First Night - Chanukah and Freedom

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

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 to my God). 

One day we were slaves; the next - free. Ta da.

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.

And after the redemption part? After the pyrotechnics and miracles and wonder and awe? Clean up on aisle seven...

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?

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 freedom from, or even freedom to. This was stay-in-the-game-freedom and do the work of being free. 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.

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.

Chag urim sameach

5780

What's the Story?

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. 

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, åcame 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; no good deed and all). It works, 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.

That's the part that I get stuck on, the "...and back again." We tell and we tell and we tell. 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.

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.

Tell it, and tell it again. It is that important.

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?

Yes, and redemption. And yes, God. I love that these are the base of all of the stories we tell.

When, though, do we learn? When do we change? Of course we must tell the story of the Exodus! Of course we must celebrate our journey from the very narrow places into the wide open space of the wilderness where we meet God! Of course we must tell the story of our journey from slavery to freedom.

It just seems that we tell this same story, with only slight variations, of oppression, of idols and enslavement and fear and war in every generation since then. That's a lot of generations, a lot of oppression and fear and bloodshed.

I love Passover. It’s my favorite holiday. How could it not be? I love that we are commanded to tell this story. As a writer, how could I not? But sometimes, in the quiet, away from the fury of the cleaning and preparing and the cooking, sometimes I wish we could tell the story with a different ending.

I'm a dork. I get that. Sometimes, I wish we could tell the story of a world that, because of our wondrous redemption, there in the wilderness, 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...

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

Home on a Distant Shore

My family drifted rather than fled from the stelts of Europe. I think. I'm not exactly sure; none of them really liked to talk about it, so I got a patchwork quilt of family history. Sadly, now most of that generation has died, leaving me with some yellowed pictures that get passed around the cousins with questions – “Who is that, standing next to Irving?” or “Was that Yankl’s anniversary party, or Adel’s?”

I know my zayde on my father's side left his village of some Unpronounceable Name - that was sometimes in Poland, and sometimes in Russia, depending upon which brand of Cossack was more successful at pogroms that day - he left and made the journey to Palestine, where (I'd like to believe) he helped to drain the swamps and make the desert bloom. And then he left, and came to America. But I don't know why. I don't know what drove him to Palestine any more than I know what drove him to the States. All I know is that he and his thirteen brothers and sisters settled in Chicago sometime in the 1920s.

The view from my mother's side of the Diaspora is even murkier. I heard there might have been a false-bottomed cart in which my zayde hid on the way to the harbor of some country-or-other, where he then boarded a ship that took him to Chicago by way of Ellis Island and Nashville and Indianapolis. There's an Uncle who stayed behind, who later became a fighter in the Resistance of the French Underground during the War, and I wish I knew his story - how he got to France, how he became a warrior, how he survived - but he settled in Florida after the war (whenever it was that he made the journey here), and we didn't know him all that well and I was young and didn't know enough to ask him before he died.

There are a couple of other Uncles who never made it to the States, though a post card came not long after the War, making its way through a small tear in the Iron Curtain, so that we knew they had at least survived, but that was about it. That was all we knew, for decades. We found them again - or they found us - about 20 years ago, and we brought them – sponsored them, and their families to come to the States and live here, with us. With family.

They settled, all of them, in each generation of drifting and flight, with their broken and heavily accented English, and their unfamiliarity with American customs, and they got married, had babies who grew and settled and got married and had babies who grew and settled and got married and had babies.

And now, because of all their wandering, there is me, and my beloved son, who is growing, who will settle, who may have babies, or not. He will work and live and play and vote and sometimes not. He will not always agree with the popular opinion, and if now is to give us any indication, he will not agree loudly. He will work tirelessly to prove that hope, and humanity, are stronger than hate. He will stand in indignation when this land - our land, forged in the fires of justice and cooled by the waters of freedom, and our people - all of us once strangers in a strange land - gives in to the fear of The Other, of the Stranger.

My family managed to slip through the gates to get to this place, and I am forever grateful for that. There was a time in our history, not too long ago (as history gets counted), that those very same gates were barred for so many of our people at a time of desperate need. Sadly, most paid the ultimate price and perished in ugly ways. We remember them. And today, oh, today! That gate, that glorious gate of hope and freedom and possibility – I fear that gate is shutting, its rusted iron hinges groaning with the weight of Dreamers denied – those who are here now, and those who still yearn to breathe free, to enter that gate and live their lives.

