Hide - 05 Nisan

I had lunch with a Facebook friend today. We had never met before; not face-to-face, at least. In fact, we've only been "friends" for a short time - maybe six or seven months. But as it happens, on Facebook and other brands of social media, we have struck up - if not a friendship per se, then at least a conversation. One that is interesting enough to open the door, just a crack, for me to leave the comfort of my hiding place, the one that lays just in front of my computer, where I can exist as thought, as pixels and ether , armed with a huge monitor for my battered eyes and a heavily-used delete key for my battering wit and my battered heart.

I do a lot of hiding. I wear too many masks.

I hide behind my computer; I hide behind my words. I hide my heart because it's been broken and bruised once too often. I hide my desires; I hide my fears. I wear a mask of cynicism and take refuge in sarcasm. I can lose myself in self-righteousness just as easily in my self-doubt and self-deprecation. I hide in study and hide behind God.

Mind you, these hiding places are not oases of lies to dole out with capricious grace. I am honest. To a point. I am also quite guarded. I don't dole out truth; I dole out bits and pieces of me. At the first hint of danger, I retreat behind my invisible, unscalable walls, and I take out my masks - the Intellect; the Mom; the Writer; the Hell Raiser; the Snarky One; the Human. Oh, yes; the Human is a mask, too, a perfect disguise when I feel lost and clueless and outside of and less than.

All these masks. All these hiding places. All me, in bits and pieces.

And if I know a thing or two, I know that so many of us feel this need to hide. We hide our need and our doubt and our fear. We hide our faith. Our sexuality. Our talent. Our intelligence. We hide our love. We hide our anger. We put up walls to hide our selves - our heart and our spirit. We hide all the damaged bits, the hurts and the pain.

What we forget - what I forget - what is hidden cannot be healed or be whole. If I can only give bits and pieces, that is all I will ever be. I will always be incomplete. Perhaps that is the lesson of the Afikomen - the broken piece of matzoh that gets hidden and then found. Our seder is incomplete until the Afikomen is found and returned.

Perhaps this year, I will find all those broken pieces and bring them out of hiding. Perhaps I will have courage enough to find healing and wholeness, with no need to hide.

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

Grow - 04 Nisan

"Pain is the touchstone of all spiritual growth"

Ugh. If that's true, I am the Paul Bunyan and Babe, the Blue Ox of spiritual growth, combined. And with a side order of Godzilla and King Kong for those long, dark nights of the soul to spare. I have done pain - I have lived in it and feasted on it and denied it and wrapped it around me like a blanket until I fairly suffocated in it. 

I've mastered pain. 

So why is it, then, with all my experience and mastery, that I am still caught off guard by it? Why am I still surprised when it tethers me to its twin, fear, and traps me in its embrace? Why then, if pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth, do I feel so small?

I have learned so much in this almost too-examined life that I lead, and if I am honest (and, here, among the intimate anonymity of these pixels, I am), I will say that pain has not trapped me in its embrace, actually. Rather, I am the captor in this little tango; I cling to it like love or breath. It is impossible to grow, so long as I refuse to learn the lesson of my pain and let it go.

I have learned this lesson, again and again. It is so easy, so familiar, so safe to choose the path of pain. It is so easy to stay small, unchallenged. 

It is so easy to remain a slave. To stay stopped by the Sea and wait for all that pain that's there, gathering at the horizon, gaining speed and rushing headlong towards you, spears at the ready. I know. I've done that, again and again. And I've welcomed all those wicked charioteers like long lost comrades-in-arms.

But... once we were slaves; now we are free. That has to mean something. I can stand, immobile, unchanged, waiting, or, like Nachshon, I can chose to leap. I can choose to grow, to spread my spiritual wings  and soar (or stumble, or walk, or skateboard) into the unknown. I can choose to leave my pain at the shore, and dance a path towards freedom.

This is it. The time is now.

Fly...

02 Nisan - Bless (#blogExodus)

Sometimes, I'm convinced that I am cursed. Sometimes, I'm absolutely certain that my Higher Power, whom I mostly call God, but occasionally call something more suitable for an R-18 rated essay - I am certain that S/He is, in actuality, God's evil twin, and S/He is definitely out to get me.

I know this because life can be really crappy. Not just the every day crappy of traffic jams and paper cuts. I'm talking the huge, almost insurmountable crappy that can seep into all the cracks of your life, spreading over everything, until it's just ooze, from here to infinity plus three. It's all that big stuff that tears you apart, fills you with shame, tastes like despair. And after two or three or six times you realize that the bottom you swore you had finally landed on turns out to be just another trap door - all of that crap seems to wrap around you like cotton, muffling all the sounds, and blurring all the light.

