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In tribute to Mary Oliver

Jan 21, 2019 | Sacred Stories, Writing

At the end of last week, in reflecting on Mary Oliver’s life – small respite in the wake of her death – I ran a search through my previous 12+ years of blog posts to see what I’d written of her before, where her poetry and prose have inspired my own words (and heart).

I’ve chosen one of those many posts as remembrance; more, as tribute.

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An edited version of writing from March, 2007.

Though I know unfruitful, even unanswerable, I sometimes find myself asking questions like, Can’t things be easier? Can’t my life go the way I want it to? Does it so-often have to feel like a struggle?

And then I begin to wonder: if the divine were to answer these questions the way I subliminally desire (translate: a tame, sedate, even predictable life) who would that god be?

Surely not the one that Sacred Text portrays.

That god, that understanding of the divine, is one who falls asleep in storms – not one who prevents them from happening at all.

A case in point:

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:35-41)

This is no tame, sedate, predictable story. For this is no tame, sedate, predictable god.

So, a better question to be asking is: Why would I ever anticipate, let alone desire, my life to be such?

If I choose to reflect on, and even believe in this god (not to mention being created in the image of such) – one who is nonplussed in a treacherous storm – how then shall I live?

Ahhh, yes. Dangerous. Risky. Unafraid. Hardly tame, sedate, and predictable.

Mary Oliver speaks of this better than me:

Maybe
Sweet Jesus, talking
his melancholy madness,
stood up in the boat
and the sea lay down,
silky and sorry.

So everybody was saved
that night.
But you know how it is
when something
different crosses
the threshold—the uncles
mutter together,
the women walk away,
the younger brother begins
to sharpen his knife.

Nobody knows what the soul is.
It comes and goes
Like wind over the water—
Sometimes, for days,
you don’t think of it.

Maybe, after the sermon,
after the multitude was fed,
one or two of them felt
the soul slip forth
like a tremor of pure sunlight
before exhaustion,
that wants to swallow everything,
gripped their bones and left them
miserable and sleepy,
as they are now, forgetting
how the wind tore at the sails;
before he rose and talked to it—
tender and luminous and demanding
as he always was—
a thousand times more frightening
than the killer sea.

This understanding of, conception of the divine is one I find myself far more able to believe in; a thousand times more frightening than the killer sea.

Then choosing the storm (vs. demanding the tame, the sedate, the predictable) feels right; more, sacred.

**********

Rest well, Mary Oliver – in the arms of the divine you named. In your absence we feel and know what you did: tender, luminous, and oh, so demanding, to be sure.

Redefining Ordinary

Jan 14, 2019 | Hope & Encouragement, Sacred Stories, Women's Wisdom

The desire, temptation, and lure to live an extraordinary life is strong; to figure out our “one thing;” to do, create, be, achieve, rise up, astonish, accomplish, shine.

It’s exhausting, really.

And it’s a relatively new phenomenon. Far before pressing existential (and advertising-inducing) questions like “what is my life’s purpose,” everyday choices were shaped by survival and perseverance, seasons and hours, shelter and sustenance, tribe and family.

Ordinary life took precedence. And somehow, in the midst of such, extraordinary lives were lived.

A few examples from my lineage of stories:

  • Hagar: a slave who was forced to bear the child of her master and then banished to the desert with her young son, Ishmael – the eventual patriarch of Islam.
  • Ruth: a too-young widow who took care of a bitter mother-in-law. Hungry, she stole gathered wheat left behind by the harvesters. Eventually found out by the wealthy owner of that land, he married her. Their great-grandson was King David.
  • Mary: an engaged girl trying to make sense of an unexpected pregnancy became the mother of Jesus.

Their stories (and so many more) are of ordinary life lived. Like us, they were wives and mothers, daughters and cousins, sisters and friends. They knew desire and choice, tears and trauma. They birthed and nurtured, fed and cleaned. They spoke and sang, laughed and loved. They were fertile and barren, healthy and ill, strong and less-than, brave and afraid, named and unnamed. They lived ordinary lives that changed the entire world.

What if we redefined “ordinary”?

Parenting. Paying bills. Grocery shopping. Brewing coffee. Fixing meals. Cleaning. Driving. Writing. Working. Having conversations. Drinking wine. Sleeping. Waking. Laughing. Grieving. Being alone. Being together. Living life.

Maybe it’s only me, but I still feel the incessant and insipid pressure to do more, be more, achieve more, accomplish more.

Those internal and external messages have the wily ability to take front-and-center stage in my mind and heart. And when that happens, all the day-to-day aspects of my life get shoved into the shadows; the ordinary becomes drudgery in the illusive pursuit of the extraordinary.

