Ampersand Gazette #79

Welcome to the Ampersand Gazette, a metaphysical take on some of the news of the day. If you know others like us, who want to create a world that includes and works for everyone, please feel free to share this newsletter. The sign-up is here. And now, on with the latest …  

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The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing

Like I Thought It Would Be

When faith finally tiptoed into my life it didn’t come through information or persuasion but, at least at first, through numinous experiences. These are the scattered moments of awe and wonder that wash over most of us unexpectedly from time to time.

For me, these experiences didn’t answer questions or settle anything; on the contrary, they opened up vaster mysteries. In 2013, I experienced an acceleration of those moments. This time they were illuminations—events that tell us about the meaning of life and change the way we see the world.

One morning in April, I was in a crowded subway car underneath 33rd Street and Eighth Avenue in New York (truly one of the ugliest spots on this good green earth). I looked around the car, and I had this shimmering awareness that all the people in it had souls. Seeing them as creatures with souls, as animals with a spark of the divine, helps me see people in all their majesty. Once you accept that there is a spiritual element in each person, it is a short leap to the idea that there is a spiritual element to the universe as a whole.

Happiness is what we experience as we celebrate the achievements of the self—winning a prize. Joy is what we feel when we are encompassed by a presence that transcends the self. We create happiness, but are seized by joy—in my case by the sensation that I had just been overwhelmed by a set of values of intoxicating spiritual beauty.

That contact with radical goodness, that glimpse into the hidden reality of things, didn’t give me new ideas; it made real an ancient truth that had lain unbidden at the depth of my consciousness. We are embraced by a moral order. I felt something clicking into place. We are all embraced within a moral universe that gives meaning to history and our lives.

You’ll have perceived that I was moving toward God in these years without directly encountering God. The most surprising thing I’ve learned is that “faith” is the wrong word for faith as I experience it. The word “faith” implies possession of something, whereas I experience faith as a yearning for something beautiful that I can sense but not fully grasp. For me faith is more about longing and thirsting than knowing and possessing.

Some days this longing for God feels like loneliness, separation from the thing desired. But mostly it feels like a venture toward something unbelievably worth wanting, some ultimate concern.

Just as being religious without being spiritual felt empty, being spiritual without religion doesn’t work for me. Religions enmesh your life in a sacred story. As Rabbi David Wolpe once wrote: “Spirituality is an emotion. Religion is an obligation. Spirituality soothes. Religion mobilizes. Spirituality is satisfied with itself. Religion is dissatisfied with the world.”

The Jewish concept of “co-creation” is stubbornly baked into my mind. It is our human will, energy and creativity, working within God’s, that matter. As Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik put it, a Jew “received the Torah from Sinai not as a simple recipient but as a creator of worlds, as a partner with the Almighty in the act of creation.”

Excerpted from an Essay by David Brooks in The New York Times
“The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be”
December 19, 2024 

I grew up with no faith. Oh, we went to church, but only so I could sing in the choir. Church had nothing to do with God or faith. I don’t ever remember hearing about either during a service, and we certainly did not talk about it at the dinner table. In fact, faith was one of the most taboo  subjects. 

Fast forward thirty years. My son died the day he was born. That’s the day I happened on real faith because that was the day I also got real rage, and there was only one energy I knew of that could handle it with me. God. And no, not the guy from the Sistine Chapel. The Blessed Mother got my case, but that’s a story for another essay. 

Perhaps that’s why I enjoy reading about other people’s faith journeys. They’re all, to a one, unique to that person. Each tale I’ve heard has a sense of awe and wonder at the core of it even if the other emotions that came along for the ride weren’t the prettiest ones. 

I believe that the purpose of a faith journey, any faith journey, even if it ends in atheism, is to develop an awareness of the moral order that David Brooks eventually perceives. To be clear, I’m not talking about personal ethics, although personal ethics arrive in one’s awareness via the moral order. I mean a cosmic moral order. 

I had a Bible teacher in seminary whose first sentence to us on the first day of class was, “The first law of the Universe is Order. It always has been, and it always will be.” What he meant, and we students discovered this over long, in-depth semesters’ worth of study, was that everything in life is part of an implicate order—even what appears to us like chaos. 

That’s the word I’ve heard most often out of the mouths of liberal pundits, and Democratic elected officials recently: chaos. That, due to the choice made by our collective electorate, we Americans are about to encounter chaos. With appropriate eye rolls, shoulder shudders, and oh, God, help us-es. 

I think that’s true about the chaos, but not for the reasons they cite. We’re entering chaos for good, solid, valid, necessary spiritual reasons. You know how the kids these days say, it’s all good? Well, it is. They’re not wrong.  

Often chaos—which is actually a code word, did you know?—precedes cosmos, its opposite, because … it has to. Yeah, let’s say that again: because it has to. Chaos is a code word for change, Belovèd. And, like it or not, change is the only constant here on lovely Earth. 

