Grandma Madness

My new Granddaughter, Eve, is six years old and small for her age. She is new to me because my daughter became her step-mother in October, just five months ago. Officially I suppose I am Eve’s step-grandmother but my heart just doesn't register that “step.”  I love being “Grandma Gayle” and prior to the marriage of my daughter to Eve’s attentive and loving father I wanted to introduce the topic of being called “Nana” by the children. I was keen.

Eve“What would you think of letting the girls (Eve and her amazing sister) know that they can call me “Nana” after the wedding? But, of course, only if they want to. After all, I will be their grandmother, well, sort-of.”

There was a laden pause, they exchanged looks that said, “We knew she would bring this up.” Then one of them, I forget which one, let me know that they didn’t want to push anything on the children and it would be the girls decision what to call me. Their considered parental preference, they explained, would be to let it evolve “naturally.” My daughter said, “Actually mom, it’s not about what you want, it’s about what makes the girls comfortable.”

Fair enough. I deeply respect and love these two young adults and their amazing parenting skills. It is beautiful to watch them in action with their two elementary school-aged girls because they are heartful, conscious, gentle and boundaried parents.

However, I confess I wondered about how the children could make their own decision if they didn’t know what the options were. So, I created an opportunity for “naturally” to emerge when the girls and I were alone in the kitchen together on one of my visits. I said, “After the wedding I’ll be your grandma and you can call me Nana if you want.”

Eve spontaneously burst into what I call the “Nana Dance.” She jumped into the air like a rock star flailing her arms and singing at the top of her lungs in a husky gusty performance, pretending to play a guitar.  “Nana, Nana, Nana, Nana, Nana, Nana,” she sang to a rhythm and tune that was strictly her own. I couldn’t help myself and I jumped up and down a bit too, expressing an outrageous joy.

“Gosh, that went well,” I thought as I finished peeling potatoes and decided not to mention it to my daughter. After the Nana Dance day I never mentioned my potential new status again to the children but I was bursting with anticipation about tea parties with dolls and bike rides in the neighborhood.

On the wedding day, after the ceremony and during the reception, I was teetering around in my mother-of-the bride outfit contemplating the removal of my wine colored suede pumps which were killing my feet. I was standing near the fireplace when Eve came running towards me at full speed in her ballerina length white dress. She had long since removed her shoes and her tights were muddy, but no one cared because it was almost time for cake and I anticipated  more frosting than mud. 

Eve flung herself into my arms and said, “Hi Grandma!” I gathered up her taffeta and petticoats and held her close against my heart. She gave me a neck hug and several sweet kisses on the cheek and suddenly my feet didn’t hurt at all! It was done…we were family and I was christened “Grandma”, naturally.

Now perhaps you will understand why I was so thrilled when a special “Flat Stanley” envelope arrived in the mail.

NOTE: Flat Stanley is a piece of felt cut out in the shape of a person and decorated with pasted-on clothes and yarn hair by a six year old. Stanley arrived by mail with a letter from the first grade teacher explaining this as a teaching exercise. Recipients were to take photos and communicate with our first grader about our activities with Stanley.

My new Grandma heart went a bit mad with Grandma love when from the envelope I read the following letter written by Eve in her first grade hand:

“Dear Grandma Gayle, thank you for taking care of Flat Stanley. She is allergic to peanuts. Make sure she goes to bed at 8:00 p.m. She does not like scary movies. make sure she has a half huor of t.v. a day. Her favorite dinner is makeanchees (Macaroni and cheese). She likes Shake it up the t.v. show. She likes strawberries. She needs a sweatshirt. She will need a stuffed animal! from Eve”

As Grandma Madness settled over me my relationship to time and daily responsibilities changed and my heart filled with a feeling I knew was love, but different than any other kind of love I have ever felt. I spent days in fantasy writing three rhyming stories about Flat Stanley’s visit and making a small, intricate, quilted, detailed wall hanging to illustrate the stories. This was joyous madness.

Story #1

Dear Eve,

Flat Stanley came to visit
With a dragon on a string.
“You’re very welcome in our home,
But what’s that green-dog thing?”

Flat Stanley “Not a dog,” She laughed aloud,
“Please, can’t you see her wing?”
She’s just a little dragon
And you can call her Ping.”

