As Holy Week approaches its nadir preceding its zenith, I want to share “The Ballad of Judas Iscariot” which I first read over forty years ago in Episcopal priest Morton Kelsey’s book The Other Side of Silence. (Since then I discovered a longer version online. The Ballad was written by Robert Buchanan.) I have been profoundly touched by the height and depth of the forgiveness and love it celebrates.

“The ballad is based upon an old fable that, after Judas committed suicide, his soul wandered through the universe, bearing his body, seeking a place for it to rest. Hell would not take it in; the earth would not receive it; the sun refused to shine on it. In all creation, Judas could not find a resting place. At last, in a nameless region of darkness and ice and snow the soul of Judas sees a lighted hall, with the shadows within of people moving about. The soul lays the body in the snow, running back and forth outside the windows. Although Judas does not know it, inside Jesus sits at the table with his guests, ready to receive the fleeing soul and relieve Judas of his burden.”

‘Twas the Bridegroom sat at the table-head,
and the lights burned bright and clear—
“Oh, who is that?” the Bridegroom said,
“Whose weary feet I hear?”

‘Twas one looked from the lighted hall,
and answered soft and slow,
“It is a wolf runs up and down
with a black track in the snow.”

The Bridegroom in his robe of white
sat at the table-head—
“Oh, who is that who moans without?”
the blessed Bridegroom said.

‘Twas one looked from the lighted hall,
and answered fierce and low,
“Tis the soul of Judas
gliding to and fro.”

‘Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
did hush itself and stand,
and saw the Bridegroom at the door
with a light in his hand.

‘Twas the Bridegroom stood at the open door,
and beckoned, smiling sweet;
‘Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
stole in, and fell at his feet.

“The Holy Supper is spread within,
and the many candles shine,
and I have waited long for thee
before I poured the wine!”

I wonder whether most faith expressions have periods of heightened spiritual disciplne. I expect that they do. Times of intense, intentional spiritual focus are meant to enrich people’s understanding of themselves in relation to their spiritual lives. Christians are particularly invited to choose a discipline for the 40 days of Lent. 

In our neighborhood as children some of us would gather together as Lent began, always choosing to give up chocolate for Lent. How many of us succeeded, I do not know. I doubt that we shared our success or failure with each other! Yet remembering having done this together connects me with me even today. 

However, Lent 2016 I turned this giving up some thing on its head and decided I wanted a discipline of taking on actions so that I add something to my life rather than take away somethiing from it. Immediately I knew that there are three things I wanted to take on. Since I am an introvert, they are disciplines that take me inward. More extroverted people might take on entirely different activities. Often I envy extroverts whose activities and outward bound energies can more obviously change the world. I simply have not been given that gift, no matter that I often consider it admirable.

#1 Spend time each day reading “A New New Testament: A Bible for the 21st Century Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Texts” edited with commentary by Hal Taussig. 

#2 Every day honor the Four Directions: East, South, West, North; Grandfather Fire, Sky Father, Earth Mother, Grandmother Ocean; Fire, Air, Earth, Water.

#3 Do 20 minutes of Music Meditation with my husband each morning.

Briefly, 

#1 I only recently discovered this volume published in 2013. So far I have read the introductory material and the commentary at the end so that I could ground myself in the uniqueness of its contents. Then I began at the beginning of this new New Testament with the ancient Thanksgiving Prayer; the introduction to the Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Thomas’ 114 sayings of Jesus; the introduction to the Gospel of Matthew, and the first chapters of Matthew. Most astounding to me is that after the instructveness of the preparatory materials, the beauty of the Thanksgiving Prayer, and both the familiarity and the shock of the sayings in Thomas, I am reading Matthew with new eyes and ears and heart. The words almost pop from the page; I am moved by the familiar verses and shocked by some of the strangeness of others–a strangeness similar to that of some of Thomas’ sayings of Jesus.

#2 I was introduced to the Four Directions soon after my late husband died and I went on a Vision Quest on Lake Temagami in northern Ontario with Journey into Wholeness. For 35 years Journey presented conferences which explored the intersection between spirituality and Jungian psychology, eventually incorporating the opportunity to go on an eight day Vision Quest which added Native American/First Nation/Quichol Mexican-Indian spirituality. The Four Directions take me out into nature and deepen my awareness of the Creation which surrounds and holds us. I approach saying, “Great Spirits, it is I, Joy Anna Marie; I am here.” Then I reverence each of the directions and the animal beings I have learned to associate with each direction. This has become a profound way to listen to the spritual world. There are days and weeks when I wander away; I always return and feel welcomed again “just as I am.”

