For Mordecai, who was not absent

God is absent.
This is an impossibility,
but the air feels empty,
so that our cries slip through,
uncaught, unheard,
leaving only a whispered echo
of death. God is absent,
leaving only me
to remember to bow and bend
only to an invisible God,
to an impossibly absent God
Who waits to hear our prayers.

And I offer my devotion
as if I were sure the God of echoes and air
took notice of our blessings,
took notice of our pain.
And I will bend and bow
and offer this child,
a star of blinding beauty,
who will bend and bow
and offer herself to the king.
God is absent,
leaving only her.

And after the bending and the bowing,
into the whispering echoes
of absence and air,
we rise, our cries at last
captured, caught,
to rise above the silent edges,
while the world hangs motionless.

There is eternity in that ascending moment,
and God.

Approach - a poem for parashat Vayigash

This is God's doing:
I knew it all along:
Divine intervention on a biblical scale -
someone should contact DeMille,
te absolvo to the rest of you;

You clearly had no part
in the glory-bound trainwreck
that was the beginning
of this merry-go-round life,
all murderous contempt aside.
You have no power here,
nor your little dog
or your sparkly red shoes.

Clearly it was God all along

So you may approach, knees bent,
tail between your legs,
and make as your offering gift
the  blood - spattered remnants of cloth of gold
and red and orange and purple and black -
You get the picture -
I get the glory.

Blessed is God,
and deserving of blessing.
Amen

Seventh Night of Chanukah: Tell

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, 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). 

It worked for the exercise
 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, 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.

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  redemption and God  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, and the Maccabees, too! 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.

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.

We are out stories, good and bad.

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.

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.

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...

Chag urim sameach
5780

B'reishit: a poem for Creation and Tzimtzum

The Beginning didn't just break;
it shattered,
splintered and spilled
in a hundred -
a thousand
an infinity of directions.

God was not content,
apparently,
with the tzimtzum of Her creation,
the inhaled withdrawal,
an absence of essence.
Into that empty space
that once was filled
with the endlessness
of God, was filled now
with the chaos of dark
and light.
A single day,
and then six more,
and it was,
they were, mostly,
good.

And in that exact same instant,
in the inhaled breath
of the endless god,
light!

There was evening,
there was morning,
again and again and
again and again
millennia of agains,
and then a few more.
Tzimtzum

Year upon year,
age upon age,
mountains rose and
empires fell.
One day followed by another
and another
and another,
so often that sometimes
they ceased to have
meaning
or weight.
They were merely
time and again,
day upon day,
life after life,
mostly good.

A pretty good trick
to play, a sleight of hand
with space and light -
a divine game of cups.
Pick a hand held behind God's back.
He seems to favor that position.

What would it be like
I wonder, to be endless -
without end and infinite,
the superlative of all
superlatives?
would it be lonely
do you think
to be that
indivisibly singular?
To be filled to empty to full
in the blink of an eye
all at the same time?

I think if that were me,
I would want to scream.
I would want to gather in all my
everythingness, only to realize
there was nowhere to gather,
no thing to hold,
because I was everything
in every direction.
Only me,
with no spaces
or cracks
to let the light in.
Would I even know
what light is
or space?

Would I know sun
and sky and water and rain?
Would I see the Glory
and know that it was all
incompletely good?
Would I know God
and would I sing
praises to Her name?

But I Will Tend You

To the earth, I say  thank you
for the abundance
of your gifts.
There is grace in
the wheat that dances,
and bounty.
I cannot own you,
but I will tend you
with care.

To the heavens I say thank you
for your glory.
There is such wonder in
the play of stars
and light. For you,
I reach; in you
I find.
I cannot own you,
but I will tend you
with care.

To the water I say thank you
for your lithesome
liquid beauty.
There is power
in your ceaseless
surge and release.
I cannot own you
but I will tend you
with care.

To God I say thank you
for bringing us here
to this season of joy.
We cannot own
Your bounty,
but we will tend it all
with care,
so that we may come again
to say thanks
for this season
of joy.

The Longest Journey: a poem for Tisha B'av

The longest journey

begins with a breath -

   breath being one of the names of God -

and ends in Breath:

   as the name of God is a prayer: amen.

