In Advent, no warning, the writing become disuptive. I forget that we are not in this together, and that my understanding of the illusion of separate interests cannot by force overcome that illusion in another. Why is this so hard?
Over the weekend I read Jane Yolen’s YA history of the Shakers. I have loved the Shakers for a long time, often feel in the presence of their art and texts that I am revisiting something vital and familiar. I know this somehow; I’ve been here somehow.
Mother Ann Lee suffered greatly in England, though not uncommonly. She was poor and illiterate, began working in brutal factory conditions at age ten. She hated marriage and hated sex. She had four kids and they all died.
Her religious fervor – pitched as it was it against the state religion and against the male prerogative – often landed her in jail.
Eventually, she realized that God was both male and female, and that as Jesus was the male image of the Lord, so she was the female. Her conviction was infectious. She led her scant band of believers to the North American colonies, where they settled.
When she preached in New England, she was beaten and mocked. Men held her down and removed her clothes to “prove she was a woman.” It’s impossible to rule out sexual violence.
Ann wanted out of the world. She wanted out of poverty, out of the emerging capitalist industrial complex, and out of the institution of marriage and family. Shakers were early pacifists and abolitionists. Ann re-envisioned the world as Eden, worked hard to make it so, and her vision survived her death.
Even now, in faint ways, her clarity about injustice – and her willingness to put her body on the line to undo it – informs our freedom. She is one of my spiritual ancestors, along with Anna White. Their invitation to radical simplicity is still being extended.
I am sitting quietly by the tree, trying to write, having failed to pray, and having failed to remember even the reason for prayer.
In Advent, without warning, the writing becomes disruptive. It joins me with others, some of whom do not want to join with me, or who find my way of languaging our union difficult or even wrong.
I forget this. I become happy and clear – Heaven is here, Jesus is here, it is all so obvious – and then I am brought back hard to separation and grief. I forget that nothing is clear and nothing is obvious except consensually.
We have to agree and our agreement has to arise from freedom. There is always another way.
As long as a single “slave” remains to walk the earth, your release is not complete. Complete restoration of the Sonship is the only goal of the miracle-minded (T-1.VII.3:13-14).
I’d reframe that: so long as even one brother or sister is outside the circle of your celebration of clarity and joy, then your celebration is a fantasy. It’s an illusion of freedom perpetuating separation.
Sawicki is clear that there is a way to know Jesus presently that is neither supernatural nor mystical but deeply practical, like buying groceries or driving your kid to school.
That, too, is an invitation, no?
All night I wandered in and out of sleep. I dreamed of a big stone church near a highway. I sat outside it a long time, wondering whether to enter or instead find the highway and join with a fellow traveler heading north.
When I entered the church – in the dream I don’t recall deciding to enter – where the altar would go was an enormous glass fountain that had not known water for a long time, possibly centuries.
You were on your knees polishing it. Someday water will flow again, you said. I want to be ready.
I didn’t know what to say or whether I should help. Nor did you notice my confusion.
That is the way I live: that is my experience of separation. “I didn’t know what to say or whether I should help / Nor did you notice my confusion.” All my loneliness lives in those two sentences, and all my cries for help.
In the dream I cried. I wept and wept for what seemed like ages. You neither spoke nor acknowledged my tears. Yet, when I moved to leave, you looked up and asked me stay.
In the window over your shoulder I could see cars on the highway driving north; everyone in them was happy. There was a party somewhere; somewhere there was a festival of happiness and light.
I asked why you wanted me to stay but you answered in a language I didn’t speak or know. Eventually I gave up and went outside.
The highway was empty and a noxious smoke filled the sky. Evil was afoot; indifference was afoot; separation wreaking its havoc was afoot. In a bush by the door a single male cardinal spoke. “She said there are not enough stars in the sky to illuminate either the depths or the nature of her love for you.”
I woke up then and came downstairs to write. The tree is pretty. The day already feels like a gauntlet. In winter, in Advent, I begin again. I refuse to take another step without you.
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I feel this, every word. Especially having just faced down my own body’s death again recently, after a major heart attack this past Halloween. I still laugh that nothing was scarier during this spooky season than the prospect of becoming my own spectre, standing over a decaying corpse that had long outlived its usefulness. A fleshy container I often cared about so much more than my own redemption.