#3 My husband Buck and I learned Music Meditation ten years ago from Shinzen Young, an American Jewish Japanese-trained Buddhist monk who guided my late husband Lew to live mindfuly into his dying. Buck and I return to this practice sporadically. As a forty day discipline, we are appreciating the richness of listening to a piece of classical music together in the quiet of the morning. There are several ways to attune to the music, the most intense and meditative for us is to follow the notes which leads to an expanded awareness of the complexity of the music as it soothes our souls. Our two year old rescue dog Bear has learned to enter into the quiet with us even though he might have preferred a walk initially!

More about each of these practices can be learned by Googling them. You have to discern the wheat from the chafe–but isn’t that always true? the work of mindful critical thinking.

Blessings during the sacred times of your faith tradition.

Below is my 250 word reply to the NYT, February 12, 2016 “Tell US: Is It Important to Elect a Woman as President?” I am thankful for Bernie Sanders’ running for the Democratic presidential nomination because he is pushing Hillary Clinton to more closely define her beliefs, thereby, standing closer the compassionate, democratic ideals and lived into principles I believe the United States has to stand fully for once again. I hope his challenges continue to encourage her to more openly speak out for the values women can bring to the table, living in to the promise she proclaimed in Beijing 20 years ago at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women: “If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that Human Rights are Women Rights and Women’s Rights are Human Rights once and for all.” She repeated and elaborated on this statement when she addressed the UN on the 2014 International Women’s Day saying, “When women succeed the world succeeds. When women and girls thrive, entire societies thrive.” This is why I believe

It is essential that a woman be elected president in order to shatter the glass ceiling that is often obscured by the widespread belief that women, by our nature, are second class citizens. The presence of the glass ceiling is denied by those who have power over women, their children and underclass men, by those who have far more than enough and remain blind to the suffering of those who have less than enough. As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton intentionally chose to visit women and children in need, every where she visited throughout the world. Her actions lett us know that she cherishes and respects women’s rights as human rights. This willingness to stand with those who have less than others and who are judged as less than others is critical to revitalizing our sense of ourselves as a compassionate and democratic nation.
When we speak about climate change, we are implicitly talking about Mother Earth, the Creation which is given lip service but is treated ruthlessly in order to aggrandize the top layers of society without consideration of the cost for present as well as future generations. In her very being, a woman president would image, embody and raise up the feminine. She would not be flawless; however, her presence, her voice, her leadership would challenge perceptions of all women at a time when we know that women and their children are raped, human trafficked, abused, murder as well as underpaid, demeaned, devalued and trivialized in in more subtle ways.

I’ve been running into dying and death everywhere.

The unexpected and shocking death of a friend, not close but present in my life for over fifteen years, still unsettles me, forcing me to ponder how life can take such twists and turnings.

As I often do, I seek wisdom through reading, discovering The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief by Francis Weller. He emphasizes the crucial role that enlivening ritual can play in our lives, how far we are from incorporating life giving ritual into the fabric of our lives, and the cost of our soul’s disconnection to others and to the creation. I am challenged once again to incorporate ritual more intentionally. I pause in this writing to light the candle I keep beside my computer and to hold my clear glass archetypal Jerusalem cross to my heart, inviting the Great Spirits of Earth, Air, Fire and Water to guide me. Writing faithfully is one of the meaningful rituals which I neglect at great cost to my soul.

I am also reading Being Mortal: Medicine and what matters in the end by Atul Gawande during this week of the anniversaries of the deaths of my late husband 14 years ago and of my mother 41 years ago. Once again I am experiencing the mystical nature of their living and of their dying which deepens my understanding of, connection with, and love for them. Their presence is alive in me and supports and encourages me to write. Being Mortal affirms this remembering and reminds me of the crucial need to bring consciousness/awareness to our intentions for living fully  and of our preparing to live well into our dying.

Watching the DVD/youtube video “Griefwalker”, pushed me further into considering the choices we have about how we live and how we can accompany people who are encountering dying and death. Canadian Stephen Jenkinson, the Griefwalker who was theologically educated at Harvard Divinity School, believes that we cannot love life if we do not embrace death. This is a haunting, poetic depiction of encounters with and conversations about dying and death–and life.

I think of Ira Byock’s The Four Things That Matter Most: A Book About Living recommended by the hospice social worker when my older brother was dying of pancreatic cancer. The four things: “Please forgive me,” “I forgive you,” “Thank you,” and “I love you.” Words that define a courageous and cleansing process for both the person dying and those who care about that person.

I will come back to my interest in living well into dying in future blogs. In the meantime, I invite responses of any length so that I continue to write in the company of others. Thank you.

copyright, Joy Anna Marie Mills, 2016

Samuel Beckett: “Not to say, not to know what you want to say, not to be able to say what you think you want to say, and to never stop saying, or hardly ever, that is the thing to keep in mind, even in the heat of composition.”

