Writing, Parenting, and Working in the Mess: Authentic Spirituality and Social Justice

The answer is, I am not sure. And, I am OK with that. I thought that writing about my word of the year during Advent would bring some clarity--a pithy, elevator speech I could provide about what trust is, and how it has worked in my life. I thought, at the very least, that I would have some idea of how I will carry forward an honoring of that word into the new year as I slowly open to the word that will come next. But instead, like all of the words I've held over the years, this word is elusive. Who to trust, how to trust, when to trust, how to heal from betrayals that resulted in trust broken--there are no easy answers. I knew that when I started writing and I know that even more deeply now. There are a few things, though, that have become clear to me. I trust in rituals old and new. I trust that they will open me and others who share them in mysterious and beautiful ways. Rituals take us beyond right and wrong, beyond doctrine, beyond what we should and shouldn't do. ...

Arms out, palms up, open to deepest pain and deepest joy. Bend toward the stomach, large arc of R, reminder to take in what is healthy and whole. One leg out, the tail--balance. Lie down on your back. Arms up, legs up, stretch into U. Lie down on your side, curve gently into S, rest awhile. Back on your feet, arms out, TTof the start and end of trust.

When I can't see where I am going, when I don't know the way, that's when I can be sure I am heading the right direction. Certainly, clarity, well laid plans that go exactly as planned--these bring comfort. But, they do not teach trust. Trust is the long night, the letting go, the immersion in darkness--that's how we step into our fullest selves.

T: Tell the truth. Your story is all you have to give away. Everything you do and say adds a new chapter. Your story wants to be told, to be lived with integrity and attention. R: Rend your garments. Betrayal sears, scathes, opens old wounds. Do not pretend you are not wounded. Instead, stay present, hold the pain, expose the wound to air and light and the medicine it needs to heal. Heal with integrity and attention. U: Untie whatever you've bound together. This is not a time to be contained. You can love without smothering, live without constraints you've created yourself. Whatever constraints exist outside of your own making, you can meet them with attention and integrity. S: Stay where you are long enough to know where you are. If you need to leave because it is time--and not because you are fleeing out of fear or shame--you can discern this only if you stay long enough to know. Discern with integrity and attention. T: Time is on your side, so slow down. Did you hear me?...

She went off by herself for five months, relishing her pregnancy. Luke 1:25 Of course he's the one who gets to lose his voice.  So now I'm left to do it all: talk to the elders, the merchants, the neighbors, the doctor, our friends-- Forget it. When the baby beats all the odds and lives, I'll shout my praise, but until then, I'll go off by myself, sit still, be silent. I'll wait to come home until Mary arrives; she can care for me in those final months. I will attend to her with silent presence, deep attention. In time, she'll match my silence, and we'll sit together, just being in our bodies, exploring our limits. We'll learn we have no limits. The womb expands to 500 times its size. The baby squeezes through a hole no wider than a thumbnail. That's the thing with angel visits, silent husbands, pregnancy and birth: it's only later, when we look back, that they seem extraordinary. Most women are too busy to notice their own storie...

Then Joseph woke up. He did exactly what the angel commanded of him: he married Mary. --Matthew 1:24 Then Joseph woke up. I can't marry her, he thought. What would my parents think? Her parents? The neighbors? What about me--I've worked hard all my life. All I wanted was a chance at a life with a little more solace, a little more ease-- Then Joseph woke up. I don't know what to do, he thought. If I reject her, she could be stoned, he thought. Then Joseph woke up. Maybe there's an easier way--yes--she could go to her cousin Elizabeth's, she could have the baby and leave it with her, she always wanted a child-- Then Joseph woke up. My mother used to tell me not to eat before bed or else, nightmares-- that's it, all this is, she's probably not even pregnant-- Then Joseph woke up. I love her. I've loved her for such a long time. Then Joseph woke up, and married her.

