I read and finished it last weekend. Anita gave it to me last Friday when she came to my talk on prayer at Harvard (about which more later) and I started reading it that night and finished it on the first of my two plane flights the next day. It's both deep and a page-turner.


I am just starting Louise Erdrich's The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, which a colleague lent me. "It's about a woman who dresses up as a man so she can work as a Catholic priest, so you can see why it made me think of you," he said. (!) The priest in the book is a member of the Ojibwe Nation, as is Erdrich.

You may or may not have noticed that these are the first fiction books I've listed in eons, or perhaps ever since I started blogging. I am starved for fiction and haven't let myself read any, except for the occasional mystery novel, in something like four years. Ridiculous. Just because I've been trying to finish a work of non-fiction doesn't mean I shouldn't be reading fiction. I find reading fiction life-giving. Do you?

Deenie, at rest at last

Deenie died peacefully yesterday, Saturday June 27, in the afternoon, at her home near Boston.

The hospice had adjusted Deenie's medications and she was not in pain in her last days. She went gently, and as she has wished, in a familiar and comfortable environment. She was just two days short of her 70th birthday.

I have limited internet access but wanted to post this quick note, with thanks to all of you who prayed so generously for Deenie in intercessions that encirced the globe and embraced this noble spirit, friend, worker for justice, intellectual, and loving human being.

All is well here. I have slept and rested a lot, attended the joyful Bar Mitzvah of a dear friend's son, and done some work (there is more to come) on a Big Theological Tome. Went to a glorious gospel-music Mass today and sang and clapped and felt and heard the Spirit. Not that She doesn't speak quietly too, She does -- but She must sing out and so must we.

Happy Pride Weekend to friends in New York, San Francisco, Paris, and many other places. Thinking of you with love, pride, hope for a welcoming world, and commitment to making it so.

Lost Things and the Power of Memory

My latest essay, "Lost Things and the Power of Memory," is up at the Episcopal Café today. The Café welcomes your comments. (If you don't already have a login there you'll have to get one, but it's free and easy. See here.)

I've also posted the link on Facebook.

Italian Jews aid their WWII saviors hit by Abruzzi earthquake

Read this and get misty-eyed.

Cross-posted on Facebook

From left, Italia Tagliacozzo, Ester Di Segni, Emma Di Segni, earthquake survivor Nello De Bernardinis and Alberto Di Consiglio, pose for a group photo in the Casentino tent-camp, near L'Aquila, central Italy, Monday, April 13, 2009. Italian Jews and Holocaust survivors are rushing to aid communities that sheltered them during World War II and were hit by last week's devastating earthquake. Di Consiglio found Nello De Bernardinis, 74, the son of a couple who sheltered Di Consiglio's father and eight other relatives during the war.(AP Photo/Sandro Perozzi)

Chag Sameach Pesach - Passover begins tonight!

Long ago, at this season, a people --our people--set out on a journey.

On such a night as this, Israel went forth from degradation to joy.

We give thanks for the liberations of days gone by.

And we pray for all who are still bound, still denied their human rights.

Eternal God, may all who hunger come to rejoice in a new Passover.

Let all the human family sit at Your table, drink the wine of deliverance, eat the bread of freedom.

Gates of Freedom: A Passover Haggadah by Chaim Stern. Visual Interpretations by Todd Siler. Introduction by Eugene B. Borowitz. (Chappaqua, NY: Rossel Books 1981, 1982)


You are Blessed, Our God, Spirit of the World, who
makes us holy with mitzvot and commands us to
kindle the light of the festival day.

You are Blessed, Our God, Spirit of the World,
who keeps us in life, who sustains us, and who
enables us to reach this season.

Women of Israel, the wonder of our seders
brights new light to the world.

The Journey Continues: The Ma'yan Passover Haggadah (New York: Ma'yan: The Jewish Women's Project, 2000).

Here are last year's posts for Pesach. Recycling is good.

First this: Chag Sameach Pesach.

Then this: Chag Sameach Pesach (again): Leaving Mitzrayim.

Then this: Chag Sameach Pesach: More from Velveteen Rabbi.

Enjoy.

April 4: two MLK anniversaries and a third, with the Freedom Seder

The Revs. Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 3, 1968, before MLK gave the last speech of his life. Photo: Ken Ross via American RadioWorks. He was assassinated the following day.


Today is the anniversary of the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee.

It is also the anniversary of the "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" speech which he gave exactly a year before, on April 4, 1967, at the Riverside Church in New York City.

Although I have posted the speech before, I post it here again for those who have not read or hear it. The link includes audio as well as transcript text. The speech is long but well worth pondering.

