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Bare branches reaching to the sky

/ Beth Merrill Neel / Leave a comment

img_9842The poplar at the end of the block – thought by some to be the tallest poplar in the state – has lost its leaves.  It’s an upward reaching tree, and it looks a bit forlorn, though that could be some transference on my part.

But there is beauty in those bare branches.  You can see the architecture of the tree, of all of the trees whose leaves have flown downward for the winter.  I find that reassuring, that I can see the structure of the tree, where the nests are, what dead branches haven’t fallen yet.

There is something plaintive about it; the trees look as though they’re beseeching their sky-god for help.  It looks like beseeching and not praising, but as I said, there could be some transference going on there.

On election night, as the map of the U.S. turned more red than blue, I said one of those beseeching Hail Mary (the basketball kind, not the rosary kind) prayers.  Oh God, please, change this, I yelled in my head. As it turns out, God is not some genie in a lamp whose belly I rub and my every wish and prayer are answered.

For me, for my political and ethical sensibilities, for my understanding of the call of the gospel, this election and its aftermath has been hard and wrong.  But it has revealed the architecture of some things: my own prejudice and assumptions, as well as my faithful and ethical grounding; it has revealed branches of my fellow citizens whose worlds and attitudes are completely unknown and foreign to me.  It has revealed nests of strength, of protest and compassion, that may have been hidden, and dead branches that need to come down, like racism and misogyny and xenophobia.

So I find myself confessing a lot more, and seeking humility.  I find myself trying to be more brave and trying to reach out to those so different from me.  I find myself weeping still at times, and getting worried and angry.  I am hopeful too. One day those leaves will grow back on the poplar, sometime this spring. Until then I will appreciate the branches.

More than that, I will appreciate the strange village that has emerged at the base of the trunk.  Some time this past spring, the people who live in the house by the tree put a little gnome and door and a little fence among the roots.  Then one by one, other things appeared. Another gnome.  A miniature rope ladder.  A swing, then two. A few dinosaurs.  A pterodactyl.  Frogs.  A fort.  Some cowboys.

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As plaintive as the branches are, a mismatched village of the whimsical and strange stands at the base of those branches, a counterpoint to the narrative of barrenness and beseeching.

There is always a counter narrative.  It may not get heard, it may not be remembered in history, but it is whispered among the powerless and the planning.  It is repeated by the protesters.  It is spelled out in the unfolding leaves of spring.

At least that is what I hope.

A shoot shall come out of the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.  The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.  His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.  He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.

Silhouettes

/ Beth Merrill Neel / 4 Comments

img_9701We were at the beach, and the clouds and sun were positioned in such a way, and I was positioned in such a way, that everyone I could see as I looked toward Haystack Rock was in silhouette. And I thought, isn’t that lovely – all I see are human shapes. I can’t tell if someone is young or old; I can’t tell what the color of their skin is, or what god they worship. We are simply human beings, our lowest common denominator.

That thought lasted all of three seconds, as sustaining as a truffle.

We are different. We are young and old; our skins are different colors. We worship different gods, or no God at all. And I think that is good. I do not simply want to be one of many silhouettes.  I do not want to live in Camazotz. (See A Wrinkle in Time)

I once heard an interesting interpretation of the story of the Tower of Babel. The story in Genesis 11 tells of the people wanting to build a tower that would reach to the sky. God sees that activity and says, “There is now one people and they all have one language. This is what they have begun to do, and now all that they plan to do will be possible for them. Come, let’s go down and mix up their language there so they won’t understand each other’s language.”  (Common English Bible). So God does that. The traditional interpretation of the story says that God punishes the people for their pride, scattering them and confusing their language.

But what if God was actually delighted by the humans and their ability to build a tower, the way a parent might be delighted by a fort of cushions and blankets or a sand castle that withstands the waves? What if the scattering of the people and the gift of languages was in fact a reward, an acknowledgement that human beings had evolved and matured enough to be able to live with difference?  What if God made difference as a challenge to be mastered or a reality to be embraced?

Maybe that is a good measure of our humanity –our ability to deal with our differences and delight in them. I believe we will be tested in that regard in the months and years that are coming. May we prove our worth.

