Author: Mary

I am a recently retired college professor. Up until June 2012 I taught human behavior and the social environment, social justice and human rights at Monmouth University, in the school of social work. My great joys are reading and telling stories! Reading and thinking about the meaning and implications of what is written. Good literature has the potential of alchemy! of social change toward a world where social and economic justice is respected and where human rights are celebrated.

Who Made You?

On By MaryIn growth into humanity, In-spiration, lost goddesses, mysticism, random thoughts, spiritual growth2 Comments

I will confess, I am a product of too many years of Catholic school education. My earliest years at Holy Trinity school devoted more time to catechism than to math or penmanship. The good Sisters burned the question, “Who made you?” into my brain early on. (The Baltimore Catechism rote answer was always, “God made me . . .”) Recently, again, I’ve been thinking about the whole God-ness thing. Who is God/Goddess? What can our/my relationship to God, the Goddess be? How do I even begin to think about her/him/they/all of that which is? What name do I use? How do you/I adequately respect the Creator of every-thing?

Respect is tricky. I’m not even sure how it is possible to adequately respect my parents, my particular creators, who are human and flawed, yet who literally gave me my start in the world, who fed me, clothed me, sheltered me when I was helpless. God knows my parents were not perfect. I could go on about how I might wish they had been different. But where would I be without them?

How much more respect (and I know that is a profoundly inadequate word), is due to the Creator of every-thing? The one who was before every-thing, the one who always was and always will be, the Ground of All Being (thank you Paul Tillich). When I try to think about this, my brain feels caught in a centrifugal spin cycle! I need some structure and boundaries to bring my brain back into focus.

But the traditional Roman Catholic lines of thinking that first shaped my thinking just don’t do it for me anymore. Too patriarchal. Too God the Father.

Just when I was feeling particularly lost, I came across Sallie McFague’s book: Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age. In the book she cautions that it is not possible to construct a definition of God. It just can’t be done. My words, but it would be like trying to draw a map that included everything! Maps and metaphors and models include some bits and necessarily leave out others. And, what is left out is often as telling as what’s included. That said, she describes one possible model built on experiences of relating to God. … that was just what I’d been fumbling to sus out, so I was delighted!

Here’s a very condensed version of some of her core ideas. First, she begins with the grounding assumption that the power of the universe is gracious.  … I take some comfort in that. The power of the universe is gracious, not dominating, not judgmental, but gracious. When we related to God in prayer, she encourages us to remember that we are addressing, not describing, God, and she suggests a three-part model for our relationship: mother-father, lover, friend.

Mother-father: creator, who says it is good that you exist, who says that you are good.

Lover: savior (and haven’t our best lovers been saviors to us in a way?), who says that you are valuable beyond all measure.

Friend: sustainer, who invites us to work and celebrate together as collaborators in the process of creation, as we nurture each other.

It is not a perfect picture. There are lots of gaps. But for me, right now, it is a nice start, and a comforting beginning answer to the question, “Who made you?”

Who are you?

On By MaryIn alchemy, Awareness, books, Koan, spiritual growthLeave a comment

I’m reading Braving the Thin Places: Celtic Wisdom to Create a Space for Grace by Julianne Stanz. It may be a little too “capital C” Catholic for my preference at the moment, but it is none the less a splendid book, rich with prompts that inspiration self-reflection. It is the Celtic version of spiritual Japanese Kintsugi, the art of repairing broken pottery with gold, a process that transforms the damaged areas into streams of strength and resilience marking the paths of our learning and growth.

In the first chapter, Julianne Stanz poses the question, “who are you?” She reflects on a moment when one of her teachers asked her, “who are you?” and then encouraged her to go beyond behaviors, beyond relationships, beyond the choices we make, even while recognizing that those are important elements within our story.

