the unexpected
Nordstjernen
A year after he died, I learned that my father had a different name for part of his life. Since then I’ve learned he had a different nationality, too. I’m endlessly fascinated and once again am in a research stage. Today, a cousin (second cousin? cousin once removed?) wondered why my father served in the Royal Danish Navy when he was 26 rather than when he was 18-ish.
My dad was born in 1912. He always said 1913, but the Norwegian Navy said 1912, and when I tracked down his birth certificate a handful of years ago, it said 1912. In 1933, he went on the 7th Thule Expedition to Greenland with Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen. The expedition, using an airplane on a wooden ship, charted the eastern shore.
When I researched, I found nothing to support this. He wasn’t listed on the expedition’s crew in either of his names. His ship, the Nordstjernen, wasn’t one of the expedition’s ships. But I knew it was true; I had photos and more importantly, when my father was dying, he wanted the Nordstjernen, including the airplane, and the expedition on his gravestone.
I’m a Taurus. Stubborn. Eventually, after x hours of research, I found that the Danish Navy loaned a plane to the expedition. The plane was based on a ship called Nordstjernen.
This afternoon, I discovered I hadn’t saved that link. After a 2-hour search, I discovered a 16-minute film (click the image below) of the expedition. I’m in awe.
my favorite veteran
After my father died, I learned that he changed his identity in the late 1930s, at least partially because his name "sounded too Jewish."
After my father died, I learned that he changed his identity in the late 1930s, at least partially because his name "sounded too Jewish."
He rarely spoke about the war or the time before. My dad was extremely private, and I never dared ask. I wouldn’t have known what to ask, anyway. The few times he mentioned something, I became still, almost holding my breath.
Once he said his ship was hit by a torpedo, and I think he broke his arm. Twice he told me about being on a train in Germany in 1935; an SS officer entered the compartment, and everyone jumped up — he said that you didn’t even think of not saluting.
I couldn’t imagine my strong Norwegian father not daring to be himself. Now that I know his name sounded Jewish, it’s more chilling.
Ninety years later, Jewish people are being targeted. Not “again.” Still.
loving the questions
When my online discernment program, Loving the Questions, ended, I was asked to share a reflection about the journey.
Last night my online discernment program, Loving the Questions, ended. I was asked to share a reflection about the journey.
~
Discernment began as something between me and God several years ago with me sitting in a bright, empty sanctuary on a weekday, asking God what God wanted me to do. With my Loving the Questions cohort, I’ve been gifted community. Part of being a Christian is worshipping in community. Now I believe we’re meant to discern in community, too.
Early in our program, I shared in my small group that I’ve had major depression for 30 years, and I was scared of sinking into the deep places — because what if I got stuck there? Before Loving the Questions, I had sunk deep. My new job, where I strongly felt God’s call, imploded or exploded. And then I got covid, which triggered a long and intense episode of depression.
In December, I began a treatment called transcranial magentic stimulation. For 36 sessions, they pulse magnetic waves into the brain, stimulating existing neural pathways and creating new ones. At my intake, I scored 46 on “Beck’s Depression Self-Inventory,” which is in the highest range: extreme depression. At my last treatment in February, my score was an 8. I checked my math 3 times, and then I started crying. 0-10 range is “These ups and downs are considered normal.”
As the disability of my depression eased, so did my fear of getting stuck in the tough places. I’ve been able to surrender to pain and discomfort, to curiosity and questions, and to go deep, deep within myself. I’ve experienced such liberation and freedom in surrendering!
And that opened opportunities for God to find me in unexpected ways. My small-group members noticed changes in my posture as I spoke about my work as a healer who uses crystals and about my call to consecrate. I broke open and shattered listening to someone sharing about their call to the priesthood. My soul call to consecrate the Eucharist thrust its way to the surface, like the daffodils in my yard that, against all odds, thrust their life and growth through the thick layer of mulch covering them, literally shifting the ground I think of as solid.