A good feature on the last year of King's life (the "Beyond Vietnam" speech, the Memphis sanitation workers' strike, et al.) is here, courtesy of American RadioWorks. It includes both text and audio.

And, with thanks to my colleague the Rev. Susan Redfern Spencer (also here), via Facebook, the note below from the Shalom Center and YouTube video:

On April 4, 1969, the first anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, the third night of Passover, hundreds of people of varied racial and religious communities gathered in a Black church in the heart of Washington DC to celebrate the original Freedom Seder. For the first time, it intertwined the ancient story of liberation from Pharaoh with the story of Black America's struggle for liberation, and the liberation of other peoples as well.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Freedom Seder and to address one of the greatest dangers ever to face the human race --the danger of "global scorching" worse than the traditional "Ten Plagues"-- The Shalom Center has initiated a New Freedom Seder for the Earth was scheduled to sponsor it in Washington DC on March 29, 2009. Here is more information on the original Freedom Seder and the New Freedom Seder for the Earth. (You can download the text of the Seder for the Earth at that last link.)

Shabbat Shalom

A friend dropped by a few hours ago with a warm, freshly baked loaf of challah which she had just made. Mmmm!

I gave her some flowers from the yard-garden-whatever-this-land-is-called.

The weather is sunny and fresh.

>
Here, for your enjoyment and perhaps also your edification, are some Shabbat songs and prayers.

I think I posted this a year or so ago, but never mind. It's a traditional Sephardic blessing before lighting candles. The beautiful (more on Sephardic music here) is by Balkan composer Flory Jagoda. The words are in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish, which is to Mediterranean Jews what Yiddish is to Eastern European Jews). You can hear the song, sung by Susan Gaeta, if you scroll down the page to where it says "click here." Here's the page.

Thanks to Ritualwell.org for the above and for the following.

Kiddush (prayer over the wine) with either feminine or masculine God-language. Has the tune of the chant, too. Here.

HaMotzi[ah] (prayer over the bread) with either masculine or feminine God-language. With the tunes.

Contemporary blessing after the meal here.

P. is being discharged from hospital - and "A Prayer for Prayer"

My friend P. is being released from hospital, just a week after his surgery. I spoke with him mid-day and he sounded well. There will be long weeks of healing, but it will be nice for him to be back in his own home, with his partner B. and their very nice dog K.

Here is a final excerpt from the book, a kind of postscript called "A Prayer for Prayer," by Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman.

O My God

My soul's companion

My heart's precious friend

I turn to You.

I need to close out the noise

To rise above the noise

The noise that interrupts--

The noise that separates--

The noise that isolates.

I need to hear You again.

In the silence of my innermost being,

In the fragments of my yearned-for wholeness,

I hear whispers of Your presence--

Echoses of the past when You were with me

When I felt Your nearness

When together we walked--

When You held me close, embraced me in Your love,

laughed with me in my joy.

I yearn to hear You again.

In Your oneness, I find healing.
In the promise of Your love, I am soothed.

In Your wholeness, I too can become whole again.

Please listen to my call--

*****help me find the words

*****help me find the strength within

*****help me shape my mouth, my voice, my heart

so that I can direct my spirit and find You in prayer

In words only my heart can speak

In songs only my soul can sing

Lifting my eyes and heart to You.

Adonai S'fatai Tiftach--open my lips, precious God,

so that I can speak with You again.

From Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub, C.S.W., ed. Healing of Soul, Healing of Body: Spiritual Leaders unfold the Strength and Solace of Psalms. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1994.

Special thanks to Anita D, who gave me the book lo those many years ago, around the time it was published.

Art: Modeh Ani, prayer of thanksgiving upon waking up. Dvora Black, art for children.

More on that 10th healing psalm, a day (or two) late

A couple of days ago, I posted the 10th in the series of Ten Healing Psalms according to Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav (Breslov).

I did not have time then to post the commentary from the book I've been using, so here are some excerpts.

The rabbi commenting is Rabbi Nancy Flam, and her commentary on Psalm 150 is called "Praise, Joy, Breath."

From the section entitled Praise:

***How can one praise God in the midst of serious illness? Praise God for one's situation not being worse? What if it is nearly as bad as one can imagine? Praise God for the memory of health? What if one was born with a congenital disease? Praise God for the depth of experience and insight which can come through suffering? Who wouldn't trade a little insight for a modicum of relief?

***The psalm says "Praise God for God's mighty deeds. ... What are these mighty deeds, this abundant greatness? The poem is vague; I do not know the author's intention. ...

