Unorthodox and Unhinged

Tales of a Manic Christian

Category Archives: mental health


by 2 Comments

“The Novel Cure” : We Are What We Read

Read books more. Read the news less.

This is my new mental health mantra.

Because of the number nine.

Nine. I have nine news apps on my phone. The Washington Post. The New York Times. The Guardian. NPR. Politico. Buzz Feed. HuffPost. The New Yorker. The Wall Street Journal.

Ten. If you count National Geographic.

Never has it been more important to keep up with the world. It’s head spinning the headlines a single week brings. And it’s an essential part of my work to keep up — or at least endeavor to keep up.

Each week I edit our Sunday prayers so that they speak to this hurting world we share. This past week alone I added intercessions for the Group of Seven talks in Quebec, the Korean summit in Singapore, volcano victims in Hawaii and Guatemala, the LGBTQ community for Pride Month, refugees and asylum seekers.

It’s a moving target.  It matters deeply. But I know as soon as they are printed they are also incomplete and possibly obsolete.

And that’s okay. Even in the best of times it’s not humanly possible to digest it all. Habitually surfing the headlines is not good for your mental health. Not good for my mental health, for sure!

So I have resolved to read books more and to read the news less.

To retreat, to refresh, to restore the soul, to recover perspective.

And yes, simply to escape into the world of a good book.

Call it biblio-therapy. Not a word I made up but a real thing. Biblio-therapy was pioneered by the authors of The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You.

IMG_4877

So, here I present my own little version, a diversionary reading list of my own making. Fifteen books that I have recently read, am currently reading, and are in my reading pipeline — the stack of books beside my bed.

Fiction. Memoir. History. Science. Spirituality. Cats. Dogs. Here I list them all in no particular bibliographic order. Reviewers’ quotes shamelessly lifted from dust jackets.

IMG_4860Jamaica Inn, Daphne Du Mauier: The 1930’s classic tale of romantic suspense by the acclaimed author of Rebecca. This is the perfect book to read on a dark and stormy night.

IMG_4871Vinegar Girl: A Novel, Anne Tyler. William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew Retold. “… a knockabout comedy at its best, genuinely laugh out loud funny, and indeed, Tyler’s funniest book to date.” One of my favorite authors, she’s written a lot!

IMG_4872The Art of Memoir, Mary Karr. I read this because I want to write a book — a book still in my head. This one is “full of Karr’s usual wit, compassion, and perhaps most reassuringly self-doubt.”

IMG_4861Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed. “As loose and sexy and dark as an early Lucinda Williams song. It’s got punk and spirit and makes an earthy and American sound,” A remarkable debut for a first time author.

IMG_4863When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi is the author who died in 2015:  “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality had changed nothing and everything.” “This is an unforgettable, life affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death, and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.”

IMG_4873The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor: Elizabeth I, Thomas Seymour, and the Making of a Virgin Queen, Elizabeth Norton. The title pretty much explains this one! “A power hungry and charming courtier. An impressionable and trusting princess. The Tudor court in the wake of Henry VIII’s death… where rumors had the power to determine fate.”

IMG_4862Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys into the Medieval World, Christopher De Hamel. A big fat, nerdy book about about books that changed the world with lots of fabulous pictures. “Reading is my life, but only about once a decade do I find a book that seems to tilt the world, so afterwards it appears different.”  My world was tilted!

IMG_4874The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption, Kathryn Joyce. An investigative journalist’s deep dive into the world of the for-profit adoption business, misguided evangelical theology, and the lost voices of adoptees and first families. Being in reunion with my daughter Rebecca, this is a powerful and eye opening read.

IMG_4865Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine, Alan Lightman. Even though my summer trip to Great Cranberry Isle got cancelled, I am still reading this astrophysicist’s beautiful book. “Deeply brilliant. Alan Lightman’s prose is so simple and graceful that it can be easy to miss the quiet, deep sophistication of his approach to the topic of science and religion.”

IMG_4869Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World, Amir Alexander. Okay, yes, very nerdy I know. But fascinating. This brief history takes us into the lives of “Galileo, Isaac Newton, and Thomas Hobbes, and from the Papal Palace in to Rome to the halls of the Royal Society of London to show how a disagreement over a mathematical concept became a contest over the heavens and the earth.”

IMG_4870After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path, Jack Kornfield. This one I love for the title alone. It draws on the “experiences and insights within the Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Sufi traditions… Filled with ‘the laughter of the wise,’ alive with compassion.”