It is played out

on a bridge more narrow than fear

and wider than Heaven,

and gathers together
the battered, embattled rubble

of broken days and history.

It is - as if it ever wasn't - love,

that journey of unknown proportion,

coming not because of,

nor in spite of, but 

a love that is whole

and endless

   and love -

      God, yes!

         Love,

             in all its infinite

                 and glorious

                    unknowing

                       boundlessness -

                          Love.

                          Love.

That is the journey.
That is the breath

That is the name
of God

Amen.

For Tisha B'av

Praise on My Lips

I dreamed an ancient desert,
a wilderness of copper and gold
under skies of infinity blue
and heaven.

God dwelt there, made the ground holy,
built a Temple of canvas
and devotion,
and we sang, each morning,
my sisters and I -
Hosanna!
Hallelujah!

I woke then, with praise on my lips -
sweet, and it buzzed against my tongue,
made my body a holy Temple
of sacred grace.

And so I sang a song of rising,
under heaven and infinity blue,
a song of devotion and desire,
sweet benediction to the glory
of God.

To the Glory of God:a poem for Poway

Come, all of us, and enter
into the place where God dwells
and bend, and bow
and offer thanks
for this place,
this moment
of grace.

Bend, and bow
and offer praise
for God's glory
in wonder
and awe.

Bend, and bow
and offer a prayer
for wholeness
and safety
and peace.

And when the shots ring out
like the voice of thunder,
and blood flows like water,
like wine, a benediction
of grief that bends you
and bows you,

Cry out, cry out!
The glory of God is forever -
mercy flows from God's left hand,
compassion from God's right.
Bend and bow then
to the lord of hosts!
Exalted is the One who 
creates harmony on high,
blessed is the One who brings peace.

And let us say, amen.

Elijah Invented Sarcasm - for the Haftarah of parashat Ki Tisa

Elijah invented sarcasm.
Before stones and altar;
before water flowed like blood;
before hearts moved backwards,
and fire rained down to
drench the waiting sacrifices -
First there was sarcasm.

Perhaps your god sleeps,
or maybe he's busy,
running a few errands,
said the Undying One.
We'll wait - and why not?
He had all the time
in the world.

Elijah is way too holy
to hide a smile behind his hand,
or wink on the sly
to all the terrified masses
assembled and cowering,
who had, after all,
backed the wrong horse,
and the wrong god
and knew not of sarcasm.

But they knew -
after the shouting and slaughter
the water and blood and fire
that streamed down like rain,
that lifted smoke and smells
to Israel's God.
They remembered,
and remembering,
returned.


Based on 1 Kings 18 1-39

I Hold Up the Sky

I hold up the sky.

My arms stretch deep into blue,

a trick of the light.

Its waves echo the waters

ruled by the moon,

that circle and curl against my legs

and my grounded feet,

set apart, according to the 

rules of prayer,

as if I were praying.

I am not.

I hold up the sky,

my arms reaching upwards,

trembling with the weight of heaven

and the glory of God.

The waters are cold against my skin,

but I stretch into blue,

and hold the glory of God.

I will not bend.

To bend is to break.

I hold up the sky

until I am bowed. trembling 

under the weight of blueness.

I am bent, according to the rules of prayer.

I do not pray,

and it feels as if I am breaking - 

its own kind of glory, 

under this vast rim of heaven 

rooted in the the mutable 

curve of water and earth.

Its blueness is a trick of the light.

I am bent; I am bowed,

and I pray.

Counting Infinity - a poem in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day

I wonder about the
infinity of light
that shattered
in a single Breath -
and the dust of Adam
that scattered, a
sweeping whirlwind of
limitless everywhere upon
the earth, and the stars
that Abraham counted -
numberless,
and distant,
and cold fire.

We counted
time by moonlight
and threads of
blue -
Exquisitely finite
and eternal,
a holy cadence
of one
plus one
plus one again
a never-ending measure
of binding and grace.

So I wonder,
with all the counting
of all the endlessness
of stars and dust
and light
and time
and one
plus one
plus One -

what happens when
six million -
when twelve million -
when a thousand -
when a single one
disappears from
infinity

How Shall I Know You: a poem for parashat Vaera

How shall I know
that you are God,
my Lord and Master,
Judgment in your right hand
And mercy on your lips?

