HAUNTED BY THE HOLY GHOST

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR

One generation will commend your works to another;
       they will tell of your mighty acts.
     They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty........

Psalm 145                  

Belated wishes for a happy Father's day to my twin brothers. Here is the younger and his quiver full.

Baptized into Christ, you both took your own road, but found your way back to the place your began.  What wonderful fathers you have made...and the Story goes on.....................

Built on the Rock the Church doth stand,
Even when steeples are falling;
Crumbled have spires in every land,
Bells still are chiming and calling,
Calling the young and old to rest,
But above all the soul distrest,
Longing for rest everlasting.

We are God's house of living stones,
Builded for His habitation;
He through baptismal grace us owns
Heirs of His wondrous salvation.
Were we but two His name to tell,
Yet He would deign with us to dwell,
With all His grace and His favor.

Still we our earthly temples rear
That we may herald His praises;
They are the homes where He draws near
And little children embraces.
Beautiful things in them are said;
God there with us His covenant made,
Making us heirs of His kingdom.

Grant then, O God, where'er men roam,
That, when the church-bells are ringing,
Many in saving faith may come
Where Christ His message is bringing:
"I know Mine own, Mine own know Me;
Ye, not the world, My face shall see.
My peace I leave with you." Amen.

WITH HOPE

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.
                                                1Thessalonians 4:14-14

We can cry with hope
We can say goodbye with hope
'Cause we know our goodbye is not the end, oh no
And we can grieve with hope
'Cause we believe with hope
There's a place by God's grace
There's a place where we'll see your face again
We'll see your face again

We have this hope as an anchor
'Cause we believe that everything
God promised us is true, so ...

We wait with hope
And we ache with hope
We hold on with hope
We let go with hope

Steven Curtis Chapman "With Hope"

CAN I SAY OUT LOUD NOW? " I MISS YOU"

In  three weeks, Nathaniel Eastwood Carlson would have been celebrating his 21st birthday.
Twenty times this day has rolled across the horizon, and twenty times I have swallowed  the grief, still fresh, and still cold.
I have never spoken his name out loud.  I have written it down only once before.    The only visible mark, that confirms his existence is in the "Family Bible" on the page labeled "Deaths"

When I began recording the official comings and goings of our family, I always thought the bottom line of the "Births", and "Deaths" pages would eventually converge.   For every birth, a death, in an "Ecclesiastes-for everything there is a season"  sort of way. 
It's how the world works, or at least how I thought it worked.  You are born, and then you die.  In between you might garner mention on other  pages, but you were only guaranteed the two entries.

However, no matter how many generations of Carlson's sojourn of this earth, recording their comings and goings, births and rebirths, unions and partings, it will never balance.
Add and Subtract,  multiply and divide, there will always be the tiny remainder of Nathaniel Eastwood Carlson.  And each year, on this day, I note that my world is still tilted a bit,  but I have learned to  step as if all was  level and firm.

Nathaniel died  while still hidden in my womb at 15 weeks.  No one knows why, and no one  even thought it should matter.   After all,  the obscene mindset of this culture, that  clings to the  illusion that it doesn't know when life begins,  refused to  acknowledge his lovely, mysterious, short life.
Nathaniel never drew a breath, I never held him, or even saw him.   These oft worshiped things called senses denied him and in that light I had to assent that Nathaniel never was.
But I was wrong. 

I look a his name again.  It  is written lightly, tentatively, more like a question than an a statement of fact.  Was I aware then, of a hope that one day I could erase him from my mind and heart like a distant dream, and then I could then physically erase it and level my world again?  Was it the old "Eden syndrome", rearing it's ugly head,  claiming for myself, power over all matters of life and death,  good and evil, being and nothingness. 
It took  ten years, and the birth of two other children, before I could even muster enough courage to first whisper-write his name into that book, and  another ten years to reach the place that I could shout  his name, to God and anybody else who would listen.
I can look back at that young woman, almost mother, and forgive her her hubris.
And she has paid dearly for any denial or ignorance of the Sacramental  Mysteries
of this life.