So where did Stanley find her?
I’ve searched the USA.
No single dragon missing
Not one has lost her way.

I guess we get to keep her
She’s ours and not a stray.
There’s nothing else to say now
Except a big HURRAY!

I gave them both some candy
And put them straight to bed.
I have to get some sleep now
So I can clear my head.

I’m a very happy grandma
Eve sent Stanley here!
I’ll love having Stanley
But a dragon? Dear, Oh dear!

Story #2

Dear Eve,

“Mac and cheese for dinner
Come on, it’s time to eat.”
“We don’t want this food,” They said,
“We want Trick or Treat.”

Back of Flat Stanley wall hanging“Halloween is in October
Now is much too soon.
The flowers here are blooming,
There is no spooky moon.”

“We don’t care,” they said with glee,
“Trick or Treat is free!
“We’re here on vacation
So let’s go on a spree.”

Soon I heard the neighbor scream,
“A dragon’s at my door!”
When Ping yelled, “We want candy,”
He fell onto the floor.

She’s not a good example
This dragon they call Ping
I fear our friend Flat Stanley
Is having quite a fling.

I’ll check-in again on Monday
We’ll take them to the mall
We’ll have a sunny weekend
And if they’re bad I’ll call.

 
Story #3

Dear Eve,

Above our house on Sunday
The sky turned brilliant green
The air was filled with dragons
more than I’ve ever seen.

Flat Stanley started laughing
As they began to land
They quickly filled the terrace
There was no room to stand.

“We’ve come from near Seattle
Where rhododendrons flower
We flapped our little wings all day
We came on our own power.”

“We’re very good at flying
It’s Ping we’ve come to see
We are her happy family
Ping One, Ping Two, Ping Three.”

“We’re really very hungry
It’s been an awesome day
We rested at a farmer’s
Who tried to feed us hay.”

Our favorite food is cupcakes
We eat them all day long
They give us big green tummies
And keep us very strong.”

“A tea party’s in order,”
I said it with a smile,
“I’ll bake 12 dozen cupcakes
And put them in a pile.”

Ping Four, Ping Five, Ping Six,
Ping Seven, and Ping Eight
There were so many Pings around
We couldn’t keep them straight.

Now we’re a happy family
In the California sun
Flat Stanley’s eating cupcakes
and having loads of fun.

Love, Grandma Gayle

Well, I’ve looked at the photos and listened to the stories of senior citizens with Grandparent Madness for many years. I’ve resisted feeling envy when grandmothers push prams past me, I’ve managed not to turn green with jealousy when I hear stories of spending Sunday afternoon at Train Town with the little twins. But now, FINALLY, I have granddaughters who will eat whipped cream with me and do the Nana Dance until we fall down laughing!  Ahhh!

Copyright © 2014 Gayle Madison

I’m in Paradigm Distress

Since I was a young woman, newly ordained to the ministry of the United Church of Christ, I have consistently had some level of paradigm distress within the context of my love-hate relationship with the Church. The photograph here shows me with my ministry partner, Rev. Dale Rominger, the creator of this website, The Back Road Café. I was not alone in my distress in 1985 when this photo was taken and I shared it with Dale, my friend and colleague. And, I continue to share my distress with many colleagues who have been “laboring in the field of the Lord” these many years.

According to a recent Gallup poll 47 percent of people polled about the honesty and ethics of various professions gave clergy high marks for moral standards. That’s a 20% decline in as many years and I understand why. The secular population does not care about the difference between a Protestant clergy person and a Catholic priest. If Catholic priests abuse power and victimize children in their care then cultural confidence in all clergy declines. The “collateral damage” for the Church Universal from this lineage of predation has not yet been calculated. Ultimately, I suspect history will record it as one of many death knells for organized Christianity as we have known it.

This kind of betrayal strikes deeply into the soul and quietly we leave home. With the unfolding revelation since the early 2000’s of Catholic priestly abuse and the organized cover-up we have all become emotionally incested victims of the Church. For over 10 years we have been watching and waiting for “Dad” to receive consequences that have not yet happened.

