Elul, Day Seven: Be

I had a friend who used to say to me, "Stacey, you're a human being, not a human doing."

Ugh.

I am not overly fond of trite aphorisms (except insofar as they allow me to use words like "aphorism"). The problem with silly little phrases like this is that they tend to hold a kernel of truth, and belie a richness and depth that I can't really afford to ignore.

Here's the thing: I spend an awful lot of time doing. Doing is important. Holy, even. It is the thing that allows us to accomplish, to move the needle and fix the broken stuff. To do is to put my faith in action, to crawl outside of my head and leave my tiny universe of one. To do is to connect, in some way, with the world around me and the people who inhabit it.

Like I said: holy.

Here's the problem, though: a lot of my doing is empty doing. It is motion for the sake of motion: frenzied, manic, shoot from the hip. I tend to be a whirling dervish of doing. Remember the old Ed Sullivan Show, and the guy who ran around with the spinning plates while The Sabre Dance played with wild abandon in the background? That's me: Platespinner. I am so intent on keeping all the plates from crashing to the ground, I don't ever stop to think why I'm running around with spinning plates to begin with.

Being is as holy as doing. It's part of the same sacred dance, a recognition that I am, that God is. It's a way to honor that you are. I don't need to define it any further. There is no modifier necessary, although I can certainly think of an infinite array of words-- and each one of them, no matter how right, how fitting, how loving, each one limits and defines and boxes up the you or the me or the God, and in so doing, keeps us safe and disconnected and in control.

So, today, 07 Elul, I am reminded that even amid the noise and chatter and constant motion of my life, even in purposeful doing, there is holiness in my stillness, in my simply being.

I am. 
You are. 
God is. 
We are.

A holy declension of "to be," a sacred grammar.