PeaceBang

to do, right now

Go plant those perennials before they die.
Prepare dinner so that you’re not starved when you get back from Zumba class and devour everything in sight.
Put laundry in the dryer.
Transfer worship notes for 2008-9 to Scott’s nifty new template.
Try not to be insecure that your worship plans are so much less clear and less well-organized than Rev. Perpetua’s.
Submit receipts to Office Manager soon or run out of cash before next payday.
Clean desk (again).
Write paper for discernment class tomorrow.
Don’t use blogging as an excuse to skip Zumba class or planting the damn perennials.
Stop food shopping so often and figure out how to fix what’s in the cupboards and freezer already.
Call ________________ and ___________________ and __________________about wife’s condition/membership meeting/co-officiating wedding with rabbi.
Get back to Weight Watchers this week and take the bad news like a man.
Feed the cat.
Stop thinking about that guy who hasn’t called.
Order The Healing Connection.
Make mix music CD for colleague who is celebrating a year of sobriety soon.
Send thank you note.

What’s on your list?

The Will Vs the Soul: Summer of Prayer

I had a huge to-do list for the summer, and I didn’t meet any of my big goals.

I didn’t write a book.
I didn’t start my dissertation.
I didn’t even get a book proposal finished. Hell, I didn’t start it.
I didn’t lose another ten pounds.
I didn’t become a great salsa dancer.
I didn’t read the books in my pile (but I read a different pile).

What I did do this summer was work really hard issues in therapy (and I don’t mind telling you that), adjust to having a very active puppy in my life, learn how to grill steak, go out salsa dancing twice, attend my first Zumba class on a personal dare, do a little bit of gardening, catch up with friends who had been neglected during my SweetieBang period, see a slew of films, watch Red Sox games, clean and organize my study (yes, praise the Lord I got THAT done), sleep a LOT, play outside, go to the beach and friends’ pools a few times, and feel my feelings — which actually takes a lot more energy than I have ever realized.

I continued to attend Weight Watchers meetings, held on tight and not easily to a 25-lb. weight loss, avoided retail therapy in favor of saving money for sabbatical travel, and blogged.

As the summer winds down, I give up on my big goals. I’m not going to achieve them. My will is strong but in this case, my soul had another agenda and its needs overruled those of my will and my ego. I don’t like it. I don’t like being out of control this way. I am generally a disciplined and ambitious person and when I set a goal, I accomplish it.

My soul, however, doesn’t care what my ego desires. It had a lot to communicate to me this summer, and it made me listen. There were entire weeks when I required almost absolute solitude. There were days I did nothing but sleep, listen, record what the insights I received in my journal, fix food for myself and the four-leggeds, let the dog out to pee and poop, and return to silent listening and journaling. I would make plans to DO something and find myself flapping helplessly around the house, absolutely unable to get myself together to accomplish whatever it is I had set myself to do.

This was definitely not my Summer of Love. It was, I suppose, my Summer of Prayer in some way. It was my Summer of Feeling, attending to my inner life after a prolonged period of trying very hard to figure out other people and to understand failed or profoundly disappointing relationships. It was a time to tiptoe closer to my essence than I have ever crept before, to genuinely question how much authentic regard I have — and have been encouraged to have — for that essence — and to ask if at the age of 42, I finally accept and embrace it.

I do.

I do, and I had no idea how far I have traveled emotionally and spiritually in order to be able to say that. This isn’t about self-esteem. It is about something far deeper: a soul giving itself permission to be at home in the world. This permission comes not from accomplishments or even from the praise, affirmation or love one receives from others. It is an existential resolution; a laying down of arms against oneself not out of self-esteem but out of justice and compassion.

The psychic and spiritual energy it took to finally and honestly acquaint myself with the truth of my essence, to deem it acceptable, and to sever relations with the Inner Critic who has dominated my inner life for most of my life, was tremendous. But it had to be done. For someone to make it her life’s work to preach the everlasting love of God and the inherent worth and dignity of every person to the world, and then fail to confront, challenge and exorcise a toxic Inner Critic who rules her spiritual life is one of the saddest and most common hypocrisies there is. I did not enjoy this work. For a woman of my flamboyant temperament, it is actually easier to indulge in energetic self-flagellation than to abide with the complexities of life without such distracting dramatics.

I am quietly grateful. First and foremost to my friends, for holding up the compassionate mirror for me all these years, and for helping to me to experience and know that being flawed and human is not something that deserves punishment, but rather understanding and love. I am grateful for the insights of Jungian depth psychology and for the teachings of Universalist and Unitarian Christianity, which brought me from intellectual curiosity about amazing grace to a direct experience of it. I am grateful for all the people and institutions that make personal spiritual growth a possibility for me, for the work of ministry that makes it a priority.

