tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42533494278237005462024-03-19T07:22:25.689-05:00Stumbling towards meaningI write, mostly to keep my head from exploding. It threatens to do that a lot.
My blog is the pixelated version of all the voices in my head. I tend to dive into what connects me to God, my community, my family and my doubt. I do a lot of searching, not as much finding. I’m good with that. I have learned, finally, to live comfortably in the gray. I
n the meantime, I wrestle with God, and my doubt and my joy.
If nothing else, I've learned to make a mean cup of coffee.Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.comBlogger464125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-84918531990530879102020-12-23T21:10:00.001-06:002020-12-24T15:26:58.992-06:00To the God of Grief and Grace<div style="text-align: left;">To the God of weariness </div><div style="text-align: left;">and pain,</div><div style="text-align: left;">who spoke</div><div style="text-align: left;">and sang</div><div style="text-align: left;">and breathed in spices</div><div style="text-align: left;">and the dust that you are</div><div style="text-align: left;">and to which you will return,</div><div style="text-align: left;">you, who spoke </div><div style="text-align: left;">and sang</div><div style="text-align: left;">and breathed </div><div style="text-align: left;">the name of God.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">To this glorious god, </div><div style="text-align: left;">of grief</div><div style="text-align: left;">and grace,</div><div style="text-align: left;">who spoke,</div><div style="text-align: left;">who broke,</div><div style="text-align: left;">who breathed a song -</div><div style="text-align: left;">we are song</div><div style="text-align: left;">and it is good.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Sing, and shout praise -</div><div style="text-align: left;">the world is fire!</div><div style="text-align: left;">The dust swirls,</div><div style="text-align: left;">we skitter and sway,</div><div style="text-align: left;">touching flame,</div><div style="text-align: left;">touching light.</div><div style="text-align: left;">We are light</div><div style="text-align: left;">and it is good - </div><div style="text-align: left;">God yes! It is</div><div style="text-align: left;">good.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">To this great God</div><div style="text-align: left;">of infinite rising,</div><div style="text-align: left;">I sing your praise</div><div style="text-align: left;">In light</div><div style="text-align: left;">In love</div><div style="text-align: left;">In grief</div><div style="text-align: left;">and pain</div><div style="text-align: left;">In glorious exaltation</div><div style="text-align: left;">I rise</div><div style="text-align: left;">and Your holy name is</div><div style="text-align: left;">great.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-10003032856889209402020-11-26T10:50:00.001-06:002020-11-26T10:51:43.657-06:00A Prayer of Gratitude<div style="text-align: left;">Three hots,<br />a cot, served<br />in the prison of <br />my hospital room.<br />My bed is alarmed,<br />guarding against an escape<br />from gravity.<br />A gravid situation -<br />Who would escape<br />the luxury of all this bounty?<br />Blessed beyond measure<br />aren't we,<br />with all that we need -<br />three hots,<br />a cot.<br />A heart of fire<br />and a table laden,<br />overflowing with bountiful goodness.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />I breathe in the name of God.<br />Breathe in the name of God,<br />the name of God -<br />God!<br />There is such grace<br /> in this giving,<br />a kindness unmeasured.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />So give thanks<br />and sing your praise<br />for all that we have,<br />for all we have not,<br />for all that will be given.<br />Sing praise,<br />and let us shout<br />Amen.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-11852733231546650952020-11-02T15:07:00.000-06:002020-11-02T15:07:37.249-06:00When a Giant Dies<span style="font-size: large;">It's hard -<br />
So very hard -<br />
when a giant dies.<br />
They tend to fall in<br />
fields of flowers -<br />
wild, riotous colors<br />
smelling of liquid night<br />
and electric sky.<br />
<br />
The birds know,<br />
and the wind.<br />
They pay tribute,<br />
not quite hushed but<br />
reverent still.<br />
The sun and moon<br />
dance together in a pale sly<br />
and a handful of stars<br />
catch in trees that<br />
have known heat and thirst<br />
yet are laden with green<br />
and leaves of<br />
heartbreak gold.<br />
The whole world<br />
is filled with glory.<br />
<br />
It is so very hard when giants die,<br />
hard to stand m their shadow,<br />
with the bones of earth<br />
and dust,<br />
but I have been witness<br />
to their majesty,<br />
and I have wept<br />
at the beauty<br />
and grace<br />
and the riot of color<br />
as the earth welcomed<br />
this giant home.<br />
<br />
<br />
For the Notorious #RBG<br />
<br />
<br /></span>
<br />
<br />Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-60931827596548730332020-10-22T13:06:00.001-05:002020-10-22T13:06:27.097-05:00After a While - a poem for Noah and his WifeAfter a while,<br />
after a few days of<br />
rolling and tipping and<br />
tripping over everything<br />
or nothing at all;<br />
After a while,<br />
you really couldn't hear the rain.<br />
<br />
And after a while,<br />
after endless days leached of color<br />
with the air itself heavy and liquid,<br />
Everything<br />
and nothing at all felt dry,<br />
After a while<br />
you really couldn't hear the cries<br />
Of the people we left behind.<br />
<br />
God commanded it -<br />
Leave them, He said,<br />
Leave them to die,<br />
While sweet water and steady<br />
rains wash over the world<br />
To cleanse my creation<br />
And make it whole.<br />
<br />
Oh, what glory,<br />
What majesty!<br />
God calls my husband righteous,<br />
Mostly. For now.<br />
He built this ship of cubits<br />
and pitch,<br />
and so we are saved,<br />
sheltered by this ark<br />
that trips and tips,<br />
A clumsy dancer on the waves.<br />
Leave, he said,<br />
leave it all -<br />
the pots and blankets and<br />
friends that you knew.<br />
I wonder if anything -<br />
anyone survived this damnable<br />
heavenly flood.<br />
<br />
And after a while, after days<br />
and days of roiling seas and<br />
rolling waves,<br />
you cannot hear the rain that God has sent,<br />
and you cannot hear the cries<br />
of all the people left behind,<br />
and you cannot touch<br />
the bow set against a<br />
suddenly gentle blueness -<br />
mere illusion, but beautiful<br />
nonetheless.<br />
<br />
And after a while, after all those days,<br />
you wonder if you ever really heard<br />
the voice of God at all.<br />
<br />Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-84981005937019571242020-09-17T11:37:00.000-05:002020-09-17T11:37:02.088-05:00A New Year's poem on the tenth anniversary of my brother's deathHappy new year!<br />
Shana tova,<br />
and sweetness,<br />
so much sweetness!<br />
And sincerest condolences.<br />
Sorry about your brother.<div>
His death came<br />
just as the shofar sounded,<br />
a blast to wake the heavens.<br />
Happy birthday world!<br />
A long note, sonorous.<br />
Sorrowful.<br />
Powerful.<br />
He opened his eyes<br />
and smiled, a last secret found<br />
finally. And he died,<br />
sweetly surrounded by love<br />
and those last strains of the shofar.<br />
So sorry, such grief.<br />
Shana tova u'metukah!<br />
A sweet and good year,<br />
and condolences.<br />
His memory will be a<br />
blessing this year.<br />
Every year.<br />
Happy new year.<br />
For a year of sweetness<br />
and goodness<br />
and sorrow<br />
and love.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-9806847079027296812020-09-14T15:19:00.001-05:002020-09-26T18:45:30.194-05:00This Day: a prayer for parashat nitzavim<span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">You feel like ghosts,<br />
all of you standing here<br />
under the mountain,<br />
trembling,<br />
shivering like the aspen<br />
</span><div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
in sunlight,<br />
beautiful and fragile.<br />
<br />
I could not block out the noise -<br />
God's thunder<br />
God's demand,<br />
but I heard the tender beat<br />
of each heart that passed</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
and stood </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
and trembled there,<br />
and I was calmed.<br />
<br />
Even with so many -<br />
the all of us from before<br />
and now<br />
and yet to be,<br />
God stood with us in that<br />
</span><div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
triumvirate of time.<br />
<br /></span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
We lift out eyes in praise.<br />
God likes praise,<br />
loves prayer and devotion,</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
and smoke mixed </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
with a little blood.</span></div>