Confession

/ Beth Merrill Neel / 6 Comments

I confess that I am heartbroken and stunned, that I’m fighting a migraine brought on by hot tears

I confess I found it hard to stay positive for my inconsolable child

I confess simple gladness at the sound of the dog’s toenails clicking on the floor as he made his way downstairs to find me

I confess I fell for the alchemy of Facebook’s algorithms, that I believed the bubble of like-minded people was bigger than it was

I confess Pantsuit Nation is so hard to read today

I confess short-changing the whole of America, forgetting that feelings are real to the person feeling them 

I confess the sin of judging others as ignorant, stupid, or of little account, or worst, not deserving the love of God

I confess relief that we are getting out of town and away from the internet for a few days 

I confess fear of those coming into power

I confess fear for those on the margins

I confess my weakness to respond in any effective way

I confess my pride which has indeed gone beforeth a fall

I confess despair 

I confess less than a mustard-seed of faith

I confess my failings

Kyrie eleison

Christe eleison

Kyrie eleison 

Morning Person

/ Beth Merrill Neel / 2 Comments

I wake before everyone else, and tiptoe around the squeaking floorboards, making my way downstairs to the kitchen. I try very hard not to wake the spouse, the child, or the dog. It’s my time, and if I’m lucky, I’ll have a half hour all to myself.

img_9652The first thing I do is make coffee. Nothing fancy, just my Cuisinart 4-cup drip and some French Roast, already ground, because there is a worse noise than a coffee grinder especially first thing in the morning when you’re trying not to wake anyone else up, unless it’s a leaf blower.

Some half and half and a favorite mug and then to the comfy chair to scan the headlines, check email, look at Facebook where I hope someone has shared a New York Times article because I’m too cheap to buy the app.

It’s morning.

I’m at my best in the morning, most clear, most fresh, most energetic. The rest of the family doesn’t really get it and I have to remember when I start sharing ideas or asking questions that they have not had the benefit of an hour of awakeness or caffeine. It’s a little dance and I am definitely leading. The others put up with me.

I don’t know why I love the morning so much. Getting up before dawn often reminds me of travels I have been on – a safari when we rose with the sun so we could catch the animals at the watering hole before it got hot; a study trip in Israel, Egypt, and Jordan when we woke at 3am so we could see the sun rise from the top of Mt. Sinai. Jet lag, too, makes for early mornings but you can catch a sunrise while others snore.

The beginning of the day has so much potential. Nothing much has happened yet, just coffee and a few headlines. What might unfold? What surprises await? Who will I see? What good news might break? Will the forecasters be wrong and we’ll have sunshine all day?

Easter is a morning holiday; Christmas is an evening one. “Early in the morning” all the Easter stories begin. So much potential that day, though no one imagined it. Just a morning routine, the women getting up early, preparing their spices, taking their sad walk as the sun rose. And then – so much unfolded, so many surprises, such good news.

Maybe I’m a morning person because I’m an Easter person at my core, believing in new life that awaits us, life where there had been death, blades of grass poking their way through the concrete. I hope to be that, anyway; it’s better than the alternative.

I really hope and pray that today is a great day; it will be for some of us and not for all of us. But here’s to new life, and the ability to embrace it and make it happen.

A very good morning – or good afternoon or evening – to you all.

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Church

/ Beth Merrill Neel / 3 Comments

The church calls me to my best self, the Eden self, the person God created me to be.  In church I shed my old skin, shuffle off the hurtful and ugly like cicada husks hiding with the dust bunnies under the pews.

I wriggle off that judgment that doesn’t fit anymore, or that idea of God that ended up being way too small, and I’m given something else. A second chance.  Some grace which I may or may not find amazing at the time.  It’s like I take off the burlap sack and get to put on a cashmere robe.  And then someone hands me a cookie and a cup of fair trade coffee.

Church, and worship in particular, shapes me.  It forms the pattern of my days: quiet reflection, expressions of gratitude, responding to challenges and teachings, spontaneous song.  People in need and people in joy.

I haven’t been at church for a month but I have been with church and in church.  More cards than I can count.  More prayers than I know of.  Books and magazines.  Food, food, and more food.  People who take me out for a walk.  People who tell me not to worry about it.  People who say they miss me.

I miss them, and I miss worship, which for me is the core of church.  On a usual Sunday when it’s time I zip up my robe and adjust my stole and get the microphone clipped on.  We pastors say a prayer together, and I pick up my papers and we head down the stairs and make our way through the sanctuary to the back.

And then the acolytes’ wicks are lit, and we start down the aisle.  We sit down and while the prelude finishes, I look out at the congregation, at the church.  There they are, the saints and sinners, my sisters and brothers and friends.  There they are, the sick, the grieving, the joyous, the angry, the wondering, the frazzled, the bored.  There they are, the sinews and ligaments and bones and muscles and cells of the body of Christ.  There they are, the church, surrounded by stained glass and pews and unbelievable music all of which adorn the church but aren’t church.  The people are church.