We cannot let them close! We must not allow that to happen. We cannot allow hate to swallow hope. We cannot stand idly by the blood and tears and hopes of others who, like our ancestors, fled the stetls and oppression and threats of death and poverty, finally landing on these shores, this “goldeneh medinah” where the streets were paved with, if not gold, then at least opportunity.

My son knows this patchwork history of our family, these precious bits and pieces that are all I have of them: how we started so very far from here, and suffered, and were afraid, and packed up and left, because their hope was stronger than their fear. And my son will stand on the shoulders of these beloved unknown giants, and he will make the desert of hatred and fear bloom. He will lift the lamp and open the gates wide, just as they were opened for us: tired, poor, yearning to breathe free, homeless and tempest-tossed.

My son, like his great grandfather before him, will surely make the desert bloom. 

Freedom # Chanukah, fifth night

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

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 certainly apply the same human logic and longing to my God). 

One day we were slaves; the next - free. Ta da.

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.

And after the redemption part? After the pyrotechnics and miracles and wonder and awe? Clean up on aisle seven...

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?

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 freedom from or freedom to. This was stay-in-the-game-freedom and do the work of being free. 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 is really just the same thumb of the same king, over and over again, ad infinitum.

And so today, on this fifth day 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.

Chag urim sameach!

Perhaps I am Free: for Shirat HaYam

I have never seen such forever water.
I hear its incessant burbling,
a chant, perhaps to God,
Who has come to us as Fire,
Who has come to us as Smoke.
Who has come to us
at last,
bringing wonder and magic
and freedom,
perhaps.

I hear chatter of freedom,
but my back is striped still
and there is this forever Sea,
murmuring its prayers to
the ragged shore.

Perhaps there will be
freedom.

I wish they'd get this
over with, this mad dash
to this forever Sea
that never stops chattering.
The fire of God rages,
and His smoke smells of
charred wood and honey.
I can taste wind there.
I wonder what freedom
tastes of, and I think
the of the sting
of brine on my
wounds.

Still, I like this sea
this forever Sea,
that has captured the sky
in its mirrored waves.
They tell us
the only way to freedom
is through its
crashing, crushing
beauty.

But I have learned
to sing its song, to walk
between its silvered edges.
I stand at the rim of earth
and air and fire
and water.
It parts for me,
this forever Sea.
a slow and liquid splitting.
and the sea,
forever and endless
and never quiet
is hushed,
waiting, perhaps
for me to begin.
And so I offer a hymn
with timbrel and lyre
and ribbons of fire
and smoke,
and I dance.

And perhaps -
perhaps I am free.

What's the Story?

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. 

Of course, the first thing I thought about, given that Passover prompt, was 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; no good deed and all). It works, 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.

That's the part that I get stuck on, the "...and back again." We tell and we tell and we tell. 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.

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.

Tell it, and tell it again. It is that important.

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?

Yes, and redemption. And yes, God. I love that these are the base of all of the stories we tell.

When, though, do we learn? When do we change? Of course we must tell the story of the Exodus! Of course we must celebrate our journey from the very narrow places into the wide open space of the wilderness where we meet God! Of course we must tell the story of our journey from slavery to freedom.

It just seems that we tell this same story, with only slight variations, of oppression, of idols and enslavement and fear and war in every generation since then. That's a lot of generations, a lot of oppression and fear and bloodshed.

Here's a secret. I love Passover. It’s my favorite holiday. How could it not be? I love that we are commanded to tell this story. As a writer, how could I not? But sometimes, in the quiet, away from the fury of the cleaning and preparing and the cooking, sometimes I wish we could tell the story with a different ending.

I'm a dork. I get that. Sometimes, I wish we could tell the story of a world that, because of our wondrous redemption, there in the wilderness, we needed no heroes, no magic, no soldiers, no war to save us yet again. 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...

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

Leaving Egypt

I carry Egypt with me
in a drawstring pocket
that I keep close at my side,
so that I can feel the nestled weight
of its sand and stone
and endless servitude.
Sometimes I run my thumb
along its gathered edge,
wondering if I should -
if maybe I could -
open that pocket,
just for a minute,
quick-like and easy,
so that I might feel
those sharp-edged stones,
Sun-warmed and ancient
and well-trodden
by Pharaohs and asps.