Reading those lines in the book, I couldn’t help but remember how I used that very question as an icebreaker in so many of the courses that I taught in Human Behavior. I remembered how I used that question as a blessing at the birth of one of the main characters in my novel, Letters from Eleanor Roosevelt. “Who are you?” is a question with deep resonance in my life.

Julianne Stanz’s teacher encourages her to dig deeper, to think about who she really is. There are some lines in the Celtic Kildare Poems that encourage us to always remember in our heart these three things related to the nature of our being:

Whence you come.

Who you are.

What shall become of you.

I believe that remembering those there things and reflecting on them has the potential to carry us deeper into self-awareness. Now, to be honest, committing to self-awareness is tricky. There can be a fine line between self-awareness and self-centeredness. But especially for women of a certain age, walking on the right side of that line is a journey worth taking. I remember my early days dancing on the fringes of the second wave of feminism, and my growing awareness of how our culture socialized women to be selfless. It’s hard to be self-centered when you are self-less. it’s also hard to be self-aware when you are self-less. For many of women, finding and nurturing a healthy sense of self is necessary.

And then because my brain is my brain, I remembered the Zen koan, “What is your original face? What is the face you had before you were born?” A koan intended to set the meditator on a quest to encounter a deeper understanding of oneself, a quest to engage with one’s true, unconditioned nature. Not to give away the answer, but some writings say that our original nature is luminous, and pure, unbound by any specific form or possession.  

What is your original face? What is the nature of your self? Who are you? I say each and every one of us is pure, luminous love. I say we, and all of creation, come from love. We are called to live love, and we will return to love. Not love the flighty emotion, but love the active verb. The Love that sees the goodness in self, others and all of creation. The Love that wills and acts to enable that goodness to grow. That’s who I think you are, and I am too.

I arise, facing East by Mary Austin

On By MaryIn authenticity, Awe, generosity, Gratitude, happiness, poetryLeave a comment

 It IS Spring time! Time to celebrate new beginning, new births, new hope. Spring and mourning feel to me like they have a lot in common – the new beginnings, births and hope stuff. So I often find myself taken with poems, prayers and parables that celebrate mornings.

Having written that, and it is deeply heartfelt as I write it, but, none-the-less it is kind of odd, because I am just not a morning person. It takes me a good hour and a cup of coffee before I can pretend to be civil. But, I do love this poem/prayer. . . Hope you do to!

 

I arise, facing East by Mary Austin

I arise, facing East,

I am asking toward the light;

I am asking that the day

Shall be beautiful with light.

I am asking that the place

Where my feet are shall be bright,

That as far as I can see

I shall follow it aright.

I am asking for the courage

To go forward through the shadow,

I am asking toward the light!

Lilith by Nikki Marmery

On By MaryIn Awe, cosmogony, growth into humanity, happiness, lost goddesses, poetryLeave a comment

I’m reading Lilith by Nikki Marmery. It is the story of Lilith, the first, first woman, told in Lilith’s voice. I will confess, found the book a little slow, and maybe a tad incredulous in the first few pages, but am I ever glad that I persisted. Lilith takes us across time, across cultures, in search of the prophet who will reclaim reverence for Asherah, the Goddess of creation; the prophet who will lead the way to each of us reclaiming the goddess in ourselves. On page 238 (of about 320), Lilith find the prophet. She is not what Lilith expected, and Lilith doubts whether others will be open to hearing her. In response, the prophet stands on the edge of a precipice, and shouts into the void:

I am the first and the last!

I am the honorured and the mocked!

I am the whore and the holy one;

            the wife and the virgin; the mother and the daughter!

I am a barren woman with many children!

I am the silence that is incomprehensible

            and the voice whose sounds are many!

I am Wisdom and ignorance; I am shy and proud!

I am disgraced and I am great!

I am compassionate and cruel; I am witless and wise!

You who deny me, know me!

I am the one they call Life and you call me Death!

I am the one they call Law and you call me Lawless!

I am the one you seized and I am She you scattered!