And I am grateful to you, dear readers, for participating in this fascinating 21st century experiment with me: to make private spiritual experience public almost as it is happening (rather than to share it years later as a memoir), to affirm the struggle we all share in real time, and to thereby strengthen and celebrate the interdependent web within which we are bound as a moment-by-moment, blessed phenomenon.

Scapegoat

Bible scholars, can ya help me? I’m researching the Jungian archetype of the Scapegoat and I’m confused about the deal with Azazel. I’ve learned that in the first mention of a scapegoat in Leviticus there is one goat who is sacrificed to YHVH (I assume that’s what happens to a goat designated as a “sin offering,” right?) and one who is sent out into the wilderness to Azazel, some kind of ambiguous deity of the rugged terrain or something.

(Please don’t say, “But PeaceBang, you’re of Jewish descent, don’t you remember this from Yom Kippur?” No, I don’t. I grew up with a strong Jewish cultural heritage and we attended a UU church. I’ve only been in a synagogue half a dozen times in my entire life. Remember that when you want to call me to ask questions about which end of the Menorah you light first on Hanukah, okay? I’d have to look it up just like you!)

What confuses me is that both the deity to which the goat is sent and the goat itself seem to be known as Azazel: what’s up with that? The Wiki entry mentions that Azazel is somehow synonymous with the Angel Gadriel and I’m not finding anything on Gadriel except some comic book thing. Angel scholars out there? Help? Another thing that I never understood before — what do we call the goat who is made a “sin offering” of? Just Goaty McBadluck?

And FINALLY… is the scapegoat ever a ram? I ask because of a dream I had about fifteen years ago featuring a crystal ram’s skull being given to me. I know it was an initiatory dream (one of what Jung called “big dreams” — perhaps the biggest of my life) but I am still unpacking how. Leviticus 3 specifies that a ram shall be used as a burnt offering. I’m guessing, therefore, that the ram doesn’t get to trot off to meet his fate at the hands of Azazel.

By the way, if you’re interested in how scapegoating works in family systems, this book by Sylvia Brinton Perera is very good. In fact, I’m a huge fan of the whole Studies in Jungian Psychology series. They’re expensive but they’re intense little gems and my little stack of about 15 is the most valued pile in the pastoral and personal resources section of my library. I don’t know how I would have gotten over a certain horrific break-up in 1998 if it hadn’t been for Aldo Carotenuto’s Eros and Pathos, but that’s a story for another time.

Are Sports Really That Unifying?

Unitalian and I have a disagreement in the comments here about my post after watching some of the Olympics Opening Ceremony. Uni seems to think that I’m casting the entire Chinese people as “pariahs” because I take issue with many of the Chinese governments policies. That’s an irrational leap, but what really interests me is Unitalian’s claim that sports transcends boundaries and should certainly transcend prejudices (or in this case, moral disapproval). I’m sure that Unitalian is not alone in believing this: and it is this sentiment exactly that will lead millions of Americans to put aside their moral objections to China’s myriad human rights violations, suck it up, and watch the Olympics, because sports are a unifying force, an opportunity to celebrate “our shared humanity.”

I was absolutely with Unitalian on that point until I thought about it for a long time a few days ago. I was raised in the U.S. of A., where the virtue of participation in sports as either player or fervent spectator is fed us with our Wheaties from the time we’re old enough to hold our first Whiffle ball and toss it in the backyard with Dad.

Now that I’ve thought about it in a non-reflexive way, though… I think, wait… isn’t the whole point of the Olympics for countries to compete against each other — no matter how much athletes demurely protest that really, they’re only competing against themselves? Are you telling me that if Liu Xiang doesn’t take the gold, he and the Chinese people will just be glad they had such a fine contender in the event? Or that Ethiopian viewers won’t be rooting for Tirunesh Dibaba to break her own record yet again and to leave Shalane Flanagan in the dust? What kind of naive sentimentalism would lead any one of us to think such a thing? I live in Boston and daily see what kind of “spirit of shared humanity” sports really creates: such rabid support for our own teams that we regularly and cheerfully demonize players and fans from other cities (did you hear about the Boston fans who started chanting “Yankees suck” at a CELTICS GAME?). I’m not proud of this, but Boston is far from unique. How about the European football fans who get trampled in the melee after games? I don’t think “spirit of shared humanity” when I envision a corpse with crushed windpipe and ribcage after a Barcelona/Madrid match.