IMG_4868Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, C.S. Lewis. The great Christian apologist of the 20th century, this is his last book. An engaging retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche from antiquity written “with new meaning, new depths, new terrors.” Lewis reminds us of “our own fallibility and the role of a higher power in our lives.”

IMG_4866Cats Behaving Badly: Why Cats Do the Naughty Things They Do, Celia Haddon. Having become a crazy cat lady not quite a year ago, this was a must read. I refer to it often.

IMG_4867Dog Crazy, Meg Donohue. A gift from my canine loving friend Chuck, this little novel is “a big-hearted and entertaining story that skillfully captures the bonds of love, the pain of separation, and the power of dogs to heal us.” A great beach or backyard read.

IMG_4876French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure, Mireille Guiliano. Self- explanatory!

IMG_4875

Reading has the power to enlarge us and inspire us and entertain us and enlighten us. And dare I say, even heal us.

Reading, Lectio Divina, is a spiritual discipline, no matter what kind of books you read!

So dear readers, tell me. What books do you have stacked up in that pile on your bedside table?

JoaniSign

And check out my favorite book store in D.C! East City Bookshop on Pennsylvania Avenue SE!


by 2 Comments

Joani’s Big Adventure or The Blessing of the Bikes

Six years old, I learned to ride a bike on a little red Schwinn. No training wheels. My dad said training wheels were for sissies. “It’s all about balance, Joani Baloney. You can do this.” He steadied me on the seat of the bike and instructed me how to steer and how to pedal. Like the whole thing was an intellectual exercise.  And then he let me go at the top of the hill of a little cul-de-sac. It was a little hill, but to a six-year-old, a very big hill.  I careened down. I crashed. Head on into a telephone pole. I cried.

Now this is not a method I recommend.  (A method my father also used to teach me how to drive a car  – with similar results.)

But I did learn how to ride that bike – and it was my first little taste of freedom. My first little experience with independence.

I rode my bike to school, to the pool, to the store, to piano lessons and softball practice.

Reach back and remember. When was your first bike ride? Who taught you? Where did you go? And along the way, who have you taught in return?

A virtually universal rite of passage for little American kids.

But as a mom, I have flat out failed in this regard. Three of my four children will tell you that they are scarred from the experience – or the lack of experience – of learning to ride a bike.

We lived at 212 East Windsor, a 1920’s bungalow right here in Del Ray, directly across the street from the fire station. This was quite exciting when my kids were little. When they would hear the sirens, they scrambled to the front porch to watch the fire fighters slide down the pole – and gaze in amazement as they raced off in the bright red fire trucks.

As a mom, this spectacle also terrified me. A bit of a safety fanatic, I imagined my bike and trike riding children getting run over by fire engines. The sirens screaming so loud, I feared I couldn’t hear my children’s screams. Extreme. Ridiculous. I know.

In an abundance of caution, I made the street in front of our house totally off limits. And by extension, all streets in our neighborhood – relegating my children to sidewalk transport only.

On foot, of course, but also on wheels: roller blades and skates, wagons and scooters, big wheels.

But never a bike.

And my grownup children have never let me forget how I handicapped their childhood.

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

So today is at least in part about making amends.

As the liturgist at Emmanuel, as a lark for a friend I was googling “new car safe driving prayers” when I came across the Blessing of the Bicycles. Several urban churches and even cathedrals have held annual Bike Blessings.

I forwarded the link to Chuck, the rector and my colleague, an avid cyclist. “Would you like to do this at Emmanuel?’

 “OF COURSE! LOVE THIS!” he fired back in all CAPS.

We concurred, June 24th, the first official Sunday in summer would be a great day to do it. And we decided to do it up right. Not just a five-minute perfunctory blessing after church. No, we would lean in for the entire service: scripture, hymns, prayers, remembrances.

We are breaking more than a few Book of Common Prayer rubrics. It’s easier, of course, to ask for forgiveness instead of permission. And for the liturgy police out there the early service at 8:00 AM on the 24thwill be entirely kosher.

But what better way to celebrate the summer solstice than to celebrate the spirit of all things bicycle.

As I watched the four creatures, I saw something that looked like a wheel on the ground…This is what the wheels looked like: They were identical wheels, sparkling like diamonds in the sun. It looked like they were wheels within wheels, like a gyroscope.