In the next hour we sing and pray and listen and speak.  Hopefully we laugh.  Often at least one person cries.  And when we leave after the benediction and postlude, and make our way home after a cup of tea or a meeting or lunch with the usual crowd, we take church to the streets, to our homes and work places and schools and the neighborhood. We present the pattern to the world: reflection, gratitude, response, song; hope. Church doesn’t need a building, though that makes it convenient.  Church needs people who are willing to say something about God and something about living as human beings and then figuring out the rest together.

We the church don’t always get it right but when we do, it’s pretty incredible.  Life-giving and life-saving.  Amen and amen.

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The place I call my church home

 

 

 

57 years and counting

/ Beth Merrill Neel / 2 Comments

According to myanniversary.com, there is no traditional gift for celebrating the occasion of a 57th wedding anniversary, although one may give a glass object or a mirror. 

Those seem fitting gifts after spending two score and seventeen years together. After that much time, you know what is fragile about each other. You know how not to break things, hearts, dreams. You know that certain things need to be handled delicately and some things will leave a telltale fingerprint.

After 57 years, you may see parts of yourself in the other. There’s a shared kindness, a common sense of direction through paths traveled together, paths that have wound through children and mortgages and career disappointments. After 57 years you have the same worry lines in the forehead and the same laugh creases around the eyes.

I did not buy my parents a piece of glass art or a mirror when they celebrated their 57th anniversary earlier this year. I may have sent them a card, but I doubt it. I think I called them.

But what I would say to them (and do, since they read this blog), and to my in-laws whose 57th anniversary is coming up in a few weeks – and to anyone who makes it to 5+ decades – is this:

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Wow!

You deserve a standing ovation and some really comfortable slippers.

You have set a high bar for those who aspire not only to a long marriage but also a happy one.

The way you care for each other inspires me. My dad has needed a little more help than usual lately and my mom has been there, every moment, without  a complaint, without a sigh. My dad has never missed an opportunity to thank her or to remind my siblings and me how amazing she is.

None of us knows when we start a marriage where it will lead us, who we will be at the end of a year or a decade or five decades. None of us knows if we’ll recognize the face in the mirror as that long ago blushing bride or that fresh-faced groom. None of us knows what will get broken and if it will be reparable. None of us knows what heartache or disappointment will do to us.

But none of us knows what love and fidelity will do to us either.

It took me a while to find the person I wanted to marry and it’s doubtful we’ll have fifty-seven years together.  Possible, but doubtful.  But my parents and my husband’s parents would be the first to say that the years are just a number; it’s what fills those years that matters.

May those years be filled with trust and laughter, honesty, argument, and some good old fashioned lust now and then; may they be filled with friendship, and sorrow that abates over time, and whispers and music and dancing, even if your song is “Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown.”  May they be filled with the light of early morning and the shine of a new spring moon.  May they be filled with wonder and familiarity, with respect, with a sense of what is precious.  May they be filled with the usual things: love, forgiveness, grace, and gratitude.

Fifty-seven years.  Wow.

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August 29, 1959

 

 

Grandma Sweet Love

/ Beth Merrill Neel / 3 Comments

Sweet Love.

How my 13-year-old self rolled my eyes and huffed out a sigh whenever Grandma Merrill would call me that. Now I find myself saying those very words to my daughter.  How did I not see how much my grandma loved me?

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Grandma with her father and some of her siblings.  She’s the girl standing up.

Grandma Merrill – Ann Clark Merrill – was born in January of 1900, so it was always easy to remember how old she was. She was the 11th of 12 children, the second to last daughter who remembered traveling from Utah to California by covered wagon when she was ten.

When she was born, no one owned a car. Women were not allowed to vote.  She and Grandpa raised their family in Anaheim when Disneyland was nothing more than orange groves.  She lived through World War 1, the Great Depression, World War 11, Korea and Viet Nam, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the moon landing, Watergate. She witnessed her husband’s death as he fell from a ladder, victim of a heart attack, while picking peaches.  She outlived her daughter, my aunt who died too soon. She was always cold, and even when she’d visit us in Houston in August, she would wear her cardigan.

Though never much more than five feet tall, she was a woman of no small opinions. She carried the stereotypes of her day, pronouncing them loudly in public places. She was convinced that Michael Landon utterly ruined the majesty of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books. She had an expectation of how we were to behave, and let us know with a certain look or purse of the lips if we had not held up our end of things.