Sports gives vent to the most Dionysian energies within individuals and society, and yet is there anything more easily sentimentalized than sports? We love our sports because they allow us to express our wildness and to live vicariously through the demi-gods on the fields. We may experience a transcendent sense of shared humanity with other fans in the heat of the moment, but that’s a fleeting illusion. We’re bonding over a 3-hour game; nothing more, nothing less. I don’t mean to be insulting here, but I would argue that momentary bonding over sports is a very shallow form of experiencing shared humanity; not even as complex as attending the movies with a lively crowd. I’ve watched many a Sox game with whooping, high-fiving, even weeping temporary pals in sports bars but have never, ever felt henceforth called to do something or be something higher or better than I previously was. I like to think that our experiences of real shared humanity would generate some more lasting result than a swelling heart and the excitement of having been there. Please understand that I am not dismissing those feelings; God knows I’m a crier at most public events. But when I watched part of the opening ceremonies yesterday I understood that I was being manipulated to have a swelling heart and a feeling of excitement and sheer human pride. I realized that if I responded with those emotions (as I initially did), I would be capitulating to engineers and designers who worked very hard on behalf of the Chinese government to elicit those reactions from me. Advertising agencies working on behalf of multi-national corporations were also counting on my misty eyes and lumpy throat. It became very clear to me last night that I want to be able to discern between experiences of emotionally manipulative entertainment and authentic moments of shared humanity. Because I believe the opening games was an example of the former, I put away my tissues and changed the channel.

An Olympic gold medal is all about national pride (or even nationalistic pride), millions of dollars in endorsements, and a star athlete or team’s moment alone on the pedestal wrapped in the flag of their own country while their national anthem plays. Winners win, losers lose, and although there are many viewers who root for athletes from other nations (remember the Jamaican bobsled team?) and who generally admire the prowess of all the competitors, the Olympics is about competition. And competition over/against others is most certainly not a religious value. It is not a Jewish value, it is not a Christian value, it is not a Muslim value, it is not a Confucian value or a Buddhist value or value within indigenous religions I’m familiar with, or a value within any other religious tradition I can think of. It was a religious value of the Roman Empire and of the Greeks before them, which is no surprise to anyone (where did the Olympics come from, after all?), but I think those who would finger-wag at me, a Unitarian Universalist minister, for failing to be peace-love & forgiveness about the games are barking up the wrong tree.

I am confident that there are sound ethical and personal reasons for choosing to watch the Olympics and that there are sound ethical reasons for choosing not to watch them. However, I don’t think the argument that we should watch the Olympics because they bring all the participants and viewers into a beautiful experience of shared humanity is a persuasive one.

The Seven Deadly Sins, Sermonically Speaking

So I got it into my li’l head that I’d like to do a sermon series on the Seven Deadly Sins of tradition, ’cause they’re just so much fun. I like giving sermon series (serieses? Series-eziz?), and the congregation seems to like them, too. Last year I did the Seven Unitarian Universalist Principles, and the year before the Ten Commandments. Several years back, I did a series called “Spiritual Stumbling Blocks,” including one on jealousy that I think will do very nicely as a repeat for Envy.

My “gimmick” for this series (please don’t take that seriously, but one has to have a vision, a hook, a focus) is to try to use characters from contemporary culture, literature or film as key sermon illustrations. I’m just as adept at summarizing plays, novels, short stories and films as any good preacher should be (after all, if any preacher assumes that the entire congregation is familiar with the Scripture passage they’re preaching on — even if it was just read aloud — they’re living in Fantasy Land), but I don’t want to use material that is so esoteric it can’t be summarized and used in a gripping way in less than 20 minutes.

So here at the Seven Deadly Sins, and some of my preliminary ideas:

LUST
GLUTTONY
AVARICE
SLOTH
WRATH
ENVY
PRIDE

I don’t like resorting to the painfully obvious or overdone, so would not (for instance) use Ebenezer Scrooge in a sermon on avarice if it can be avoided. I may call that sermon “Manny Being Manny,” given that this is a Boston-area congregation and the question of whether any human being “deserves” twenty million dollars a year (whether or not he’s technically “worth it”) would certainly make an interesting conversation-starter on the subject of avarice.

“The Hulk” is an obvious way in to the topic of wrath.

For pride/hubris, I am considering “Into the Wild” and “Jurassic Park.”

For lust, heck, I may delve into the Greeks somehow. I’d like to talk about the transcendent, out-of-control sensations that go along with lust and the Greeks are a great source for that (Trojan War, anyone? Not to mention dozens of other juicy tales). I’ve just finished reading the brilliant The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Calasso and my head is schpinning with Greek mythology and philosophy. Wowza, wowza.

Sloth will be really hard. Because what is sloth, really, but depression in today’s parlance? God knows *I* have no interest in a dull lecture on sloth = acedia = apatheia, but I suppose that’s where I’ll start looking. Am I too ambitious to hope that there is some vivid character I’m not remembering who exemplifies sloth? Yea, I get the irony in that question, too.

Those are my initial reflections, anyway. I’m sure you’ll be all kinds of inspiring, so for heaven’s sake go for it!

Music That Hurts Too Much

Since you’ve all been so terrific about sharing your list of movies that are just too painful to see (or to see again), I thought I’d bring up the subject of music. Let’s share the pain again!