 They went in any of the four directions they faced, but straight not veering off. The rims were immense, circled with eyes. When the living creatures went, the wheels went; when the living creatures lifted off, the wheels lifted off. Wherever the spirit went, they went, the wheels sticking right with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

 Now the prophet Ezekiel, in the 6thcentury BC, was not writing about bikes. They describe apocalyptic visions he had of the Israelites escaping captivity in Babylon. But their wild and vivid imagery suits our purposes for today – a vision of that wild ride, a vision of a spirited journey rising above the road.

Now I myself have not been on a bike in over thirty years. I am an avid pedestrian but not a cyclist.

So, for authenticity’s sake and to genuinely throw myself into the spirit of the occasion, I too had to get a bike. And actually ride it, of course.

I walked into Conte’s Bike Shop on King Street with the following criteria for my purchase:

  • I am not even sure if I still know how to ride a bike.
  • I will not be riding in traffic of any kind.
  • I am only going to ride on flat surfaces and seldom used bike paths.
  • I will not be doing any racing.

I picked out a red one with big fat white tires – an updated version of the Schwinn I had as a kid. And nearly identical to Peewee Herman’s in Peewee’s Big Adventure!

IMG_4752

 I have worked up to an hour’s ride, pedaling on the back streets of my neighborhood. And I have begun to experience a bit of all of those positive byproducts that bicycling brings.

It’s good for your mental and not just your physical health. It can lift your spirits when you are down and moderate your mood when you are manic. It’s very beneficial for the brain for ADHD and bipolar people like me.

Your lungs get stronger. You can breathe better. You can even enjoy a second breakfast if you bike to work.

Cycling can help you sleep better and it can even make you smarter! Boosting blood flow to your gray cells.

Without google maps telling you where to go, you develop a better sense of direction. Better to map your own way.

And cycling can widen your social circles and expand your world: Beyond friends and family, in clubs you can meet fellow cyclists of all kinds and in races for good causes, you can find kindred spirits along the way.

Biking is kinder to Mother Nature and a boon for the environment. No fossil fuels. No greenhouse gases.

And economical too. A car costs about 55 cents a kilometer to operate. A bike, only about a tenth of that. A little more than a nickel a kilometer. With a bike you might not need a second car.

And affordable bike sharing – in economically challenged locations – can help to provide low cost transportation – to work, to the store, to school – for the less affluent who need it the most.

And cycling is good for the soul. Connecting the rider not just to creation but to the Creator. It can get us out of our comfort zones and off the couch and put us in touch with communities we have never dreamed of.

And isn’t that what church is supposed to be all about?

Every ride can be a hymn of praise: for life, for health, for the sheer joy of pedaling down the road.

And while you ride, you can say a prayer for everyone you pass along the way: other riders, pedestrians, motorists and truck drivers too. Pray for safety and the security of all with whom we share the road.

So, let’s end this little blog post with a Celtic blessing:

May the road rise up to meet you;

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face;

The rains fall soft upon your path;

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

And come join us June 24th, 10:00 AM at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Alexandria, Virginia.  Click here for all the details on The Blessing of the Bikes!

JoaniSign

 


by Leave a comment

Rebecca Has Two Mommies

Yes, this is a ripoff of the 1989 classic “Heather Has Two Mommies” — but in title only not in plot.

“Rebecca Has Two Mommies” is a maternal tale not of partnership but of parallel universes.

And it’s the story of a child – caught in between – who had no choice in the matter.

Many of my U&U followers have read the story of Rebecca’s return to my life, in one or more of these posts:

Scarlet Letter, No More,

A Room Full of Mothers,

The “Nua” Normal.

I have shouted this story from the rooftops every way I know how both here and in print and on the Story District stage.

For forty-five years out of fear, out of shame, I locked Rebecca away. I was seventeen years-old and kicked out of my Roman Catholic household, the Hester Prynne of my high school. My sin was so mortal, it was dangerous even to speak of it.

My father’s medical practice would be ruined. So Father Kelso, the parish priest (I believe), with a wink and a nod, assured my parents I could be sent to some discrete location. To spare them the scandal. Some Magdalen Laundry. Some home for unwed mothers.

That’s what happened to knocked-up pregnant teenage girls in 1972.

But William and I forged a different path – disowned and on our own.

The Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision was about to come down. But I never struggled with my choice. It was a no-brainer. It simply did not occur to me to “terminate” her or to vacuum her out through a tube. (While I totally understand and support the difficult choices that other women make.)