The OED credits Greek as the etymology of chaos. It comes from roots meaning vast chasm, or void. And what is the defining feature of a void or a vast chasm? The Unknown. Which is why we don’t like it. We’ve systematically trained ourselves that we are entitled to know and that if by chance we don’t, then we need to know sooner rather than later. 

Enter implicate order via the silent, well-oiled hinges of the side door. Moral order. The few of us who know we live in a moral order, and that we can draw upon it for our own personal ethos as well as ethics, are less scared than those who don’t know there is a moral order. Or that sometimes, the moral order itself orders up chaos so we’ll all change together. 

That’s what living in faith is all about. Foundering, even floundering about, waiting until our own internal experience of moral order sorts out our external chaotic experience into some sort of order we either recognize, or notice and decide to learn about.  

There’s no need to fear chaos, dear one. When it comes, and it will, gaze into its face and welcome it. The sooner we do, the sooner things will change. And to that I say a great big thankful Amen. Bring it. 

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What I Am Looking for in Empty Churches

Full churches are what I usually avoid. My favorite thing to do is find an empty church and sit. Since I’m a single mother of two, it’s not hard to see why I’d be looking for a little peace and quiet. But there’s more to it than that, and it’s not always easy to explain. I’m after a certain kind of silence.

I first discovered this kind of quiet some years back. The poet Philip Larkin wrote in his “Church Going” in 1954 that when he stepped inside a church, he did so with the hope of avoiding anything that might be “going on.” This became my goal as well. To find what is left after the services, the people, the Sunday clothes and the pageantry—something big and empty and acoustically live—as Larkin describes it, a “tense, musty, unignorable” silence.

In America these days, the front doors of churches are usually locked. But try the handle often enough, or go around to the side door, and you can find your way into various sorts of silences—these places collect something quiet that it is possible to witness, most especially when there is nothing particular to see.

Sometimes I’ll go to my own church, St. John the Divine in Upper Manhattan, one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the world, simply to find a good corner toward the back, the better to find a place to hide. But why have I been going to church to avoid people?

Alone in church I find air, a silence like nothing else. In that quiet spot off to the back, I don’t have to explain anything to anyone. I can take a moment to do nothing at all. It’s the purposelessness of this quiet, the putting to the side almost every other task I have to do, that lightens the tension.

A church is, after all, most concretely a building: and sitting there, with nothing to do and no one saying a word, something does happen to me. It’s not that the shape of the roof or light from a window brings clarity; but it reminds me that clarity and decisiveness exist. To me, at least, that’s worth the adventure of trying the door. 

Excerpted from an Essay by Mary Townsend in The New York Times
“What I Am Looking For In Empty Churches”
December 28, 2024 

Do you know the quiet Mary Townsend means? She sources hers in churches. I’ve been known to find mine in libraries. Or empty theatres. 

It feels to me like it’s a quiet that’s full of stories, not ones that need telling in order to sort them out, but ones that have been told and left behind. They’re stories of revolution, and evolution, and resolution. Architecture is an excellent holder of stories. 

For Ms. Townsend, being held by church architecture reminds her that clarity and decisiveness exist. For me, being held by a library reminds me that others have dedicated their lives to writing and succeeded in living fulfilled lives thereby. In theatres, I remember that all sorts of human experience, good or bad, has resolved itself, and will, in a perpetually ongoing way, continue to do so. 

I think these architectural enclosures bring a sense of safety to one’s experience. They’re places for public gathering, yes, but also places for private experience. Plaster and lath, or gilded lobbies, or wooden panelings hold the noise, the despair, the exuberance of previous experience which then encourages us who are held thereby to go within as all the others whose are the resolved stories have done. 

We live in a busy world, and we are even guiltier about busying ourselves. Sitting in a dark theatre, ghost light beaming bravely from the stage, brings the actor in anyone to the forefront. Oh, not to leap upon the stage to launch into the obedience speech, but to discern what action the quiet you recommends.  

Sitting in an empty theatre, even in a high school gymnasium, is a great place when you need to know how to act in a given situation. 

Sitting in the public reading room of a library, surrounded by other readers, each one there for their own reasons, is a wonderful place to discern the knowledge you need from within. 

The next time you’re missing information, go sit in a library. You don’t even have to read. Let the quiet around you seep into your third eye until you know. 

Same with a situation wherein you need to act on faith, or on what you believe, and you don’t know. Go sit in an empty church, or one not doing a service. You can pray, but you don’t have to. Just sit with the seekers. Seeking includes finding in our reality. Seek till you find, Belovèd. 

There are helpers all around us in this world. Angels, Ancestors, Guides, Avatars, Superheroines, any form you need. The best place to find them is in your own interior quiet, and if certain buildings are a help, go for it.  

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Here’s a universal affirmation. It works every time, for everyone, always and forever …  

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And in publishing news …  

The Mex In-Betweens are up and live on Amazon.  

The first one is in Mex’s mama’s voice, Amelia Jackson Stone. She tells the story of meeting and falling in love with Mex’s daddy, and how she got both her signature song and her daughter’s name in the same evening. 

Meanwhile, the research for Book Eleven, Shrew This!, is ready for the writing deities whenever they give me the Go. It’s a romp and a new take on Taming of the Shrew. 