Last weekend I officiated at the memorial service of a beloved congregant. I was up until 1 AM working on her eulogy because I didn’t want to write it. I don’t want to accept her death. But such is life, and we had a beautiful day and a full church for her service. I got through it fine (a few choked up moments during the prayer, but okay) until we stood to sing “Amazing Grace.” I had requested of my Music Director that she modulate and go up a key between the third and final (for us) verse:

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come
Twas grace that brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home… (key change)

When we’ve been there ten thousand years
bright shining as the sun
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
than when we’ve first begun.

But I couldn’t sing that last verse. The moment I heard that key change, I opened my mouth to sing and was able to produce only sobs. Even with a lifetime of theatre experience and two years of breath work and meditation practice, my body refused to obey my mind. Firm admonitions to self along the lines of “YOU HUGE LOSER, GET IT TOGETHER” did not work. So I stepped even further back from the pulpit, lowered my face into my program and sobbed as quietly as possible through that last verse. “You’ve got about ten seconds to pull yourself together, girl,” I told myself. “Breathe, breathe, breathe.” I breathed from way down in my gut. I made my voice work. The benediction was not the vocally strong proclamation of faith, blessing and peace I hoped for, but hey, it came out and people could hear it.

But… holy cow!!! Such is power of music. I had gone over the words of the memorial service late Friday night and many times the morning of the service. I had already shed many tears for Jackie.
I had cried that morning the shower, for heaven’s sake: I thought I had got it all out! I was emotionally prepared to sing “Morning Has Broken” and to hear a meditative piano version of “Rank By Rank Again We Stand” and to sing “Amazing Grace.” Hey, I’m a pro! But THAT DAMNED KEY CHANGE. Key change happens, my composure goes out the window. Even though I knew it was coming!

Even after all that, I’m sure the next time I hear “Amazing Grace” I’ll be fine. However, I was unable to hear the song “Claire de Lune” by Debussy for probably six or seven years after my father died; it was the last song played at his memorial service.

Other songs that often produce an “Augh, I totally can’t handle hearing this” reaction when I’m feeling at all vulnerable are:

1. “Hearts” as sung by Marty Valen
2. “Lonely Stranger” sung by Eric Clapton (on his “Unplugged” album)
3. “If You Believe” from “The Wiz” as sung by Miss Lena Horne on her live Broadway album
4. “Little Water Song” by Nick Cave as sung by Ute Lemper on the album “Punishing Kiss” (the creepiest, most chilling song of all time, seriously)
5. “I Fall To Pieces” as sung by Patsy Cline
6. “The Valley” by Jane Siberry from “When I Was a Boy”
7. “Love Is Everything” by Jane Siberry (ditto)
8. “Kooks” by David Bowie from “Hunky Dory”
9. “Wild Is the Wind” by Nina Simone on “Nina Simone’s Finest Hour”
10. “You Take My Breath Away” as sung by Eva Cassidy on her “Wonderful World” album (and almost anything by Eva Cassidy from “Songbird”)
11. “Elegy: Snow in June” by Tan Dun
12. Karen Carpenter singing “Bless the Beasts and Children”
13. Chopin’s Nocturne in C# minor
14. “Vissi D’Arte” from Tosca as sung by Monserrat Caballe
15. “Not A Day Goes By” as sung by Bernadette Peters on her London Sondheim tribute album, “Sondheim, Etc.”
16. Johnny Cash singing “In the Garden”
17. Judy Garland’s Carnegie Hall concert (any track) and “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from “The London Sessions”
18. Ray Charles, “How Long Has This Been Going On”
19. Shirley Horne singing “So Here’s To Life” by Artie Butler (on “Shirley Horne With Strings”)
20. Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” — I mean, is that not the all-time heartbreaker?

… and so many more!! So get out the hankies, gang, and share your own tearjerkers!

Driving Tragedy

I was stuck behind a black Toyota Highlander this evening at a red light and then at the drive-through at McDonald’s (I cannot tell a lie) and first noticed the Christian messages plastered on the thing by way of bumper stickers. “Real Men Love Jesus,” one said, and the license plate holder said “Christians aren’t perfect… just forgiven by a God who is!” That’s all I can remember, but there were one or two more, tastefully placed on this elegant gas-guzzler. That alone was not particularly remarkable, but the car was also a moving monument to grief and loss. The sad little legend, “Michael Murphy, April 2, 1992 - June 8, 1994,” was printed in white lettering at the top of the rear window, and also in white graphic and lettering on the lower left hand corner of the window: “The Murphy Family,” with a mommy and daddy stick figure, three children, and a cat. “Never forgotten, always loved” (or something similar) was included under the name of the child and the dates he had lived.