Hard to see blessings through all that cotton batting and those loose trap doors.

So I curse, from the depths of whatever sub-basement of the six kinds of hell into which I've fallen. And into that echo-y, empty space that contains no light and holds less hope, I cry and mumble and dream and yell (depending upon the day, or the phases of the moon, or just how depressed/angry/ scared I really am) a string of invective that could blister ice. I swear - really, really swear. And I curse. A helluva lot. 

There's not a blessing to be found. 

This is what I tell myself: I must be cursed, and since this must be true, I only have curses to give. And I give them all to God. That's what fills this basket I carry with me - my anger. My pain. My despair. All the broken bits and open wounds. I carry it all with me, cursing God, cursing me, over and over, again and again.

But at some point in my twisty, winding, stumbling life, I learned this one holy thing: this, too, shall pass.

It is a holy thing. Trite to be sure, but no less a holy statement for all of that. This will pass. I know this, I have experienced is time and again, yet I wrap myself in that cotton, I slog through that desert of ooze that sucks at my feet and swallows my shoes, I curse and I moan and feel lost in forever. And I am surprised, still (always), that it does. There are times when I have no idea why it passes, just that one day, I felt buried by a mound of fifty-seven things that I couldn't climb on a good day with every superhuman power anyone could ever think of, and the next I wasn't.

Don't get me wrong. The crappy stuff, from tiny and stupid and annoying to the huge stuff that crushes your spirit and sips at your soul - all that crappy stuff is still there. The job is still lost. The bills are still stacked and overdue. People you love still die. Life is still hard. 

What changes though, is not the stuff. What changes is you. Perhaps it's all the cursing. I am convinced that it doesn't ever matter what you pray, only that you pray. It is my continuing conversation with God - whatever God's name I call Her/Him, whatever mask I demand God wear - that makes a difference and changes me. 

I don't know the mechanism for this change, or the equation that solves for X, where X is my pain, traveling along the Y-axis of my doubt divided by time and intention. I have no clue, and I am, much to my surprise, okay with that. I am learning to let be, let go, breathe. And you know what? That, too - that enlightened, spiritually wonky place of serenity and being-ness - that, too will pass. No matter how tightly I hold on, they pass.

Here's what I do know - when I stumble, when I stagger under the weight of my despair, there have been people who have caught me and carried me until I found firmer ground to stand on. There have been hands to hold in the darkness, shoulders upon which to lean and hearts to shine a light on hidden paths. I have been offered kindness, I have felt love. I have seen my son smile and heard him laugh as if pain had never been invented. 

I may carry my curses with me, lugging them along as I trudge from place to place. But I carry my blessings, too. 

I am blessed beyond imaging.

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

Begin - 01 Nisan

Begin? Seriously? As if I'm ready! Thank God that we number our days from evening to evening, or I'd be behind before I'd even begun. The first blessing of the day...

Today, the first of Nisan, and the prompt is Begin. Start. Go. One foot, then the other. Gah! I am so not ready for this - not the beginning, not the journey, not the anything. There's a house to clean (seriously-for-this-holiday clean, which I've never done before, but it seems right to do so this year and I have no idea what I'm doing and I can't believe how much stuff there is to do, just to do this one thing and I'm wondering if I can just expand the scary closet (don't ask!) to house all the stuff that I just can't get to in time), and thinking that paper plates and plastic silverware are an excellent option, and the manuscript to edit and the worry about money and jobs and, you know, just plain-old stability in my life - in Nate's life. The car needs to be fixed and the groceries put away and the tutor is coming and I forgot I'm chanting Torah this morning, but there are these words rattling around in my head, begging for release, begging to float in ghostly delight on my computer screen.

There are all these tiny, little threads - some frayed, some not (some knotted beyond belief), and I run from here to there and back again, times infinity, trying to hold onto them all, trying to keep them all in order. Not that I have the slightest clue about order. Each thread, each task, each job - they all occupy the exact same space in my head: insistent and immediate. DO THIS NOW - at least, do it until the next thing, the next thread drifts into my field of vision, usurping my time and attention until the next thread. So mopping the kitchen floor and getting the breaks on the car checked hold the same urgent necessity - at least for a moment, while I see both threads peeking through clenched fingers in my fisted hand.

How in the world can I possibly begin, when all these things, all these threads, all these tasks remain?

Maybe this is why God gave the Children of Israel no time. Yes, yes - there were plenty of major hints and promises along the way, including ten rather horrific plagues and some awesome magic. And sure, there was the sheep standing in the middle of the living room, waiting. There were some really huge clues that they were getting ready to leave, and soon. Even so, there's a huge leap, sometimes, between "Getting ready" and "Go!"