She was a life inside me. She made me throw up in the mornings. She kicked my insides. She gave me stretch marks. For nine months, occupying my every crevice, she was my most intimate companion. It was just the two of us in the delivery room the day that she was born. No other family members were there.

IMG_2901

A child, I gave birth to a child I was unable to keep. The social worker from Pierce Warwick collected her later that week. And handed her over to her older, more stable, more educated, more mature, the so much more ready adoptive mom and dad.

Two people for whom I will be forever grateful.

But before I could let her go, I had to fill out the form. Her birth certificate lay on my hospital tray table. My hand shaking, I filled in the blanks.

Baby Name: Elizabeth Catherine

Name of Mother: Joan Louise Peacock (Me, that’s me.)

Signature of Mother: J o a n________ (Me, that’s me.)

A sealed adoption, this form was locked up tight in a D.C. courthouse for 45 years. In fact, its locked there still.

And for a year and a half now, Rebecca and I have gotten to know one another. We’ve grown close. It’s really quite impossible to imagine my life without her.

I am not her parent. I am Joani. I am bio-mom. But after 18 months, bio has become a cumbersome distinction.

Rebecca says that people have fought for a long time to have two moms. So she reserves the right to call both the mother who raised her and the mother who gave her birth – simply mom.

Rebecca has taught me much about the realities of the adopted life. An adopted child is the only person in adoption who has no choice in the matter.

Adoptees live in an in between world. They are grateful for their adoptive parents and genuinely love the families they grow up in. Simultaneously, they yearn to know where they came from — not just for information but for connection. The hope of reunion. It’s a both/and aspiration.

But many adoptees grow up in an either/or world. DNA does not matter anymore. Only love does, so the adoptee is told. So whatever came before does not matter. In fact, it’s something you shouldn’t talk about or ask about. Because after all, we’re your real family.

And of course, they are. Of course, that is true.

But an adoptee’s life does not begin at adoption. It begins at birth.

Its not just a story of joy, but of grief and loss. Adoption is often born of trauma.

And the stories of the birth moms are written out of the story — whatever their story may be.

Rebecca’s birth certificate, her certificate of live birth has her adoptive mother’s name where mine used to be.

I was so startled. Already a thing of shame, I was erased, irrelevant, like a Handmaid to a Commander’s wife in the Margaret Atwood tale.

Made invisible.

I am one of untold numbers of silent 1970’s birth moms of the “Baby Scoop Era.”

Since I have told my Rebecca story in print, in the pulpit, on stage a swarm of people have come up to me to share their own. That’s my story too. I was adopted. I adopted a child. I adopted a baby from a teenage mother.

But not a single woman  has told me that they did what I did. Not a single one.

Because, I believe, even though it is 2018, the shame resonates still.

The birth mom is a sinner. The adoptive mom is a savior.

It is the ultimate and unforgivable sin for a woman to give up a child. You abandoned her, didn’t you?

And so people like me are written out of the story. And because of the shame, we keep writing ourselves out of the story, as well.

But not anymore. No longer hiding, I refuse to be invisible.

And  I want to help other birth mothers like me to come out, as well.

So I am determined to write this story — a truer story.

And guess what it’s called?

Rebecca Has Two Moms.

Of course.

(And stay tuned for a guest post from Rebecca!)

JoaniSign


by Leave a comment

Stretch Marks & the Gospel of Mark

Nothing stretches us as much as family. Stretch marks are real but they are not just for moms.  Family stretches us all: physically, emotionally, spiritually.

Families stretch in order to grow.

By birth, by adoption, or step by step, families blend, marry and merge.  My own family grew a bazillion percent over the last few years.  I now have two daughters and not just one. I now have three grandchildren by Rebecca. And my youngest son, Jacob parents his partner’s  little boys, giving me three more.  December, a year ago, I added a brother-in-law, when Joseph married John. And this past November, I gained a daughter-in-law – Jen — who married my son Zach on a boat on the Hudson River with the Statue of Liberty’s arm raised in blessing.

Stretching is not all good, of course. Stretching can lead to strain and stress. There has been a whole lot of kabuki theater drama associated within my own family as we have stretched to include all of the above. The Peacock family melodrama might make a good TV series someday – if we all manage to live through it. Relationships have been strained to the breaking point at times – but on the whole, we are bigger and better and more deeply connected than ever.