BUT THAT’S NOT HOW IT (actually) WORKS!

It is in living an ordinary life that we are profoundly extraordinary. Not because we are trying. Not because we are striving. But because we are surviving and persevering, even thriving – day-in, day-out. Good and bad. Easy and hard. Joyful and excruciating. Wins and losses. Gifts and hassles. People and places. Normal, everyday stuff.

Our choice to be ordinary, to simply be awake and present to what is happening around us, is what enables an extraordinary life.

Nothing more. And certainly nothing less.

If, in the mix of all that we write a book, or stand on a stage, or build a successful business, or raise an amazing family, or keep a marriage together, or leave one entirely, or (you fill in the blank), it will only be because we have – in obvious and ordinary ways – taken the next step, done the next thing, walked through the next door, lived through the next day. NOT because we have pushed and prodded and persuaded ourselves to be more amazing and incredible than we already are.

Follow the lead of Hagar and Ruth and Mary. They did not spend one moment trying to figure out how to be amazing and larger-than-life and phenomenal and extraordinary. They lived ordinary lives – focused on what mattered most, on the things about which they could not remain silent, on the work they could not not do.

Believe that you are enough…and not too much. And then live your ordinary life. That is extraordinary.

So are you.

May it be so.

Extravagant

Dec 21, 2018 | Sacred Stories, Women's Wisdom

There’s an ancient sacred story told of a woman who was beautifully, lavishly, even shockingly extravagant.

Desiring love, she risked. Potential misunderstanding. Certain ridicule and scorn. Whispers, shouts, and most certainly shame. None of it mattered. Only the experience and expression of love.

Compelled by love, she held nothing back. Unrestrained and passionate, her deepest heart revealed and exposed.

A recipient of love, she gave. Generously, without thought to prudence, scarcity, boundary, or anyone else’s ideas of what was appropriate (or not).

And because of all this, she knew extravagant response:

Worthy of love, she was honored. All shame erased. All spoken and unspoken bonds broken. All penalties paid. Freedom hers. “Truly, I say to you, wherever good news is spoken in the world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

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There’s so much I love about this story, so much I love about her. But most of all this: Her love was pre-determined, her actions hers alone, and NONE of this dependent on the response she might (or might not) receive. That is extravagance, right there.

And that, right there, calls forth the truest, most honest expression of self we could possibly hope to attain.

Want to be more authentic? Want to live in a brave and connected-to-the-Sacred-Feminine way?

Here’s the template:

Risk.
Hold nothing back.
Give.
Be extravagant.

And all as expression of the love that is yours to offer; the Love that is you!

Extravagant, indeed.

This woman calls us to be exactly who we are: risky, honest, generous, and completely compelled by (not for) the love that already dwells within us; the love that de nes us; the Love that is us! When we are truly ourselves, we can be nothing other. And this is extravagant, indeed.

Hannah

Dec 20, 2018 | Mothers and Daughters, Sacred Stories

Have you ever had a desire, a hunger, a longing so profound that any sacrifice would be worth its fulfillment?

For me, it was a child. I got married at 31 and immediately went about the “work” of getting pregnant – certain I had no time to lose. At 32, with no result, infertility treatments began. At 34, after countless tests, unsuccessful rounds of in-vitro, and more invasive (and expensive) processes yet to come, I quit. My desire did not, however. It would not comply.

And so, from the physical to the spiritual, I took my request to a different plane. I prayed. I pleaded. I made bargains and deals. And I got mad – pounding my fists at an elusive God in an imagined heaven.

Until one day, after five years of waiting, hoping, and fearing to ever hope again, I was pregnant. Five home-tests and one at the doctor’s finally convinced me it was true. And, 15 months after Emma’s birth, I was pregnant again with Abby. Miracles, both. Answers to prayer. Desire fulfilled – again and again.

Was it my praying that brought them to be? Was it my bargaining: my promise of endless love and devotion to God? Was it just luck and coincidence? I do not know.

But for all my doubt, this certainty remained: I could not imagine ever losing them or letting them go.

Unlike Hannah.

Hannah was married but barren. Her husband had a second wife (common in that time) who did have children, constantly taunted her, and left her feeling even more lacking, more sad. And, adding insult to injury, her husband would say to her, “Why are you so depressed? Am I not worth 10 sons to you?” Like me, she prayed – and prayed – and prayed. Unlike me, she made a vow: “If you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life…” (I might have whispered something like this in my endless intercession, but I wouldn’t have really meant it.) Then one day, Hannah did become pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, “Because I asked the Lord for him.”