It has been frightening to be so far away from myself–and here I am ready to write again, to nourish my soul by responding to its desire for reflection, contemplation and expression by sharing with you.

Shortly after making the commitment to this website/blog, I realized doing so would be more daunting than I had expected. As a child, I learned that to speak what I experience and believe is dangerous.   No matter how much I wanted to live differently, my lifetime modus operandi has been to start speaking and then to hold back on going deeper to the nub of my belief. The childhood experience of observing the devastating outcome of speaking the truth continued to echo, thwarting my desire to speak my truth fully and completely.

Over these past two months I have continued to struggle with staying focused on this desire. I have consulted with a psychiatrist who is working with menopausal women who have lost their focus and ability to attend to a task, instead going from one activity to another mindlessly. Last week I agreed to take Vyvanse (Google study at Penn re women and menopause focus and attention issues) on a trial basis to see if this would help me maintain my focus and attention on my desired task.

On the exact same day, I worked on a dream with my Jungian dream analyst. In no uncertain terms, the dream said I needed to tap into the spontaneity that I had as a child–the energy that was drained out of me by my mother’s confrontation with her father which led to her being disinherited and her subsequent decision to fight this change to his will all the way to the State Supreme Court. (I plan to eventually include this story “Living beyond Evil.” under the Living into Our Dying website tab.) Although we lived in my grandfather’s house, I have no conscious memory of this fighting, nor my mother’s determination which turned to devastation when she lost the case.  However, it has lived on in my unconscious; my inheritance has been to be terrified to do fully what she had dared to do–to go to the outer limits to fight injustice.

Now I am consciously defying that silencing voice, even by telling you the bare bones of this story. Over the past 14 years since my late husband’s death, I have written 56,000 words of a memoir about his dying, our relationship, and shifts in our spirituality. Now I realize instead of struggling to construct a literary memoir, I want to begin by publishing pieces on this website. I am discovering that to let unfold what wants to unfold is one function of my doing this website and blog. The dream also made clear that I had to mark out the time from 9-12 every day possible (I usually work on Monday and Tuesday morning) so that I can stay faithful to my desire/my calling at this time in my life.

My two major topics and tabs on my website are DARING Faith and Living Well into Our Dying. In my blog I began by focusing on the former since I was attending The Parliament of World Religions. Then I hit a roadblock. Everything in my conscious mind stopped wanting to write, even remembering to write. Now forces conscious and unconscious have combined to say, “If not now, when?” And my attention has shifted for the time being to Living into Our Dying.

Thank you for bearing with me through this hiatus.

Learning to blog and maintaining a website have set me on a steep learning curve. It has also demanded that I do important inner work to free myself to say what I believe and experience in my life and in this world. There are the intricacies of creating the website and learning about blogging–which I have done in close consultation with a pro. Then there is discovering how often I can commit to writing new blogs. There is deciding what articles/essays to include under my website tabs. There is understanding how to use the items under menu under site administrations. Body, mind, and spirit have become involved. It is becoming a bracing experience.

I have become curious about the impact of this writing not only on my readers but also on me. I have learned that it is an unfolding within me as I imagine and contemplate what this blog and website mean to me and my own “living into my dying.” (I have no immediate plans to die; however, I live in the knowledge that death is not “if but when.”) I can plan an eight part series on “Biblical Stories of Women”, but I cannot guarantee when the next blog on this topic because new events, concerns or ideas often intervene.

This weekend the tension in the world has intensified. Perhaps you struggle as I do to discern and discover how the horror of the terrorist attacks in Paris impact our lives and our worldview. I ask: is what I am doing making a positive difference? I think back to the sense of comfort I had attending The Parliament of the World’s Religions in Salt Lake City in October (see recent blogs), feeling as though I was among 9600 friends and well-intentioned people. Langar, the free lunch served daily by people of the Sikh faith, was indicative of the caring and kindness I felt surround us. Now I wonder whether I was safe because the world took little notice of our meeting–similar to the way I felt at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing 1995. The only security I encountered was the Imam of Mecca surrounded by his own security team. I was shocked and then saddened when I realized that perhaps that is the only way he can travel in a world with no truly ‘safe zones.”

Doing this writing is exciting and challenging, the way I want to continue to live my life, open to welcome and unwelcome surprise, hard questions, life-enhancing adventures and relationships. Relationships: I hope to be doing this work in community with you and others; your involvement and contributions through comments and reflections are essential for this to become an interactive,lively, enterprise. Thank you for joining me.