***The mighty deeds might refer to God's intervening in history: Performing miracles such as splitting the Read Sea. Personally, I cannot conceive of God this way: A power who willfully changes the laws of nature to help a particular people. But I do affirm and praise God as the One who makes miracles everyday, according to the laws of the physical universe and the human spirit: The awesome power we sense as we witness fall turn to winter, and winter to spring; the One we feel when we experience true love and compassion; who has willed th natural cycle of growth and decay; in whose presence we find company in prayer.

***Such greatness pertains whether I am ill or well. Praise of God is not about me or my condition; it is about the reality of God.

Joy

***It may require a psycho-spiritual tour de force to praise God with joy and gladness in the midst of illness, but Rabbi Nachman challenges us to do so. Psalm 150 is nothing short of ecstatic, a glorious symphony which rises to a dazzling crescendo.... Perhaps the wildness expresses something crazed. Or perahps, in a rare moment of grace, one might play the music without fury, in touch with happiness, miraculously connected to God with praise in one's heart, lamrot hakol: Despite everything.

Breath

***HalleluYah: Praise God! The most breathy name of God is used here: Yah. Praise the Creator who breathed the breath of life into Adam and Eve and each one of us.

*******"The rabbis, of blessed memory, said, 'Let every soul (neshama) praise God.' This means: Praise God with each and every breath (neshima), so you can say at every moment and continually, "Blessed is the Merciful One, Ruler of the Universe, Master of this moment.'"
*************************Or HaGanuz LaTzadikim, p. 45

***The last line in the final psalm of Rabbi Nachman's tikkun brings us to an awarensss of the breath, rooting our being in the present moment, its reality and blessing. Fully present and mindful, we recognize that at all times, sick or well, we "have only moments to live" (Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living, 17).


From Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub, C.S.W., ed. Healing of Soul, Healing of Body: Spiritual Leaders unfold the Strength and Solace of Psalms. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1994.

The series began a little over ten days ago, before my friend P.'s bypass surgery, and continued each day with one Psalm (or excerpt from that Psalm) and a bit of commentary by a contemporary rabbi.

I posted every day, for instance and here. You can just scroll down to the first post and the work your way up if you are just arriving here.



Miriam and Jerusalem tambourines, Miriam tallit by Yair Emanuel

Healing Psalms, Day Ten - part 1

I am going to make this 10th healing Psalm last. Mostly because I have had a huge, long day and am cooking a little sniffle and want to take myself to bed and get a good sleep so that I don't get sick.

So I will post the Psalm tonight and then commentary tomorrow.

I'm posting the Psalm twice here, with the traditionally used pronoun in the first version and the other pronoun in the second. If G*d has no gender, then let's use all genders or none.

Psalm 150

Halleluyah/Praise God!
***Praise God in His Sanctuary;
***Praise Him
******in the vast expanse of Heaven!

Praise Him for mighty deeds;
***Praise Him
******according to His abundant greatness!

Praise Him
***with the blowing of the shofar;
******Praise Him
*********with the lyre and the harp!

Praise Him
***with drum and dance;
******Praise Him
*********with string instruments and flute!

Praise Him
***with resounding cymbals!
******Praise Him
*********with clanging cymbals!

Let every breath of life praise God,
******Halleluyah/Praise God!


Psalm 150

Halleluyah/Praise God!
***Praise God in Her Sanctuary;
***Praise God
******in the vast expanse of Heaven!

Praise Her for mighty deeds;
***Praise Her
******according to Her abundant greatness!

Praise Her
***with the blowing of the shofar;
******Praise Her
*********with the lyre and the harp!

Praise Her
***with drum and dance;
******Praise Her
*********with string instruments and flute!

Praise Her
***with resounding cymbals!
******Praise Her*********

with clanging cymbals!

Let every breath of life praise God,
******Halleluyah/Praise God!

Scroll down to posts below for previous Psalms and explanation of the origins of this custom of praying ten specific Psalms for healing of body and soul. Thank you, Reb Nachman. Blessings, all.

Healing Psalms, Day Nine

Psalm 137 is today's Psalm, the ninth in the series of ten healing Psalms according to Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav.

This beloved, well-known, poignant Psalm is best known for its first six verses.

The end of the Psalm makes it one of the "angry Psalms," and a particularly shocking one at that, with its violent image. What shall we do with it? The other "angry Psalms" can be consoling, especially if one is despondent, depressed, feeling powerless, turning one's anger inward. But calling God's rage upon the children of others is another matter entirely. It feels far more horrible than calling God's rage upon one's enemies.

I have no answer for this, and today's commenter from the book, Rabbi Amy Eilberg, does not really address this dilemma.