There's always one more thing. There's always wait just a second. There's always ooops, I forgot, let me just run back inside, I won't be a minute. There's always tomorrow.

I will never not have a gazillion threads in my hand. If I waited to tie off each of them, finish each task, complete each job, be 100% totally ready - let's just say I would make Moshiach hold on a second, I've just got to do this one more thing...

Sometimes, no matter how much prep work I do, no matter how much still needs to be done, no matter how unready and unprepared I feel - it's time to put one foot in front of the other and begin.

For anyone who is interested in playing along, here is the list of prompts created by my friend, Rabbi Phyllis Sommer, chosen to help us bend a little more, think a little differently as we prepare for Passover and freedom. Blog daily, pick a prompt that fairly sings to you, and let the pixels come out to play on your screen. There is a lovely hashtag (#blogExodus), so that you can follow all the various threads. If pictures are more your thing, there's a hashtag for that, too (#Exodusgram)

Once we were slaves, now we are free...

04 Nisan - Free

Today is the fourth of Nisan. I am convinced that days can tell us stories, although I don't know the story of this particular day. I don't know what plague was raining down on the Egyptians. I don't know if, on this day, Pharaoh's heart was open or had been hardened yet again, presaging even more hardship and heartache for the Children of Israel. I don't know how Moshe felt on this day-- was he weary beyond belief at having to defy a king and be a prophet of God? Was he frightened of the task that lay before him, bowed with the burden of all those lives? Was he grateful that his brother shared his work? And the people-- Egyptians and their slaves both-- was it just an ordinary day, with plagues? Or could they feel it too-- the gathering momentum that would lead to... change? To endings and beginnings?

And God. I won't be so bold or so presumptuous to speak for God, and His/Her relationship to the fourth of Nisan. I have learned to live with mystery, and even prefer it at times.

Calendars are funny things. They are not singular. Just ask yourself if Chanukah will be early or late this year. I smile a crooked and condescending smile at this-- Chanukah always falls on the twenty-fifth of Kislev. Always. It is neither early nor late. I am smug and obnoxious. I'm sure that whomever asked the question of me would banish me to the nether hells (at the very least) if it were possible. It's an annoying habit, I know, but it's mostly harmless, so I persist. 

Calendars are funny-- and sometimes quite ironic. It is, in fact, 04 Nisan. The prompt we've been so lovingly given is "Free." It is also, under different skies than either modern Israel or ancient Egypt, the fourth of April.

I think it would be fitting if this were a national day of mourning.

He had this dream, you see, this amazing and wondrous dream, where we all of us lived our lives free from hatred, free from ignorance. Free from violence and need and despair. He believed it was in our grasp, that we could fulfill this vision, and just learn to love one another, create a world of peace, a world of freedom.

He was killed, because though he knew this may all have been within our grasp, we are not all of us free from hatred and ignorance and fear. Fear is a liar, and fear can kill.

So what are we to do? We are required, so the rabbis tell us, to celebrate Passover-- the holiday of redemption and freedom and renewal-- as if we ourselves have been brought out of the narrow spaces. Now. Then. Some admixture of all times, but totally present as it (when it) happened nevertheless. Calendars are funny things. They can bridge the chasm of millennia, so that we stand, shaken and rushed and fearful and joyous and free at last, ready to cross the wilderness on a promise, find a place and live a dream-- in the beat of our hearts, the breath of our bodies: we have been redeemed at last.

For I have taken you out of the land of Egypt, the House of Bondage... Laced throughout our liturgy, we chant these words every time we pray. Once we were slaves, now we are free. But the story doesn't end there. Sure-- we were freed, but with a purpose. Our covenant with God isn't just about what we get out of the deal. It's also about what we give, and the obligations we accept.

We are reminded,throughout our liturgy, that we are God's people. We are also reminded, again and again, of just what that means and how to live that, how to be b'tzelem Elohim (in the image of God): do what's right, love mercy, walk humbly with God. Care for people, especially those who may be struggling. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick. Be kind, don't turn a blind eye or walk idly by. Accept the stranger, those who are different from you, just as you would your neighbors, because we were strangers once; we know the shackles of otherness.

As we celebrate this glorious season, as we give thanks, once more, for the freedom we have been given, it is my hope and my prayer that we understand that our freedom is just the beginning. It is the jumping off place, so that we can continue the work and demand a world - create a world-- where we are all free. 

Dr King, who died on this day in 1968, had a dream-- "And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Kein y'hi ratzon. 

#blogExodus #Exodusgram

c Stacey Zisook Robinson

04 April 2014