But I don't. I think the
stones might cut me,
or perhaps spill out:
All that sand and stone
that hangs so heavy at my waist,
that bows me just a bit
and fits against me just so,
It might scatter in a graceful arc
as I imagine river once did,
to escape the narrow banks
that bound it
and bent it,
shedding its great crocodile tears
Of feast and famine
in a sudden burst of freedom.

And just like that,
Egypt would lie strewn about,
Scattered by my stumbling feet
In some trackless wilderness
that has been trampled
by the feet of a thousand generations since
And by the time I stop
to do the math of
all those feet
and all that wilderness,
There would be nothing
left of Egypt,
and my drawstring pocket
would be
Empty.

First Night - Freedom

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

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 certainly apply the same human logic and longing to my God). 

One day we were slaves; the next - free. Ta da.

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.

And after the redemption part? After the pyrotechnics and miracles and wonder and awe? Clean up on aisle seven...

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?

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 freedom from ---or freedom to ---. This was stay-in-the-game-freedom and do the work of being free. 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 is really just the same thumb of the same king, over and over again, ad infinitum.

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.

Chag urim sameach

5775

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

03 Nisan - Enslave

This is the story of the last time I drank.

Now, this isn't a dramatic blowout of a drinking story. I don''t even know that I got drunk. Maybe I was drunk-ish; you know, that kind of blurry feeling of lightness, as if you're on the Tilt-o-Whirl on a hot summer day, and you can't keep from spinning (and you don't want to), and you can't keep from smiling that big fun-house grin, and you're almost but not quite coordinated, and oh! You feel grand. Dizzy but grand.

It was that kind of a drunk.

It was my favorite kind of drunk. It was the drunk to which I aspired every time I got drunk. I had a lot of practice flirting with that razor-thin line. I failed in this particular endeavor. Often.

Those days, it seemed as if I failed at this a lot.

It hadn't always been an exercise in failure. It hadn't always been a constant internal battle for white-knuckled control. I had an elaborate set of rules and dicta regardiing my driniking, to ensure victory over my drunks. That the first dictum was "I don't drink" will give you an idea of just how successful I was.

I used that particular argument all too often-- I don't drink... so therefore, this particular drunk is an anomoly, an exception. It doesn't count in the long line of drunks that stretched back way too long away and far ago for me to count. I would remind myself that logical proof didn't depend on truth, but on soundness. The argument was bent, perhaps, but it was sound.

Life started to become unmanageable. Untenable. I started searching for a way out. I started pointing fingers, looking to lay blame on anyone or anything that wasn't me. It was my parents. My family. My past. My pain. Everything would be ok if everyone would just do what I wanted them to. Needed them to.

I flirted with several Twelve Step programs-- none of them AA. I flirted with all their subtly different versions of the Steps. Well, I flirted with the first two of the twelve. I got the powerlessness of the first, mostly understood the God vs. Craziness of the second. And was stopped short by the third: Turned our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. And so I commenced the Twelve Step two step, bouncing between one and two again and again, flailing and failing at three.

And drinking. And more and more unable to not drink, even when I swore I didn't and swore I wouldn't.

So. The last time. It was August in Chicago, a dark  and humid and breezy night. And humid. Did I say humid already? I'll say it again, times six. Remember-- Chicago in August. The night was dense and the air almost liquid. I was helping a friend move into a third floor walk-up apartment. It was a great place-- old world, with lots of wood and built-ins and molding. And no air conditioning. Not even a window unit. We ended around 10:00, sweaty and sore.

"Want a beer?" He called out from the kitchen. I was in the living room, all the windows open, the curtains billowing madly. I could barely move. A beer. I don't drink.

"Sure." I don't drink.

He handed me a bottle, slick with condensation. I took the offered beer (and I remember the weight of it in my hand, the cold of it still), sitting back on the broken-springed couch, and I thought to myself "If I take this, if I drink it, I will be turning my will and my life over to the care of alcohol."

And all the struggle, all the doubt, all the fight left me in a whoosh, and I drank, deep and long. Not only was I ok with that pronouncement, I was sure that I was finally in the place I was always meant to be.