How can people who believe, and will defend to the death, that life begins at conception, tell you, when your baby dies, (they use the euphemism "miscarry", like it was a mistake, a false start) that "it's for the best" or You'll have others".  There were a few dear friends who came as soon as they could to comfort and pray with us, friends who have shared all our joys and sorrows.  But then we were all so young and this new shadow was unknown to us.   But there was one friend, Sue,(I will never forget that Grace) who suffered a similar loss, flew to my side to comfort me, and try to warn me of the storms ahead.  Because of her pouring out of her own broken heart, when the shock wore off and I found myself deep in the valley of shadows, I, at least, knew that I was not losing my mind.  Was it C.S. Lewis who said "I never knew that grief felt so much like fear."  Even the new Life, our first daughter, that was already growing inside me, was no comfort.  Though it would be years before I could put words to it, something had been lost, and the hole that it left could only be filled by acknowledging the one who was lost, by name.  Nathaniel was a real boy, and he demanded to be grieved.    After reading Pastor Gordon's essay, it all came back; the shock, the pain, the grief, the feeling off utter helplessness.  Actually, it had never left.   I would have given anything to have a pastor come to my bedside and assure me that  Nathaniel is a real boy.  Even though my husband and I never talked of it, I know he felt the same loss, confusion, and like me, probably tried to bury the grief as deep as possible.

After 20 years the loss is still so raw that when I read this, I finally felt I had to write his name where someone other than myself would know Nathaniel is real, and maybe we can all find peace.

I think one of the reason I like cemeteries is the reading or a grave marker, touching the stone, imagining the life that is behind the name somehow reaffirms to the person who lies beneath  that they were not only real, but still are, and someday we may meet. The Church Triumphant, the Communion of Saints, the Great Cloud of Witnesses are not empty theological lyrics, but as real as you and I. And one day--God willing, when I take my place there, the first face I will look for in the crowd will be Nathaniel's.

Love you baby boy.
MOM
____________________________

This is reprinted from my previous journal/ blog at http://www.livejournal.com/users/silverp/

Everett Joseph Smith Was a Real Boy

By Gordon Atkinson

The phone call came at night. Doesn’t it seem like they always do? I felt sick. I hung up the phone and turned to my wife. “John and Denise’s baby came.”

There was nothing to say, really. We sat there feeling horror and dread. “How far along?” she asked.

“Twenty-two weeks. A little boy, and he was alive.”

Her face fell. My wife is a chaplain. She spent years working labor and delivery, so she knows what twenty-two weeks means.

At twenty weeks, he would have been born dead. At twenty-five weeks he would have had a fighting chance. Twenty-two weeks is just old enough for the heart to beat but too young for the lungs to breathe.

Twenty-two weeks.

John and Denise lost a little girl the same way a few years back. She just came too soon. Everyone who knew them saw how scared they were this time. We were counting the weeks, hoping and praying it wouldn’t happen again. But it did.

Twenty-two weeks.

I gathered my keys and wallet and put a small New Testament into my pocket. “I’ve got to go to the hospital, but there’s something important I want to ask you before I go.”

I asked. She thought a moment and gave me her answer. It was the right answer, but it was a little scary. It put some pressure on me..........................