Yes, And each nucleus--each moutainous, miniature landscape-- divided, divided, divided again, and the cells in her womb began to gather into a hollow ball-- blastocyst, we call it now, but it didn't have a name then-- Yes, and the cells fixed themselves to the wall of her womb, home now, home again-- Yes, and the small, round globes multiplied and organized the way the stars and planets had once settled themselves in the resting places gravity made for them, the way, in the beginning, the small, dark sphere of nothing exploded into matter and wholeness and light-- Yes, and then the brain, then the spinal cord, and soon he would breathe, swallow,  fashion yoke and plow with his father, study the Word to turn its message-- Yes, and she was terrified, terrified, forever terrified, like any mother. Sometimes, years later, she woke wondering, had all been a dream? and she would reach for Joseph, ask, Do we have a son? Did we have a son? So...

And then the angel left her. Mary didn't waste a minute. She got up and traveled to a town in Judah in the hill country, straight to Zechariah's house, and greeted Elizabeth. --Luke 1:38-40 For three months, Mary and Elizabeth stayed together, and then Mary went back to her own home.--Luke 1:56 So much happens in the 30 seconds between Mary's arrival at Elizabeth's home and the end of the Magnificat--maybe my favorite verses in the Bible--that I never noticed the simple sentence that opens the story in a new direction. "Mary didn't waste a minute." How is it possible that after all of these years of practicing Advent, all these years of reading these stories over and over, I didn't realize she ran to Elizabeth before even consulting with Joseph--right after the Angel Gabriel left her? I was equally surprised, when reviewing the text, that she stayed with Elizabeth for three months. Right after verse 56, we are catapulted into the birth and chil...

Ten years ago, my oldest daughter and I spent our first Christmas together. I was in my mid-30s. I'd bought a small, two bedroom house a year earlier after leaving a long-term relationship partly because I felt called to adopt out of foster care, something she couldn't imagine herself doing. For my daughter's first Christmas with me, we went to the local tree farm and cut down a gigantic tree--one way too big for the space we had. I had fond memories of bringing a giant, live tree into my childhood home, and I felt like it was finally time to do that again after all these years. The tree fell off the top of the car twice, but somehow got it home. We had to practically clear the living room of all furniture to fit it in the house.  I'd purchased beautiful ornaments for her that reflected her personality and interests--the color pink, the girliest, sparkliest balls, cats, horses. After decorating the tree with her ornaments and mine--which include ornaments from e...

I live with the raging, the weeping, the broken, the oblivious.  So, I have to get up early to sit in silence, or else I will spend my whole life loving them at a distance and not up close.  But sometimes, it's easier to sleep in. Sometimes I wake to another's nightmare and am called into the world, full of trauma, right away. It was one of those mornings. There was the nightmare, then the lost glove, then the spoon thrown across the table during breakfast, the sick dog, the kitchen that smelled like smoke, the piles of dirty dishes that had somehow appeared in the middle of the night. There was the appointment in 15 minutes that one of them was dreading. While the morning's drama spun thick through the house, outside, miniature drops of water, loose and runny, rose and lined up like silent marchers along the edges of every branch, even the smallest, most precarious. Then the cold came, and the droplets froze, and the sun spread out and shone on the crystals and t...

The body knows when to run fast, when to slow down and look at the small shards of frost on each stem of long prairie grass. When to stretch, and for how long, and what to stretch toward--sky or ground, bed or bike or kitchen or bed. It knows when it needs a cookie or spinach or quinoa and pomegranate seeds or hummus or broccoli or the smell of burning wood, pine needles, fresh cut grass. The body knows when it is cold, asks for a thicker sweater, wool socks, a scarf long enough to cover the face. It knows when to curl up on the couch at just the right time of day to bathe in the sun's rays in the dead of winter, just where to lie down by the lake in the summer's mid-afternoon heat. The body knows when it needs to be held, touched, by whom, in what way, for how long. It knows when it needs to be alone, to walk for hours through the woods, climb a tree, sit still in the clearing. Persistent, it speaks through its aches, its hungers, its deep fullness. If we trust it, i...