Enslaved, bound to my demons with liquid fire.

And the next day, bleary and hung over and done, another friend, a different friend, loved me enough to tell me "Drink, don't drink, that's up to you-- but you're an alcoholic!" And with those words, I was suddenly freed. I stood on the borders of my own desert, at the edge of a distant and implacable sea, and found, much to my surprise, some internal sense of permission to get help, and so find forgiveness and grace.

I know, one of those immutable truths that I hold in my very center, that miracles abound, that there is redemption, that once we were slaves and now we are free.

#blogExodus #Exodusgram


c Stacey Zisook Robinson
03 April 2014

01 Nisan - Believe - #blogExodus

I got let go from my job yesterday.

I imagine this disconnected, drifty, free floating anxiety that I am feeling was exactly what the Children of Israel felt when they were Let Go. Even across this gulf of 3,500 years (give our take a decade or three) I can believe they got the news, and then just... continued on with their lives, perhaps waiting for feeling to catch up with action.

I mean, really-- one minute you're in the middle of your regular life, in the middle of some motion, maybe putting the casserole into the oven, or making a left-hand turn, or just putting a brick on top of all the other bricks of the pyramid you're building, moving from one place to the next, just like you've done, time and again and again and again.

And you may not even be thinking about it, that motion, that action. Certainly not thinking that this is the last time you're going to do this thing, this whatever- it-is thing, this common, ordinary, every day thing that you have done, that maybe was once done with joy or reverence or anticipation or dread or something, some noticing thing that separated it from every other everyday thing, but now is merely a background noise kind-of-thing, an unquestioned thing altogether, a means of getting from here to there, even when you have no idea that here is Here (and God only know where There might begin or end). You're just in motion.

And then word comes down from on high: you are Let Go. So what do you do, mid-motion, except exactly what you were doing, because while change may be lightening-fast, it has its own path to follow before it catches up to Now.

Or Then. We were talking about Then, weren't we? The slaves, the Children of Israel, living out their lives in the narrow spaces. Putting one foot in front of the other, day by day by day, ad infinitum, in joy or reverence or anticipation or dread-- in something that may have been fullness, or maybe somewhat hollowed out-ish, all reedy and breathy and unsettled (but not empty; never that-- that would be too clean, too sterile for day-to-day living, and day-to-day living is way too messy for that). But probably, when it omes down to it, it was all of this, all full and hollow and messy, all together, all at once.

What I wonder, from my vantage point of 3,500 years and all of those nearly-invisible will-o-the-wisp filaments that connect me to Them (and Then), what did they think, when  word finally reached them, mid-motion? Were they happy to have been released? Afraid of what would come next? Terrified at the thought of change? Or maybe it was all good-- joy at the thought of liberation and their sudden freedom?

Did they believe their lives would be immeasurably better, to be freed from their taskmasters' chains-- or even better at all? Did they cower just a bit, bowed by the sudden uncertainty of their lives, believing that all was lost, or did they believe that everything would be ok, that miracles happen, that the seas would part and they would be shown the way? Did they believe in a land of promise and blessing? Did they believe it was opportunity that waited just around the corner, over the next sand dune, and past the oasis-- or was it chaos, lying in wait?

Once we are Let Go, once we are freed from our bondage, once we finish the turn, close the oven door, take that step--  do we (do I?) let belief, and faith and hope guide me through the desert that lies between me and the Promised Land?

As I prepare for my own astounding journey from the narrow places towards redemption and freedom, what do I believe?

#blogExodus #Exodusgram

c Stacey Zisook Robinson
02 April 2014

Fear, Faith and a Really Big Sea-- an annual redux (times 3)

And so we have made it through one more circuit in the sweeping arc of that planetary dance around the sun. At almost full circle, it seems this particular essay of mine is becoming an annual thing. How bad could that be, though: an exercise that forces me to think about fear and faith and the part they both play in my life, the leaps that I have made and the stumbling around in the dark that I have done?  I have managed to navigate through my days with both faith and fear, though not in equal measure. The balance seems to be in favor of faith these days, and that is truly a thing of miracle and wonder.