<div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
There was none of that </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
on this day,</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
just ghosts </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
and awe,</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
mixed with a<br />
bit of fear.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
We are all here,</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
together on this day,</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
we ghosts of now</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
and then </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
and yet to be,</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
with God's voice</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
crashing down from the mountain.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
resonating up from the ground</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
this holy ground,</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
a Voice filled with blessings</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
and curses,</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
surrounding us with </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;">
the promise of love.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: 'Slabo 27px'; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-70445838145996088512020-09-07T15:22:00.001-05:002020-09-07T15:22:16.808-05:00Hope, enough<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I have a friend who is going through some big and scary stuff: life-altering, soul-changing, potentially transformative, and possibly transcendent stuff. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what will happen. I feel so alone,”</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>she said. Her pain was palpable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">God, I know that place-- that sticky, scary, prickly place. Crossroads? I wish it were as simple as that! That place isn't a fork in the road; it's a whole damned service for twelve, all jumbled and junk-drawer worthy, a snake pit of messy choice. It isn't <i>dark</i>. Dark implies the possibility of something not-dark. This is the total absence of light. It is a teetering precipice, the pain of the present licking at your feet, coiling upwards, while the fear of the unknown breathes hot and harsh on your skin and presses you down,</span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 13.35pt;">This place is </span><strong style="color: #333333; line-height: 13.35pt;"><i>alone</i></strong><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 13.35pt;">.</span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">My friend's words take me back to my early days in recovery. I spent hours in those meeting rooms, on beat-up couches, drinking horrible coffee, breathing in air that reeked of cigarette smoke and bleach and stale sweat. Hours upon hours of shiny happy people and their endless chatter, who had miraculously been plucked from the depths of their despair and given new life. New hope. And they passed it on to me. Headier than any wine, more intoxicating than any drink I’d ever guzzled. Hope. In the telling of their stories, I found hope.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">“I’ve been there,” </span></em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">they all said, in some iteration or other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">No fanfare, no drama. Just this quiet moment of intimate connection. They’d <em>all</em> been there— that same place where I had stood, rooted and lost and broken and alone. It may have looked different from the outside– some talked of boardrooms on Wall Street, others of a gutter in the slums– those exteriors were facades that hid our utter devastation from public view. How could I not find healing in these words? How could I not take hope? They sat pretty comfortably in their own skins, putting one foot in front of the other. Moving, acting, choosing, deciding. Feeling. Feeling <em>everything</em>. Not drinking. <em>Not drinking</em>. And they shared that all, with me, with each other, every day, endlessly, hour after hour. It got so I believed I could do all that too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">And after the hours and hours of bad coffee and stale smoke and endless, hopeful chatter, they left. And I went home. Alone. Home, to an empty apartment that echoed. Home, to sit and think and climb the walls, to feel the silence pound. While I didn’t crawl into a bottle, I climbed into my head, taking refuge in that nightmare landscape of my own creation, with this chorus singing hollowly, keeping me company: <em>In the end, I stand here alone. For all their laughter and sharing and connection, I come home alone. And who will be there to catch me when I fall, when I fail?<o:p></o:p></em></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<strong><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what will happen. I feel so alone.<o:p></o:p></span></i></strong></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">That</span></em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> place. <em>That</em> fear. That place that is absent of light. I know thåis place all too well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In the end, we are all of us alone. But here’s the miracle, that bit of grace within that singular moment of clarity: there are breadcrumbs. Strewn along that rocky, tortuous, treacherous path, with all its traps and quicksand and trails that go nowhere and the scary monsters who hide behind the poison-spitting trees, there are breadcrumbs. There are stories and connections and hope left for us by those who’ve gone before. And if we’re lucky— really, really lucky— there are hands to hold in the darkness, torches placed along the way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Yes, I take my leaps alone. Yes, even now, I can stand rooted in the muddy, messy Middle, unable to go back, afraid to move forward. But there is hope. Grace. Hands to hold, torches that shine. And should I fail, should I fall, I will be caught. God, or some Higher Power whose name I don’t yet know, will allow me rest and comfort until I’m ready to go it again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.35pt; margin: 0in;">
<em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I’m here</span></em><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">, I tell my friend. <em>Feel free to fly, to fall. To hope. I’ve been there my friend. I’ll be waiting for you, breadcrumbs in hand, and hope enough to share</em>.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "euphemia" , "sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-82139631393319824352020-08-28T15:37:00.000-05:002020-08-28T15:37:08.586-05:00Psalm for shabbatA psalm for Shabbat...<br />
<br />
Slow.<br />
slow and sweet, like<br />
honey.<br />
like light.<br />
like grace.<br />
Shabbat comes<br />
and my heart opens<br />
like light<br />
slow.<br />
and I<br />
breathe<br />
<br />
Shabbat shalom to all I love and hold dear. <3 p=""></3>Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-88722131119621913522020-08-09T20:54:00.000-05:002020-09-20T23:45:19.616-05:00Holy GroundIf I took off my shoes<br />
on this holy ground<br />
and walked the forever walk<br />
and crossed the forever sea,<br />
would it matter?<br />
<br />
What ground is not holy?<br />
What sea is not forever?<br />
What journey does not bring me<br />
closer to You?<br />
<br />
Is there anywhere where You are not?<br />
All the earth cries out Your name.<br />
It is holy, as holy as this earth,<br />
and forever as this sea.<br />
<br />
Forever as this bush,<br />
burning unconsumed,<br />
unnoticed until it is not.<br />
It is sweet forever fire.<br />
It holds Your name.<br />
It calls You close.<br />
<br />
There is no place where You are not,<br />
and every shoeless step<br />
is a benediction, a psalm<br />
to praise Your name.<br />