When she said, He betrayed you , I breathed in so hard my lungs froze to ice. I couldn't remember how to breathe out--for a moment, I worried my body had forsaken me, that somehow this breath, held far too long, would kill me. I was sitting in my car, which was running, in front of a grove of trees I love, where I often go to have private conversations--the only place in my small town where I can be alone. It was a cold November day, and there were no leaves left on the trees, just the web of branches stubbornly emerging out of one another, black outlines against a foggy, grey sky. What was it about that word, betrayal? When I could breathe again, I said, I don't think so. Yes, she said, which was unlike her. I can't remember if she asked or if I asked myself: when, besides this time, has someone you loved betrayed you? I closed my eyes, held my hand over my heart. So many scenes blurred together, so many people I had loved and lost or still loved who had hurt ...

I'm not saying don't remember, or that all things can be repaired, but after the truth has been told, where do we go from there? Sorrow is a constant companion we learn to walk beside: keep on walking when it whispers and don't listen when it lies. There are stories we were told just to keep us in our place. There are stories we made up ourselves to save a little face. There are the ones that made us crazy, and the ones that made us sane. Keep on walking if the stories all start to sound the same.                                                     --Carrie Newcomer                                                       "Ghost Train" The first time I heard this Carrie Newcomer song, it broke me open. I am a story-ca...

Once upon a time, the whole universe was a tight fist of energy and darkness and silence. It couldn't have known its own potential. Once upon a time, darkness unfurled in an explosion of light: planets, asteroids, stars, groundhogs, grasshoppers, my liver, your retina, your grandmother's smallest left toe. This is the oldest story of all. Like all stories, it isn't over. Like all stories, it never ends.

Nobody but you wants to hear my sad, sad story.                                       --my son, age 9 Mama, I can't sleep. Tell me one of your stories, for old time's sake.                                       --my daughter, age 25, over the phone Every old story has a sister who says, not again, stop dwelling in the past. Every old story has a brother who turns away, makes a joke, gets everybody laughing. Every old story has ancestors who blush when the words, in spite of themselves, unfurl. The words always unfurl. Some people need mantras. Others, blinders. Still others stare straight into the light until all they see are shadowy outlines, bursting stars. Every old story, exposed in the darkness, begins to take shape within the negative's white frame. Every old story, confronted with ...

I trust in the old stories: how they swivel like a fist in the dough, a spoon in the bowl, the wrist wrenching a flower from the hard ground, the deep, dank opening toward winter. Persephone: mother, daughter, suitor, sweet red seed. Next: Agios Stylianos, early to the party, a swaddled baby in his arms. Then, Santa and Rudolph, the dream team: brilliant light, gift of flight. Mary and Jesus. Jesus and Mary. Joseph the sideliner, watcher, worrier. Mother, son, deep red seed. Agios Stephanos with his loukoumades. Agios Basilis with his sweet, moneyed bread. Epiphany: watery unveiling, the house blessed for the new year. Koliva: boiled wheat, white sugar, tiny red seeds. When Spring returns, she's a prodigal, a dancer, dragging her lush, green skirt. Then Summer. Then Autumn, with its reddening leaves, its whole red fruit. Then winter, again. Darkness, waiting, cold white shawl, candles for sustenance and warmth.

I trust in the old stories. You know: stories like stones our ancestors swallowed, hurled, clutched against their breasts. Like the Red Sea Parted, the Storm, the Ark. (Grieve for the drowned; rejoice for the people redeemed). Like Esther's "in such a time as this." (Be brave. Love your enemy. Save your people). Like Mary and Joseph, homebound and homeless. (Open the gate, the inn, the stable, your own warm home. Whisper, Come in, come in ). Or else: They deserved it. It's not my problem. I don't know what to do. The mother chokes on tear gas and smoke. I slink away like the wise men while the king plots... You know: The journey to Egypt. The mothers weeping. Years later: Mary and Joseph panicking: they've lost him. The woman at the well, telling her secrets in the midday heat. The Prodigal Son. The Good Samaritan. What we do (or don't do) for the least of these. Some stories you're sure you have to throw away, but I'm telling...