How shall I know
that I am home,
that I will be gathered,
be beloved,
be returned?

Will I know You by my enemies,
by their decimation and ruin?
Is that Your glory, Lord,
Your secret name?

Are You the eternal Lord of Hosts,
battle-ready, all iron and stone -
My Rock,
My Redeemer -
Is there yet no give in You?

How shall I know You, God?
What shall I call You?
How will I know I am home?


Based, with a twist, on Ezekiel 28:25 - 29:10, the haftara for parashat Vaera

Sing Hallelujah - a poem for Thanksgiving

Sing praise and

shout hallelujah,

as bullets sing their siren song

and death is never far;

and sing praise

while fires rage and

children fall silent

behind barbed wire fences, and

children fall silent

with bellies distended, and

children fall silent

as their homes are devoured,

and they race against monsters and time.

Sing praise, for the monsters are winning.

Free the captive.

Feed the hungry.

Give shelter to those in need.

This is my song,

this praises my name -

Be kind.

Work for peace.

Hallelujah!

Hope is an action.

Pray with your feet.

Hallelujah!

Lift your eyes and see God

In the eyes of the other.

Hallelujah!

All the earth is holy ground.

The bush burns,

do you not see?

Open your eyes -

there are such wonders!

Open your heart -

there is such love!

Sing hallelujah!

This is my bounty.

This the glory.

For this we give thanks.

For the richness of life,

And the jagged edges that cut

and draw blood,

And the beauty

In the sound of rain

and silence,

We give thanks.

For the Creator of eternity

and time,

Who calls to us in darkness

and light,

In our hunger

And our want,

We give thanks.

For the fullness,

For the stones that bite

And the bedrock upon which we stand,

For the hands that lift us,

And the song that fills us

We give thanks.

For our breath,

For our bodies

For the grace of  healing,

And the blessing of light,

So that we can taste the sweet,

The sharp,

The weary,

Lonely,

Lovley

Holiness of this day

Sing hallelujah

And give thanks.

Being - for Ellen, who taught this lesson

The sun , catching
the tuning pegs of the guitar,
kept distracting me -
a flash of light
while I was busy praising Your name
and declaring Your love.
That seemed somewhat awkward,
like maybe I should
Stop, take notice.
Be present.

Be in Your love.
Be in Your presence.
Let the words go
and be.

At the Gates

So, here's the part where I get a little wonky, a little out there. A little (if I may be so bold) vulnerable. Here's the part where I say: 

We are always at the Gate. 

We are always at Sinai. 

We are always redeemed.

We all-- every one of us-- walk a path with God. We may not recognize it or acknowledge it, but we do. There is beauty and pain and hope and despair in every one of those paths. Percentages may change. How long I choose to walk in despair may change and shift. It is the same for sorrow and wonder and joy. They are all there. It's what we carry and what we take away. It is our breath. Our souls. Our hope and sorrow. It is the Gate. It is Sinai. 

It is, ever and always, our redemption.

The beauty of this the realization is the sure knowledge that I am there-- right there-- poised at the edge of everything-- always. I have dived and reflected, shined lights and prepared, to stand here-- right here-- with my heart open, eyes wide, filled with blessings and forgiveness, filled with my humanity and acceptance of yours. Ready, so very ready, to step through. To fit, to be, to become. 

Ready.

And the thing I take away from this holy and sacred undertaking - another of those profound, transformative, life-altering truths that I find unlooked for and in odd places-- what I find is this: either every day is holy or no day is.  Today, I choose to live in a world where every day is holy. The gate is always open. I am always there. God is always there, ready to catch me, grab my hand and dance.

Yom Kippur. Tomorrow. A week from next Thursday. Either every day is holy or no day is. The gates of repentance are always open. I am returned. I am redeemed. All I have to do is step through.

Thank you for being a part of my journey. Thank you for shining your lights in my darkness, for celebrating my joy and triumph, for teaching me the glory of silence and the holiness of community. You brought your songs, your souls your lives and gave me welcome.  I have been blessed beyond imagining. 