And we all have the stretch marks to show for it.

Jesus understands.

He has his own family mess on his hands. In fourteen heated verses in the Gospel of Mark, we hear why “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Accusations fly: “He has gone out of his mind. He is possessed by Beelzebul (which literally means Lord of the flies). And by the ruler of demons he casts out demons.”

 Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

 That’s a pretty chilling rejection. No one can fault his family for their concern. He’s acting strangely. He’s not eating enough. He doesn’t care where he sleeps. And he’s been talking a bunch of crazy stuff about the kingdom of God. And no one can really fault the religious authorities for wanting to keep things kosher, either.  Faith and family are the bedrock of society. Right?

One family stands outside. Another gathers around to listen at his feet. Jesus does not so much trash traditional family values as he stretches the meaning of family beyond its comfy cozy cultural boundaries.

A scholar writes:

It is an odd feature of Jesus’ ministry that he is open to everybody: Gentiles, the Jews, the poor, the demented, the sick, the working class, women, tax collectors, sexual outcastes.

 The only people who provoke Jesus’ intolerance are his family and the law-abiding scribes. The ones closest to him and the ones who are like him. It seems they are least able to make the leap [from traditional family values] to open-hearted love of God’s beloved and disfigured humanity.” (Wendy Farley, Feasting on the Word)

These are the ones who have the most trouble making the stretch.

DNA does indeed make a family but so do a lot of other things. It is often said that “We can’t choose our family.” But Mark’s gospel pretty much smashes that conceit.

We are gathered here as a church family – choosing to pray and praise and sing together.

We are gathered here as a larger family who chooses to reach out to a  family-larger-still beyond these walls – in service to our hungry neighbors, in service to the homeless, in service to the strangers in our midst.

We choose to stretch. Our faith and our creed – far more than any politics – demands that we stretch.

And we are also citizens, members of an American family – not defined by blood or birth.  America is born of our forbearers’ idea that we left behind the divisions of religion and race and nation – to a nation of laws: Where all men (and women) are created equal.

The Peacock clan have been native Washingtonians back to 1801 – when William Peacock was the sole member of the family counted in  the city census. But Peacocks came from England. Some from Wales. Some from Ireland. There are a few Vikings in the mix, as well. Some fled religious persecution. Some fled famine. Some just came looking for a better life for their kith and kin.

prismatic-love-human-family

How did your family get here? Did they arrive on a slave ship? Did they emigrate through Ellis Island? Did they flee the oppression of communism? Did they escape from the anti-Semitism of the Third Reich? Did they flee Castro’s Cuba? Were they refugees from any of our many wars abroad?

We are a country defined by our stretch marks.

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon hand glows world-wide welcome…”Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed  to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” (Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus)

 We are a people made stronger by our stretch marks.

And never has there been a more urgent time for us to recall who we are: as Americans and even more importantly, as a people of faith.

Families, refugees seeking asylum come here not on a whim or a lark or to take advantage of us. Most are fleeing conflict, war, famine, degradation and persecution. These are, for the most part, very vulnerable people, and the most vulnerable among them are their children.

Xenophobic fears that immigrants bring crime and disease are not born out by the facts. Immigrants – who take so many jobs Americans don’t want: cleaning our hotel rooms and landscaping our yards and picking our crops and babysitting our children: These people just want a better life for their own families and children.

Criminalizing crossing our borders, America has callously separated hundreds of vulnerable children from their asylum-seeking parents. It punishes and traumatizes the children – who have no choice in the matter – and who likely have lived through trauma to reach our shores. It puts these little ones at high risk for PTSD, depression and anxiety – not just temporarily – but risks long lasting effects on their healthy development.

And so,  what would our Jesus have to say about this? What would our Jesus do?   Well, Jesus welcomes little children. Jesus reaches out in love to the least of these. The stranger. The marginalized. The outcaste. The poor. The sick.

No exceptions. No exclusions.

People from all four corners of God’s globe. (Not just  Norway.) People of every color, creed and stripe.

When it comes to family – Jesus asks us to STRETCH far beyond our comfort zones, far beyond the narrow boundaries of blood and soil.

And how much stretching do we need to do? A whole lot, I believe both as peopleof faith and as a parish family. Prayerfully, lets dig deep to discern what might be done. On the big scale and on a little one, as well.