And I feel every word of this, as it mirrors my own embarrassingly common despair and all too-fleeting joy. Because sometimes the prayers feel numb as gray hands in old winter gloves, while we’re stumbling in the cold snowy wind with dark, looming storms approaching; our destination as far away as Spring’s warm rays.
And I’d like to say I found a permanent answer to all that, as this recent brush with death has clarified my purpose, telling me what I must do. Or say. Or think.
I’d like to say that, but it wouldn’t be the truth.
Because the truth is I’m still just as lost. Bewildered even. Stuck in a moment that should be joyous, if only I had eyes to see, instead of always looking through this glass darkly.
So instead, I take small comforts. Like knowing that at least I’m not alone in these feelings. None of us are. Because there is a deep, holy presence here with us as we walk.
And though I can’t hear its voice clearly just yet — probably because I don’t know how to hush long enough — I know it’s there. And that has to be enough for now.
Love and blessings to you. And thanks for sharing. It means much.
–V
Thank you for your honest and vulnerable post, Vincent. I appreciate it very much. I hear you: the small comforts, the small joys, the small coherences are where a helpful focus can land. I don’t know if she’ll post on this one but Amanda has been saying over and over there is nothing for us to judge, nothing for us to do – God and love have blessed off on all of it. I’m not there yet but it resonates with the clear notes of truth, so far as I understand these things. Sooner or later we get that there’s nothing to get 🙂
Thank you again – I’m glad you’re here and glad you’re stilling giving attention and working it all out. You’re not alone.
Sean
The question that comes to me after reading this and Vincent’s reply is, can it we ok that we don’t know what to do or think or say. Can we just join in our awkwardness and know that we are never alone? Maybe in letting my freak flag fly, in dancing awkwardly, I’ll learn to forgive and truly join with you. Let the music begin…
I know this is a simplistic response. It may not make sense to anyone but me, it feels selfish, but I’m willing to risk it. Advent travel is beautiful and it is a bitch! My heart is still wandering somewhere out there. But…the star still hands in the sky, and the chords of love continue to draw us together.
Today, Love is the way I walk in gratitude.
I am grateful to be here with you, and I’m grateful to not be left out or behind.
It’s a great question – I think our awkwardness and clumsiness and uncertainty have to be part of the path. Or at least not impediments to the path. As I said to Vincent, Amanda has been clarity and reinforcing for me the “nothing” that is all we need to do. Love has signed off on all this already, our job is to just to collaborate in making that clear – to ourselves and to others, both. I feel in my heart both the simplicity of the reality and its majesty. I’m still treading the waters of fear but I am beginning to understand the way “waters of fear” is a construction I can take or leave. But also, increasingly, it feels to me like a one-fell-swoop move, like healing is not by degrees but all at once. Yes, I agree, I consent, I am ready and then . . .
. . . then the waiting for God to take the final step.
~ Sean
: so long as even one brother or sister is outside the circle of your celebration of clarity and joy, then your celebration is a fantasy. It’s an illusion of freedom perpetuating separation.
… yes, it feels like if I perceive anyone or anything outside the circle (seperate) I’m not knowing Love, Love is Love because it can’t exclude anything from it.
It feels like that’s where my surety is, in my not having to decide, it’s been done, if it appears it’s Love … When I dictate what Love isnt, ouch.
It feels there’s nothing I need to do only when I’m firmly established in “Love excludes nothing” it feels like there’s plenty for me to do when I’m not … which is regularly
Thank you, Amanda – really grateful for this: “It feels there’s nothing I need to do only when I’m firmly established in “Love excludes nothing” it feels like there’s plenty for me to do when I’m not”
Sean, I feel like I need to let you know that there’s something very comforting about your writing. I feel like I’m sinking into your experience and joining with you. It’s so natural. I don’t really like that word natural but it’s all I can think of right now. Perhaps effortless would be a better description. It feels right it feels effortless. You’re painting a picture that’s alive and multidimensional and I know that I am there in someway that I can’t explain and I probably don’t need to explain.
thank you 🙏🙏