<br />Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-46583930685160784792020-07-29T19:51:00.000-05:002020-07-29T19:51:15.428-05:00The Hunting of My Son/The Haunting of my Soul<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I was at a rehearsal dinner for a wedding to take place the next afternoon. I left my phone in my purse, so I missed the news of the massacre that took place in Dallas. I woke up the next morning to the news that five police officers were killed by a man who opened fire at the end of a peaceful Black Lives Matter rally, specifically targeting white officers. It was surreal, staring at my Facebook feed, which continued to retell a tale of the violence and savagery that has become all too common, all too tied up into a knot of racism, privilege, poverty, guns, and anger. Facebook lit up, and I just couldn’t stop reading.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One post caught my eye. Someone had reposted a letter written by a black man, a dermatologist with two sons.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">What I read made me weep: Yes, because this man, some stranger, spoke sparely and matter-of-factly about his ancestors. They were brought here in chains, he said. They were lynched and abused and fought for this—their—country which denied their rights. He switched then, from past tense to present—they <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">are </em>targeted, <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">are</em> harassed, and<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> are told</em> that they bring all this on themselves because they don’t act like the rest of society. And then he said that he is tired of defending his humanity.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And if that didn’t break my heart enough, he continued in that same spare and quiet voice: He is tired of having to look into the eyes of his children—little boys who play Pokémon and soccer and live exuberantly, joyfully—feeling that he has to quash all that joy because they are black, and black men are feared in this country.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He ended with this: ”My boys will be hunted. Will yours?”</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course I wept. How could anyone <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">not</em>?</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But there’s this other thing, this thing I’ve been keeping locked away, because, maybe, to speak it would give it power, make it real. But suddenly, I was stripped bare, and I knew The Truth: My son is black.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m not stupid. I <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">know</em> he’s black. Of <i>course</i> he’s black! But every time someone would mention it, I would nod and smile and add, “Of course, he’s white, too.” I lied to myself, as if this were a magic shield that would protect him from the realities of being a black man in America.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Some man, grief-stricken and tired-to-the-bone, asked if my child will be hunted, and for the first time, all those lies that I had allowed myself to believe, that I so diligently protected and nurtured, shriveled into dust. I realized that my black son can never be protected by my whiteness, that the mere thought that he could be is evidence of my own privilege.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Will my son be hunted?</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I remember the trill of frustration I felt when my former husband carried what I thought was a chip on his shoulder. <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Yes, yes, yes</em>, <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I know it</em><em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">’s been bad, and there are still some racist people who don</em><em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">’t get it, </em>I wanted to say, <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">but it</em><em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">’s different now, don</em><em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">’t you see? </em>He told me I was naïve. I was afraid he’d pass the chip onto our son.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">My world worked on the laws of cause and effect; it was your actions that determined consequences, and while that pristine law had, at times, been clouded by economics, religion, or color, those clouds were lifting, just about gone. The fact that the entire block—inhabited by white families—stood on their lawns and porches and stoops, watching silently as he and his mom and step-father and sister moved in, the first black family in the neighborhood, should have no bearing on the world he moved into <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">now, </em>30 or 40 years later. I was sure of it.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">How could I not see that my ex-husband’s world was governed less by cause and effect, and more by color? His skin, in this white world, was the cause, and the effects were harsh and hateful. He was lucky—the consequences of his blackness were merely a few traffic violations for driving while black, or being overlooked “accidentally” at restaurants and in a handful of job interviews. No prison, a fate for one in three black men—just a sentence of invisibility and marginalization.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And how could I not see that these same problems were now settling so heavily onto our son’s shoulders? My son—my black and Jewish son. What he never told me, until we lived far away from his old grade school, was that he was regularly bullied all through elementary school. Because his golden skin was a little too brown, and his Judaism was a little too Christ-killy for all the lily-white kids who filled those pristine halls.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">How could I not see—refuse to see—that my well-meaning heart and my so unconsciously invisible-to-me white privilege could not ever shield my beautiful, loving, kind, smart black son from the consequence of the color of his skin?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Will my son be hunted? He already has been.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Let us work to build a world where he - where anyone - will never be hunted ever again. We must work to build this world - our humanity demands it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Originally posted by kveller.com in July, 2016</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">https://www.kveller.com/finally-realizing-my-black-son-cant-be-protected-by-my-whiteness/<a href="https://www.kveller.com/finally-realizing-my-black-son-cant-be-protected-by-my-whiteness/">story</a></span></div>
Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-3259353370686520612020-07-22T19:44:00.000-05:002020-07-22T19:44:26.976-05:00An Eternity of Summer<div style="text-align: justify;">
I could swear that it was still light not too long after dinner. And a week or two before that, the sun still blazed right around that same time. The sky was not fringed in purple and rose-gold; rather, the coming night only slowly leached the sky of color, turning the pale blue into pearl grey and white. Now it's a study in blue and black, with just the barest hint of scarlet at the very edge of the west.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It's amazing to me how much I measure the turning of the year by the stream of light. The year, of course, begins to die at the height of summer. Leave it to me to find a nugget of doom even amid the hazy, lazy, hot and humid ease of summer.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As a kid, summer was endless. It stretched before us like a river, wide and deep, glinting in sunlight, pockets of green shade and never-silent, a burbling chatter that fills up all the empty space. We wheeled and floated through time, all sticky with sweat and watermelon juice and neighborhood grit. It was glorious and forever. Friendships grew thick and fast as weeds, a promise of permanence to outlast the heat of summer, to withstand the coming of crisp air and shortened days.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Summer was long days of heat that built slowly and inexorably, until it felt as if your lungs would spontaneously combust. Summer was fireworks and fireflies, a cacophony of light and sound. It was crickets and grasshoppers and tar that stuck to your shoes, gooey strands of black that formed a tenuous bridge between the road and the soles of your shoes. It was the gathering heaviness of ozone just before a thunderstorm, when the air is alive with static and wind and the heavens open with a <i>whoosh </i>and a rush of rain, when the temperature drops in an instant, from stifling to a delicious cool.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And we were invincible then, in those eternal days of summer: invincible, untouchable. Immortal. We were lords of summer, lords of earth and air, of backyards and hidden creeks and fields of weeds and cracked concrete. Time was measured in light and sound in those days: Out of the house when the sky was still pale and liquid blue, and the dew bent the grass and caught the sun in rainbow crystals, returning only when we heard the clarion call of some mom or sibling calling us in for dinner. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And as soon as we had inhaled that meal--- of meat and potatoes, certainly, and salad was iceberg lettuce with tomatoes and cucumbers and home-made Thousand Island dressing--- red-fringed pink stuff made from ketchup and Miracle Whip--- never mayo, thank you very much--- after dinner was Kick the Can or Hounds and Hares or Elimination Frisbee, some game that brought the entire cadre of neighborhood kids together in a burst of competition and speed, and we would run and hide and throw and sweat and yell until it was too dark to see, until the crickets and mosquitoes and frogs and kids created a symphony of noise, and someone-- some mom, some dad, someone left behind the glory of summer, would call us in that one final time. And we came: reluctant, dragging, tired and spent, begging for just a few more minutes, a little bit longer, a little more time, <i>pleasepleaseplease</i>, just five minutes more, <i>pleeeeease</i>! We never did get a reprieve. We never got that extra five minutes. But we never stopped asking either. Every night was the first night, the first time, and possibilities were endless and hope tangible.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Even so, even in that summery land of forever, days end, night comes. Like a thief, darkness steals the light in unnoticeable snatches, and a curtain of silvery moonlight fills the sky where once the sun king reigned. We drive home in darkness. In the morning, dew laden fields become mist-shrouded, God’s breath lightly blanketing the dry gold reeds that turn slowly to deep russet and then dull brown. And suddenly, where once we leapt from sleep-tangled sheets to escape into the summer sun, we hunker down under blankets to steal five more minutes of sleep, of warmth, before school, before work, before growing up.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
