Balaam/Balak
Numbers 22: 21-35
July 7, 2012
I missed it. Again. I saw, then I became blind. I hate that! It's so embarrassing to look back and see what I've done, knowing I wasn't paying attention, I wasn't awake, I wasn't doing what I knew I should do or even thought what I did was right, but I was wrong.
There were some indications, but made that other temptation into what I wanted. I saw what I wanted to see, put blinders on what I didn't want to see -- and now it's a big huge mess and I have to fix it.
I have to humble myself. Recognize that my hunger led me astray, led me to where I thought I could have it all but now I have this. Ugh. I hate having to be the fool again, back down the totem pole -- and I really didn't like the bottom of the totem pole.
My teacher, Natalie Goldberg, talks about "beginner's mind" -- the energy of letting go of the trappings of our egos, our position, our status, and entering into the now, the this-ness of now, without fear.
And it might mean taking a hit, and I personally hate it when I take a hit! But it shows us who we are, mistakes and all, when we course correct. When we move ourselves back into alignment with the flow of all that is, was, and will be, unfolding around us.
Then we, as a people, are blessed.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Warts and All
Numbers 16:1-7
Korah - Are We Each Holy?
6/23/12
Oh yud hey vav hey (I will be what I will be), who makes us both full to overflowing and broken open, broken-hearted, what is it to be holy amongst heartbreak and regret? Knowing we have done our part, walked our path as faithfully and fully as possible, knowing we have strayed and returned, knowing we have wronged and forgiven, been wronged and been forgiven, believed and not believed, but grown.
Here we stand on the precipice of the vision that carried us and carried you, our loving, eternal guide, through so many turns and twists, so many joys and sorrows. What are we to think? To feel in this moment of "no"? This moment of dreams denied, of hopes ungranted, of surefootedness taking us to the brink of salvation but not into it? Some of us were ready. The rest of us were not. Should we be ashamed?
Perhaps it is another lesson, another way of knowing that our past and present and our future, while all existing at once, do not get to be fully inhabited all at once. That we will live on in the way we have walked and talked and loved and godded ourselves by your hand, into those around us who will carry on the journey.
But God, why some of us and not others? It's not fair. It feels unfair. And to make this bitterness into sweet takes many tears, many words, even some blame tossed around to alleviate our disappointment. In our hearts we know we did all we could, and yet we still carried our fear and doubt. We see as we stop here that this leaving, this journey -- it was bigger than us. It will go on without us, and we are bereft, but we take comfort in our courage and our failings. You made us in your image, there is peace in that. We are chosen and not all chosen for the same tasks. There is peace in that too, once the sadness fades. But the doubts, the self-confidence, that takes time.
We thank you for the journey. The imperfectly perfect journey. We send our hopes and our children into the future, the Land of Milk and Honey. We hope they will know and honor the labor and sweetness, of work and guard and holy, of promise and redemption, of honoring your name that has led us, honored us, protected us and chosen us, and allowed us to reach this day.
Korah - Are We Each Holy?
6/23/12
Oh yud hey vav hey (I will be what I will be), who makes us both full to overflowing and broken open, broken-hearted, what is it to be holy amongst heartbreak and regret? Knowing we have done our part, walked our path as faithfully and fully as possible, knowing we have strayed and returned, knowing we have wronged and forgiven, been wronged and been forgiven, believed and not believed, but grown.
Here we stand on the precipice of the vision that carried us and carried you, our loving, eternal guide, through so many turns and twists, so many joys and sorrows. What are we to think? To feel in this moment of "no"? This moment of dreams denied, of hopes ungranted, of surefootedness taking us to the brink of salvation but not into it? Some of us were ready. The rest of us were not. Should we be ashamed?
Perhaps it is another lesson, another way of knowing that our past and present and our future, while all existing at once, do not get to be fully inhabited all at once. That we will live on in the way we have walked and talked and loved and godded ourselves by your hand, into those around us who will carry on the journey.
But God, why some of us and not others? It's not fair. It feels unfair. And to make this bitterness into sweet takes many tears, many words, even some blame tossed around to alleviate our disappointment. In our hearts we know we did all we could, and yet we still carried our fear and doubt. We see as we stop here that this leaving, this journey -- it was bigger than us. It will go on without us, and we are bereft, but we take comfort in our courage and our failings. You made us in your image, there is peace in that. We are chosen and not all chosen for the same tasks. There is peace in that too, once the sadness fades. But the doubts, the self-confidence, that takes time.
We thank you for the journey. The imperfectly perfect journey. We send our hopes and our children into the future, the Land of Milk and Honey. We hope they will know and honor the labor and sweetness, of work and guard and holy, of promise and redemption, of honoring your name that has led us, honored us, protected us and chosen us, and allowed us to reach this day.
I Am Your God
Poet Rabbi
Leviticus 19: 1-18(?)
5/5/12
We are sacred. In God's image.
It takes us time to grow into this state of being. Sometimes we have to leave things alone, let them gestate, grow small, then bigger, then bear fruit, then offer this bounty to God, to abundance, to the dreams we all carry. THEN, after all that patience and gratitude, only then do we eat the fruits of the seeds we planted long ago.