Again and again in the past several months, God made clear that my purpose is to share the love of Jesus. I believe that God’s kingdom is something we’re meant to create here, now — not something we receive as a reward after we die. I believe we create God’s kingdom by being God’s hands and feet and hearts and bodies in the world — by sharing and living the love of Jesus.
God reminded me that I’m a healer. I believe we’re born with a divine core, our God-self, and as we go through life, we accumulate junk around that core. I’m reopening my healing practice to allow God to come through me to help people shed their accumulated junk so they can live from their God-center —and then share Jesus’ love.
Loving the questions is like loving anything else: sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s painful, sometimes it’s amazing. For me, it's like hiking on Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine. The wooded trails can be confusing. I can work myself into an uncomfortable sweat, lose a shoe in mud, be harassed by mosquitoes. I wonder why I’m doing this. And then the trail opens to the sea. Whether it’s a sunny, blue-sky day or the island is closed in by fog, the sea breeze cools my skin, and the beauty takes away my breath. And then, after I’m replenished, I walk back into the woods.
cracks
Three years after I was rejected for the priesthood, the pain of never being allowed to consecrate communion rose from the deep where I had buried it. I was on a Zoom call with a group discerning Holy Orders. I introduced myself to our guest, a priest, by saying that since the priesthood had been ruled out for me, probably I was meant for lay ministry, but I wasn’t sure about diaconal ministry.
As our guest told her story, she said she was called to service, which is more diaconal, and called to the Eucharist, which is reserved for priests. I broke.
I remembered my longing to consecrate, my deep knowing that God could come through me to create this holy sacrament. I remembered the afternoon, several years ago, when I sat alone in a sanctuary and opened myself to God. “Here I am,” I said aloud. “What do you want me to do?” The answer came immediately, clearly, succinctly: “become a priest.” In the Zoom meeting, I felt my body, my posture, change when I talked about wanting to lead a service of Holy Eucharist at an energy vortex in Sedona. I remembered how that physical change happens every time I talk about consecrating.
How could I have disregarded God’s clarion call?
I went through a formal discernment process, beginning with my parish and ending with the diocesan leadership. A handful of priests and many lay people perceived my call; the bishop and Commission on Ministry did not. Was I wrong? Did I hear “priest” when God meant “deacon”? Does a priest have to be ordained? Does a human have to ordain me? God has ordained me, and I’ve told myself to be satisfied with that. But I’m not.
In September I began a program for lay people to discern God’s call; I had to stop waiting for a lightning bolt, another clarion call, and figure it out. After one session in December, I sent a friend this snippet from my journal with three questions to pray about and my answer:
“I carry the seed of Christ’s love in my heart—that’s my being,” I wrote. ”But I’m still passionately trying to discern what I’m called to *do.*”
“Oh my dearest one, you ARE pregnant with Jesus and a bearer of the seeds of the gospel. Could it possibly be spiritual direction and/or a call to the diaconate? Your soul is restless. Something is unfinished.”
I sent her the top of the next journal page:
After Christmas, my husband asked why I was trying to fit myself into an existing structure. “You keep jumping ahead because you’re impatient,” he said.
I exploded (revealing my impatience), “I’ve been doing this for seven years!”
“You can’t rush perfection,” he said. “We don’t have the answers, but making the answers fit what you need to happen isn’t right.”
In my mind, I tried to step out of the existing structure. “What do I want to share?” I wrote. The answer: “God's love. El amor de Jesus.”
Or: (the) love (of Jesus).
If we bring the kingdom of God to earth by being God’s hands and feet and bodies and hearts, that means loving. We can’t bring God’s kingdom to earth with only people who identify as Christian. It will take all of us living from love to transform the world. How do I include everyone who dislikes my religion? In online interactions with strangers, I’ve been struck by how many people hate and mistrust Christianity and God. And they’re not interested in hearing about the positive parts.