When did summer become finite? When did night linger in my window just long enough for me to wake in darkness? When did driving with headlights ablaze take precedence over running madly and with stealth, under cover of darkness, to free my captive teammates from their prison in some neighborhood garage? What day, what time, what moment? I remember that hope of five minutes more, that mental stretch to claim eternity, that I-almost-have-it, I-can-almost-touch-it thing. I remember it lasting forever, but I cannot pinpoint when it was gone, and I wait impatiently for December 22, for when the light begins to linger a little longer, arrive a little sooner every day.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
In the meantime, I pull the blankets over my head while my windows frame a purple sky, claiming my five minutes more before turning on a light.</div>
</div>
Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-26854861518419681472020-06-01T19:11:00.001-05:002020-06-01T21:28:12.937-05:00Elegy: for George FloydMama, oh mama,<br />
The sun is too bright.<br />
This knee on my neck<br />
carries the weight of<br />
centuries and stone.<br />
Oh mama, I can't breathe!<br />
<br />
The street smells like heat<br />
and the sweat of ages<br />
upon ages of silence,<br />
my face pressed like a wildflower<br />
into its creases and grime.<br />
My blood runs, and mama,<br />
I can't breathe!<br />
<br />
Mama, oh mama,<br />
what can I do?<br />
I'm dying amidst brotherhood blue,<br />
while the spring breeze<br />
brings a hint of glory<br />
that I know is meant<br />
for skin more fair<br />
and pockets more full.<br />
<br />
Mama, oh mama!<br />
I can't breathe.<br />
The weight of the centuries<br />
is crushing.<br />
A single knee<br />
and I am done.Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-68235112540159457032020-03-13T12:30:00.000-05:002020-03-13T12:30:46.153-05:00That We All May Rise - a prayer for these daysGod of hidden things -<br />
unseen art,<br />
unheard notes,<br />
unfelt touch.<br />
God of fear and hope<br />
and weary, worried hearts,<br />
hear my questions and cries.<br />
<br />
The world is heavy now,<br />
and the light arcs<br />
through a glass so darkly.<br />
My soul wanders,<br />
weighted and alone.<br />
Lift me!<br />
Help me rise<br />
and see,<br />
help me rise<br />
And hear,<br />
help me rise<br />
And feel,<br />
so that hope conquers fear,<br />
so that my weary, worried heart opens and pours forth love<br />
like water,<br />
like wine.<br />
<br />
Comfort me,<br />
that I may comfort those<br />
who suffer and sigh.<br />
See me,<br />
that my eyes are open<br />
to the world around me.<br />
Lift me,<br />
that we all may rise.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-53885697508977906702020-03-02T20:59:00.000-06:002020-03-03T12:30:28.288-06:00For Mordecai, who was not absentGod is absent.<br />
This is an impossibility,<br />
but the air feels empty,<br />
so that our cries slip through,<br />
uncaught, unheard,<br />
leaving only a whispered echo<br />
of death. God is absent,<br />
leaving only me<br />
to remember to bow and bend<br />
only to an invisible God,<br />
to an impossibly absent God<br />
Who waits to hear our prayers.<br />
<br />
And I offer my devotion<br />
as if I were sure the God of echoes and air<br />
took notice of our blessings,<br />
took notice of our pain.<br />
And I will bend and bow<br />
and offer this child,<br />
a star of blinding beauty,<br />
who will bend and bow<br />
and offer herself to the king.<br />
God is absent,<br />
leaving only her.<br />
<br />
And after the bending and the bowing,<br />
into the whispering echoes<br />
of absence and air,<br />
we rise, our cries at last<br />
captured, caught,<br />
to rise above the silent edges,<br />
while the world hangs motionless.<br />
<br />
There is eternity in that ascending moment,<br />
and God.Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-76056751431613617182020-02-24T22:10:00.000-06:002020-02-24T22:10:38.575-06:00I Can't Even (not even a little)I've been writing this post in my head for a while now. Writing and rewriting and fixing and changing. All in my head. Well, of course in my head, given the one-armedness that I have going these days. Writing on a screen, or worse, on paper, is near impossible. Yay me.<br />
<br />
Of course, writing this anywhere - paper, screen, head - fills me with a hell of a lot of fear. Ok, truth be told, fills me with terror. Not big or brave with asking, but I am way more than fraying around the edges. Here's the deal: you know that phrase "I can't even?" That's me. I can't. I just can't. Not anymore, and probably not really ever again.<br />
<br />
I have loved seeing your thoughts and prayers and hearts and love flood across my FB wall. I have appreciated your cheers for my positivity and strength. I have.<br />
<br />
I have to say though, I am fucking exhausted by all this resiliency you seen to think I have. As I said, I can't even.<br />
<br />
I spend my days sitting in a chair. I remember when I used to be able to walk. Hell, I remember being able to stand. I'm in a wheelchair now. A scooter because of the abounding kindness of a dear friend. Makes it so I can get around some, thank God. The carpet, and there too narrow doorways make it more than a little challenging, even in the scooter. Even so, there is danger in going from chair to chair. Trust me.<br />
<br />
I get up, I pass out. I get up, I collapse into a dazed, mostly not conscious puddle, usually in the hardest, narrowest, most dangerous part of my condo. I have the blood, bruises and breaks to prove it.<br />
<br />
I currently have a broken foot (4th and 5th metatarsals to be exact). It's been broken coming on 2 years now. I'm big on breaking bones, not so much on healing. Yay for 3 years of high doses of prednisone. I have a broken finger since last September. My newest is a broken elbow. This one required an ambulance ride to the hospital and surgery. I now have a plate and a couple of screws.<br />
<br />
Yay paramedics. They know my address by heart now I think. I fall and pass out a little too often for passing acquaintancy. I was hospitalized 11 times last year. I think I was in the hospital more than not in 2019 if you also include the ER visits. I've already got 2 ER visits and a 2 week stay for 2020. Yay me.<br />
<br />
So here's the deal. Self pity aside, and my apologies, please; I've reached my breaking point this past week, truly. I spend my days sitting in a chair, and I've now added crying somewhat randomly to my repertoire. I can't even, not anymore.<br />
<br />
Here's the deal: I love your thoughts and prayers and all. The scariest thing though - scarier than my continuing deterioration, scarier than the fact that my docs have all kindly and lovingly washed their hands of my illnesses and treatment as they have tried every medication or there and nothing has worked and while I may not be dying I will not improve, scarier than all the hospitals and the two heart attacks I've had in 6 months -<br />
<br />
Scarier than all of that, and so much more that I can't even dare to name it, is this: getting this vulnerable, this honest this raw is asking for help, is admitting I need.<br />
<br />
I need. And I'm sorry, but I need something so much more that hearts and prayers. Know what I need? A meal. I can't get around my own kitchen let alone cook anymore. I can't open a fucking can of soup on me own. The last chore I could do, washing my dishes? I can't anymore.<br />
<br />
Can you help me organize my closet? I can't manage to be able to stand long enough to hang my clothes, or unfamiliar them even. And I need help with my desk and the bookshelves. I am not a paperless society and the pile of mail grows exponentially.<br />
<br />