Had the child been killed by a drunk driver? I wondered. Thinking that might be the reason to essentially advertise his death on the family car, I looked for a MADD bumper sticker, but in vain. Who knows the story behind this little one’s death. His parents choose to drive around immortalizing his name and their love for him on their rear view mirror, and that’s their business. Of course, now it’s mine, too. Is this the new evangelism, using our cars as a way to broadcast not only our political, religious or social views but to bring in a whole new level of personal context to why we hold them?

I don’t know. Is this a positive way to deal with trauma, an unsafe distraction to other drivers, or something else altogether? What do you think?

How Do You Structure Your Writing Time?

This might earn me a bonking on the head from those who don’t have the luxury of study leave, but I’m interested in how other ministers or academics structure their days when they have big writing projects they’d like to tackle (say, a doctoral project) and a thousand distractions to lure them away from their desk (don’t we all!?).

Do you have a writing buddy — someone with whom you check in every day to compare notes, cheerlead for, or meet for coffee and procrastination?

Do you leave your home and write at Starbucks? I know my friend Stephanie wrote much of an excellent book on radical welcome that way.

Do you wake up real early, work out, eat a good breakfast, walk the dog, then sit your posterior down for an appointed number of hours, vowing not to budge for any reason, EVEN FOR LAUNDRY (or some other virtuous task that you can easily persuade yourself needs to get done)?

Do you light a cigarette, pour a cup of coffee, and smoke and drink and write until 3 AM, stopping only to wolf down a corned beef sandwich?

Do you write in short bursts, taking a little walk or reading celebrity gossip blogs to clear your head between each few pages?

I’d love to hear how you do it. I’m good at writing papers on deadline and I obviously love to blog and e-mail, but longer, more sustained efforts without looming deadlines are new to me and I’d like to make some progress on climbing this particular authorial mountain.

Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant

She stopped attending church around Christmastime because she was tired and dealing with some tough family issues. I said, “My dear, you deserve a break. You’ve been working full-time for this church for forty years and given your heart and soul to it. Go with our blessing.”

So she rested, and slept a lot. I’d call to check in. “Vicki, I just can’t get it going like I used to.”
“That’s understandable,” I said. “On my best days I can’t get it going like you used to. Do you realize what a whirling dervish of focused energy you’ve been for decades?”
We’d chat and I’d catch her up on church goings-on. She was my North Star.
She understood church better than almost anyone I’ve ever known.
We missed her a lot around the office. Before she took this “sabbatical,” she had been there at least three times a week. She was involved in everything. She had a furiously passionate view on everything. She read everything the UUA put out, attended GA something like 35 times, and knew what was going on at every congregation in the district.

She was devoted to what she called “the care and feeding of ministers.” I had been warned before I began my ministry at this parish that she would be a troublemaker to me. We laughed over this recently and I remarked that I was still waiting for the trouble to start.

She was my spiritual bodyguard for six years and although we argued, she was the one to constantly remind me to take care of myself. Sometimes she offered specific commandments on how I should accomplish that. “Take a walk and don’t bring your cell phone!” she’d demand. “Watch some TV tonight and TAKE THE PHONE OFF THE HOOK.” “Get out of town — we don’t need you here,” was her response when I considered attending the Festival of Homiletics in Nashville in 2007. She was my Worship Committee Chair and she simply informed me that they would fill the pulpit while I was gone, waving away my thanks.
She insisted that I take the Sunday after Easter off. She was there to assist at every wedding and every funeral: opening the door, showing the florist and caterer around (okay, sometimes ordering them around), turning on the sound system, thinking of things I might need before I knew I needed them.

I never asked her to, but I know she ran interference with parishioners who complained about decisions I made; with far less patience and sensitivity than I would have, perhaps, but trying to protect me from “petty complaints from people who don’t know their ass from their elbow when it comes to our tradition.” Try as I might to pry them out of her, she remained tight-lipped about details. “If it IS a real problem, Victoria, I’m sure you’ll hear about it. In the meantime, you have enough to do. Let me deal with the dummies.” I’d say, “C’mon now. Just because someone doesn’t agree with me or you doesn’t mean they’re dummies” And she’d respond in an arch tone, “I’ll think about that and get back to you.”
When I was involved in helping a family through a particularly sensitive crisis, she managed to get the word out without exposing confidences. “Step it up, people, and run your own church,” is the sort of thing she’d say. “The minister isn’t God here.”

At congregational meetings she held a minority viewpoint on most matters, and for that alone the church will sorely miss her. “LISTEN, FOLKS,” was her customary way of beginning a phrase that would express her rockbound view that we were heading straight to hell in a handbasket unless we listened to her. We’d all sit up straight and listen. The vote often did not go her way but she never quit the church. Many people actually feared her — especially newer folks who didn’t know what a solid gold heart she had beneath the crusty exterior, or who had never eaten her chocolate cake or her ham and beans.