To read the rest of this grace filled story go to"The world according to Chuck", as Pastor Gordon wrote this as a guest writer on his blog:

http://blogs.salon.com/0002813/2005/06/29.html#a240

HOLY GROUND

When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart. For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost. When I'm feeling most ghost-like, it is your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I'm feeling sad, it's my consolation. When I'm feeling happy, it's part of why I feel that way. If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget, part of who I am will be gone. "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." the good thief said from his cross (Luke 23:42). There are perhaps no more human words in all of Scripture, no prayer we can pray so well. "     Frederick Buechner                                                              

Many people have asked me he origins of "Fields of Eternity".  I have always found cemeteries very peaceful places. In the Celtic Tradition, there is something know as "Thin Spaces"."Thin spaces are places where the spiritual and the natural world intersect. It is a place where it is possible to touch and be touched by God. "Thin Spaces" are the moments when we experience a deep sense of God’s presence in our everyday world."  They are different for everyone.  I have found these places everywhere from churches, nursing homes, hospitals, to a gathering of friends, or alone at night rocking my baby to sleep.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               About two years ago I found one by accident walking through an old, unkempt cemetery with my daughter.  She sat down and I looked at her through my camera lens, and there it was. Finding a Thin Space is rare, and to happen to have a companion who finds it with you is even more rare.  Getting the pictures was tricky since she was away at school most of the year, but was eager and generous with her time when she was home.  She even convinced her best friend to come with us on several occasions.    Over the next two years we visited many cemeteries, though there were two we found ourselves repeatedly drawn to.   Most of these photos come from those two places.  She was as committed to the work as much as I, and deserves equal responsibility for it's coming into being.

Many good things came out of those times we spent together working on this project.  Sometimes we would have long waits waiting for just the right light, or spend hours walking looking for the next opportunity to find us.  In those times we shared intimacies that otherwise may have gone unexplored.  One of the most amazing things to come out the entire experience was the healing of a wound I have carried for almost 21 years. This project, and Em's incredible spiritual insight gave me an unexpected gift-that inspired the title of this work "Field's of Eternity".  She was the one who told me about the dreams and the "feeling" that she had a big brother somewhere "out there".  I had never discussed the loss of our first baby with her, and what she said made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

It was that experience, and then recently reading a piece written by "Real Live Preacher",  Pastor Gordon Atkinson (also, now a columnist for The Christian Century), that gave me the courage to write about that experience just a few weeks ago in my previous journal/blog.  I have been thinking about reprinting it here, and I may in the next post.
Writing it was very painful, yet very freeing, and as Buechner says in the quote above " For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost."

The loss of Nathaniel was painful, but what kept the wound so raw was that no one knew him.  He is in the Communion of Saints, and even though he never drew a breath on this earth, he is real.  And one day we will see him and know him.  Somehow Emily got to know him better than anyone because she pays attention to the whispers of the heart.  I will always be grateful that she believed and, without knowing,  brought the word of Grace to the rest of us.                                                 

FIELDS OF ETERNITY

"The Grave is but a Covered Bridge, Leading from Light to Light, Through a Brief Darkness."

My first assembled and published Photo Series: Fields of Eternity

Dedicated to my Daughters, who teach me more about "life" and "LIFE" every day.

http://holyhauntings.typepad.com/photos/fields_of_eternity/

THE AROMA OF AN EMPTY BOTTLE

The Gospel lesson for this Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 13: the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares.

With all my heart I heed Christ's warning, not to go rushing  into the garden, carelessly pulling up whatever doesn't look quite right.
But not for a moment would I let my guard down and assume that "All is Good".  And Braaten's word's continue to haunt me, yet I fear to speak them to anyone.  Each Sunday I experience little deaths.

They are not just rearranging the furniture.  Precious heirlooms vanish before my eyes and ears and in their place appear cheap imitations, "the aroma from an empty bottle".

"..........all that is left of the Reformation heritage is the aroma from an empty bottle.

Where do we go from here? I am going nowhere. Meanwhile, I am hearing rumors about a possible schism or something about the formation of a dissenting synod. None of that will redound to the benefit of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church we confess in the Creed. Each person and congregation will do what they deem fitting and appropriate in view of the apostasy that looms on the horizon of our beloved Lutheran Church. My friend Wolfhart Pannenberg has stated that a church that cannot take the Scriptures seriously is no longer a church that belongs to Jesus Christ. That is not an original statement of his or mine, but one said by every orthodox theologian in the Great Tradition, including Athanasius and Augustine, as well as Martin Luther and John Calvin. Does the ELCA take the Scriptures seriously? We will soon find out. Whoever passes the issue off as simply a hermeneutical squabble is not being honest – “we have our interpretation and you have yours.” Who is to judge who is right? The upshot is ecclesiastical anarchy, sometimes called pluralism. To each his own. Chacun son gout!"