In addition, the healing reach of the Church has been severely diminished as our congregations thin out and our missions shrink and disappear. There are many reasons for this and we can’t blame it all on Catholic sexual repression and their dysfunctional hierarchy. We Protestants have plenty of our own issues.

Yet, it breaks my heart that people trust nurses more than they trust clergy. Not because I need to burnish the sheen of my professional role but because our culture has been betrayed by so many of our institutions. We Americans are the victims of corporations, the banking industry, politicians and the political arena, to name only a few. Recently the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, commented about the ethical lapses in the three major branches of our armed forces. Really? Now, we can’t trust our Generals and soldiers who are second tier heroes just beneath our national athletes who dose and dope themselves into pyrrhic glory.

What about the deep cultural response? Well, zombi shows are the rage in our national entertainment scene and it makes sense. Zombies are dead and they feed on the flesh and blood of the living. Our corporations drool with greed and stalk us with dead eyes and our priests rape our innocent children. Greed, avarice and lust have burst the boundaries I learned to expect growing up in the 50’s. Ethics are so mid-century, no wonder today’s youth tattoo their flesh with their beliefs and watch revolting zombie drama on TV. I hope those shows help them survive the blood sucking credit card companies and the flesh eating corporations.

There’s no denying that our institutions are failing us and I’m in paradigm distress about the bigger picture. It is not just the Church that is staggering before my eyes. Some spiritual teachers call it “free fall” when our paradigms dissolve and we live without holding. St. John of the Cross called it Dark Night of the Soul and I think our entire culture is in a spiritually dark place.

And yet, I do not despair because coming out of the dark night experience brings with it spiritual advancement. An individual soul is never in the same evolutionary place at the end of a dark night as they were when they entered it. Surely, the same is true for the American culture and humanity at large. The evolutionary cosmic screw is turning and I’m going to do my part to make sure we don’t get screwed!

WHAT? Historically, Wisdom Schools pop up when people are looking around for what they can trust and these islands of consciousness are all over the place hidden in plain sight. I’ve become a part of a Christian Wisdom School and I’m committed to ever-greater consciousness. And so I quilt and knit, every stitch a prayer. I walk, every step a prayer. I meditate, every breath a prayer. I cook dinner for my husband, a sacrament of grace and I’d chop wood and haul water if we had a forest and a well. My humble contributions to consciousness.

I look out of these old eyes now without fear or dread, not because I’m a church-lady devoted to the culture of niceness and happy endings, but because I see the Church expiring into the living flame of love which is the light-filled hearts of the people around me. One by one we are internalizing the authority we formerly projected onto the Church and other worthy institutions. Now that they are failing us our evolutionary task is to internalize the authority we let them carry in the past. As profound authority is established within an individual it gazes deeply into the heart of the indwelling Beloved and knows unequivocally, that we ARE the Divine.

 We are in a sacred process of taking responsibility for our lives, for our divinity, for those around us, for the earth …and I think we are finally really beginning to get it… that damn…the bleeding edge of divine revelation can only happen right here and right now through this sacred life of mine.

VOI LA…EVOLUTION! But oh, not until the hundredth monkey gets it.

Copyright © 2014 Gayle Madison

Sandhill Cranes

They dropped out of a high place where the naked eye cannot see. Even aided by binoculars my eyes couldn’t tell for sure if I was actually seeing them. I don’t often scan for that which is completely outside my field of vision, waiting for it to become visible. But my eyes were straining into the wild blue yonder because I knew they were coming. I was there with birders who go regularly to White Water Draw in Arizona to be astonished by the Sandhill Cranes. Walking the boardwalk through the marsh we awaited their coming and breathlessly anticipated the miracle to occur again, and we were not disappointed.

They kept coming and coming and they dazzled by their numbers. The spectacle began with thousands of altitudinous dots, not recognizable as birds, and it was difficult to believe each speck could actually be a large bird. They weigh between 6-15 pounds and have a wingspan of 5-7 feet. Breathlessly I watched and sure enough layer after layer glided into the marsh with avian mastery and landed in small family groups.