Jewish and Christian traditions, including African American Christian traditions, have embraced this Psalm of exile and clung to it, and even transformed it (there is a fine book on African American Catholics called Taking Down Our Harps) - but they usually stop at verse 6.

Is the end of the Psalm something we need to say no matter way, lest we edit the Psalms at will and edit out their anger and passion?

Or is it one of those "texts of terror" that we should study like other texts of terror but not recite or listen to as holy scripture?

Here's the Psalm. Tolle lege, and see what you think and feel.

By the rivers of Babylon,

***there we sat and we wept

******as we remembered Zion.

Upon the willows on its banks

***we hung up our harps.

For there our captors demanded of us

******words of song;

***Our tormentors asked of us (with) joy:

*****'Sing to us the songs of Zion!'

But how shall we sing the song of Adonai

***on alien soil?

If I ever forget you, Jerusalem,

***may my right hand forget its cunning!

May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,

******if I remember you not;

******if I do not set Jerusalem

*********above my highest joy!

Remind the songs of Edom, Adonai, about the days of Jerusalem--

***Remind those who said,

******'Raze it, raze it to its very foundation!'

Daughter of Babylon,

***it is you who are the annihilated one;

******Happy is the one who will repay you

*********for all that you have done to us!

Happy is the one who will grab your little ones,

***dashing them against the rock!

Rabbi Eilberg writes that she "had always read Psalm 137 only in historical terms, the homesick lament of the Jews in exile in Babylon, weeping for Jerusalem, their home. But to read the Psalm through Rabbi Nachman's eyes is to imagine the lament as my own, as a cry of despair and longing in my own times of pain and lostness and confusion, when I am disoriented, forcibly removed from the normal, comfortable times and places of my life. Rabbi Nachman invites us to read the psalm as our own cry, our own prayer, inviting us to move, as the psalm does, from despair to joy to power."

I gave you my commentary as much as Rabbi Eilberg's (there's more of hers in the book, but the paragraph above is a good summary introduction) and would be interested in knowing how you read and hear this Psalm, especially when you read it in the context of your own illness, suffering, troubles, and healing.

This makes me want to go to Reb Nachman's teachings to find out what he said.

Commentary and Psalm translation from Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub, C.S.W., ed., Healing of Soul, Healing of Body: Spiritual Leaders unfold the Strength and Solace of Psalms. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1994.

Art: "A rare large framed Hungarian 19th century Jewish oil on canvas painting depicting the remembrance of the destruction of the Temple, in Hebrew "Zecher Lechurban" above the words of "The Rivers Of Babylon." Very vivid and colorful oil with various Jerusalem scenes, the painting is signed by an unknown Hungarian artist. It is a Jewish custom leaving a small part of the home unfinished in memory of the destruction and this painting covers that particular place. 88cm X 72cm." Via IVAntiques

Healing Psalms, Day Eight: Breaking the Spiritual Gridlock

I spoke with P.'s partner B. earlier today and P.'s recovery is proceeding as well as can be expected. He's at the grumpy-and-in-pain stage, which I remember well from when my father had his CABG. But he's where he is supposed to be and the medical and nursing care at the hospital is excellent and very attentive. And kudos to the staff, all up and down the line, for courtesy and warm behavior toward B. as a same-gender partner. We shouldn't have to notice when people who are family to each other are treated properly, but since it's not the norm everywhere, especially with same-gender couples, we do. Would that this courtesy and kindness were the case all over the U.S. and all over the globe.

Today's Psalm from the Tikkun HaKlali, the Complete Remedy according to Reb Nachman of Bratslav, is Psalm 105.

Note: The commentator uses "He" a lot for G*d. Do not let the language keep you away from Godde. Change the gender if you need to. I am not doing so because I am quoting from a book, but in prayer I would change the language.

Rabbi Maurice Lamm writes in "Breaking the Spiritual Gridlock: An Introduction to Psalm 105," one of the chapters in the book we've been following (see bottom of this post):

****If we are going to heal from illness we need to break two kinds of spiritual gridlock. One paralyzes us so that we become passive and resigned; the other steals the very song from our throats, leaving us with only a groan. The spirit evaporates from our souls and we become submissive and flat. Psalm 105 teaches two positive ways to heal, and healing is the essence of health.

****First, when illness de-activates us, we follow a prepared script and act like victims--we become couch potatoes, helplessly watching ourselves get weaker. We are fed and injected and analyzed and tested and predicted and watched over and prayed for and spoken of behind our backs. It is a gridlock and paralyzes us and makes us feel worse. Psalm 105 tell us: "Don't act like a victim."