I have made a practice of choosing a word for each year. I simply stay open and listen, and the word comes to me over time. This year's word was trust. It is not surprising, really, that the word trust found me. As 2017 drew to a close, I was beginning to notice how often in the two years prior I had felt betrayed by people, ideas, and institutions in which I had trusted. In what could I place my trust, if anything? Living with a word for a year is a dangerous proposition. Sometimes the words is a lover you never wanted who won't leave. Sometimes it is a small, dark room; sometimes, a doorway opening toward light. Sometimes it is a warm quilt to wrap around your shoulders; sometimes, a voice calling you out into the cold. The practice is simply to hold the word, to let it open over time. Look up its etymology. Use your body to make its letters, letting the movement and sounds lead you to more words, more openings. (Trust, truth, river, unyielding, seldom, treasure;...

He has been whirring through the house with a trail of cuss words and thrown-off socks settling behind him for over an hour when I say, "Stop, let me show you something." Sometimes the best way to slow him down is to catch him off guard, and, curiosity piqued, he'll get quiet, at least until he realizes I don't have the treasure he's after. It's maybe three months since he showed up in the middle of the night with an army of social workers and police, scared but even then, eager to love me. He touches the worn corner of the icon, saying, "She's broken right here," and I say, "Yes, she's very old." He traces the red covering over her head, asks, "Is she that religion you told me about, the one some people don't like but we believe we should take care of everyone?" "She's a different religion, Jewish," I say, "but some people don't like them, either. This is what Jewish women wore along time ag...

In my favorite photo of my mother, she's wearing the blue dress she wore most often, loose and simple, with a thin, white belt. She leans against a staircase in Quaker Square in Akron, Ohio, where we spent every Saturday, her elbow nonchalantly perched on the banister, wearing a Chewbacca mask. She stood there for an hour, still and silent, while my aunt, my sister and I watched for the passer-bys' reactions behind the register at the Sweet Greek. We giggled at each gasp, each surprised expression, the handful of blood-curdling screams. She never took the mask off, or apologized, even to the terrified children who were pulled along by their irritated parents, even when one mother said, after her toddler burst into tears, "What kind of person DOES this?" My mother was not stoic, but she knew how to be still: how to stand in a ray of sun coming through the window, eyes closed, just feeling the warmth on her back;  how to mend a garden, slow and steady, pulling weeds...

In October the Sweet Greek would transform: an eerie orange glow, witches on brooms hanging from the ceiling. "Halloween Store, This Way," read a silvery sign above the register, pointing up the stairs. There, just around the corner, she'd rented an extra room in Quaker Square. We helped her get ready, pulling spidery threads from plastic bags, unfurling them over the entrance. We plugged in black and orange lights, hiding the extension cords, unpacked the dry ice and heaved it into a kettle, setting the witch's broomstick against its side. Then my older cousins climbed the ladder to line the shelves with masks: Nixon and Carter, Frankenstein and werewolf, R2D2 and C3PO. There were capes of every color, Alice in Wonderland skirts, scrubs and bellbottoms and more, hung on garment wracks so close together it was hard to squeeze through. After Greek School we always went to the Sweet Greek for baklava or kouambiethes, cut the Ikarian way, or else we chose one of the gi...

Teal blue, sky blue, turquoise, royal blue, indigo--she pulled them carefully from her box of 100, sharpened their edges. At the library, she thumbed through dictionaries in a dozen languages, carefully wrote the word "blue" on strips of white paper, alternating colors. She safety pinned each strip to her blue blouse and blue skirt, threading the pins with shiny blue beads. When the day came, as night fell, she pulled on blue tights she found at a ballet store. They sagged a little at the ankles, but they would do. She pulled the blouse on carefully, lifted the skirt and pinned it tight around her meager waist--it, too, was too big, but who cared? Blue eyeshadow, bracelets, earrings, brooches, ribbons, and then the best part: blue glitter sprinkled into her hair. She let it fall all over, sticking to her face and arms, laughing at herself in the mirror.  And when her husband asked her what in the devil she was doing in there, she cackled (her regular laugh was a cack...