From "An Open Letter to Bishop Mark Hanson From Carl E.Braaten"

PREMONITION

I am like a flag surrounded by vast, open space.
I sense the coming winds and must live through them,
while all other things among themselves do not yet move:
The doors close quietly, and in the chimneys is silence;
The windows do not yet tremble, and the dust is still heavy and dark.

I already know the storms, and I'm as restless as the sea.
I roll out in waves and fall back upon myself,
and throw myself off into the air and am completely alone
in the immense storm.

Rainer Maria Rilke
(from New Translations by Cliff Crego)

WE FEEBLY STRUGGLE, THEY IN GLORY SHINE

And never let my purpose falter,
O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
But keep me faithful to Thine altar
Till Thou shalt call me from my post,
So unto Thee I live and die
And praise Thee evermore on high.

It's been a year since I started working at the local hospital.  I am an RN and Certified Massage therapist working with Cancer patients.  I have been an RN for 20+ years and always planned to go back to work when the children were grown.  Yes, I know-If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.
I gave it a try by working in a doctor's office, but I was on more familiar terms with the  insurance companies, drug reps, a new computer that never worked, and diagnostic codes than I ever was with a patient.  When I was at the end of my rope due to stress and migraines, massage therapy was the only thing that helped and started me on a journey to become a Certified Massage Therapist.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      God laughed again.   Four months before completing the program I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis, but managed to finish the  program and pass my boards.  I tried to work part time, but the arthritis never went into remission and I was convinced I would not be able to work at all.                                                                                                                                                                     That year's  Easter Sunday, I visited our Pastor in the hospital.  After three years, defying all odds and predictions, with courage and dignity, he fought one of the deadliest types of cancer that robbed him  of most of his ability to speak.  For one called to preach the Word, no tongue can tell, no heart can imagine what this loss meant to him. He fought his battle publicly, though his speech was difficult to understand.  He also lost the ability to swallow, which meant he continually had to pause while speaking and wipe saliva from his mouth.  He didn't leave his call until he had confirmed the last catechism class he had begun.  This Resurrection Day he lay near death.  His family had been prepared by the doctors, and himself seemed resigned and ready to let go.

My Shepherd, the one who gifted me with words of Grace when I needed them most, the one who held each of my daughters and baptized them into the family of God, was suffering and all I had to give was the gift of touch.  I had mixed a special oil, essences of Myrrh, Melissa, Rose, to be my final gift.  He was in so much pain that I could only massage his feet. At first I was not sure he was even aware of my presence since he was so heavily medicated.

Sacred Moments that will end up changing your life forever rarely announce themselves.  And I thought I was just saying goodbye to a much loved Pastor and Friend.  The room filled with a gentle aroma of roses as I anointed his feet, he seemed to become quieter, more peaceful, his pain easing in a deep place the morphine could never touch.

He lived through that night, and many more.  With his wife's permission, and later at his request, I visited him regularly and did gentle massage that he told me, on many occasions, worked better than any medicine.  We worked together while he was in the hospital, followed by a several month stay in a nursing home, and when he returned to his home, I saw him twice a week.  I was privileged to walk with him on this journey.  Though unspoken, we both knew how the journey would end.  My entire nursing career, after graduating from nursing school was spent working with cancer patients, and the experience left no room, except in rare cases,  for happy endings.

