Day 19
Courageously turn toward God, and Godness will overtake your heart.
Psalm 27:14
Look eagerly for God.
Don't Just Wake Up - DO Something
The Magician is all about turning our intentions into action. It is well and good to do the turning of teshuvah, but as the Rabbis say, the work is not complete until we have encountered a similar situation as the one we regret and have acted in accordance with our values.
In this framework, teshuvah itself is a complete process, the full turning. Attention, Intention, Action. But there is another schema in which there is a three-part process to softening the judgement of Yom Kippur.
Part one is the simple act of turning one’s attention, teshuvah. This is what we are doing this month, exploring our depths for those places that will need action.
Next is tefillah - prayer and contemplation. Through tefillah, we seek forgiveness and reconnection with ourselves, one another, and creation: with Gd.
The third step is tzedakah, works of justice and charity which reaffirm life, acts that express our spoken commitments with concrete action.
The result of this three-part process of atonement is not that a formerly angry God who was ready to punish now relents because we have changed our ways. Instead, these actions change the shape of the world, and the shape of our life.
The world we live in next year will be more beautiful, our lives richer and fuller. The more of us who do this work, the better the world to come. When we gather in our intentions and actions, we create a little piece of heaven together.
“
We spend much of our waking time overtaken by busyness, overwhelmed by the world roiling around us, pulled in all directions at once. Yet we are also capable of being focused, keenly alert and aware — present of mind and heart.
...
On days when nothing extraordinary seems to happen, we have a chance to be more awake to ordinary moments. Being present to the moment brings about a near-magical transformation, by which ordinary life becomes extraordinary.
”
Presence
A poem on tending in the midst of destruction
by Rev. Anna Blaedellast night, before bed, my lover
told me i've started grinding my teeth
while i sleep, and all night i
dreamt my teeth were falling
out of my head, and at 3-something a.m. i awoke with a start
afraid to open my mouth.
last week, when the ceiling started falling
at work, my first thought was: "seems about right."
everything is falling apart.
there's a new word for existential despair
caused by climate change: solastalgia.
everything is falling apart, too fast and too soon.
nayyirah waheed whispers into the whirlwind:
1. rub honey into the night's back.
2. make sure the moon is fed.
3. bathe the ocean.
4. warm sing the trees.
--tend
and who has time for these luxuries?
and who are we to think we can make it, without?
and today i will make giant pot after giant pot
of vegan soup to feed students through the coming weeks
of winter, because for now it still gets bone cold here.
and today i will take a walk under falling leaves
with my lover's hand tucked in mine
because the ceiling is falling
and the world is burning
and i awoke convinced that only a walk together outside
will save us from erasure.
and flint still doesn't have clean water.
and hundreds of children are still separated from their parents.
and a majority of white women still side with predatory misogyny and white supremacy.
and black people are still being executed by the state.
and trans people are still told we don't or shouldn't exist.
and clergy colleagues are still pretending that there's middle ground with bigotry and hatred, and hear this, revs: i don't need you to "listen to my story," i need you to resist, and share the risk, ok? value people over rules, justice over popularity, ok? because until you do the church you're trying to save isn't worth it, ok? and there are more urgent losses right now, and crises, ok? and the word ally is meaningless if you're not doing the work, ok?
and the only thing i know
is to tend to the small, the slow, the simple:
this head of garlic
this pungent ginger root
this pile of black beans
this butternut squash
tend tend tend tend tend
this afternoon's walk
this evening's work
tend
this life, so gorgeous and holy and horrible, and over all too soon
Where have you failed to take action this year, and in doing so allowed harm to come to someone (possibly you)?
Thinking back over the past 19 days of teshuvah, what has come to your attention that requires tefillah and tzedakah?
How will you ask for forgiveness, and what actions will you take to set things right or, if that is not possible, at least begin to rebalance the scales toward a better world for yourself and others?