I am She you despise, and yet you profess me!

I am peace, yet war had come because of me!

I am Perfect Mind!

A powerful proclamation if ever I read one. And yet, I think you need to read it in context to get the full power of it. So, go get yourself a copy of the book. Get thee to the library, or your local independent book store. If they don’t have it in stock, they will order it up for you. If you don’t have a local independent bookstore, reach out to the Frenchtown Bookshop, tell them Mary sent you and they will take great care of you (of course they will take great care of you even if you don’t tell them I sent you J).

https://frenchtownbookshop.com/

908-628-9297
frenchtownbookshop@gmail.com

Read on my friends, read on.

Like this Together by Adrienne Rich

On By MaryIn Awareness, poetryLeave a comment

I’m kind of obsessing on Adrienne Rich these days. She was important to me once when I was much younger. I read her as a spokesperson for the moment. She somehow seemed to have the words to help me think about what I was reckoning with when I was wordless. Now I find myself drawn to her again, in another moment when I am wordless, albeit for very different reasons.

Here’s the poem fragment that caught my heart today

Like this Together

Adrienne Rich

Wind rocks the car.

We sit parked by the river,

Silence between our teeth.

Birds scatter across the island

Of broken ice. Another time

I’d have said: “Canada geese,”

Knowing you love them.

A year, ten years from now

I’ll remember this—

This sitting like drugged birds

In a glass case—

Not why, only that we

Were here like this together.

From Necessities of Life. 1966.

Let this Darkness be a Bell Tower

On By MaryIn alchemy, Choices we make, existential angst, poetryLeave a comment

We live in interesting times, maybe a bit too interesting for my taste. But I’m working on accepting reality as it is, even as I work as best I can for a better tomorrow. After all, what choice do we have? Accept the moment, or bang our heads against the wall and give ourselves a case of anxiety and a concussion.

That being the case, I take heart from this poem by Rainer Maria Rilke. It reminds me to inhale, exhale, repeat as necessary. It reminds me of the power and expansiveness of breathing, of beauty rendered from brokenness. It reminds me of the Japanese art of Kintsugi, repairing cracked pottery with gold, by gluing the broken pottery pieces together with a lacquer dusted with gold powder, highlighting the cracks rather than hiding them. Wasn’t it Hemingway who said, “The world will break you. Then you become strong in the broken places.” Well, I’m just sayin’ that after this year, we all are likely to be strong in a whole lot of places…

Let This Darkness Be A Bell Tower

Rainer Maria Rilke

translation by Joanna Macy + Anita Barrows

Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29

From his last “Sonnet to Orpheus,” Joanna Macy tells us that Rilke has chosen to be with the darkness rather than hide from it. For Macy, that deeply resonates with our relationship to our planet. Yes to that, and I find it also resonates deeply with our current political climate.

Remembering Pauli Murray’s Dark Testament

On By MaryIn poetry, winterLeave a comment

Here we are mid-winter, ensconced in ice and snow and soul chilling cold. It is tomato soup and grilled cheese time. It is hearty beef stew time. It is time to hibernate and hope for spring and the freedom that comes with warmth and the flowing of new life.

Oh, it is all of that, and then I turn on the news, and I’m caught up in the darkness. And then I remembered Pauli Murray’s poem Dark Testament, and its meditations on hope and freedom. Here’s a sample:

Dark Testament. Pauli Murray.

In memory of Stephen Vincent Benét.

Freedom is a dream

Haunting as amber wine

Or worlds remembered out of time.

Not Eden’s gate, but freedom

Lures us down a trail of skulls

Where men forever crush the dreamers—

Never the dream.

VERSE 8

Hope is a crushed stalk

Between clenched fingers

Hope is a bird’s wing

Broken by a stone.

Hope is a word in a tuneless ditty —

A word whispered with the wind,

A dream of forty acres and a mule,

A cabin of one’s own and a moment to rest,

A name and place for one’s children

And children’s children at last . . .