Can you sweep my kitchen floor or vacuum my living room? Brush my hair? How about help me figure it how to wash it? Can you fold my laundry? How about run an errand, pick something up at the grocery store? Nothing extravagant, but sometimes I run it of cream or have a jones for some chocolate cookies.<br />
<br />
Can you come and keep me company? Doesn't have to be an all day affair - hang out for a bit, we can drink a cup of coffee, watch some TV, talk, sit in companionable silence. Whatever. It's just I spend my days sitting in my chair, and mostly alone. I'm onely. I mostly don't know how to ask for help. Or, I don't ask for help, don't allow myself to get that vulnerable. Sometimes I'd rather die than do that. That's not as funny as I'd like to believe it to be anymore.<br />
<br />
So here I sit, sad and lonely and in what feels like desperate need. I used to write about being spiritually broken. Turns out I wasn't, I don't think. And just when I'm finally willing to say I'm not broken on the spiritual plane, I just may be broken beyond repair in a physical sense.<br />
<br />
Yay me.<br />
<br />
Sorry for the length. Sorry for the sadness and self pity. Sorry for the need. I'm not looking for you to fix me or cure me, honestly. I'm trying to stop pretending that I'm ok, or will be soon. I'm trying to show up honestly. Whatever strength I may have had is long gone. What's left is haunted emptiness. I just can't even. I just can't.<br />
<br />
Thanks for reading this far (or as far as you have). Hope I didn't offend, tho maybe I've disturbed you enough to think a little bit about just what bikur cholim (visiting the sick) really is so that you show up just a little bit differently the next time a friend gets sick and is in need. (Sorry: at least my lecture was short). I promise to try not to shudder if you answer, if you give advice. It will not be easy (another promise).<br />
<br />
Life is not easy these days I have bottomed out on trying to hold it all together, or even hold any of it at all. I give. Thanks for listening...Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-52852225036380798922020-01-02T16:01:00.000-06:002020-01-02T16:10:09.740-06:00Approach - a poem for parashat VayigashThis is God's doing:<br />
I knew it all along:<br />
Divine intervention on a biblical scale -<br />
someone should contact DeMille,<br />
te absolvo to the rest of you;<br />
<br />
You clearly had no part<br />
in the glory-bound trainwreck<br />
that was the beginning<br />
of this merry-go-round life,<br />
all murderous contempt aside.<br />
You have no power here,<br />
nor your little dog<br />
or your sparkly red shoes.<br />
<br />
Clearly it was God all along<br />
<br />
So you may approach, knees bent,<br />
tail between your legs,<br />
and make as your offering gift<br />
the blood - spattered remnants of cloth of gold<br />
and red and orange and purple and black -<br />
You get the picture -<br />
I get the glory.<br />
<br />
Blessed is God,<br />
and deserving of blessing.<br />
Amen<br />
<br />
<br />Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-76721806532933627082019-12-28T18:59:00.001-06:002019-12-28T18:59:04.296-06:00Seventh Night of Chanukah: Tell<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A few years ago, I took part in a Passover writing exercise, offered by my friend, the Rabbi (who is also a writer, and a damned good one): write a short something-or-other, based upon a given prompt, every day for the 15 days of Nisan that lead to the first seder of Passover. I tried, I really did, I tried to write something every day. A noble attempt, but it didn’t happen. Even so, I managed to kick something out for one prompt: Tell. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course, the first thing I thought about, given that Passover prompt, was Bye, Bye Birdie, replete with Hugo, Kim, and Ed Sullivan. Immediately after that brain-grinding shiver, though, I could think of nothing other than Chanukah. I just couldn’t get that Chanukah song to stop running through my head. You know the one - "Who can retell the things that befell us...?" (And now it's running through yours as well; you're welcome). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It worked for the exercise</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> just the same. At least the opening verse. Just substitute Moses and Aaron and Miriam and that cast of hundreds of thousands for all those Maccabees, and you can pretty much retell the story of oppression and slavery and freedom and bloodshed and war and miracles and redemption, there and back again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That's the part that I get stuck on, the "...and back again." We tell and we tell and we tell, again and again and again. It’s an awesome story, filled with heroes and pyrotechnics that could keep the special effects masters at Industrial Light and Magic on their toes and at their drawing boards for years. Decades. Forever. The stuff of life is present in every word of this story we tell, all the drama and majesty and love and passion and danger and discovery and betrayal and loss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tell this story. Tell it to those who ask and those who don't even know there's a story to tell. Tell it as if you were there, part of the original action. Tell it as if you are still there, that we are all still there, living and experiencing it all right now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tell it, and tell it again. It is that important.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But here's what I'm thinking these days (as if my statement above were not hint enough): there are far too many "again's" in our story. That is, how many times do we find ourselves in need of heroes and miracles? How many times must we tell the story of soldiers and blood and war and terror?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, and redemption. And yes, God. I love that redemption and God are the base of all of the stories we tell.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When, though, do we learn? When do we change? Of <i>course</i> we must tell the story of the Exodus, and the Maccabees, too! Of <i>course</i> we must celebrate our journey from the very narrow places into the wide open space of the wilderness where we meet God! Of <i>course</i> we must tell the story of our journey from slavery to freedom.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Let's face it, Moshe takes an entire book of the Torah to retell our story, and we had experienced it all live and in person. Is it any surprise that we are urgent to retell the story of our struggle a few thousand year later? There was war and defilement and miracles galore! There was redemption and rededication. They're were villains and heroes and or ragtag band of guerilla warriors triumphed over the superior forces of the evil empire.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We are out stories, good and bad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It just seems that we tell this same story, with only slight variations, of oppression, of idols and enslavement and fear and war in <i>every</i> generation since then. That's a lot of generations, a lot of oppression and fear and bloodshed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And sometimes, in the quiet, away from the flurry of cleaning and preparing and cooking and lighting, sometimes I wish we could tell the story with a different ending.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm a dork. I get that. Sometimes, I wish we could tell the story of a world that, because of our wondrous redemption, we needed no heroes, no magic, no soldiers, no war to save us yet again. I wish that we could finally learn that until all of us are free, none of us are. That the story we tell, year after year after day after month, ever and always is the story of everyday miracles, of peace and wholeness and grace...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Chag urim sameach<br />
5780</div>
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: "times new roman"; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-35956607760528482512019-12-27T21:36:00.000-06:002019-12-27T21:36:35.791-06:00Chanukah, Sixth Night: MiraclesMiracles are counted on<br />
the wings of angels<br />
who dance on<br />
the sharp end of a pin,<br />
and whose feet come<br />
away bloody.<br />
They are a mighty host<br />
of smoke and mirror<br />
to move the heart<br />
of God.<br />
<br />
I searched for a sign,<br />
for the light to grow<br />
and last far longer than it should,<br />
a simple flame grown to<br />
pieces of eight<br />
to illumine the darkness<br />
and the martyrs of battle.<br />
<br />
I heard the hosannas,<br />
a miracle of blessing and praise.<br />
There were portents there -<br />
a riot of glory and sacred grace<br />
I lifted my eyes,<br />
watching, waiting.<br />
<br />
I almost missed<br />
my beloved smile.<br />
<br />
<br />
Chag urim sameach<br />
5780<br />
<br />
<br />Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-70089231480863223982019-12-26T16:29:00.000-06:002019-12-26T21:43:48.360-06:00Chanukah Day Five: Liberation<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Three views of liberation, since three is the number of intention.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