During a bad bout of my Arthritis I was to stop seeing him for a time.   When I was well enough to go back, he had turned the final corner and preferred to journey the last few miles privately, with only his family around him. He passed away in the early morning hours of Palm Sunday.  Several years later, my sister would take her leave from this veil of tears on the very same Holy Day.  Each year, when the story of the passion is read, I am reminded that we are all on the same path that Christ was on that day. However, I am somehow comforted, even knowing the certainties of what lies ahead,  that He always goes before us, blazing a path to the unknown, where none, save Him,  has every returned.  And there is where I stake My Every Hope.

About 18 months ago I got a call from the Coordinator of the Complimentary and Alternative Medicine  for the Cancer Center of our City's largest Hospital.  It would be a small start, one day a week, offering short, gentle massage to Cancer Patients.  I would be working with radiation patients, who visit daily for 6 to 8 weeks of treatment, I would also have access to the Outpatient Treatment Center where Patients come to receive chemo, blood transfusions, and other IV treatments.  I would also be able to visit the Inpatient Unit, including the Bone Marrow Transplant section.  I have few limits on when and where I work and those who need me tend to find me.  I feel that what I am doing is a calling, and I could not not do it

Not in a million years would I ever have imagined that I would be doing the work I am doing today.
When I left hospital nursing, I swore I would NEVER return to the  field of Oncology.  I swore I would never return to hospital nursing, and yet here I am.  If it wasn't for not physically being able to work a full or part time nursing job, if it wasn't for the migraines leading me to the massage therapist who showed me how to use my Nursing background to reach out in a different way of healing, if it wasn't for the Plague of Rheumatoid Arthritis limiting my massage practice to all but the most gentle of therapies with the most fragile of people.

Again, all that I am, all that I do, are woven in this Sacramental life, HERE, at St. Paul, at the place where God has called us.  This Church,This Particular Church, at This particular Time.
Here I Stand

Our bickering's, and living with paradox,  may make us appear fools to the world,
Our vow to remain, for now,   may make us  appear unsound to the more orthodox,
Some may even question the state of our souls, even our salvation.
But our witness of remaining as One, I pray, may be offered to Christ and redeemed as faithfulness.

I look to those who have gone before, and to their faithfulness.
They faced their own trials and had to make hard choices.
I know they drank from bitter cups, and pray for the same courage
whatever comes.
I pray to be able to finish the race with the same faithfulness and integrity.

************************
My spirit I commend to Thee
And gladly hence betake me;
Peaceful and calm my sleep shall be,
No human voice can wake me.
But Christ is with me through the strife,
And He will bear me into life
And open heaven before me.

ONE CHURCH, ONE FAITH ONE LORD OF LIFE

YOUR HAND O GOD HAS GUIDED YOUR CHURCH FROM AGE TO AGE

Your hand, oh God, has guided Your church from age to age
The tale of love is written for us on every page
Our fathers knew Your goodness and we Your works record
And each of these bear witness, one church, one faith, one Lord

One church, one faith, one Lord of Life
One Father, one Spirit, one Christ
One church, one faith, one Lord of Life
One heavenly King, Lord of all

Your mercy never fails us or leaves Your work undone
With Your right hand to help us the victory shall be won
And then by all creation Your name shall be adored
With earth and heaven singing, one church, one faith, one Lord

PRELUDE

My first post may seem a strange way to start a journal, but the poem and the photo (my own, thank you), express so much of what fills my thoughts, my prayings, my writings, my art, my conversations with family and friends and even strangers.