****Notice how the psalmist erupts and fires off ten staccato charges in five sentences--give thanks; call Him, make known His works; sing to Him; praise Him; speak of Him; glory in Him; search for His presence; seek Him; remember Him! To heal, to become whole, we must respond even ten times; energize our minds; and not allow ourselves to sink into victimhood.

****... It will require heroism to take our mind off our condition, to take control of our souls, to be courageous, to feel empowered again. You may say: "I can't think of anything else." Perhaps you can't, but try it. ...

****Now break the second gridlock. In the ten charges of the psalmist, one appears not to fit --"Sing to Him!" What's the value of a song? In our sophistication, we think of singing as an art form; but the Torah teaches that to sing is a blessing. In terms of the spirit, singing is on a higher level than speaking--it is why the Levites sang in the Temple. The word shir, meaning song, also derives from shur, meaning insight. When we sing we raise our souls to God, and we gain insight into Him. Through song we address God.

****And through song we learn to better endure our hardships. When life is not a song, sing! When King David was ill, he sang; when Cervantes, the great writer, was ill, he said: "He who sings frightens away his ills." ... Singing is an antidote to panic. The Hasidim taught us that. It lightens the burden, lessens the fear, steadies the nerves. Singing gives voice to our deepest feelings; it enables us to express ourselves even if we are the only ones who hear it. And we will have made ourselves heart. Singing lifts the heart.

****Even if all we do is chant "Oy Vay," over and over, to a tune we improvise--Shiru lo, "Sing to Him." Even a melancholy song somehow takes us out of ourselves and gives expression to our inner being. Sometimes I break out in a niggun--a melody that uses sounds shaped only by my emotions. It articulates a groan that forces its way oout of my interior; sometimes, it expresses an indescribably joy inside me that's in search of an audience.

Note from Jane: I am struck by how related this is to the African American Spirituals, the "sorrow songs" of slavery which are classics and still sung and listened to today. Many of them, like the Psalms of old, are laments. In naming suffering, they transcend it and in some ways also revolt against it. Laments help us both to survive and to resist.

******

Singing with friends, says Rabbi Lamm, harmonizes our own souls with the souls of those who empathize with us. The harmony, in magical ways, transfers the energy of the group to us fragile individuals as we lift up our voices and keep time together.

****Sing what you like; help others by offering to sing with them. ....

****To groan when we are ill is common; to sing is courageous. Think actively, sing passionately,. It will break the most common gridlocks of illness, and let our souls soar to new heights.

As for Psalm 105, it is really long.

I'm just going to post a few pieces of it, including the one to which Rabbi Lamm refers at the beginning of the long passage from his chapter (oops, sorry, Fair Use people; this really is fair use):

Give thanks to Adonai, call upon His name;

***Let all nations know about His deeds!

Sing to Him, compose songs, play instruments for Him;

***Tell all about His wondrous acts!

********

Take pride in His Holy Name;

***The heart of those who seek Him rejoices!

Search for Adonai and for His might,

***Seek His presence always!

Remember the wonders He has performed,

***His miracles, and the laws from His mouth.

Then comes the story of Adonai's relationship with the people of Israel from Abraham on, with Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron (no Miriam, no women), the Plagues and the Exodus, quail and manna and water from the rock...

For He remembered His holy word, His promise

******to Abraham, His servant.

He brought out His people with gladness,

******His chosen ones with joyful singing.

He gave them the lands of nations,

******they inherited that which nations acquire by labor.

So that they might keep His statutes,

******and treasure His teachings,

*********Halleluyah!

I know, it's an Alleluia during Lent, but I'm quoting. ;-)

Besides which, we're doing this in the context of a Jewish commentary.

Commentary and Psalm translation from Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub, C.S.W., ed., Healing of Soul, Healing of Body: Spiritual Leaders unfold the Strength and Solace of Psalms. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1994.

Illustration above:

***

***Commemorative International (in the text about an Israeli coin modeled on this image) writes:

*****

*****The Bible abounds with stories about Miriam, Moses and Aaron's eldest sister. We learn about her heroism and her compassion, as well as her great intellectual knowledge and leadership abilities.

*****The book of Exodus, describing the Exodus from Egypt, offers a depictive description: "And Miriam, the Prophetess, Aaron's sister, took the drum in her hand and all the women followed her with drums and dance" (Exodus 15:20). While others were complaining about the desert conditions, Miriam was giving thanks for the great and miraculous Redemption that had just occurred after the parting of the Red Sea.

******

*****The drawing ...was chosen from "The Golden Haggadah" printed in Barcelona circa the year 1320. The pictures in this Haggadah, among the earliest and most spectacular of the Sephardic Haggadahs, portray the events and characters beginning with Adam in the Book of Genesis and ending with Miriam's song in the Book of Exodus.