First, for this fifth day of Chanukah, Judah the Maccabee, the Hammer of Judea. He took a rag-tag band of guerrilla warriors, and from the dark corners of the land, he and his band of merry men overcame the superior forces of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, fought them and finally won the day.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Huzzah! Liberated - but still, there was much work to do.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
The Temple had been overrun with Assyrians, Greeks and idols (oh my!). The altars had been smashed, or worse, defiled. It was unfit for people and for God. So it was reclaimed, cleaned, made pure and holy again, and finally dedicated before the glorious miracle of the oil: only enough to last a single day, that oil, once lit, lasted for a full eight days, just long enough to get a new supply.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><i>Nes gadol hayah sham - a great miracle happened there.</i></b></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Huzzah, again. The people rejoiced in their liberation from tyranny and oppression, scrubbed the Temple -- and promptly ushered in one of the most corrupt and oppressive regimes in our history. And as long as we're talking about cleaning - let's not forget the dead, the bodies of various Judeans who were not collateral damage, but the victims of internecine warfare. Apparently, we weren't content with fighting just Antiochus' soldiers.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
We jumped from the frying pan straight into the fire. Liberation is a double edged sword. It cuts, no matter which side of the blade you're on.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Fly through a couple thousand years after the Hammer hit home. Humanity has learned a staggering amount during the intervening millennia, whether learned ex nihilo or some refinement of the original, that allowed civilization to flourish. Here's a list, in no particular order (and I'm not even gonna Google this, and I'm gonna miss a gajillion things here) - the stirrup, the printing press, perspective, language, poetry, drama, fireworks, gunpowder, paper, music, smelting, science, astronomy, philosophy, physics. My God! We went from the Bronze Age to the Age of Reason in the blink of an eye, and with every jump, with every advancement, there remained some spots of darkness and decay.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Let's not even list the timeline of weaponry that paralleled that of music and dance, of art and architecture. We went from rocks to sticks to swords and spears, cannon and gunpowder. The holy oil that burned in the Temple could also burn your enemies. </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Let's talk about the Jews, still considered the scourge of the western world. If we weren't thrown out of a country (don't cry for me Spain, I'll hitch a ride with Columbus), we were put into ghettos (medieval Italy) or made chattel of the king (hooray for the Magna Carta)). We were practice dummies for the wonderful knights of the Crusades. We were demonized as money-grubbers and child-killers. </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
While the Age of Enlightenment and Napoleon seemed to liberate us from the bondage of the past, there were still a few hills to climb, and work to be done. Liberation is a double-edged sword.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Second view, a little closer to home.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
A decade or so go, I got an email from a friend. It had a huge distribution list along with a link to a video. The body of the email read "My God, you must watch this!" Normally, I would delete such an email, wise in the ways of phishers and scams. However, I trusted the friend so I clicked on the link. He was right. It was something I needed to watch. You should, too.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHg9vcRM_00">The Liberation of Bergen Belsen, 04/20/1945</a></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdgA7GTjijIWxlENad4FJ-9x6KDgssAwAEtqsYQ8ZQmA40YwfMK9Xfyn-xQELpNAiw9YJGjL5ofgGyQon-6KWDyoVRmxqBvzt7vf0H0QVAO5WGtJI5sxXtSO2Ym0tx8gaIQYrA7dwOWCU/s1600/liberation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdgA7GTjijIWxlENad4FJ-9x6KDgssAwAEtqsYQ8ZQmA40YwfMK9Xfyn-xQELpNAiw9YJGjL5ofgGyQon-6KWDyoVRmxqBvzt7vf0H0QVAO5WGtJI5sxXtSO2Ym0tx8gaIQYrA7dwOWCU/s320/liberation.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Were we ever liberated? Who can retell the things that befell us? Who can count them? Evil arose, covering the world with smoke and darkness. Our people were rounded up like animals. <i>Humans were rounded</i> up - Jews and Gypsies, Communists and Catholics. It didn't matter. A king arose with the power to strip people of their humanity, of their personhood, so they could be bound and gagged and murdered, one by one by one, fed into the pits of some hell that we don't believe in. </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
And can you imagine? Truly - having been made a slave, having been starved and beaten and worked unto death -- in the very first moments of your liberation, you sing of hope. You sing praises to God. Can you imagine? </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Baruch hashem - blessed is God's name. Nes gadol hayah sham - a great miracle happened there.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
We rejoiced in our liberation. There was so much work to be done! We learned from our liberation. "Never again," we cried out. This degradation, this dehumanization will never happen again. We cannot allow it. We learned to be strong, To be vigilant. To be free.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
And we dug in our heels, put our backs into building a land that the desert had claimed for its own. And we kept watch and we defended and we sang out "Never again" like a psalm. And we worked to make it so, to make sure we never again felt the boot of the tyrant on our necks.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
And we taught the ones who came after - "Never again." And we meant it. And we meant it for the world entire. "Never again." Never let our past become another's present. Let us learn that all of us - Jew and Gentile, Muslim and Sikh, every single one of us - we must all sing the psalm of Never Again, and we must all make sure that our song is true.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
And so, the third view of Liberation, for the fifth day of Chanukah, the holiday of light and liberation - liberation is hard, and is a double edged sword, and the work is long.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Sometimes, the hardest lesson of all: failure. From the dead in the Killing Fields of Pol Pot to Bosnia and Herzogovina and Rwanda. From the sex slaves in every city and town the world over to the child laborers that allow us to buy our toys so cheaply. Look at the Women of the Wall. How different are they, really, from the girls stolen by Boko Haram a few years ago?</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I could go on, it seems for an infinity - a whole swath of infinity: Flint. Ninth Ward. The African American community. The poor. Women. The differently-abled. Separated families and children in cages. Does it matter, which group of oppressed? How can we rest while there is such pain? </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><i>We are all human. </i></b></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Liberation is a double-edged sword. It never means "and then we all lived happily ever after." It means there is work to do, much work. And the work of liberation is difficult. We may never finish the work; neither are we free to desist.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Chag urim sameach</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
5780</div>
</div>
</div>
Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-1423986883151535812019-12-25T17:15:00.001-06:002020-12-10T10:54:44.517-06:00Light - Chag urim sameach<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">I wrote this a few years ago, when I was having some issues with my eyes. They're ok now, thank God. In fact, when all is said and done, they're almost perfect. Hooray. The essay, I think, still stands up well for Chanukah. Hope you agree. <3</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">*******</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I had this awesome essay about Chanukah and light all worked out in my head. Oh, the wondrous tapestry that I wove, in these vibrant jeweled tones and of scarlet and blue. The words and the color and the sheer light of it all all twisted and tangled exactly right, a tightly woven fabric that deftly connected the festival with light.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
It was Uh. May. Zing - hanging in free=float perfection there in my head, just waiting to go from thought to pixel to screen.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