We have rules to follow. Specific do's and don'ts, consequences and rewards, sorrows and joys, harshness, bitterness, and sweetness as we grow together, but the edges blur as we grow and we leave them be, for at the edges of our being are the outliers who haven't found their place yet, the pieces of ourselves we haven't yet accepted, haven't yet integrated, the strangers in ourselves and in our midst. We offer them (and us) the edges of our abundance, amid our fears and nightmares, our faults and demons, and we offer them -- individually and communally -- the opportunity to eat and be full, find their moment of plenty, hopefully shine our light by just leaving these edges for them, hoping they/we will find peace to heal hunger, comfort to counter shame, hope to challenge the moments of doubt, right action to transform what has come before that was misaligned.
And we stand together as sacred, in God's image, a community serving God, following and learning and discovering the actions and words that lead to holiness and joy, not reaching for every single last drop, but sliding into wholeness, happiness and contented, generous peace.
Leviticus 19: 1-18(?)
5/5/12
We are sacred. In God's image.
It takes us time to grow into this state of being. Sometimes we have to leave things alone, let them gestate, grow small, then bigger, then bear fruit, then offer this bounty to God, to abundance, to the dreams we all carry. THEN, after all that patience and gratitude, only then do we eat the fruits of the seeds we planted long ago.
We have rules to follow. Specific do's and don'ts, consequences and rewards, sorrows and joys, harshness, bitterness, and sweetness as we grow together, but the edges blur as we grow and we leave them be, for at the edges of our being are the outliers who haven't found their place yet, the pieces of ourselves we haven't yet accepted, haven't yet integrated, the strangers in ourselves and in our midst. We offer them (and us) the edges of our abundance, amid our fears and nightmares, our faults and demons, and we offer them -- individually and communally -- the opportunity to eat and be full, find their moment of plenty, hopefully shine our light by just leaving these edges for them, hoping they/we will find peace to heal hunger, comfort to counter shame, hope to challenge the moments of doubt, right action to transform what has come before that was misaligned.
And we stand together as sacred, in God's image, a community serving God, following and learning and discovering the actions and words that lead to holiness and joy, not reaching for every single last drop, but sliding into wholeness, happiness and contented, generous peace.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Shabbat during Passover: what is possible
Poet Rabbi
Exodus 34:4-10
4/7/12
Ki tissa
Shabbat during Passover: what is possible
How do we heal our hurts of the past? Our wrongdoings? Our
overt and covert inconsideration of those we love? Our moments of rage and
disdain, or hurtful words and actions?
“God will visit the iniquity of parents upon children and
children’s children, upon the third and fourth generation.”
Ouch. That’s a big deal – what we do now reaches into a
future we will not see. We are affected by a past we do not know. So what do we
do?
Seriously. How my great-great grandparents were in the world
affects how I parent my children. I am touching the lives of my children’s
grandchildren – and here’s the thing: I am SO not perfect.
So I put perfect aside and I take comfort in two things. 1.
What I do, how I am, matters. 2. I can be an agent of change.
Agent of change, the past ripples, the present ripples, the
future is happening now (we just haven’t gotten there yet) and it ripples.
So how do we heal? How do we deal with our own iniquities
and those visited upon us?
Two ideas: 1. We pray. We acknowledge who we are, who we
have been, who we hope to become, and we ask for forgiveness in the fullness of
our knowing. Forgiveness of G-d, of our children, of our parents, of the
ancestors we don’t know and the future we will never see. But if we close our
eyes, let ourselves go a little, draw closer to G-d, we can feel them. Which
leads to #2…
2. It is never too late to love. To show it backwards and
forwards. This makes us agents of change, it makes us humble, it allows us to
be in the eternal company of all that is, was, and will be, the imperfect
past-present-future-God who is ever evolving as we change too; and we make a
commitment to awareness, to search the corners of our souls. Not with guilt and
heavy hearts alone, but with hope – that we will not go one step further
unaware, that we will not go one step further in the old way, the way of
hardened hearts, the way of slavery, the way of believing that we DO NOT
matter.
We matter. We heal with G-d and love and hard truth. We heal
by acknowledging our screw-ups, sometimes a lifetime of them, and working
inside to say NO MORE. I won’t keep doing that.
And then we ripple – past, present, future – into our freer
selves. Not perfect, not without relapse or complaint, but in knowing that LOVE
matters, that all is not lost, that if our iniquities ripple, so too must our
hope, our love and our awareness.
So go forth and know we all do it. But not one step further that way, it’s time for anything we can
do to serve that unseen past and future. This is how we heal. This is how we
see and know and serve God.
– Samantha Libby
Monday, April 2, 2012
Bring Ourselves Open (to make a place for God to dwell)
(end of Feb)
Everything in you that is beautiful, valuable, a gift, bring it to this community and offer it up, for this is how God will dwell within and amongst us.