“If dislike of God and the bible are keeping people away from Jesus’ message,” I wrote, “maybe I strip away everything but the message. Maybe that’s my call.”
I thought about a few of my favorite prayers and how they connect with love:
”Send us into the world in peace” (Book of Common Prayer p.365)
to love with all our heart, soul and mind,
to put that love into action
to transform the world
“Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit” (Book of Common Prayer p.355)
We send each other, ourselves. We take responsibility; we don’t wait for God to do something that triggers action. We act on a moral imperative. Not because someone told us to, but because we want to transform and heal ourselves, each other, the world
My evangelism is based on “Love one another.” That is what I’ve realized. This is what God has ordained me to do.
I first learned how to connect with God every day when I was studying energy healing with crystals. “Spiritual but not religious” is how I described myself; I believed in God but not necessarily organized religion, and I didn’t have a faith tradition. Nevertheless, when I sat down to begin a massage or healing session, I paused to connect with God. I asked God to send light and love through me into my client.
Over time I came to understand that we humans have a divine core — our God-given, God-created column of pure love and light. As we go through life, we accumulate junk around that core, and then we live from the outer edges of that. My goal as a healer was to help clients shed that junk so they could live closer and closer to their divine core, and my goal for my own healing is to return to that center.
I get that crystals and chakras are way out there for some people. For that matter, I get that God is way out there for some. Substitute “Love” for “God,” and the meaning essentially is the same.
When I began my formal discernment process, I kept my part-time office job but closed my part-time healing practice so I could focus on discernment. That’s what I told myself. But looking back, I believed that working with crystals and energy would kill any chance I had to be ordained.
The week before I broke, the whole discernment cohort (not just those discerning Holy Orders) met. In my five-person small group, I shared that when I held another member in prayer, I offered them up to God on outstretched hands, as I used to do with my clients when I worked with crystals and healing. “Look, God. Look at your beautiful and perfect child.”
A fellow member said they noticed a shift in me when I talked about crystals and healing, and the next day another member texted encouragement to discern how crystals fit into my call. The next morning, sitting drinking my tea, I looked around. I saw crystals. I don’t work with them much any more, but they surround me. They hold God’s light and beauty.
Yesterday my husband mentioned a phrase he’d heard: “Open a crack, and the devil can get inside.”
“Open a crack, and the light can get in,” I said. And then we realized together: Open a crack, and the light inside will break through and clear everything in its path.
The connection in these two things that transform my being — consecrating the Eucharist and healing — is allowing God to come through me.
God the healer as love and light coming through to dispel our darknesses, the fear we live inside of, clearing all the layers we’ve accumulated around our divine core, pushing that away with the strength of pure love.
And God the Almighty coming through me to transform human-made bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
Some people believe it truly becomes the Body and Blood of Jesus. I believe it is transformed through God’s energy, and that energy is passed to us in the bread and the wine. Receiving Jesus inside us feeds the divine core’s strength and helps us shed more junk. As the core grows, it will take over room occupied by three-dimensional junk. It must, because it is stronger than fear.
How do I begin?
What’s my first step?
Pray.
And speak. And seek.
Prayer retreat at Adelynrood
A retreat at Adelynrood
I was gifted a two-night prayer retreat at Adelynrood in Byfield, Massachusetts. I prayed, photographed, read, wrote, rested and connected with strong and spunky religious women.
My first day, I wandered with my iPhone as camera. Adelynrood is an H-shaped wooden building from 1914. The dark old wood contrasts with bright white curtains; I never tire of looking at that combination. Walls and shelves and nooks are adorned with statues, flowers, paintings, framed sayings. The second day, I attended Quiet Day with Mary Oliver's Poetry.
The Companions of the Society of the Holy Cross run Adelynrood, and most days there are three prayer services in the chapel. The grounds include gorgeous flowers, woods, benches and the Great Cross. It's a quiet place, set on 14 acres, and peace reigns.