Two stories capture her for me. She often apologized to my sister and me for having passed on to us what she called “the Clark fanny.”  We were all round in that posterior area and she taught us exercises to reduce the spread. One consisted of sitting on the floor, legs straight out, scooching forward across the room. The other began in the same position. One would then raise one’s fanny of the floor (arms locked at the side with palms on the floor for support) then smash said fanny into the floor. I suppose there was a hope that all that slamming would blast the fat to bits.  It didn’t. It’s no wonder she had both hips replaced. Perhaps no wonder that I just had one replaced as well.

When I was a young adult I lived in New York and my parents were in New Jersey. Grandma came for Christmas one year, and we rented a van and went into the city for a fancy dinner. Grandma had her usual Manhattan before dinner and loved the meal. As we were finishing dessert, she caught the waiter’s attention. “Young man, do you think you might get me a cigarette?” She smoked with elan, in her orthopedic shoes, all 4’11” of her.

Pretty brazen for a woman who never learned how to drive, who did not know how to write a check when suddenly widowed in her mid -60’s.

But that was Grandma. The minute you thought you’d figured her out, the minute you thought she would scold you, out would come “sweet love.” And she meant it.

I do too.

Casting the patronus

/ Beth Merrill Neel / 2 Comments

(For those unfamiliar with J.K. Rowling’s magical world of Harry Potter, a person may cast a  Charm or spell that produces an embodied Patronus, a guardian that generally takes the shape of the animal with whom the person shares the deepest affinity.  The Patronus repels Dementors, bodiless creatures which suck joy and the soul out of their victims.  In order for this difficult spell to work, one must rely on one’s strongest and happiest memory.)

What’s your happiest memory? What gave you the most joy, the most hope?

Maybe it was the first time you fell in love
Or the last and final time, that time you met the person you ended up spending the rest of your life with

Or maybe it was the Harvest Moon that fall of your senior year

Or the lenticular cloud

Or the sky that was blue forever

That kid in the 7-11 said you were beautiful and meant it

Or they threw you a surprise party and you really were surprised

A kiss; that kiss – you remember

Learning to tie a shoe

Or make a pie crust

Or finally singing the whole of Beethoven’s 9th

Sitting in church as the light streams through the stained glass and tearing up for no reason

The Cubs this year

Mandela and the Dalai Lama

Pope Francis speaking truth to power

Getting sober, maybe

Or getting well

Five years cancer free

A grandchild

A pardon

Peace
Peace with hilarity might be best.

To have something, someone that dispels all that’s demented

Well, if I had one wish, maybe that would be it

For me

And you

And everyone

Expecto Patronum!

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A pine marten, the shape my patronus would take, according to a quiz I took on Pottermore

My sainted grandmother

/ Beth Merrill Neel / 5 Comments

(Note: I think these next seven days are going to be a bit brutal, and the news and social media will not present our better angels.  So for these next seven days, I’ll write posts about something I find beautiful or happy or warm.  Just in case you need a brief respite from the election.)

family-pix-002In some ways, anyone who knew my grandmother would not immediately say she was a saint, not in the traditional “sweetness, goodness, and light” sort of way.  She caught my grandfather’s eye while dancing on a table at the local tavern, or so the story goes.  They married in 1925 and were married until, sixty-three years later, my grandfather died in his sleep in the bed they shared.

This is one of my favorite memories about Mary Hansler.

Every summer we would visit my grandparents in Washington State, and coming from New Jersey, and then Texas, that was a big deal.  It was a big deal for them, too.  We might spend a night at their home in Tacoma, but the real goal was to get to the Ranch, the property they bought in the early 1940’s outside Mt. Rainier National Park.

We’d get up to that mountain air and know we weren’t home.  It smelled of fir trees and mint and we needed jackets to go outside; without television, the most constant sound was the creek babbling near by.  Other family members might come up while we were there, and the siblings and cousins would take turn washing all those dishes by hand.

But the real winner of the whole deal was breakfast.  My grandmother loved to fish, more than anything else in the whole world.  She would get up before dawn, grab her pole and reel, and head to the creek.  While she was gone, Grandpa would light the wood stove and start the percolator.  Grandma would come home, clean the trout, make biscuit batter.  If one of the kids was up, they’d be sent out to the raspberry patch to pick berries.