Possibly…

More of us can support the refugee families Emmanuel currently sponsors: two single moms with their two little boys from Afghanistan. We can join a care team. We can donate summer clothes or household goods. We can make a contribution to the Christ Church Refugee Fund that supports families across the City of Alexandria.

We can educate ourselves about the needs of immigrants and refugees. We can volunteer for ESL programs in the schools. We can advocate for access to community services for those most in need. We can call a congressman or senator.  We can write a letter to the powers that be.

With God’s help, we can STRETCH ourselves to stand up for family – not as we define it – but as Jesus does.

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that in your good time, all nations and races may gather in harmony around the table in your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

JoaniSign

 


by 5 Comments

The Sticky Sixth Commandment & “Sticks That Make Thunder”

Lent Three, Sunday service starts off in self-reflection. We sift through the commandments, all ten — one by one. Scripture may trip us up at number six:

Thou shall not commit murder.

Now, I am pretty sure that none of us, either in the pulpit or in the pews, have committed such a crime. But that does not mean, that our consciences are completely clean on this one.

We confess in community. Sins not just against God, but against neighbor, as well. And in the aftermath of the 8th school tragedy this year, as Christians, we need to do everything we can,  so, no parent ever has get that terrible phone call; so that every child knows that every adult is doing everything they can to keep them safe and sound.

While tribal politics may drive us to take sides, this, at its heart, is a faith conversation. Personal and difficult.

I am going to share my personal story, not that you may agree with me and not for me to tell you what to think. But I hope that by sharing mine, I can offer a little encouragement for you to share yours.  Maybe we can begin to respectfully connect – and talk about what we think we shouldn’t talk about in church.

So,

I am no Second Amendment Sister. I am a Million Mom Marcher from way back when. No toy guns were allowed at my house. Only water pistols and Super- Soakers. My kids were crack shots — gunning down dandelions and blowing away begonias in the backyard. No BB guns, not even cap guns crossed our threshold. At least until….

The dawn of Nintendo 64. One showed up under the tree on a Christmas morn with Zach’s name on it. I think Santa put it there. If Santa put it there, it was a really big deal. Mom and dad wrapped up books and board games. Santa gave you stuff that knocked your socks off.

So welcome Mario and Wario (his evil twin.) Welcome Kirby and Donkey Kong. Welcome Huey, Dewey, and Louie.  Lots of fun and games. Lots of jumping over walls, catching stars, and grabbing gold coins. Lots of keys and magic codes to climb from level to level. Zach played for hours on end while his little brother watched in wonder — hoping against hope to take control of that controller. Just two and half years old,  Jacob picked it up and has yet to put it down at the age of thirty.

Jacob mastered Mario. He crushed Kirby. He tackled Tetris. He whooped Wario. And “bang, bang, bang,” — arcade style — he bagged hundreds of ducks. The first “stick that made thunder” had made it into our house.

As Jacob matured so did the ratings on his video games. I never really censored the games he played but I would lean over the screen to see just how much blood and guts were on display. “Is that a peace and love game?” I would invariably ask him. “It’s just mummies, mom. It’s just zombies.” So, I bought him “Civilization”, peaceful and educational. “How’s that going, Jacob?” “Great, mom! Gandhi just conquered Genghis Khan!”

Jacob has grown up to be quite the indie gamer. He founded Gaming in Public. On a Kickstarter project , he raised $20,000 for a a game called “Super Dwarf Madness.” Inspired by Tolkein’s “The Hobbit” – “these dwarves are taking back their kingdom with GUNS.”

Well, it was not exactly about peace and love. But it was not all that far removed from Elmer Fudd and his blunderbuss or Yosemite Sam and his six-shooter. “Sticks that make thunder” cartoon style.

crayons sandy hook mural

Mural in remembrance of Sandy Hook

Yosemite Sam was “the roughest, toughest, fastest gun-slinger west of the Pecos!” but he couldn’t hit the side of a barn. And every Saturday morning, Bugs Bunny got away with nary a scratch. It was a kinder and gentler time. Remember Sheriff Andy Taylor? No gun. Remember Deputy Barney Fife? One gun and no bullets except the one in his pocket.

These were the only guns my dad would allow in our house: celluloid guns; cartoon guns; sitcom guns; maybe a water pistol or two; maybe even a cap gun. But never, ever the real thing.