“He couldn’t organize a one-car funeral” was her disdainful assessment of anyone whose leadership skills she thought were less than up to par. But she did not hesitate to lavish direct praise on those whose dedication and work she admired. As I remarked recently in a tribute to her, her dedication to the church was such that she had earned both bragging and bitching rights to it.

By March, when she still wasn’t rested enough to get back to church and I was obviously in denial, someone noodged her to go to the doctor. She hated doctors and had avoided them for decades, cracking, “Why in the world do I need to pay someone to tell me to quit smoking!??” I think she smoked at least two packs of Maverick 100’s a day.

It’s a good thing that this noodging church friend was so persistent. She finally did agree to see a doctor for that nagging cough and arthritis pain and was sent for an MRI immediately, which showed a cancer that had already progressed significantly through her lungs and into her back. All her doctor could offer was radiation to shrink the tumor in her spine so that she might be more comfortable. She, who had always cared for everyone else, realized right away that she might have to begin to accept help herself. It was her last great work of spiritual growth.

A team of church friends mobilized right away. They took her to doctor’s appointments, and on a few emergency hospital visits when the pain got too bad to bear. One friend escorted her out of the hospital waving “SORRY” behind her frail back for the insults she had hurled at doctors and nurses at moments of pain and fear during her stay there. Church friends brought her food, pink gerbera daisies and picked up her laundry to do at their own homes because she had no washer and dryer. They even bought her cigarettes, because as she said, “Why quit now, for God’s sake?” They made visits to the Social Security office and tracked down her Medicare benefits for her, purchased her additional health care coverage, sent in a plummer to fix the toilet, drove her several hours out of town to visit her son, and purchased airline tickets for her daughter to fly in from Florida.

She was always a very proud woman, raised on a farm in Arostook County, Maine and tough as nails. She didn’t have indoor plumbing as a child and comfortably used a chamber pot until the last week of her life. In the winter, she did not use heat but kept up a steady fire in a wood-burning stove with recyclable items (she recycled or composted everything), dressing in layers and keeping warm upstairs under layers of wonderful old quilts.

She appointed me her Health Care Proxy in early April and we talked about the fact that she wanted to die at home. No hospitals — she bitterly hated them. No nursing homes. At home. Cigarettes and black coffee available at all times. Everything on her own terms. No hospice. No strangers coming in. When I washed dishes for her she fussed at me: leave them alone or I won’t be able to find anything. Always her terms.

We gave her The Good Egg Award at the Stewardship Celebration Dinner — her last appearance among the wider church community, and established a GA Scholarship in her name. She stood to accept the award and then made an unexpected speech. In her direct way, she told everyone that she was dying, that she wanted to say goodbye and thank you, and that for those who wanted to know if there was anything they could do for her, yes there was. “Love this church.” I was holding the microphone for her. “And take care of this lady, because this is going to be hard on her.” I put on my best neutral “pastoral care” face but I think the tears streaming uncontrollably down my face probably gave me away a bit.

As she got sicker, we adjusted the expectation that all her care needs could be met by non-medically trained folks. First she allowed the Visiting Nurses Association in, thank God. And then the hospice branch of the VNA. Pharmacare delivered to the house. Meals on Wheels came in. A wonderful nurse named Mary Ann. A social worker. Just a few days ago, she agreed to the first visit from a home health aid although she was very resistant to being attended to by strangers. She did it for those of us who loved her, who were afraid to make her pain worse while changing a shirt or a Depends, who were terrified at the prospect of dropping her or touching her painfully swollen ankles by accident. “Will you do it for us?” I asked. She closed her eyes and nodded.

Eventually it became clear that she would need around-the-clock supervision. The care team confronted the fact that her own home was an impossible environment to provide sufficient care in. Church friends offered their home. She could move into the guest room and church caregivers could stay in another guest room. She would have her own bathroom on the same floor, a washer and dryer in the house, a dishwasher, and working shower. She could smoke on the porch; some of our church guys could put together a wheelchair ramp in no time at all to get her down the one step if she needed it.

This past Monday she and I discussed it. She sat thoughtfully, cigarette in hand and agreed that when things became “unmanageable,” she would be willing to go. It was not,after all, a nursing home or a hospital. We agreed on a code word for when things became unmanageable. If she said, “STAT” to me, it would be time to move her out.

The STAT moment came yesterday in the morning during what the hospice nurse called “another pain crisis.” I got there just after the nurse had administered more medication and sat on a footstool in front of her, both of her hands in mine. “Is this STAT?” I asked. “Is it time? Are you ready?” She nodded yes, weakly. By the time the ambulance arrived she was in a blissfully deep sleep brought on by the medication. Free from pain. But I had to wake her. “Honey, they’re almost here to take you to Karen and Larry’s,” I said. “I’ll be right behind you in the car. I’ve got everything you need. Don’t try to get up. I just wanted to wake you early enough to have a moment to say goodbye to the house.”

