The Rocks in my Jar

A few weeks ago, I quoted Rabbi Laura Geller, “...Elul is the deep breath needed to get clear about what rocks fill up my jar, and promise to put them in first.” 

The first rock in my jar is a big one: continue to write from my nearly naked heart with a clear honest voice.Through writing prayers, I think I’m becoming my best self. The second rock: do things that bring joy to others and to myself. There’s a huge rock for gratitude and another for creative processes, and a rock for taking care of my body and and another for time with my family and friends. That’s it. I love having these strong rocks serve as guidelines for what I might take on in the future.

Baruch ata adonai...the new year approaches and I am clear about my intentions for 5773. I am happy I've taken the time during Elul to examine the past year, to be grateful for all I have in my life, and understand what I want to do in the new year. Thank you for helping me find my true self and for guiding me beyond my limited thinking. Amen

This Little Speck of Mine, I'm Gonna Let It Shine

In it's 22nd year Curiosity, the Hubble Explorer, approaches landing on Mars, and I'm listening to Radiolab, one of my favorite podcasts, tell me all about it. As I walk along Hildreth Lane in Morada, in Stockton, in San Joaquin County, in California’s eleventh congressional district, in the United States, zip code 95212, in North America, I’m just a speck on a speck on a speck on a speck, and there’s more. I’m in the Western Hemisphere, Earth, Milky Way, a speck in the the known Universe, in the year 5773 on the Jewish calendar. 

Now patched and fixed numerous times, Curiosity isn’t all young shiny newness any longer, yet it still astounds and has far outpaced any expectations anyone had for it. Just like us, wandering along the known and unknown edges of our lives, expectations surpassed, the unknown ahead. 

Baruch ata adonai...I’m so small, just a speck on a speck on a speck on a speck, and still my little drop in the universe is important to maintaining the fabric of life emanating from a small house on a small street, in a small county in a small state in a small nation. Like Curiosity, may I too keep outpacing my own expectations. May I keep on being a light in the darkness. Amen

When We Sign It, It's Ours

We do art projects when we get together. This time the project idea only lasted ten seconds until I thought seven year old Annie asked me about another one. “No,” she said, “not another one. I want to see your projects.” I felt like Mary Tyler Moore winning an Oscar. “You want to see them. You really want to see them!” So I showed her the five paintings I’ve been working on this year, two of which are completed. She said she really liked one. A different palette, I thought. When I asked her why, she ran her hand over the top part. "I could do this." she said. Then, “Nana, you didn’t sign them. You have to sign them when you’re finished.” 

Baruch ata adonai... my granddaughter is right! I need to learn to own the art I create. Do I have the thought they aren’t good enough to sign? They're hanging in my home along with the signed art of others.  Before Rosh Hashanah, I will sign them. Until then I’ll figure out why I haven’t. You know why don’t you, and I think you’re waiting for me to own up to it. Amen

Willing or Not

"...One of the quickest ways to start shifting the stuck-ness is to open up a huge space of willingness around the situation you’ve become stuck in.”  --Dan Howard, IntentionalResting.com

While I’ve been thinking about all the things I’m grateful for and adding to my list daily, I know I’m putting off the inevitable next step. I need to take stock in another way. I need to examine the ways I’ve missed the mark, not been what I could be for myself and for others. Hard as that is, it’s the easy part. Forgiving myself and others is harder and it starts with a great stumbling block: willingness. Am I willing to change or do I just want things to be different? Am I willing to create a different outcome? Am I willing to give up my attachment to being right?

Baruch ata adonai help me to be willing to examine myself and the ways I interact with myself and others, and then help me to be willing to do more than want. Amen

Take a Chance: Throw open your doors and windows

“The writing life is a life lived with all the windows and doors opened....And rendering what one sees through those opened windows and doors in language is a way of bearing witness to the mystery of what it is to be alive in this world.” -Julia Alvarez

Yesterday I began my gratitude list and pondered how it happened I was willing to open my doors and windows in such a public way to the questions I am living. I’ve written prayers in journals for years, and I’ve shared how I started writing prayers in an attempt to bring me back to my center after being kicked off kilter. When I read The Help, I thought perhaps by writing my prayers like Aibileen did and putting them out in this format, I might be writing the prayers of others as well. 

I am so grateful to my friends who for years encouraged me to go public with my writing and to others who helped me set up this blog and to all of you who read my prayers and to those who write to share something that touched you. Thank you so very much. You have encouraged me to take chances I wouldn’t have done on my own. 

Baruch ata adonai when I was willing to share myself in a new way, when I trusted I had something to say, when I was willing to take a chance, I began to grow in a way unimaginable to me a year ago. I am very grateful to that part of me that is spreading wings. Amen

First Be Grateful

“Once we are grateful for what is, we can honestly evaluate whether we have helped creation attain perfection, or hindered it through our misdeeds.”

David Wolpe, Jewels of Elul 2007

The first of the Jewish high holidays is Rosh Hashanah, a time to appreciate and celebrate what we have. In the Jewish world, repentance begins with gratitude. Then we immediately begin to consider how we have sinned and symbolically cast those things away by naming them and tossing bread in the water to feed ducks and geese. I like to think by the time they snatch it up, the sin has flown off so they aren’t eating my yucky stuff. Yom Kippur, ten days later, is a day of repentance, a time to recognize how we’ve missed the mark, how we have hurt ourselves and others, and begin the work of repair. First be grateful and then on to spiritual scrubbing.

Today I’ll begin a list of the many blessings I am grateful for. I’ll read through the prayers I’ve written, go through my calendar. The big gratitudes like health and my family and friends will make the first ten easy to come up with. I’ll add another ten and more when I consider all the people and places and things that make my life so much better than it would be without them. Then are all the things I’m likely to forget, to consider my due, to take for granted. This is why I’ll be adding to my list right up to the last minute.

Baruch ata adonai, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed when I think of all I want to do. I’ve done so much explaining and so little praying. I’m going to sit here and breathe for awhile. Amen

How Often Have I Ended Before The End?

“A decision is nothing more than the creation of a picture that you decide to make stick.” 

Ginny Mancini from Jewels of Elul

This month of Elul I’m studying a few of the daunting High Holiday prayers that in past years have caught me unprepared and overwhelmed me. I’m guessing the liturgy of most religions has prayers designed to scare the crap out of you. The Jewish prayer book for the High Holidays sure does.

Un’taneh Tofef, a prayer of rhythmic almost hypnotic poetry sung to a haunting melody begins calmly enough, “And let us acknowledge the power of this day’s holiness...” and before long moves into the question of “Who will live and who will die,” and a litany of ways to do it: who by fire and who by water, and who by warfare, wildlife, hunger, thirst earthquake, plague, strangling, stoning and more. Then, not yet half way through the prayer comes the line, “Who at their end and who not at their end.” Often I stop hearing anything beyond this.

In the year that is soon to be over, 5772 on the Jewish calendar, in what ways have I come to end a friendship, a possibility, or a creative act, because I don’t know what more to do? How often have I made a decision that is nothing more than the creation of a picture I’ve decided to make stick? How often have I ended before the end? 

Baruch ata adonai please help me to stop killing off parts of myself through doubt, unease, fear or the unwillingness to work through difficult times. Help me to be courageous and willing to stay with and experience the challenges of life without ducking out at intermission. Thank you. Amen