Counting down to Rosh Hashanah, and I am getting excited! My whole self is poised with wonder and anticipation, musing about how to let go of anything that might interfere with tasting the full sweetness of the holiday.
I'm particularly enthralled with the sequence of the season–first we celebrate the new year; then we make amends and purify ourselves; then we celebrate the seasons of rain and harvest, and finally, we dance like love dervishes.
Are you ready to taste the sweetness?
Last night I went to an evening of Jewish sacred music with the "Kirtan Rabbi."
Kirtan is an Indian call and response chanting practice that is meditative, communal, at times contemplative and other times ecstatic. Call and response is fundamentally relational and reciprocal, and has a powerful undertow to its rhythm. It is a style or format that can be found in many different cultural and spiritual traditions, including African music as well as African-American gospel music, Sufi zikr, Jewish and others.
Reb Drew's music uses Hebrew prayers and texts, punctuated with meditation, breathing, and spiritual teaching. His ensemble also included a handful of musicians and singers whose instruments included drums, cello, shruti, a variety of guitars and a few other items. At last night's concert, some people sat quietly and meditatively in their seats, while others were up dancing, clapping and swaying.
This concert was particularly compelling because it took place on the evening of Selichot services, which take place every year on the last Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah.
Selichot means forgiveness or pardon, and traditional Selichot services include poetry and prayers that signify spiritual preparation for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which are literally are just days away.
There is a call and response aspect to forgiveness itself. What steps can you take toward asking for or receiving forgiveness in your own life?
Elul Day 24
I am reading an extraordinary book by Brene' Brown called The Gifts of Imperfection, and it's another one of those gems where I could underline nearly every sentence with an emphatic exclamation point in the margin.
Last night she was citing the wisdom of Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron:
"Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity." (p. 16)
I am reflecting on what it feels like to read this book and truly absorb these words in the context of Elul, this season of knowing our own darkness and tasting the sweetness of renewal. When I say truly absorb, I mean a fierce willingness to do my own inner work in a manner that allows me to digest and integrate such an exacting definition of compassion.
Next week I will bring some apples and honey to share with my faculty colleagues, who are teaching me new theological perspectives on these universal themes. Darkness, compassion, shared humanity, presence.
May it be Your will, Adonai, our All that Is, and the God of Ones who came before us, that You renew for us a good and sweet year.
Y'hee ratzon mil'fanekha, Adonai Elohaynu v'Elohey avoteynu v’imoteynu sh'tichadeish aleinu shanah tovah um'tukah.
Sweetness is just around the corner. Are you ready to receive it?
Elul Day 19
I am lucky to call many places home. There's where I'm from (where I grew up), and where I live now. Even my office is a kind of home for me, as well as the many places I call my spiritual homes. I have been thinking about the names of these many homes and the feelings they convey:
Refuge
Community
Sunset
Mercy
Wisdom of the heart
St. Francis
Brotherly love
Faith
Places we can make mistakes and still feel worthy, people who offer kindness and hospitality; love. May I have the willingness to receive it, and give it back with compassion and kindness.
The month of Elul is a time of spiritual housecleaning, looking inward with radical honesty and bringing those deeply held truths out of hiding. Home is a place we can do that.
"Our spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, expecting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination or prediction. This, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control.”
–Henri Nouwen, from Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and Spirit
Day 10 Elul
Just as I am wrestling with questions about time, and observing my multi-layered relationship to time during Elul, I have one of those startling wake-up moments. Literally.
4 AM–wide awake, words, thoughts, feelings and ideas pushing through the dirt like seedlings. I resisted at first…too early…should I wake up to scribble notes on the bedside notepad…
Once it became clear that I was not going to be able to get back to sleep, I made my way to the honey-colored cushy chair in my study and surrendered to the laptop. In that foggy, right-brain time of day, not completely awake but not really asleep, questions and images were flowing easily and freely. Places I had been stuck were opening up effortlessly.
Is there a special blessing for the gift of surrender?
What seedlings might be waiting to push through in your own creativity? Where might you water the soil to allow the dirt to yield new growth?