With every last ounce of strength she had, she struggled to rise, swinging her legs one by one over the side of the bed. “No,” she said. And then “No!!!” I had tricked her. I had drugged her and lied to her. I had been plotting this for weeks. I tried to reason with her as she lurched slowly through the kitchen. “We discussed this, remember? Remember our code word?” She wept and reached the sink where she began to try to wash dishes. “I’m sorry, I know…” I said helplessly to her back. “NO, you DON’T KNOW,” she said. There were daggers in her voice.

The ambulance drivers arrived– two young females.

As she allowed herself to be strapped gently onto the gurney, she hollered and railed at me. She called me obscene names. She spat further accusations about my motives, my betrayal, my conniving. “We can’t take her if she doesn’t consent to go,” said the ambulance driver. “I understand,” I said. “So don’t.” But then I remembered that the hospice nurse had found her just that morning sitting half slid off her kitchen chair, a cigarette lighter in mouth, just about to flick her Bic without a cigarette end to put it to –and I became very frightened. I prayed for guidance and immediately received an image of a mother bear with a cub in its mouth, shaking it.

“I agreed to be your health care proxy because we trust each other, you ungrateful brat!” I yelled. “You can stay here and set yourself on fire and break everyone’s heart who loves you or you can come to the home of friends where we can stay with you 24 hours a day and keep you comfortable, safe and manage your pain. We have busted our butts for you because WE LOVE YOU. No one is STEALING FROM YOU, I am collecting your medication!” She hollered and I yelled back until the ambulance drivers were in tears and begging, “Stop, please stop.”

I waved at them to let us go on a moment more, I would explain later that she needed to rage rather than to grieve, it was always her style, and I needed to be the villain for this part of the story because there needed to be a villain.

“Are you ready to go? Do you give your consent?” asked one of the young women at last, and she swallowed and nodded. “Just keep HER away from me,” she said, gesturing at me. “If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”
“You won’t get that close,” I responded. “I’ll throttle you first.” I knew that was a come-back she would have ordinarily loved. As I hurried to get in my car, I thought we’ll laugh at that line in the next life, honey babe. She called me honey babe sometimes.

I followed close behind the ambulance and minutes later I was sobbing in the kitchen and trying to get a grip on myself to help unload her supplies and go over her medication protocol for the rest of the team. She was having a cigarette outside — still strapped to the gurney, mind you. At last they rolled her in. “How are you feeling now?” one of the gals inquired and she said with customary sarcasm and surprising energy, “Have you ever heard the expression ‘mad as a wet hen?’” All three of them laughed, along with the parishioner who was there to welcome her to her home and lead them down the hall.
They gently transferred her to a hospital bed in a clean, blessedly quiet room, tucking her into fresh sheets while I quietly placed photographs of her family and get-well cards around where she could see them when she opened her eyes.

When all the technicians had gone, I sat by her side in a chair as she rested. She eventually opened her eyes and we held hands. She was peaceful, relieved, comfortable. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said. We exchanged loving words. Nothing that hadn’t been said already, just nice to say again for the last time. The dog barked once and she opened her eyes in surprise. New sounds. And then she drifted to sleep.

Our DRE came and spent long evening hours with her, and then another church friend arrived at midnight. She had one last pain crisis, trying in her agonies to get out of bed. Brave church friends remained with her to keep her safe until the nurse arrived and doubled the Diladid dose. She slept comfortably at last, surrounded by friends, and died this morning at around 8:00. I came and anointed her and sang “Amazing Grace” to her; something I had hoped to do while she was still alive. More church friends arrived to keep her company until the nurse made a final visit and pronouncement, and then the undertakers arrived to take her away. We formed a little receiving line in the hallway to touch her covered frame one last time and say our goodbyes.

When she was gone we gathered in the kitchen as women will do, telling stories about the past months and piecing it all together, laughing about funny things she had said or done, figuring out further logistics, phoning people. We went into the backyard and Peg and I both smoked one of her cigarettes in tribute. It was an impromptu wake, girl style.

A couple of weeks ago when I had been sitting with her and she said, “I wish I could make it easier on you,” I said, “YOU wish you could make this easier on ME? I think that works the other way around, kiddo.”

This can’t be her eulogy, of course. It’s just part of the story of the end of her life, told from my point-of-view — a story of how we find our way through the work of ministry one step at a time, one decision at a time, one phone call, one plan, one meal, one fiery confrontation, one cigarette, one prayer, one organizational chart of medication, one cup of coffee, one life and one death at a time.

She liked this blog. She liked that it allows me to initiate conversation about ministry, the church and liberal religion — all beloved to her — with a much wider community than our one congregation. I told her one time that I was committed to not writing about specific people in the church unless it was to make a shining example of them. “I don’t care if you write about me,” she said, “Just make it good.”

I hope I did, Jackie.