Then she’d dredge those rainbow trout in flour and lemon pepper and set the big cast iron pan on the stove, and put a slab of butter in it.  Down went the trout, so fresh they’d curl up as they cooked.  Biscuits went in the oven. Juice and milk and cream and sugar and homemade blackberry jelly went on the table.

img_9609And then we ate. We stuffed ourselves silly, to get ready for a day of moving rocks in the creek and hiking up Mt. Osborn and washing dishes by hand.  Grandma sat at the head of the table, her little brown tea pot next to her, her eyes twinkling, her cheeks perpetually rosy.  She could be sharp sometimes, but I think nothing gave her more joy than seeing her family, some of whom lived too far away, gathered at that table devouring the feast she made possible.

So on this All Saints day, I say a prayer of thanks for all  my grandparents, whose love formed my parents and in turn me. And I say a prayer of thanks for rainbow trout, and raspberries and blackberries, and butter, and biscuits, and family.

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The ER on a Saturday night: a glimpse of heaven or hell?

/ Beth Merrill Neel / 1 Comment

Alas, I ended up in the emergency room (or department, as they’re calling it these days) on Saturday night at 2:30 am.  Long story short, the hives that emerged out of somewhere had taken to my lips, and my husband and I worried they might make it to my tongue and throat, so off we went.  And then, because the kid was home alone (sleeping through all the drama, thank goodness) he left me there as I requested.

The guy behind the glass – which I assumed was possibly bullet-proof – was as calm and collected as can be.  Not a lot of warmth, but efficient.  The nurse who saw me in triage was as cheerful as a 7-months-pregnant woman can be at 2:45 in the morning, normal and professional, talking to me, all of which was part of her plan to assess my situation.  Then she said, “I’m going to take you to the lobby while I check on a room in the back.”

She wheeled me back to the lobby.  And what a sight it was.

A social worker was talking to a woman about anger management with children.  I did not want to know what that story was about, but since they were standing two feet in front of me, it was hard not to listen. A homeless man was stretched out over several chairs, getting a good night’s sleep in that clean, well-lighted place.  A person who did not speak English waited too, and I wondered how that was going.  In the 15 minutes I waited there, two more homeless men came in, and the guy behind the glass was as calm and collected – and not warm – with them as he was with me.  The security guy walked through a couple of times.  And then there was me, with my Angelina Jolie puffy lips and my itchy hands and knees, anxious that my throat might close and things might go south, quickly.

But they didn’t.  Instead I spent a few hours waiting, not sleeping, thinking.  Had I caught a glimpse of heaven or hell there in the lobby of the ER?  As far as I could tell, each of us who came through that door was treated equally – assessed, evaluated, left alone, tended to, cared for without a lot of warmth but cared for nonetheless.  Each of us who came through those doors needed help – for medication, for treatment, for sleep, for counsel.  Each of us left our full stories at the door – who we were, what made us laugh or dance, who were the people we counted on, what our last meal was, and with whom.  When we walked in, we were patients with a presenting condition.  That’s all.

Did I get a glimpse of hell in the lobby of the ER?  There were people whose bodies were breaking down, people who didn’t have a place to sleep or a community that would take them in, people who didn’t know how to manage their anger or their immaturity.  Were we a collection of souls in despair, cut off from the wholeness intended for us?

What I know is that I have a lot of resources and know a lot of people who would come to my aid in a heartbeat, especially my spouse, who shows his love for me every single day, even at 2:30 in the morning when I’m asking him to drive faster on our way to the hospital because I’m not sure if my shortness of breath is anaphylaxis or anxiety.  The church provides health insurance that will cover the majority of this bill that will be coming our way.  I know how to assert myself, and ask for what I need.  I am not an addict.  I have a home.  My life is good; heavenly, some of those people in the lobby might say.

When I left at 6:00 the lobby crowd had cleared.  The homeless men had found somewhere else to go.  The staff was in the middle of a shift change, so I didn’t get to thank the doctor or nurses and really, I just wanted to get home.  But I wonder where that woman went, if the conversation with the social worker helped her, helped the situation.  I wonder if the men made it to a shelter, or found a kindly person who would buy them breakfast.  I wonder if the nurses and doctors crawled into bed after their shifts ended, knowing they had done some good in the night.

Heaven or hell?  Maybe the difference between the two has less to do with judgment than with community.  For all of us fall short of the glory of God – the addict, the foreigner, the pastor with hives; all of us might deserve condemnation.

Yet all of us are beloved too, and maybe hell is nothing more than not having someone who will drive you to the ER in the middle of the night; not having someone who will take you in; not having someone who speaks that truth to you in love.

Maybe you and I will be the difference between heaven and hell for someone else.

 

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