She fulfilled her promise to God. When Samuel was weaned, she took him to the temple and left him with a priest named Eli – which is where Samuel stayed, grew up, and through which became a leader and prophet in ancient Israel.

Impossible. Heart-rending. Incredible.

Back to my opening question: Have you ever had a desire, a hunger, a longing so profound that any sacrifice would be worth its fulfillment?

Hannah’s answer is “yes.”

Even more, her “yes” speaks to us in two profound and relevant ways today:

  • Will you hold on to desire, no matter what, no matter how impossible the odds, no matter how foolish it seems?
  • Are you willing to let go of the very thing you have desired on behalf of something bigger than yourself – in trust, in faith, in hope?

These are not easy questions. A quick response would be “yes” to the first and “mmmmaybe” to the second. But I wonder… A more honest response (speaking for myself) is a “no” to the first because of my pre-determined “no” to the second. See if this sounds even remotely familiar:

We don’t trust, we don’t have faith, we don’t hope because it’s just too risky. We don’t desire because experience has taught us that it either gets us into trouble or we have too many memories of it being disappointed.

But here is where Hannah voice sings out, sounds out, and transcends all time and space to say “No!” She calls you to what is deeper, stronger, and undeniable within. She says,

“What you desire more than all else is worth asking for, crying out for, praying for, longing for – no matter what. And once granted, if it is as big and amazing and glorious as you’d imagined, you’ll want to loosen your grip on it so that it can become even larger, even more amazing, even more glorious.”

To be honest, I wrestle with this. And…Hannah’s voice and story echo in my heart. She calls me (and maybe even you) to unswerving desire and complete sacrifice.

This is a call – and not for the faint of heart. This is a calling – for the strong in heart. And this is who I know you to be.

May it be so.

The Women at the Tomb

Dec 19, 2018 | Hope & Encouragement, Sacred Stories, Women's Wisdom

All we have are the stories, based on the unreasonable experience of people we never knew–and the choice of whether to believe them or not. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor, Home By Another Way

“All we have are the stories.” Yours. Mine. Those of women throughout time, throughout history, heard, known…and not.

Here’s one:

Very early on Sunday morning the women went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. They found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance.

So they went in, but they didn’t find the body of Jesus. As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.”

Then they remembered that he had said this. So they rushed back from the tomb to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened. But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they didn’t believe it.

Were it not for the women’s insistence on life, the story may have ended in dark grief and disbelief. They tell the story. They keep the story. They ARE the story!

The same is true today.

Women know death – of body, mind, and spirit. Still, we sing over the bones and at the grave.

Women name what is true, tell the story, and will not be dissuaded no matter how nonsensical it may seem.

Women know life – birthed, nursed, nurtured, healed, grieved, and restored. Resurrection, indeed.

The Widow of Nain

Dec 18, 2018 | Sacred Stories, Spirituality

There is an ancient story told of a widow whose only son died. With him went her last semblance of family, belonging, and even physical security – not to mention every last shred of hope and joy. On the day of his funeral, she moved in slow motion as the procession paraded through the streets of her village. Her head was down. Her heart was broken. Her sorrow was bottomless. Her tears were unstoppable.

Until she heard a man’s voice speak directly to her: “Do not weep.” Grief was replaced by white-hot rage. Her red-rimmed eyes rose to meet his only in time to hear him speak again, this time directly to her dead son: “Young man, I say to you, rise!” And her fury was just as miraculously replaced by joy-beyond-belief as her son rose and began to speak for himself. The prophet/healer disappeared into the crowd, leaving everyone speaking of what they had just heard, seen, and experienced.

I have struggled with this story – with my writing of it. Still, she is in the “canon” of stories with which I work because she deserves to be heard and I trust-trust-trust that she has wisdom and meaning to offer.

  • Her story puts me face-to-face with patriarchal power/authority and a woman’s lack thereof.
  • Her story puts me face-to-face with words spoken that are painful but ignored, because of who he is; because the rest of the story somehow redeems the earlier harshness.
  • Her story puts me face-to-face with my own resistance to speaking out in response to these very stories and the god within them (not in critique, but with allowed honesty, perspective, and hope).
  • Her story puts me face-to-face with the paradox of the divine – things understood and far more not.
  • Her story puts me face-to-face with me; with the heartache I know on behalf of the woman in this text and all those within the larger Text; the silence that too-often envelops them and the voice I long to give.
  • Her story puts me face-to-face with my fear: my visceral awareness that to speak – to weep – to express my perspective, my opinion, even my rage, carries with it the nearly certain risk of profound loss.
  • Her story puts me face-to-face with my own known grief and hope, silence and voice, heartache and endless-longing for miracles.

When it comes right down to it, her story is about me.

And you.