In memoriam
Jacqueline Lee Magazu
August 3, 1940 - June 13, 2008

All-Time Record: Hating On the Richie Riches, Part III

Thanks mostly to Will Shetterly and Fausto, my post wondering whether it’s religiously okay to hate the rich has broken all records for commenting on PeaceBang. We’re up to 113, not including the additional ten that have come in tonight in response to a follow-up comment.

A few observations:

While UUs have made some attempts in recent years to address class issues among us, the prevalent questions I have seen asked thus far are more along the lines of “What are we going to do to address class discrimination in our congregations?” Then we move into the subject of the problem in our congregations around assumptions that everyone has a “career,” that everyone has a degree (or several), and how to be sensitive to economic difference.
I think what pushed the button here is that no one has yet asked, “Is hating the rich an option, religiously-speaking? If so, why?” Again, in case anyone has forgotten, I asked the question after one women vehemently expressed that the characters featured in “Sex and the City” were too rich for her to relate to, and went on to express disgust for the rich in general. Another woman (a UU minister) chimed in to say that she felt the same way, and my curiosity was piqued. It’s so rare that UUs will come right out and make a severe value judgment that I thought it was hot stuff. And I was right.

I had hoped to provoke only discerning, thoughtful responses. That was silly; this is far too emotional a hot-button topic for that to happen. Still, I hold out hope that we can continue. Some responses have been, in fact, very thoughtful and theologically grounded, trying to speak from a place of faith stance and not just shoot-from the-hip or bicker.

I am disappointed that no one among the 123 commenters has answered my queries about whether liberationist theological commitments draw faithful Christians in that direction. There’s been a lot of personal sharing, a lot of quoting of scripture back and forth, and a lot of information offered on housing prices and median wages and what it means to be an “average” American. But I still want to know: does the God/Holy of your various traditions call you/us to regard wealth with hostile suspicion, and the rich with hatred or something close to it? I think it’s clear that our dear Jesus was, as ever, enigmatic on this subject. For every “You can’t worship God and Mammon,” there’s an admonition not to judge and to love our neighbor, etc. If we’re thinking we’re going to get to the bottom of this with a final, authoritative word from Mr. J., I think we’re going to wait for a long time.

I said to Will Shetterly on his own blog that I think any disciple of Jesus Christ who possesses a banking account has got some ’splainin’ to do. Every time I check the balance on my pension fund and breathe a sigh of relief that it hasn’t tanked I know I’m not being a true disciple as Christ arranged the original plan. I do worry about the future, I do try to store up some treasures on Earth for retirement, and I do not think I could give away my shirt to someone who asked for it, let alone my shirt and my coat. Unless we’re living in community sharing all our possessions and out there preaching, ministering to and healing the world with nothing but our sandals on our feet and the garments on our backs, we’re varying quite a bit from the system of discipleship Jesus established. The good news is that there’s a thing called grace and we’ll not be sent into the fiery pits of Hell for just doing our best in this lifetime.

In case anyone was wondering, I have only VERY rarely in my experience as a UU seen anyone exhibit open prejudice against someone for their wealth. I don’t think it goes on much, I hope to God no one thinks I was suggesting that we have a rich-bashing problem (my LORD, all we need is another group of self-identified marginalized people in the UUA!).

Someone’s suggestion that wealthy people don’t do social justice work in the UUA is patently ridiculous. I can’t even begin to count the number of affluent UUs of my acquaintance who spend a tremendous amount of time in the work of social change and social justice, and in a far more hands-on way than writing checks. I’m sorry that this hasn’t been the experience of all the readers of this blog.

I am no defender of the wealthy, and I liked best ChuckPhilly’s comment that a backlash against the very wealthy may have begun because we all *know* now what that Hummer and that monstrously enormous house costs the environment. We are beginning to see the connections between conspicuous consumption and the perilous state of the planet in a way we never have before, and we’re horrified by those who mindlessly contribute to it. What interests me the most now is this question: is God’s preferential option for the poor (a basic tenet of liberationist theology that I believe in) not only about the heart of divine compassion but God’s practical nature at work (as in, I love the poor not because I love poverty, but because I need you ALL to look to that simplicity of being and realize that I need you ALL to embrace that so that everyone can eat, and the planet can survive)?

If so, does that still validate hatred for the rich? Not because you or someone you love personally feels like hating the rich, but because there’s a theological imperative to do so, as we would hate any evil?

If we want to change structures that create hideous disparities in wealth, should we stop hating the structures and hate the people who benefit from them? Is that where some of you are moving? If so, please say so. I’ve never heard such a thing suggested in polite circles, and while I don’t agree with the premise, I’d certainly appreciate more explanation of your reasoning.

Is active animosity directed toward the rich a potentially effective tool for change, given the intimate connection between wealth and social status? An interesting idea. It wouldn’t be my chosen approach, but some of you may have a persuasive argument up your sleeve. If so, bring it on.