And then I got my eyes dilated. So much for <i>that </i>mythical, mystical essay.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Talk about a whole new concept of light. What at any other time is serviceable, and sometimes bordering on the dull-please-get-a-higher-watt-bulb now has an intensity that is almost painful. Even at this time of year - mid-December, with its infinite shades of gray, where you count the minutes of light that dwindle every day, and you wait and pray and tell yourself that you just need to make it to December 22 and all will be well again - even this late afternoon half-light is too bright.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Right now, the light positively <i>glows</i>. Right now, the light - the lamp, the sun, the source doesn't matter - the light is different. I am pulled out of my unnoticing, so that I have a chance to <i>see</i>.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
That's as far as the metaphor will stretch; my apologies. It's not the dilation that is driving this verbose introspection; the light does hurt, even as it is all glowy and fuzzy. No, it's Chanukah itself that's causing this reflection on light (no pun intended, and so you know, I've practically burned out the delete key, in my efforts to avoid this too-obvious but unintentional pun). </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
We go about our days, filled with work and carpools and groceries to be put away and fresh laundry to be folded and dinner to be made. There's homework in there, and correspondence and bills to be overlooked one more week. We run and we do and we go, an ever-moving faster pace that keeps us hurtling forward. There's planning to do and calls to be made. It is never-ending. And don't get me wrong - there's a whole lot of joy in all of this, along with great stretches of nothing much of anything - the "normal" cacophony of emotional noise that flits and flutters through our heads and hearts. It's life, and it drives us along pathways that are at once familiar and comfortable and ignored. </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
But for these eight nights, the light is different. For these eight nights, I get to stand next to my son and pause as we light the candles of the menorah. I hear the scratch and sizzle of the match, I see the flickerflame of the candles - one more each night - dance atop graceful pastel tapers. I get to chant a blessing that feels as old as the sun, and that hangs in the air in weightless beauty, as if lingering, too, for just a few seconds more, to watch the light dance and flow. And my son and I, we stand, and we watch and we linger just a fraction of a second longer before the rush of our lives returns.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
For these eight blessed nights, I am given the gift of light - a light that shines differently, a light that dances and glows and allows me to pause and share something ancient and holy with my son. </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><br /></i></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Blessed are you, God, Ruler of the All, who sanctifies us and commands us to kindle the lights of Chanukah.</i></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Chag urim sameach!</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
5781</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-72436888518246483742019-12-24T19:39:00.000-06:002019-12-24T19:39:41.499-06:00Chanukah Day Three - War<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">I joke with my son: "I'm a pacifist with violent tendencies..."</span><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">He laughs. I laugh. And then I sigh - because sadly, it's true.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">I remember talking to a gaggle of pre-teens once, telling them about my heroes, Dr. King and Gandhi. They wanted to know why, and I told them about non-violence. I climbed up my metaphorical mountain and sat there, in some divinely serene lotus position, and the vantage point of my lovely, modern, suburban life, and waxed profound on the profound nature of peace. And one of the smart kids (being in 6th or 7th grade, all of whom have a natural tendency is to search out every chink in an adult's armor) raised his hand, and asked in a voice loaded with innocence, "But what about the Holocauset? Would you have fought then? If you could have killed Hitler, would you have?"</span><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">They all perked up then. They sensed blood. "I don't know," was my only answer. "I am really grateful I have never been in a position that I have to choose." Even as I said the words, I could feel my insides twist and churn. </span><i style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">Would I?</i><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;"> In those days, I was single and childless. Now - I have my beloved son. What if the threat were to him? Would I be able to maintain my position of non-violence if the threat were to my child rather than to me - or to my community?</span><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">Hannah had an answer. She lived with her seven sons somewhere in Judea. She supported Judah and the Maccabbees, and worked to defeat Antiochus and his army. When the soldiers came, as they did to every Jewish household, to force conversion upon then, Hannah was so steadfast in her beliefs that she was able to watch those soldiers throw each of her seven sons off the roof of their house, one by one, because she would not kneel and pray to a false god.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">What a bizarre twist on the Hillel story - he was stopped by a Roman soldier who put a sword to his throat and said "Teach me the Torah while standing on one foot. If you can, I will convert. If you cannot, I will kill you here." Hillel, we are told, thoughtfully stands upon one foot and answers, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to others. The rest is commentary. Now go study.," And the general, so the story goes, did just that.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">Hannah was told, "Bow down and pray or we will throw your sons to their deaths!" And she refused, because she was steeped in her faith. She held firm to her convictions and watched each of her sons die. Did they scream? Did she cry? Did the soldiers think twice, wondering how they could kill an innocent child? Did the soldiers question their inhumane orders? Did Hannah even once question a faith that could revere martyrdom over life? She was so sure that right was on her side; did she forget Moshe's cry: "Choose life!"</span><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">We were at war, fighting for our lives, our beliefs, our identity. And war - it changes you. It changes us all. We celebrate our victory over the Assyrians, and praise the bravery and might of Judah and Mattathias and the Maccabbean army.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">And still, I am torn, between my love for peace, my belief in non-violence, my absolute conviction that violence only leads to violence, that it never solves anything. And I look around the world, at the wars and the conflicts that are killing us - all of us (because we are an "us," this world of ours, this human race of which we are a part) and I still cannot answer the question "Would you fight? Is there a Just War?" with more than an "I don't know, and thank God that I haven't had to make that choice."</span><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">It is Chanukah - a time to celebrate miracles and identity and victory. Perhaps - I hope, I pray - the lesson of this war, of any war, is not to help us answer the question "Would you fight?" but to spur us to redouble our efforts to create a world in which there is no war. Work for peace, for justice. Fight poverty and ignorance and need, not one another.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15.4px;">I am naive, I know. But that is my hope, even so, and I will cling to it, hold fast to it, work tirelessly for it.</span></span><br />
<br />Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-75114343782743749952019-12-23T20:16:00.001-06:002019-12-23T20:16:46.887-06:00Chanukah, Night Two: Power<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Long ago (too long for me to comfortably remember exactly how long ago it was), I read Steinbeck's <i>The Short Reign of Pippin the Fourth</i>. I think it was in middle or high school, after we'd read <i>The Pearl</i>. It may have been soon after I discovered Stephen Schwartz's <i>Pippen, </i> which captiovated and entranced me no end. I read anything that had the name "Pippin" in the title (and even stretched it a bit, reading <i>Great Expectations</i> because the main character's name was "Pip").</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