Make space, face each other, face toward the center of the ring and look up, raise your voice in song, your actions, your deeds, infuse them with all that is beautiful and know that when we are overflowing AND when we are in dark times, the downswing of grief, depression, regret, shame, we can still face forward and make space for the in-dwelling of holiness.
We, together, as a people, as a community, must remember and search and see the gifts that dwell within all of us, and not place ourselves above or below each other, for our humanity, our piece of God, our sanctuary, cycles through us, individually and communally, we all lean forward to learn compassion and forgiveness, holiness and love, weakness and strength; we all face our own capacity for brokenness and beauty, for being less and more, for being down and out and then lifted up.
It cycles through us all and still, each day, each moment, still we must face the center and look up, look around, and bring our holy, beautiful, broken, strong, and healing lives forward; as individuals, as a community, as souls bringing their beauty and service forward, opening our hearts and our gifts, orienting all pieces of ourselves to the larger holiness we hold and share, the treasure of every single person offered to God.
Everything in you that is beautiful, valuable, a gift, bring it to this community and offer it up, for this is how God will dwell within and amongst us.
Make space, face each other, face toward the center of the ring and look up, raise your voice in song, your actions, your deeds, infuse them with all that is beautiful and know that when we are overflowing AND when we are in dark times, the downswing of grief, depression, regret, shame, we can still face forward and make space for the in-dwelling of holiness.
We, together, as a people, as a community, must remember and search and see the gifts that dwell within all of us, and not place ourselves above or below each other, for our humanity, our piece of God, our sanctuary, cycles through us, individually and communally, we all lean forward to learn compassion and forgiveness, holiness and love, weakness and strength; we all face our own capacity for brokenness and beauty, for being less and more, for being down and out and then lifted up.
It cycles through us all and still, each day, each moment, still we must face the center and look up, look around, and bring our holy, beautiful, broken, strong, and healing lives forward; as individuals, as a community, as souls bringing their beauty and service forward, opening our hearts and our gifts, orienting all pieces of ourselves to the larger holiness we hold and share, the treasure of every single person offered to God.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
With Gratitude
I want to thank everyone for your kind wishes at the death of my 20+ year old cat. Malik, king of cats, the Malachite kitty, lives on in my heart. He's been a living presence in my life and my dreams for half of my life. He will be missed.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Imagine
Bo: Exodus 10:1-3
The Hardening of Pharaoh's Heart
(written 1/28/12)
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one..." -- John Lennon
It's supposed to be hard.
Really. I'm sorry.
Sometimes it seems like we are going to make it through by the third plague, be able to let that last hurdle be the hardest -- not the one we know still lies ahead, just over there, the one we dread facing but know we must. That's when we truly turn to God, dream to God, call to God, pray to God, rely on God to help us over the fence or across the sea or into the great unknown that holds for us the fear of alone and unworthy; but also the promise of free and brave, holy and beautiful, complex and sweet and actually free.
Imagine.
We always try the easier way first. We're human. Slowly, we learn.
As we learn we believe, we doubt, we waver, we grow stronger, we dream.
Inside and out loud.
Sometimes we lament, "God, why so HARD? Why make slavery even MORE difficult to leave? Why do this to us?"
The answer? Today, for me, because freedom is layered and awkward, with phases and stages, and we MUST learn to keep going, brave or not, to imagine, to dream, to merge the dreamer and the do-er, bite back against fear, agony at our backs, we must remember what slavery does to the soul, the collective soul, the past and present and future soul, and we must remember our dreams, our light, our task.
To be a light, a nation of priests and priestesses, to lead through our fear, assert our knowing that there IS something more.
God moves us into action against all Pharaohs and we must find our way into the wholeness of the dream, and the real of freedom.
The Hardening of Pharaoh's Heart
(written 1/28/12)
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one..." -- John Lennon
It's supposed to be hard.
Really. I'm sorry.
Sometimes it seems like we are going to make it through by the third plague, be able to let that last hurdle be the hardest -- not the one we know still lies ahead, just over there, the one we dread facing but know we must. That's when we truly turn to God, dream to God, call to God, pray to God, rely on God to help us over the fence or across the sea or into the great unknown that holds for us the fear of alone and unworthy; but also the promise of free and brave, holy and beautiful, complex and sweet and actually free.
Imagine.
We always try the easier way first. We're human. Slowly, we learn.
As we learn we believe, we doubt, we waver, we grow stronger, we dream.
Inside and out loud.
Sometimes we lament, "God, why so HARD? Why make slavery even MORE difficult to leave? Why do this to us?"
The answer? Today, for me, because freedom is layered and awkward, with phases and stages, and we MUST learn to keep going, brave or not, to imagine, to dream, to merge the dreamer and the do-er, bite back against fear, agony at our backs, we must remember what slavery does to the soul, the collective soul, the past and present and future soul, and we must remember our dreams, our light, our task.
To be a light, a nation of priests and priestesses, to lead through our fear, assert our knowing that there IS something more.
God moves us into action against all Pharaohs and we must find our way into the wholeness of the dream, and the real of freedom.
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