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My review request this issue is … first, a great big thank you to those who left a review! And, if you love queer romance, would you please read Attending Physician—the permafree book that starts my Boots & Boas Romances? If you love it, would you leave a stellar review? I need ONE MORE review of four stars and above to do one of my special series promotions … please.  

Reviews really are the engine that powers the career of an indie author. 

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I’m at a full stop on Betrayed, Book Two of Prismatica. Although the research has been ongoing, and, as always, a delight, I’ve realized that I need to finish the edit of Book One, and make some world-creating decisions before I go forward. Tony is almost through his edit. I’ll get it back, and then it’s … slow down, think it through, dream, meditate, talk over lunch with my editor.  

I learned the hard way if I don’t, I’ll just have to make the time to do it over again, and I’ve made that mistake enough times to have (hopefully) learned the lesson for good. A boss of mine used to say, when I’d come to work nursing a sore throat, “If you don't make time for your wellness, you will be forced to make time for your illness.” Truth? If I hurry this process with Prismatica, I’ll have to go back and make both minute and mondo changes, and I don’t wanna. So I’m slowing down. 

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Who knows what I’ll write next? 

I do! The leap to Impending Decision, the fifth book of The Boots & Boas Romances, from Jacqueline Retrograde is not so far—both feature debutante stories, except a century apart. Details! So that’s one decided. Oddly—I wouldn’t have thought this—but Jaq Direct, the final book of The Subversive Lovelies, is also next because of the spate of recent articles on that American moral hysteric, smut-smasher Anthony Comstock.  

So the day has definitely come when I’ll be writing two books at one time. I merely await the Official Go from the Author Angels. I know it’s coming when I get the urge to purge … things, you know, clean out closets, refold what I’m keeping, inventory for giveaway. I’ve already done my dresser. Closets are done. 

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A big ta-da, first! So, so, so cool. Tony Amato, as you know my favorite editor, has a new substack. He’s writing about writing and he’s sharing some of his own fiction. Subscribe here. 

Tony Amato is my favorite editor for lots of reasons—I did marry the man, after all—but mostly it’s because, after editing my work for so many years, I know I can completely let go and trust that he’ll treat the latest book (and every book) with every bit of his careful and caring attention.  

Tony has a magical combination of talents that serves authors and their books in a way unlike any other editor I know, or know of. To have someone who will genuinely partner with you to work on your book is manna from heaven. In all seriousness, as Leah from Upending Tradition, Book Four of The Boots & Boas Romances would say, I know a guy.  

May I encourage you to reach out if you need book-husbanding? Now more than ever the whole world needs your creative input. Tony’s worked on fiction, micro-fiction, memoir, science fiction, metaphysical fiction, young adult fiction, poetry, workbooks, erotica, singles, series, audio scripts, and nonfiction in realms from business to the spiritual, and everything in between. Really, you name it, he’s done it. Like I said, if you need anything in your writing life, Tony Amato is the person. Find him here.  

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 “Notes on ‘Camp’” by Susan Sontag 

From the book description: Many things in the world have not been named; and many things, even if they have been named, have never been described. One of these is the sensibility—unmistakably modern, a variant of sophistication but hardly identical with it—that goes by the cult name of “Camp.”

So begins Susan Sontag’s seminal essay “Notes on ‘Camp.’ ” Originally published in 1964, Sontag’s notes set out to define something that even the most well-informed could describe only as “I know it when I see it.” [Sound familiar?] At once grounded in a sweeping history (Louis XIV was pure Camp) and entirely provisional, Camp delights in low and high culture alike. Tiffany lamps, the androgynous beauty of Greta Garbo, King Kong (1933), and Mozart all embody the Camp sensibility for Sontag—an almost ineffable blend of artifice, extravagance, playfulness, and a deadly seriousness.  

“Style is everything,” Sontag tells us, and as Time magazine points out, “ ‘Notes on “Camp” ’ launched a new way of thinking,” paving the way for a whole new style of cultural criticism, and describing what is, in many ways, the defining sensibility of our culture today. 

This is an essay that’s not an essay, which I found subversively delightful. It’s a list … of observations about what camp is and what camp is not, or maybe better said, what is camp and what is not. It’s trenchant, rich, ball-busting, sometimes hilarious, others serious, and when I realized it had been written in 1964 …  

Remember now, before HIV/AIDS, before Divine ever made a movie (she was 19 when Sontag wrote it,) before RuPaul, before Drag Race, before trans- or cis- were words in public discourse, before, before, before … just about everything we know today as queer, I was even more amazed. At 32 pages, it is well worth your reading time. 

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Are you waiting for a sign?
How about this one? 

I will tell you all about this image
in the next Gazette,
but in the meantime,
I would ask you to contemplate it
and what it might mean … 

if … these wings were yours?
What would you offer the world? 

I am, without doubt, certain that And is the secret to all we desire.
Let’s commit to practicing And ever more diligently, shall we?

Until next time,
Be Ampersand.  

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