My dad was pro-gun-control long before it was politically correct. You see, my Rockefeller Republican father was Chief of Surgery at Greater Southeast Community Hospital in DC. A general surgeon, he took out gall bladders, repaired hernias, removed tumors. He loved his work. But extracting bullets from young men, my dad told us, he hated having to do.  He said that he had lost way too many young men on his operating table. Tragic and traumatic, so young and full of life, never to go home again. Never.

NEVER have a gun in the home, my father taught us. NEVER. Guns in the home were anathema to him.  In the heat of passion, it was best to err on the side of safety.

This is a lesson learned that I have taken to heart.

In my 63 years, I had never ever even seen a real gun – much less handled one, until a few years ago, I visited the home of a sharpshooting friend. Law abiding in every way, she only shoots tin cans and paper tigers. Proud of her sport, she took out her collection and introduced me to her “sticks that make thunder”. She taught me the difference between a rifle, a shotgun, a pistol, and a revolver. Patiently she explained cartridges, caliber, clips, millimeters and magazines. And she drove home the importance of safeties – the tiny little lever that keeps a gun from firing.

This tiny little lever between this life and the life to come — is called a safety.

Now there is a stereotype that people like me are not safe. Mall shooters and campus snipers are indeed disturbed and deranged. Of that, there is no doubt. But bipolar-me is no more likely to gun you down than anyone else. Regardless, the media often diagnoses the dangerous, as a soul likely off their meds. But it’s simply not true or at least very rarely true. Self-harm, rather than harming others, is much more likely with folks like me.

I have never had a plan to do away with myself. But I do know what it’s like to not want to wake up anymore. Depression can eat you alive just as surely as cancer can.

“Do you feel safe?”, the nurse at Dominion asked me. “No”, I replied. So, she took away my shoelaces and my belt and my cell phone. Dangerous weapons, I guess. First light every morning and last thing every night, we had to answer the same question: “Do you feel safe? Rate yourself on a scale from zero to ten.” Zero and you can go home. Ten – or anything close to ten – and you get to stay a little longer. To stay your hand from doing yourself in. To stay your hand from doing what cannot be undone.

Especially, if at home, you had a gun. God forbid, if I did. Thank God, I did not.

God has nothing specific to say about guns, of course. And biblically confusing, Yahweh vacillates about wether we should be beating those plowshares into swords or those swords into plowshares. But Jesus – he’s pretty clear on the subject. Clearer than Ghandi. Clearer than Martin Luther King.

“I say to all who can hear me: Love your foes, help those who hate you, praise those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. The one who punches your cheek, offer the other cheek…Love your foes and treat them well….  Be just and lenient as your Father. Be not a judge…Be not an executioner. Pardon and you will be pardoned”  Luke 6 (trans. Garry Wills)

 This is not faithless passivity. This same Jesus, a very angry Jesus, turns over the Temple’s tables.  Not just a place of prayer, ‘the temple was the center of worship and music, the center of politics and society, a place of national celebration and mourning. It was the focal point of a nation and its way of life.” (N.T. Wright)

Angry for all the right reasons, Jesus threatens to tear the place down. Forty-six years it took to build, but Jesus says he will raise it again in just three days.

Not resurrected stones, but literally flesh and bone. Not a resurrected building but a resurrected life.

Since the start of this young year, we have prayed a prayer, that I cobbled together and crafted — from an article by the Jesuit James Martin.

Though my hope is that we never need pray it again, I repeat these words in the hope that God strengthen our resolve.  So that we may discern what stones not to leave unturned; to discern which tables need to be turned upside down – to preserve the lives of the most vulnerable among us.

Lord God, we ask you to embrace the souls of all the dead and to comfort and heal the wounded, to console family and friends in the face of such tragic loss; to strengthen the hands and hearts of first responders. In Christian charity, we pray for those who have taken innocent lives. We grieve, Lord God, as Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. We are weary, Lord God, of the blindness to this important issue; weary of those who say nothing can be done. Weary, as when an exhausted Jesus fell asleep in the boat after wrestling with the demons of his day. We are angry, God, angry at the corrupt powers of this world that prioritize profits over people: angry, as was Jesus, when he turned over the tables in the temple. Grant us the courage and strength to work for change to preserve and protect the life of all your children. Lord, turn our sadness into compassion, our weariness into advocacy, our paralysis into acts of love.

 Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

JoaniSign


by Leave a comment

“Reel” Time Revelation of Rebecca on the Story District Stage

For those of you loyal readers who have followed the tale of reunion with my firstborn daughter Rebecca – and for those of you tuning in for the first time — here is my December 2017 telling of it live on the Story District stage.

