Sacrifice

March 16, 2013
Vayikra
Lev 4:27-29

There is the understanding that no one is without flaw or guilt, but here's the thing -- when you know what you have done, really know, you must make the sacrifice.

You place your hand firmly upon the head of whatever your sacrifice is, and you acknowledge the truth.

The slaughter, the true doing away with what has come before, how you/we have sinned, the ways we have gone astray, the ways we have moved far away, as far as we've ever been from the divine, we must lay that bare, blood pouring forth, fat and innards separated until the real meat of it is offered, smoked to an odor that is pleasing to that which is everything -- a vaporous, ethereal, reptilian brain-bridge of scent that crosses the divide of where we have gone, draws us back in, close to the place where we are pure and whole.

All transformation involves sacrifice. All addictions one day demand that we leave them behind or be lost to them; we all have them. Sometimes the hardest part of sacrifice and change is simply knowing where to begin.

The heart will tell you if you stop and listen, mist and vapor lift us up on wings of new freedom, ancient breezes and green leaves and old trees and new seasons.

The reason is always, "because we are holy" so we must give ourselves wholly to the task of unfolding back the giant, quilted past to reveal the intricate patchwork of our world -- our choices, our decisions, our chances, our mistakes, our fate.

We do what we can to draw closer, to move into scented air of divine bridging, of knowing truth, of knowing ourselves, of reaching for God, and we begin again, renewed.