Hope is a song in a weary throat.

Give me a song of hope

And a world where I can sing it.

Give me a song of faith

And a people to believe in it.

Give me a song of kindliness

And a country where I can live it.

Give me a song of hope and love

And a brown girl’s heart to hear it.

Now, by all means, head over to your local independently owned bookstore and find a copy of Pauli Murray’s book: Dark Testament: and Other Poems.

I first came to know Pauli Murray through her friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt. Mrs. Roosevelt. In an essay published in 1952, Mrs. Roosevelt described Pauli Murray as, “One of my finest young friends is a charming woman lawyer . . . who has been quite a firebrand at times, but of whom I am very fond.” The Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice describes her as:

A twentieth-century human rights activist, legal scholar, feminist, poet, author, Episcopal priest, labor organizer, multiracial Black, LGBTQ+ person from Durham, NC, who lived one of the most remarkable lives of the 20th century. S/he was the first Black person to earn a JSD (Doctor of the Science of Law) degree from Yale Law School, a founder of the National Organization for Women and the first Black person perceived as a woman to be ordained an Episcopal priest. 

If you want to know more about her life and her friendship with Mrs. Roosevelt, I highly recommend The Firebrand and the First Lady, by Patricia Bell-Scott.

thanks for most this amazing day

On By MaryIn Awe, Gratitude, poetryLeave a comment

Lately I’ve noticed that I seem to be much more adept at remembering my missteps and mistakes, letting those define me, rather than honoring my growth and successes. How is it that the negative carries so much weight in my mind, in our world? For sure, these days there is a lot to be worried about: fires, storms, and floods; conflicts, wars, hostages; threats, lies, and chaos. But obsessing endlessly about all of that does little to nurture the soul. And if we would continue the struggle for wisdom, mercy, and justice, sometimes we need to pause and bathe ourselves in the nurturing waters of gratitude.  So, I am renewing my commitment to gratitude and giving thanks. Here’s is one of my favorite poems that eloquently sings a resonant thank you . . .

mary

I thank You God for most this amazing day

e.e. cummings

I thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(I who have died am alive again today,

And this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth

Day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

Great happening illimitable earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any—lifted from the no

of all nothing—human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

This poem was originally published in Xaipe1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950), reissued in 2004 by Liveright, an imprint of W.W. Norton & Company. Reprinted here by permission of the publisher. Copyright expires 2045.

Celebrating the 4th of July and the letter ‘R’

On By MaryIn alchemyLeave a comment

All of the current Fourth of July celebrating reminds me of a story

In the late middle ages there was a cloistered order of Catholic nuns, the Sisters of the Loose Habit. During one of their annual meetings, one of the novices, who was close to taking her final vows, asked about the order’s inclusion of celebacy as one of the three vows each of the sisters pledged. (The three vows were poverty, celebacy, and obedience.)

The elder sisters admitted they were not aware of the origins of the vows. It was just the way things had always been. For centuries, it had been that way. It was tradition.

So, they all agreed that Elder Sister Agnes, the chief scribe in charge of keeping the order’s records up to date, would go back into the archives, back to the original documents detailing the founder’s intentions, and see what she could find. The archives were kept in an ancient cavern beneath the chapel. Sister Agnes and her junior assistant entered the cavern early the next morning. 

The sisters waited. The hours passed. As night came on, the anxiously waiting sisters heard weeping and then wailing coming from the cavern. The waiting sisters became even more anxious, fretting about what might be happening with Sister Agnes. But they had all agreed that only Sister Agnes and her assistant would enter the cavern. So they waited. Finally, Sister Agnes & her assistant emerged from the cave, covered in dirt, wracked with tears, sobbing. 

The other sisters asked Sister Agnes what was troubling her? What did she discover in the cavern? Did it have anything to do with the origins of celibacy?