All that I am, my identity, from the day I was born is tied to The Faith and The Church.  I was born into the Lutheran Faith, and grew up at Divinity Lutheran Church, an aging inner city congregation.   She was a Grand Church that some say just became irrelevant, refusing to re-imagine herself to fit a changing population.  But what love and compassion she displayed, even in her death throws--we all should have such a good death.  She died with dignity while feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and ministering to the sick, held together by God's Grace and by a faithful few who sailed her to the end of the horizon. I am proud to say that she lived longer than predicted due to some of the faithful here, our new church family at St. Paul, who faithfully worked the soup kitchen one day a week without fail until the very end.  When we parted, we thought we were leaving for good and it was kind of like a death.   And even  though we felt it was God's calling for us to become members of St. Paul, where we didn't know a soul, it still had it's  own travail, like  a birth.  A  new life was brought forth in holy pain, a rich, deep, and spiritually satisfying life that made the cost worth whatever grief we felt a the beginning.   Even after 21 years, those souls that we left behind, I feel, are the family that raised me, and any time we see them is  still bittersweet.  By Grace, hardly one has been lost,  even though they are spread far and wide, mostly in other Lutheran Congregations.  Many are now part of the Church Triumphant and have become icons of faithfulness.   That is one of the factors that helped me  be at peace with the commitment I have  come to concerning St. Paul Church.

Unless you have been living under a rock, today in the ELCA,  all is not not calm, all is not bright. 
Every emotion known to man(person kind) has had it's way with me.  But dominating them all is grief.
Some of the feelings of loss are anticipatory because I know no matter the outcome, people I love will be hurt.
Much of the grief is the tearing apart of family bonds,our own flesh and blood, who we brought into this church, at the fount of touch every Sunday.   They are my daughters, but they also are my Sisters in Christ, an even stronger and more mystical bond, and the smallest crack is like an abyss.
I won't deny that there has been discussion of "can we stay?" and "Where would we go?", which has troubled my daughters deeply.  We have not even mentioned this to anyone in the our church family.

But even the thought of leaving Our St.Paul Family is inconceivable.  It would be like ripping my arms and legs off, tearing my heart out, and I don't think I would ever feel whole again.  I have spent many sleepless nights crying out to God for answers.  It is a lonely place, and I am doubting my sanity because I seem the only one who is deeply troubled.  But just walking away, well, it's just too painful to contemplate.  We, as a Church Body, have seen and had our hearts broken by the Ugly Beast of congregational conflict.  It's been nearly 15  years but the hateful, hurtful words spoken in anger and mistrust still echo in the sanctuary, like ghosts, they linger in the air and mingle and diminish our praises.  Can I participate in incarnating even more of these apparitions?  And I know they will not remain here, but follow wherever we go to seek sanctuary.  Everyone present during that dark time bears  the scar, even our children who were barely old enough to sit through those meetings.  Sins of the Fathers and Mothers.   Time has not healed, but it has softened our hearts, making us more patience and compassionate.  And if there is anything  remains certain, it is that you never want to see it happen again.  You will do, not do, say, not say, bear anything to avoid the carnage of open war.   Right or wrong, that is the fruit of having to watch and participate in having your family, the Body of Christ, torn to pieces.

After many years, God's  healing has brought a calm that begs with Every Bone of Our Communal Body not to be broken again.  Over the last few years we have closed ranks in the face of devastating losses of dear friends, brothers, sisters, husbands, shepherds,and even children to sickness, violence and death.  Life has left many of us weary and the thought of battle, even for something we believe worth battling for down to our core, not worth the cost.   And I finally am coming to the conclusion, or God is leading in the direction of staying on board, no matter what.   But, I may be just hoping and saying "peace, peace, where there is no peace", and may end up torn asunder yet.

For me, there is no life apart from my St. Paul Family.  But I know following Christ means a cross, and the last word has not been spoken.  If there comes a time when I must leave, know that it is not a choice I make freely, but one that means my body and soul are in dire peril, and I know the danger of walking so close to the pit--you may not get out, ever.

The journey to that last sentence has been bought at great price and in time I want to write about that journey.  Right now I am just too damn tired.   

Whatever comes, this is what I hold on to:

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED AND RECEIVED AND HEARD AND SEEN IN ME, DO;
AND THE GOD OF PEACE WILL BE WITH YOU.

 

                                   From St. Paul's letter to the Philippians 4:9

MEMORIES

MUSIC I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.
Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, belovèd,
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.
For it was in my heart you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes;
And in my heart they will remember always,--
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.