Eight minutes of riveting entertainment!

Joani Peacock in Story District’s Home for the Holidays!

Also published this year in Turning Points: Stories about Change and Choice. Scarlet Letter No More is on Page 37 of this excellent little anthology.

A great 10 minute read!

Stay tuned for new posts on U&U! God only knows what might be up next!


by 2 Comments

Fly Me to the Moon

I remember Ash Wednesdays at my old parochial school, Holy Family. In the smoky incense-soaked church, Father So-and-So would smear our foreheads with ash. The rest of the school day, I would try mightily to preserve that charcoal smudge – hoping my bangs did not brush it away.

I wanted to make certain that certain people would have a good view, important people like my parents, my friends’ parents, shopkeepers. I had a reputation to uphold! What a holy little kid you are! A little saint deserving of a holy card!

 Particularly I would make sure that my Grandma Cady and my Grandma Peacock would get a good glimpse before I scrubbed it off of my face.

But I was just a kid and what did I really know about Ash Wednesday? It was just a children’s game to me: a dark and wonderful game the priest devised for us to play.

Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posies. We all fall down.

 The first day of Lent – Christians sing a dark and sad song. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Ash Wednesday is a stark reminder that life is short and fleeting, precious and precarious.

This day reminds us that one day God will find us all in his morning paper – decked out on the obituary page.

Eight years old, thumbing through a family photo album, a yellowed newspaper clipping fell to my feet. Picking it up, it was a death-notice, the first I had ever read. It belonged to my Great-great-grandfather – Zachariah Hazel.

Zachariah had been a prominent Washington, D.C. businessman and architect the clipping effused. The story continued: Zachariah had helped to direct the completion of the Capitol building and the placement of the Freedom statue atop the dome.

Whoa! What? What? What?

Bursting with pride, I ran to my Grandma Peacock.

“Wow, I did not know we were descended from someone so famous!’

Grandma Peacock wasted no time bursting my little eight-year old bubble.

“No, Joani Baloney. Your Great-great-grandfather was nothing but a common laborer – and possibly a drunkard besides.”

 O well, apparently, he had written it himself.

Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.

fly_me_to_the_moon_wallpaper_by_lama_art-d39xeq4

Open up your favorite digital newspaper and click on the obituary section. Every sooty cross marked upon our foreheads is a reminder of those who have gone before us – loved ones, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, friends, lovers.

Bittersweet, I recall when just a few years ago, I strew my own mother’s stardust on the ground. While Frank Sinatra crooned “Fly Me to the Moon” on my Ipod, my siblings and I returned her to the elements from whence she came.

At Cedar Hill Cemetery, we scattered mom atop the graves of her loved ones: my dad, her parents, her in-laws, her best friend. To stardust and to her savior, my mom returned.

Death is the greatest of equalizers. Whether we get an inch in the paper or a full-page spread, before God we are all to a person one and the same.

“We are all made of stardust. It sounds like a line in a poem …but every element on earth was formed in the heart of a star.”  Exploding out of a supernova comes the stuff of which the planets are molded. Bursting out of a supernova is the stuff of which our bodies are made.

Divinely formed from spit and stardust — to stardust we shall return. Both biblically and cosmically, we traverse through this life with feet of clay.

As Lent looms, let’s take a little look in the mirror. Let’s get a little introspective, a little penitential. A little time to reflect, pray, and possibly compose our own obituary.

Not like the one my Great-great-great Grandfather Zachariah Hazel wrote for himself but a literally honest-to-God one. Get it all out there. Don’t skip over the nasty bits. Put it all in there, warts and all. Personal confession is sobering stuff indeed.

A cliché, yes, but it is truly true that confession is good for the soul. Because no matter how messy our obituaries, the truth of Christ crucified is greater still. God’s wounded hands hung the stars. God’s outstretched arms reach out in love.

God brings order to our earthly chaos and renewal to our earthly souls.

Yes, good God,

“You are immortal, the creator and maker of humankind; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth we shall return. For so did you ordain us when you created us, saying, ‘You are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ All of us go down to the dust, yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”

 Yes, good God, fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars.

JoaniSign

NOTE: Wednesday, February 14th, my parish is hosting two Ash Wednesday services: one at noon and the other 7:30 PM: Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 1608 Russell Road, Alexandria, VA 22301. All are welcome!