Sister Agnes replied, “Several hundred years ago, one of the order’s scribes was copying the order’s original documents, as those documents were deteriorating. In recopying the documents, the sister wrote ‘celebate’ in the new document and left out the ‘R’!!!”

Indeed! Joy and Celebration are part and parcel of holiness, as much as mercy and justice!

Happy Fourth, one and all!!

Ginger Rogers taught me to celebrate fun

On By MaryIn authenticity, Choices we make, generosity, strong womenLeave a comment

Ginger Rogers embodied Cyndi Lauper’s 1983 assertion that “girls just wanna have fun.” Ginger Rogers made fun look graceful, elegant and kinda sexy as early as 1925. Ginger Rogers celebrated fun and took it to a level of virtuous generosity. She said, “The most important thing in anyone’s life is to be giving something. The quality I can give is fun, joy and happiness. This is my gift.”

Ginger Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath on July 16,1911 in Independence, Missouri. She quickly became Ginger because her young cousin Helen could not pronounce Virginia. Virginia became Badinda, which became Ginga, which became Ginger.

Ms. Rogers was not only a stunning Hollywood actress and dancer. She delighted in the outdoors and sports, and excelled at tennis, sharpshooting and fishing. In her teen years, teaching was her first ambition. But while she was waiting for her mother in the wings of the Majestic Theatre, she began to sing and dance along with the performers on stage. The theater bug bit, and she was smitten. In 1925, when she was 14 years old, she won a Charleston dance contest. That launched her vaudeville career, which launched her Broadway career, which led to a contract with Paramount Pictures, which introduced her to RKO Pictures and Fred Astaire.

In the 1930s, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire made 9 films with RKO, introducing elegant dance routines that revolutionized the genre. I know you have heard it, and probably said it yourself, “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels.” (But did you know that quote comes from a 1982 Frank and Ernest comic strip by Bob Thaves?) Ginger Rogers was not only a peerless dancer, she was also strikingly beautiful, and she seamlessly wove her skills as a dramatic actress and comedian into her dancing. John Mueller summed up Rogers’s abilities: “Rogers was outstanding among Astaire’s partners, not because she was superior to others as a dancer, but, because, as a skilled, intuitive actress, she was cagey enough to realize that acting did not stop when dancing began … the reason so many women have fantasized about dancing with Fred Astaire is that Ginger Rogers conveyed the impression that dancing with him is the most thrilling experience imaginable.”

Remember, she began her career in the 1930s and 40s. The studios paid Ginger Rogers substantially less than Fred Astaire. The studios paid her less than many of the male actors despite her more central role in the films. She did not take this easily, and fought persistently and intelligently for her contract and salary rights and for better films and scripts. After winning an Academy Award for Best Actress and an Oscar, she eventually became one of the biggest box-office draws and highest paid actresses of the1940s. She returned to Broadway in 1965, directed an off-Broadway production in 1985 and continued to act, making television appearances until 1987 and wrote an autobiography Ginger: My Story, which was published in 1991.

Throughout her life, she remained on good terms with Fred Astaire; she presented him with a special Academy Award in 1950, and they were co-presenters of individual Academy Awards in 1967, during which they elicited a standing ovation when they came on stage in an impromptu dance. She was also lifelong friends with actresses Lucille Ball and Bette Davis.

In 1992, the Kennedy Center honored Ginger Rogers.

Rogers has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6772 Hollywood Boulevard.

Ginger Rogers made her last public appearance on March 18, 1995, when she received the Women’s International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award.

She died at her Rancho Mirage home on April 25, 1995, from natural causes. She was 83 years old. She was cremated and her ashes interred in Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California.

Ginger Rogers said, “The world needs strong women. There are a lot of strong women you do not see who are guiding, helping, mothering strong men. They want to remain unseen. It’s kind of nice to be able to play a strong woman who is seen.”

Let’s all dedicate ourselves to becoming strong women who see each other, and who have fun along the way.