Their honeycomb-wings radiate the sweet taste of summer, feather-light, wind-strong, a scattering of snowflakes to remind us what's coming. They eat the threads that held them in darkness, push off from the sturdy milkweed leaf, fly toward the rainbow in the light, its imperceptible shades. Never forgetting the darkness, or how to be still, they gather, hardly fluttering, taking in whatever the goldenrods and purple coneflowers offer: bright colors, fragrant nectar, a place to rest. They lay their seeds, die in the brush, each day on the prairie the sigh from a great, ancestral longing. Or else, if they were born to the right generation, they fly faster than gravel-road drivers, scattering, gathering again. Soundless, they know how to find one another by shadow and light, huddle like calves in a windstorm, birds in a nest. The trees of their great-grandmothers await. Deep in the thin walls that hold honeycomb from honeycomb, in the feathery antennae, in the small, white circles o...

The mothers are close now, as always. They hover in the shadowed corners of our memories or at the edge of our sight, doing whatever they always do: bending over a garden, washing the dishes, hurrying to work, shouting at us through an open door, sitting still in the dawn's first light when they think we are asleep, looking at us or out the window. They smack at mosquitoes or flies, kneel to gaze at ant parades, gently release spiders through cracks in the screen. They gather shawls, jackets, magnifying glasses, snacks and swimming suits, clean socks. Over and over, they say "that's enough" or "just a little longer" or "I can hardly believe it!" or "let's go have some fun," their voices merging like the monarchs among the purple coneflowers, wing atop wing, then rising, then spreading thin. They hurry through their days, hardly looking our way, too busy, too busy. Or else they are right beside us, swimming the side stroke in the s...

Background Greeks name their children for grandparents and saints. I was lucky. I was named for a grandmother I loved and knew well; she lived with us until she died when I was 8. I am also named for Oi Anargiri, the physician saints and great healers. My father wanted me to be a doctor, but even when I was young, I knew that would not be my path. I do, however, consider myself a healer, and a person always in the process of healing. In the Orthodox tradition, Oi Anargiri were twin saints who healed people and animals. Their names were Cosmas and Damian. Anargiri literally means without silver, indicating that they were physicians who would not take money for their acts of healing. They are celebrated on Nov. 1 and July 1 (depending on which pair you celebrate; I have always celebrated on July 1). These saints healed any living beings they encountered. They did so with great love and gentleness, and always together, though they sometimes disagreed about their methods. ...

When I first started this blog many years ago, it was going to be a place where I reflected on how writing and reading could be vehicles for a deeper spirituality and a deeper commitment to social change. I wanted to explore how (and whether) writing and reading could deepen one's sense of self, one's sense of wholeness and connection to all beings in the world. I wanted to delve into how (and whether) there was any connection between texts (read or written with great care and openness), spirituality, and a commitment to making the world a better place. These questions no longer plague me. I know for sure that for me (and many others), there IS a connection between the written word and one's spirituality, which now, for me, means a deep sense of connectedness not just to all beings in the world but to all that is--far beyond small, minor planet to the universe's wide expanse. I also know for sure that one cannot feel that connection without wanting to be deeply pr...

Χριστός Ανέστη! The procession from darkness to balance to light moved slowly this year--too slowly for my taste. The irony of replacing my winter decorations with spring decorations in the midst of a snowstorm was not lost on me. Both American Easter (as my family used to call Catholic/Protestant Easter) and Greek Easter (which is shared by Orthodox Christians everywhere, not just Greeks) were white Easters in our part of the country this year. Still, I managed to honor the season by taking on two important Lenten projects this year. Today, the day after Greek Easter, I feel the urge to reflect on these practices. First, I created (or, rather, re-created) a sacred space for myself. When we moved into our beautiful, giant, old home right after getting married, I claimed a room on our second floor down the hall from our bedroom--a small space I loved deeply. But then we opened our home to people in need. Each time someone moved in or out or switched bedrooms, every belonging we ...