In fact this miracle has been occurring for an unequivocal 2.5 million years. Yes, in Montana, Ohio and Florida these birds have been making their incredible journeys around the Northern Hemisphere longer than any bird alive today, one and a half times longer than any living species. Some individuals in the group I was watching had migrated from as far away as Alaska and extreme Northeastern Siberia riding the thermal air currents at altitudes occupied by jets. (“Ladies and Gentlemen we have reached 30,000 feet and you may move about the cabin freely but please keep your seatbelt fastened and your shoes on while you are seated because we may fly past a group of Sandhill Cranes and it will knock your socks off.”)

I was taken by the exquisite precision with which they mastered that which is only theirs to do. The extravagant heights to which they soar and the unbelievable distances they fly are simply what they do in social groups. Mated for life they live in crane majesty completely unselfconscious but not without effort. They answer their highest calling trumpeting through the skies being cranes together. They seem to have direct contact with the animating force and purpose that lives within all things. How is it they have such ready access to their own true nature? What sets them ablaze with life to live out their winged perfection for millions of years?

A more personal question confronted me from the gray-blue heaven into which I gazed that day, “What is it you, in your humanity, are called to do that matches the exquisite calling of the Sandhill Crane?”

I have pondered this question for a year resisting the obvious answer.  Just last night the words describing it flew off the page of a book I was reading.  [God] “…seems to extend the invitation to follow the path of ‘pure flame,’ as the wick and tallow of our human lives are set ablaze in love to release the imperishable fragrance of our own true selfhood. Not to flinch from the ‘holocaust of becoming’ constitutes both the great challenge and the great possibility of”… [life].*

Those cranes fling themselves into the holocaust of migration braving the cold, the distance and the heights. Scientists who follow radio marked migratory individuals with identifications like “crane 117252” report their feathers are worn and discolored from the trials of long flights. They are birds that follow the pure flame of their instinct into the becoming, the challenge and the possibility of being fully CRANE!

What am I called to do and be that matches the calling of the crane? My true nature is consciousness and it is my human instinct to be conscious. In 2014 dare I fling myself into the pure flame of Becoming? What challenges and possibilities await me on such a formidable inward migration?

I am left with a prayer:

Dearest, set me ablaze in love to release the imperishable fragrance of my own true selfhood, every day.  Amen.

* Cynthia Bourgeault, The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three: Discovering the Radical Truth at the Heart of Christianity, p.171.

Copyright © 2014 Gayle Madison

Solstice Reflection

It’s nearly Christmas and the wild turkeys keep pooping on the labyrinth at the top of our hill, my sacred space.* Their droppings are large and infuriating and despite the Christmas tree glowing in the living room and the tiny lights twinkling on the mantle and the homemade fudge nestled in the cupboard and the joyful music filling the kitchen I keep thinking about the turkey poop on the labyrinth.

LabyrinthMy mind goes there over and over again even though I know the hillside belongs to the turkeys as much as it does to me, after all it’s THEIR home and it’s THEIR toilet. But they are leaving their shit in my sacred space and it disturbs me.

My mind travels to a conversation I had with a woman last summer on her 90^th birthday when she told me my brother-in-law, Reverend Jack, now deceased for nearly 30 years, once preached an Advent sermon about the manure in the stable where Jesus was born. This feisty old gal told me that the “Manure Sermon”, as she called it, ruined Christmas for her forever. Jack told her about the shit in the original sacred space and it scarred her for life. I can relate!

Having to deal with shit at Christmas is no fun because, well, I’m dreaming of a white Christmas just like the song says! Christmas is about nostalgia and things being the way they are supposed to be, right? Hope, Peace, Joy and Love is what the season is about.  Families get together and everyone feels good. Right?

Evidently not because a lot of us are trying to survive the longest darkest night here so would you please pass the fudge and leave the Christmas lights on all night? Some of us are hurting.

It is significant to mention that today is the Solstice which is the shortest day of the year and the longest night of the year. Perhaps it is the reason my mind keeps focusing on the darkness of turkey shit in my sacred space. I just hate that turkey shit, it looks like dark, fat, wet, brown twigs.

Some of us are hurting. I did a memorial service last week for a 55 year old man who lost his struggle with addiction and died from substance abuse complications. Years ago I baptized his three children who are now amazing young adults trying to make sense of their father’s death. There was nothing fair or comprehensible about his death for them, it was just darkness and loss and they could only take comfort from the knowledge that he isn’t suffering any longer. During his good years he had been a loving and attentive dad until a lot of shit came into his sacred space. His sacred life was contaminated with drugs and it is not a mistake that the drug culture calls drugs “shit.”