What has stayed with me, though, from Steinbeck's brilliant novel - short, riveting and laser-sharp in its satire - was his discussion of power. In Steinbeck's <i>Pippin</i>, France has decided the Republic has failed, and they are looking to reinstate the monarchy. They find one lone direct ancestor to Charlemagne - Pippin, who will be the Fourth of that name. As the modern-day Pippin grapples with the enormity of what confronts him - kingship and history and government and rule - he is reluctant to assume power, fearing (like all wise men) that he will be corrupted by it.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
However, he is told by one of his advisers: it is not power that corrupts, nor absolute power that corrupts absolutely. Rather, <i>it is the fear of losing power that corrupts</i>.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
What a riveting idea! I think, for myself, how much I am ruled by my fear, how often I base decisions for action (or inaction) on my fear of losing control, giving up my power. And these situations, where it is fear, when I do not sit comfortably in my own skin - in fact, am most likely trying to crawl out of it - these things never end well. They blow up in my face and leave a swath of destruction in a radius of miles. IU spend more time picking up the debris from these ill-fated actions than anyone ever should. </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
If I had just done the right thing - even through my fear!</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
But I don't. I horde my power, clutch at it like Gollum clutches his Ring of Power - only to lose it and then later, teeter at the brink of destruction. I hold my power jealously, refusing to ask for help, denying help that is offered, believing foolishly that help is just another word for weak, or less-than. </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
And while I may not have been corrupted by my fear of losing power and control, I have certainly been crippled by it.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Zechariah tells of his dream, and the angel who declares ?Not by might, not by power..." We read this text during Chanukah. Perhaps, we read it - I read it - to remind myself that my "power" is merely illusion to begin with. Or, if not illusion, then certainly immaterial. </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
So it is with hope, this Chanukah season, that I remember this lesson beyond the light of the menorah, and carry it into the days and nights ahead of me - not by might, not by power, but by spirit alone...</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Perhaps then I will find, not the crippling of corruption, but peace instead.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Chag urim sameach</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
5780</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-35999451806870720692019-12-22T15:21:00.000-06:002019-12-22T15:21:01.194-06:00First Night - Chanukah and Freedom<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Once we were slaves, now we are free.</i></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
I know, I know - wrong holiday. Sue me. That particular phrase, that particular concept is woven deep throughout my everything. Really. I am absolutely awed at the thought of such power and wonder and love (yes, love, because if I can anthropomorphize my relationship with God, I can hi certainly apply the same human logic and longing <i>to</i> my God). </div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
One day we were slaves; the next - free. Ta da.</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
How does Chanukah fit in with all that? While we swap Moshe and his prophetic gravitas for Judah's guerrilla tactics and military prowess, the story remains hauntingly familiar: under the thumb of a king of great power who tried to break us, to take away our humanity, our spirit, our God, we were redeemed. And we have the miracles to prove it. Seas parted. Oil lasted. Food became a dicey prospect for digestive tracks. Let's face it, fried food is merely a difference in degree, not kind, from matzoh.</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
And after the redemption part? After the pyrotechnics and miracles and wonder and awe? Clean up on aisle seven...</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Sure, we celebrate first. There's dancing and singing and praising galore!. I mean, really: we were redeemed! That is big - HUGE - awesome stuff! Talk about a shehecheiyanu moment! Literally: thank you God, for bringing us to this season of joy. But what happens when that first blush of celebration is over? What happens when the music stops?</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
As I see it - that's when the work of freedom really begins. Freedom is an action, not an event. It was never a gift; not for Moses and the people fleeing the narrow places. Not for Judah and the Maccabees and the other Judeans. There was a lot to attend to - nation building and temple-cleaning. Learning just what it meant to be God's people. This wasn't <i>freedom from, </i>or even <i>freedom to</i>. This was stay-in-the-game-freedom and d<i>o the work of being free.</i> Because when you don't do that work, when you don't pay attention to the being free and being bound by that freedom, well, suddenly you lose it. Suddenly, you're under a different thumb of a different king that's really just the same thumb of the same king, over and over again, ad infinitum.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
And so tonight, on this first night of Chanukah, we gather to celebrate and find joy and sing praise (and eat latkes and spin dreidls and all that other family stuff of Chanukah-ing) - and we are reminded (I am reminded) that the work of freedom is part of the deal. Freedom binds me, to God, to you, to family, to the world, and so I find a purpose in it, and a fierce joy there. And with all that - the freedom and the binding and the joy - I celebrate the gift and grace of freedom.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Chag urim sameach</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
5780</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-21269661640204809922019-11-02T14:24:00.002-05:002019-11-02T14:25:12.112-05:00Esa EinaiI walk a path of in-betweens;<br />
Of not-quites<br />
and almosts--<br />
Scattershot potential<br />
spread before me<br />
In infinite array.<br />
<br />
But I am filled<br />
Filled enough,<br />
so that even on this narrow path<br />
of scattershot possibility,<br />
bordered by almost<br />
and limned in not-quite,<br />
I lift my eyes<br />
Up--<br />
Raised,<br />
like mountains or breath,<br />
In a limitless ascent.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4253349427823700546.post-41659084024789714772019-10-23T20:31:00.000-05:002019-10-23T20:31:57.448-05:00B'reishit: a poem for Creation and TzimtzumThe Beginning didn't just break;<br />
it shattered,<br />
splintered and spilled<br />
in a hundred -<br />
a thousand<br />
an infinity of directions.<br />
<br />
God was not content,<br />
apparently,<br />
with the tzimtzum of Her creation,<br />
the inhaled withdrawal,<br />
an absence of essence.<br />
Into that empty space<br />
that once was filled<br />
with the endlessness<br />
of God, was filled now<br />
with the chaos of dark<br />
and light.<br />
A single day,<br />
and then six more,<br />
and it was,<br />
they were, mostly,<br />
good.<br />
<br />
And in that exact same instant,<br />
in the inhaled breath<br />
of the endless god,<br />
light!<br />
<br />
There was evening,<br />
there was morning,<br />
again and again and<br />
again and again<br />
millennia of agains,<br />
and then a few more.<br />
Tzimtzum<br />
<br />
Year upon year,<br />
age upon age,<br />
mountains rose and<br />
empires fell.<br />
One day followed by another<br />
and another<br />
and another,<br />
so often that sometimes<br />
they ceased to have<br />
meaning<br />
or weight.<br />
They were merely<br />
time and again,<br />
day upon day,<br />
life after life,<br />
mostly good.<br />
<br />
A pretty good trick<br />
to play, a sleight of hand<br />
with space and light -<br />
a divine game of cups.<br />
Pick a hand held behind God's back.<br />
He seems to favor that position.<br />
<br />
What would it be like<br />
I wonder, to be endless -<br />
without end and infinite,<br />
the superlative of all<br />
superlatives?<br />
would it be lonely<br />
do you think<br />
to be that<br />
indivisibly singular?<br />
To be filled to empty to full<br />
in the blink of an eye<br />
all at the same time?<br />
<br />
I think if that were me,<br />
I would want to scream.<br />
I would want to gather in all my<br />
everythingness, only to realize<br />
there was nowhere to gather,<br />
no <i>thing</i> to hold,<br />
because I was everything<br />
in every direction.<br />
Only me,<br />
with no spaces<br />
or cracks<br />
to let the light in.<br />
Would I even know<br />
what light is<br />
or space?<br />
<br />
Would I know sun<br />
and sky and water and rain?<br />
Would I see the Glory<br />
and know that it was all<br />
incompletely good?<br />
Would I know God<br />
and would I sing<br />
praises to Her name?Stacey Zisook Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13723727875724665928noreply@blogger.com1