It should come as no surprise that I have taken some long and twisty paths to get to this place. I gravitate towards the dark and twisty, and feel, somewhere in my head, or wandering around my heart, that life and things and lessons have more meaning if they are difficult to come by. While the shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, I prefer the road that diverges and is less traveled. We may eventually get to the same place, but the view, and the adventures in between, seem to make the journey that much richer (and the destination that much sweeter).

This year, I have less tested my faith than discovered it. Sometimes, I have had to rediscover it on a daily basis. My faith can be a tad quixotic. The glory, as I see it now, is that (at last, or at least for today) my faith has tempered my fear. Now, rather than lying cold and dank in the pit of my belly, ready to slither and coil outwards in a quickening spiral that radiates through me, spinning me madly, my fear is smaller, seemingly more docile and compliant. If it is not missing altogether, I at least have gained the ability to act upon my fear more realistically. More sanely.

The monsters hiding under beds and in closets may be real, but I have (hopefully) found better armor and more appropriate weaponry with which to defend myself. It surprises and delights me no end to find, in the tangled mess that is my current quiver, faith and hope are my most prized (and most used) arrows.

There is still much unchanged, or at least undifferent. It is still about fear, and faith in the face of that.  And it's about staring out at the vast and dark sea and being stuck and being afraid and having faith.  It's about being forgiven, at last, and forgiving, all in the same breath.

So the year turns, as it always does, and time flows in some holy and sacred river, and it is, once again, Passover.  There is beauty in that cyclical passage of time.  There is grace in getting to this season, again, of God's redemption.  Once we wandered a dark and empty desert, and then were brought home.  Once we were slaves, now we are free.  

Here's the post that sparked all this a few years ago:

I'm in one of those places: stuck, prickly, at the very edge of letting go, trembling with the effort to not tip over the edge into the abyss of the unknown, desperate to take that final leap of faith and soar towards light and wholeness. I am astounded, as always, when I think how inextricably intertwined my fear and my faith have become. I have heard (more times than I care to remember) that Fear (always pronounced with a capital F) is an absence of Faith. No. I think not. I demand Not. I am too intelligent--- God is too intelligent-- to demand unthinking blind faith like that, to insist that faith is a guard against fear.

Fear keeps the lights on at night and smells of sweat and tension and anxiety-- sharp and unpleasant. If the fear is great enough, it can keep me rooted and curled in on myself, covers pulled tightly over my head, unmoving. Paralyzed. Stuck. Tentative. Invisible.

But my faith: sweet and sure and graceful. It wraps around me like light, like breath, like life. It sometimes moves mountains. More often than not, it is just enough. Enough, not to beat back the darkness or vanquish my demons, but enough to put one foot in front of the other, to walk, however falteringly, forward. To know that, no matter what, I am enough, I will be ok.

And so, faith and grace being what they are, I think of my fear, and my stuckness, and I am reminded that it is Pesach (Passover). And in the midst of all of this darkness, there is also redemption, and release.

I got to tell the story of Nachshon at assembly a while back during Sunday school. It is my favorite midrash, I think. (For those of you reading this who are now totally lost in the tangle of my narrative, a midrash is a rabbinic story, a device used to fill in some of the blanks and the holes in the Torah. Kinda folkloric, they are the stories behind the stories.) So, Nachshon-- he was a slave with all the other Israelites who found redemption at the hand of God. He was Let Go, with a capital L and a capital G, brought out with a Mighty Hand. He packed and didn't let the dough rise and ran, breathless and scared and grateful, away from the land of Pharaohs and pyramids and crocodiles and slavery--- ran into freedom.

And then he got to the sea. He and 600,000 other un-slaved people. Stopped cold by the Red Sea. It was huge, and liquid and deep. You couldn't see the other side. It was so big you couldn't see any sides. Just wet from here to... forever.

And behind him, when he (and 600,000 others) dared to peek: Pharaoh and his army of men and horses and chariots. And spears and swords and assorted sharp pointy things. We really can't forget the sharp pointy things. Even at a distance, the sharp pointy things loomed quite large in the eyes of Nachshon and his recently-freed landsmen. Caught between the original rock and a hard place. Well, ok: between water and pointy metal stuff. At this point, I don't think anyone involved cared much about getting the metaphor exactly right. What they cared about was getting out from that perilous middle. Fast.

