A Lesson in Leaping

Author's note: In October 2010, a handful of teachers and students and musicians and seekers and faithful and doubters got together for a long weekend of -- I don't know that any one of us would describe the weekend in exactly the same way. I am convinced we were each changed by this weekend. I cannot begin to express my profound gratitude for what was given to me. This was the first Shabbat Shira. I have been so very fortunate that I have been able to attend every year since, and am eagerly looking forward to this year's retreat, which will begin next week.

In honor of the upcoming weekend, I am re-posting this (in somewhat truncated form) (and feel free to take a look, here, if you want to see the whole thing). This is the essay I wrote after that first weekend, and is dedicated to all of my teachers, but in particular, to Debbie Friedman (z"l), Craig Taubman and Josh Nelson, who reminded me, again, what faith and love and prayer can do: everything. 

Thank you all, who continue to teach me, and show me, ever day, how to leap. 



This past weekend, I got to learn something about faith.  Again.  I get to learn this particular lesson again and again.  God laughs and waits and applauds for me.  Every so often, God dances and catches me, pillowing my fall with grace.

I was at a retreat.  It was possibly all about music.  Or maybe about prayer.  Or God.  Or community.  Faith, perhaps.  All of the above.  Certainly, music was the base, a foundation of sorts.  Shabbat Shira--- Sabbath of Song.  A few dozen people came together to learn and stretch and grow and teach.  Silly me; I thought I was there to learn more about Songleading-- using music and song to lead congregants in prayer.  Simple stuff.

Ha!

What I learned was all about love, and community and faith.  Yes, faith.  That damned elusive thing, that spark of God and hope that I chase with all the singularity that a drowning woman chases a life preserver floating just out of reach on a dark and wave-wracked sea.  Throw in a bit about vulnerability and truth and honesty and you have the weekend.  Our teachers stood before us, offering themselves, whole and pure and unafraid, without pretense, and made a glorious noise as they lit a path to God.  I followed.  We all did, joyously, surrounded by love and faith and hope.

How?  I asked.  I demanded.  I pleaded.  How do you do it?  How do you show up, vulnerable and raw?  How do you give?  How can I?

And really, that was my prayer.  My quest had gotten me this far: from "Fuck you" to "How can I?"  I want to serve.  I want to give.  I want to be an unsheathed flame, dancing along a path to God, letting others in to find their own paths, their own joy, their own prayer.  I want to leap.  Please God, let me leap.  One more time, let me learn the lesson of soaring.  Let me believe that I will be caught.

And my teachers, every one of them, whether they stood in front of us in service or beside me in prayer (because everyone at Shabbat Shira was my teacher), they all answered so simply, so stripped of artifice: you just do.

It is not what you pray; it is that you pray.
It is not what you do, it is that you do.
It is not what you sing; it is that you sing.

Do.  Act.  Pray. Sing.  Serve.  The grace (and gracefulness) will follow.  God will catch me, soaring or stumbling in the dark., God waits to catch me  And, after I have rested a bit, caught my breath a bit, then God and I, we'll dance.

Dedicated to my friends and teachers of Shabbat Shira 2010.
Thank you  <3

17 Elul 5773: Awaken

I don't think I'm always awake for my own life. I'm way too distracted. At times, my focus is totally inwards, so that I miss much of what goes on around me. At others, I'm all external, which means I skip over the me in those experiences-- how I fit, what I feel, what I bring, and what I take away.

It is not a very present life. It is not a very intentional life. It's a life lived later, or next week, or not at all.

A few months ago, I was at OSRUI for Shabbat Shira-- a retreat that combined song and prayer and community and holiness in a profoundly rich and wondrous handful of days. On Friday morning, for shachrit, we participated in a movable feast-- a service that literally moved us from one place to the next, had us praying and eating and singing that bent the light, so to speak. In each place in the service-- physically, spiritually, mentally, we were asked to notice differently, challenged to engage differently, so that every one of our senses was awake and aware.

It was a sacred, holy thing. I think I caught fire-- or at least my head and my heart did. We walked together to the lake, and I could think-- be aware of, awake for-- how the cold hit my body, how the path lay dappled in gentle light, the sweet scent of a distant fire. I heard the crackle of stiff leaves fighting with the song of birds and tasted the first hint of winter.

While we all stood at the lake, water lapping at the shore and the sun filling a cloudless sky, we prayed, we were awakened to the miracle of a new day. I am infinitely grateful that I am awake and alive and part of the wonders that fill every moment and make every moment holy. 

This is what I wrote that day. This is what I took away:

We walked

From one place to another

In quiet wonder at the rising of the morning.

Light filled us

And color.

Under canopies of gold

Shot through with green

And strong branches

Flecked with a suddenness of blue

Stretching halfway to forever.

Geese and crows

Sang their psalms

To the One

Of Creation and

Becoming

A murmurous mix of

The shuffles of leaves

A muffled crunch

Signaling summer's slow end

Soft-voiced under canopies of gold.

Chill air coiled around my fingers

My bare-skinned fingers

And the rough bark of

Bare trees

Suddenly bared

Gently, sweetly bared

Yet rough

Edged in hardness

And sudden sweet chill.

They began

They ended

Distinct and edged

In beginning to end

What I saw

What I heard

What I felt

On that wondrous

That glorious

That holy walk we took

To greet the rising of the day.

That scent of morning

On that shared path

That leaf-edged path--

The morning scents were

Almost

Were not quite

And in-between.

They urged me on

Brought me here to this edge

Quickening me to this light-filled edge

This beginning

this ending

Of earth and sky

With such fullness

A richness of sound and light and still,

With an ever-present

Becoming.

Amen.

(From my blog, titled Modah Ani, posted October 2012)