Those three and a lot of us are hurting right now and Christmas makes it worse because it is a time when we are supposed to be happy, hopeful, peaceful, loving and joyous…unless we aren’t.

One year I was hurting so much that the Christmas cards we received with beautiful photos of families doing wonderful things together and the holiday letters that read like “brag sheets” filled with travels and accomplishments were so painful that I took them outside and burned them. They were so opposite my experience that I couldn’t tolerate the dissonance they created.

So why do I keep thinking about wild turkey poop on my beloved labyrinth? My Solstice reflection honors the darkness of this day because darkness keeps coming and coming and coming into our lives. I give my blessing to any of my friends who want to burn the “brag sheet” I sent this year as a Christmas Letter. I honor that Christmas holds the heart of darkness as much as the birth of spiritual Light into the world. I’m glad there was a lot of manure in the stable where Jesus was born.  And even though I could write a sermon about how the darkness and the manure do not overcome the light (and I believe it) I’m still never going to like having turkey shit in my sacred space…

…well, until I learn just how sacred shit really is.

* My husband, Ed, as a birthday gift for my 65th birthday last June, built the labyrinth. With a crew of dedicated workers he hauled 40,000 pounds of fieldstone, cobblestone and decomposed granite up 65 steps to create a seven cycle Chartres Cathedral style labyrinth under the five oak trees at the top of our back yard. In addition to being a special place to pray it is sacred because it was an incredible gift of love from my beloved.

Copyright © 2013 Gayle Madison

Mary

The New York Times panned the new opera “The Gospel of Mary Magdalene” by Mark Adamo that premiered in San Francisco last summer. I was there at one of only seven performances eager for a taste of great art that would take another punch at the age-old misogynistic misrepresentation of that famous Mary. I was hoping the opera would live up to the bold type in the sidebar of the program notes:

“The province of great art is not to make us comfortable, but to move us beyond ordinary and habitual modes of perception to apprehend a bigger, deeper, broader picture of more numinous possibilities.”

I have to disagree with the critics because from my theological perspective I think the opera succeeded in doing exactly that. The libretto portrays Mary as an intelligent and loving disciple, and as Jesus’ wife, and yes they go to bed together but you could hardly say they had sex.  Well, they had operatic sex fully clothed under a bed cover with a micro-torrid embrace, a few trills from the soprano and some lyrical subtly from the tenor. But I’m just sayin’….

OMG I’m saying Mark Adamo sure opened the audience to numinous possibilities better than any preacher has ever done it from a pulpit, and I’d be willing to bet three opera tickets on that. He forcefully made the point again that the Magdalene was not a prostitute but the core reason Jesus changed from an ascetic desert-father-type preacher to the teacher of love who changed the world. It was the love of a woman that brought Jesus to his sweet “Abba” connection with God that ultimately made Christianity such a personal and loving path. He loved his wife and their love opened heaven.

Cynthia Bourgeault in her book The Meaning of Mary Magdalene adds to the husband-wife premise that it was Mary’s broken heart at Jesus’ tomb and her love for him that caused her to be the first person to understand the bridge to her dead lover and translate it into the teaching of resurrection for the disciples and ultimately the entire Church. Resurrection is pretty simple when you think about it that way and it makes a lot of sense.

I remember when I saw Ethel, a former parishioner; a year after her husband of 50 years had died. I took both her hands and told her how sorry I was that Charlie had died. Her eyes filled with tears and she smiled, “He’s dead Gayle but he’s not gone. I feel his presence when I have coffee every morning in our sun room and I still talk to him every day.”  Of course Mary could feel her beloved and it brought her a radical truth. I’m just sayin’ regular people experience this connection when they lose the ones they love.

Gratefully the apocryphal book discovered in 1896 and known as the Gospel of Mary is receiving attention recently and we are moving beyond our ordinary and habitual modes of perception. God willing through art and scholarship we will continue growing toward a bigger, deeper and broader picture of the possibilities held within the story that guides us

Numinous possibilities abound!

Copyright © 2013 Gayle Madison