So Moses, because it was his job, went to have a chat with God. And just like that, Moses got an answer--- a Divine Instant Message. All that the Children of Israel needed to do: walk forward, into the Sea, that big, wet, deep forever sea. God would provide a way. "Trust Me," God seemed to say. "I got you this far, didn't I? I wouldn't let you fall now!"

And Nachshon and the 600,000 stood at the shivery edge of that Sea, staring at that infinite horizon in front and the pointy, roiling chaos of death and slavery behind them. And they stood. Planted. And let's face it: not just planted, but rooted in their fear and mistrust and doubt. They may have felt reassured by the image of God as a pillar of smoke or fire--- impressive pyrotechnics to be sure--- but the soldiers and the Sea were so there, so present, so much more real.

And then, in the midst of that fear and doubt, something changed. Nachshon, lately freed, trapped between death by water and death by bleeding, Nachshon did the miraculous-- he put one foot in front of the other and walked into the sea.  And the 600,000 held their collective breath, watching the scene unfold before them. Nachshon did what 600,000 could not: he decided to believe, to have faith. To leap. And tho the water covered first his ankles, then knees, then chest, then kept rising, until he was almost swallowed whole, he kept walking, kept believing. And just when it seemed that Nachshon was a fool for his faith, would surely drown in that infinite forever sea, another miracle:

The waters parted.

The Sea split and Nachshon, so recently in over his head, he walked on dry land. And the 600,000 breathed again, in one relieved whoosh of air, and they found their own faith and followed Nachshon into and across the dry Sea to the other side.  And then the journey truly began...

I pray to have faith enough to walk into my own Sea--- of doubt and fear and darkness. I want to walk and feel the waters part, to be released from the tangled web of thought that holds me immobile and disconnected. I have learned, again and again, without fail: when I take that step, when I find the grace and the faith to put one foot in front of the other, to trust, as Nachshon did, I am carried forward, I am freed from my self-imposed bondage. I am enough, and I can walk again on dry land to freedom.

I think I am finally learning to let go, finally leaving the desert, stumbling at last along a narrow bridge to light and hope.  There is fear; yes.  But there is also faith and grace and redemption.  Even for me, there is redemption. 

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

Chag Pesach Sameach.
Happy Passover
2013/5773

And Miriam Sang.

And Miriam sang
God's song.
It flowed
Rising like smoke
Like a pillar of fire.
   And Miriam sang
   her brothers' song.
   wild
   jubilant
   Free at last, free at last!
      And she sang
      her mothers song,
      crooned
      in velvet darkness and liquid as day
      A lullaby--
      A love song,
      her mother's song was.
         And Miriam sang
         the people's song:
         soft and loud at once
         and liquid still, and edged in smoke
         and wild
         Oh! so wild.
            A babble of song
            that lifted her feet
            and rang out--
            sang out
            with cymbal and lyre.
               Her voice rose
               Like smoke,
               Like air.
                  It soared.
                  And she sang the people's song
               Sang her mother's song
            Sang her brother's song
         Sang God's song.

      They poured forth from her
   as she danced.
The sea bed was rock-strewn
and dust
and blood now,
mixed with the dust.
Emet.
And Miriam danced 

on sharp edged stone
and she sang,

her arms lifted, with cymbals

and timbrels

and ribbons of fire that caught the light,

caught the eyes of the people

as she danced them across the dry desert sea.

And she sang, Miriam did.

And she danced on feet that bled

arms lifted

and weary

with fluttering ribbons of color and light

And she sang God

   Singing faith

And she sang Moshe

   Singing freedom

And she sang her Mother

   Singing love

And she sang the people

   Singing celebration, singing fear.

And she danced

on feet that bled,

with arms raised in 

jubilation

supplication

Surrender.

Weary and raw,

singing,

she danced on feet that bled

to a distant shore,

green and cool with a light that shimmered

   Like freedom

   Like love.

Miriam danced and raised her bloodied feet 

to stand upon the cool and green

No song, no cymbal

Just silence:

A final offering.

And into that stunning, that glorious silence,

she gave her weary body
   her bloodied body,

      her ribbons and cymbals,

         her vision,

            her voice.

            And God sang 

         Miriam's song

      and it lifted her, like fire

   and it filled her, like love

Selah