Looking Ahead - By Looking Back

Being able to take stock of the previous year is an amazing gift. By looking at the events of the year that we have just navigated - albeit falteringly - our way thru, is an opportunity to breathe with acceptance of who we really are.
I have made progress on some aspects of my personality, and not done so well in others. I have been more honest about some things, and have cloaked some even further into the darkness. I have sinned and I have resisted sin. I have hurt, and healed. Both others and myself.

Sunday evening I will stand before the throne in all it's glory to be judged. I believe that I am ready, and that I have made - and am making - an honest accounting.

I will stand at Kol Nidre, and I will beat my chest with each recitation of the Al Chet , and I will listen to the words as I say them, and honestly accept my guilt.

I pray for strength, humility, an open soul, and a easy fast. May I be counted among those will be written, and sealed, in the Book of Life. May the final T'ki'ah G'dolah blast permeate the very corners of my soul, and grant me healing, and Life.

Impersonal space

I am frequently amazed how life, the Universe (or it's Master) is so clever in the way in which it makes it's point on us. You, deal with this. A booming voice from the heavens, heard in the silence of my head.

This year the High Holy Day services are being held in a place in which I never thought I would pray again. A Christian church. Presbyterian, to be exact. The building is tall and hollow. It was built in 1928 I believe, the same year as Wilshire Blvd. Temple, which is just down the street. The architecture is subdued, and Elizabethan-esque. The dark wood - of what has been transformed into a bimah - is welcoming and restful. Tall stained glass windows depicting christ, saints, and stories of jesus' life cast a gentle glow on our heads as we sit in the hard-seated pews. The tiles floor makes escape to the bathroom a noisy affair.

I haven't had any sort of conversation with life, the Universe (or it's Master) in the walls of a church for many many years. And never in Hebrew. It was not the easiest of things to do with any comfort. I took a great deal of effort to block out being in a Christian space. I battled with a great deal of conflicting impulses in the time I spent at Immanuel.

I went to check the place out on Friday, during the day, as to assess the space for my prayer needs. Being Presbyterian it is naturally devoid of excessive decoration in the way of images. No iconography, save the glass stories. Central however, above the altar, and carved wood choir stall, and the dark tongue-n-groove paneling; three tall windows. The center the friendly, blonde, blue-eyed, smiling 20-something christ. Flanking him two windows depicting worshiping angels with trumpet and cymbal - christ triumphant.

Yes, not the most delightful discovery.

But as we placed the traveling aron, the matching lecterns, the assorted microphonography, music stands, et al the space began to change and fold into it's Jewish self. Then we unwrapped the silver adornments; the rimmonim and breastplates, and lovingly dressed the seferi Torah. After we put the respectfully into the aron, we made ourselves available as general workers to set up the rest of the sanctuary.

This too, eased my spirit into the space, little by little. As did each display set up, and each design and aesthetic point noted. By the end there was a space that I felt I knew, and had a hand in constructing.

Erev went well. I felt a bit out of sorts, having worked hard setting up, and having little time to prepare myself, let alone talk to the boy. I secured seats, made greetings to friends, and was joined by the boy's Dad and his wife, as well as another friend who wanted a change of spiritual scene this year.

She is a great lady. We share a similar theology as far as the enjoyment of imagery, and emphasis on Holiness being by it's nature, Loving. We stood reading aloud together, and I reading the Hebrew for her, with voices that were serious about, and engaged in the business of prayer.

The rabbi pushed us hard to invest in Israel bonds. To the point where I seriously want us to do it with some of the house money. Even if the return is modest, I now think it to be one of the best way for Americans to help build Israel up after the war.

Rosh Ha'Shana morning was quite lovely. While the glass was fully "alight" and christ's eyes were, indeed, the most incredible blue I have ever seen, I was able to enter my Jewish prayer self.

Looking into christ's eyes, I realized the danger in images. They really serve only to meet human needs. The need to be in adoration of the human form, is as significant in image-utilizing religion as in any muscle magazine.

But I was able to move beyond it.

Yesterday, and today I blew the shofar. Nerves aside, it was an uplifting expensive (I'll write about it separately, I think).

Seeing for Myself.

I'm not sure what I have been doing, but I feel like I have been busy.

Work has been hectic - and I have had a couple of days that really called for drunken stupor - but I resisted.

I'm garden sitting for a neighbor. She is in India, so I get to water her lush little patio garden. It's been blissful - especially on week days when I have been able to have a quiet sit in the sun, and even get some yoga stretching done. The watering is incredibly soothing and relaxing. I take time to inspect and prune - plucking the yellow and drying leaves off the various plants.

The High Holy Days are approaching. From where I stand, I peer into the future and see myself getting some real healing out of them. Healing of the spirit is what I am in need of. My spirits have been a touch flat - but I am making the most of opportunities to regain footholds in the ever-slippery riverbank of wholeness. My clambering up out of the waters of despair, to the comfort and safety of the lush green grass of the meadow.

I will be Hagbah this Yom Kippur. A role that I believe can be transformative. Hagbah raises up the Sefer Torah after it has been read from. Hagbah raises the open scroll high above his head. The scroll is partially open - so that the members of the congregation, who have just sat and listened to the reading, can see the words for themselves.

I want to make the lifting of the sacred Torah into an act of re-connection and re-dedication to my spirituality. As I hold it aloft, before the congregation, I want to find a place of quiet, peace and wholeness. As I sit holding the scroll after it is dressed, the rimmonim jingling gently next to my ear, I want to hear the chime of forgiveness. As I pass the scroll to the Rabbi, as it is replaced in the Aron, may I find God, again. I want the folds of the talit which I will wrap around me, to caress my lowered head, and enfold me in their layers. Like the feathers on the wings of the Sh'chi'nah, herself.

Sukkot is coming. I am excited for it, too. I want to dote on the sukkah, and make it a wonderful place to be shabbat morning. To transport ourselves to the sweetly scented streets of Jerusalem. To the gracious rooftops of the old city. I want it to be spectacular. And I think it shall be.