Shana tova u'metukah-- may you have a sweet year, filled with wonder and joy, light and love, healing and wholeness.

G'mar chatima tova - May you be sealed (in the Book of Life) for good.

Rise

There is a rising expectancy
A hold-your-breath
gathering in,
gathering at the edge
that drops away
ten thousand feet
and ten thousand more.

A moment--
just that one,
that separates you from
everything else.
You hold yourself so
still,
so poised.
so expectantly still.

There's a heartbeat's difference
between waiting
and ready,
a heartbeat,
a moment,
the distance between
breaths,
that narrow space
between God
and everything else.
And you have walked that narrow space,
that dry and dusty narrow space,
cradling the tethers
that bind you
to that rock-strewn road,
that narrow space between breaths,
between God--
between waiting and
ready.

You have walked the ten thousand steps,
and ten thousand more,
an eternity of steps
to cross that narrow distance,
to stand in hushed--
in waiting--
in rising
expectancy.

To leap into that moment,
to complete that breath,
to bridge the distance
between waiting
and God.

To stand
in grace,
in quiet stillness,
in breathless wonder,
on the other side of waiting.
And you gather in those tethers
that have shackled you
and bound you
to the narrow places.
You gather them
and let them fall,
let them lie
cracked and dusty and rusted through.

A breath.
A heartbeat.
A moment that stretches into
the rest of forever
(and then some)
And then
you leap.

Ready.

To God, who divides the waters: a poem in response to hurricanes

Nachshon ran from the narrow places, 
racing to freedom and God. 
He was stopped on the shores 
of the forever sea,
until he walked into the waters,

until they almost swallowed him whole.

Past his chin they came.

He walked; they rose.

And then they parted.

Just like that,
a miracle of divine order,
and the angels flew about,
singing sweet psalms
cheering the all those marchers onward,
until God reined them in,
showering them with shame.

The waters rise once more,
a new forever sea of
chest-high currents
that eddy and ripple and 
drag at the angels' sodden feet
and leaden wings, 
hosannas sung in a minor key.

Dear God, who moves 
upon the water's face;
who divided the waters 
and makes the rain;
Who sends the storms
and attends the tides -
do You wait again for Nachshon,
wrapped in his faith 
and in his folly,
to walk, and show You
once more, where the waters 
need to part?

To a Year Filled With Wonder - Shana Tovah!

For some time now, I have been wishing people a year filled with wonder as my  Facebook birthday message to them,. I tend to gloss over the exact meaning of that. It sounds good: deep, kind of profound, definitely spiritual in some way, and certainly with a vague and unspoken reference to God. 

In actuality, I don't know that I've ever given any real thought to what a year of wonder actually means. My meanderings have been interesting. That one of them was "I wonder how I have managed to not kill my beloved boy child yet..." will give you an idea of just how far afield (and how much on the edge) I can get. My son, though, gets me closer to an answer, a better understanding of wonder. 

We were sitting in services one morning, me because I wanted to be there, he because I forced him out of bed and insisted, He's a good kid, so my insistence was not too demanding. He sat next to me, playing with the tzitzit of my tallit, listening some, fiddling some, reading some, possibly praying some. Later, after the service, sitting and kibbitzing with friends, my son informed me, again, that he didn't believe in God. And again, I answered him in the only way that makes sense to me; "That's okay; you believe in kindness. I'm okay with that."

This being the time of year that it is, I felt the need to elaborate. "Nate, you look out at the woods there behind the house and see nature in all its glory-- fractals and delicate equations and chemical reactions and set laws that are knowable and predictable. I see all that, my beloved boy, and hovering just above that field, I see the breath of God hanging in the still most. You say science; I say God. I don't think God cares one way or another what you call him (her)."

What is that leap? How do I get to God - the God of fractals and predictable science? We both looked at that idyllic scene with a sense of wonder. I think though, the wonder of it all, is the willingness to strip bare - leave the cynicism and absolute certainty off to the side. There is delight in wonder, and surprise. There is something breathtaking about it. Perhaps the difference between my son's vision and mine is that I see no disconnect between science and God. 

I want to end here. Mostly. I don't know that I'm quite satisfied with this explanation. There is some otherness that pushes one into wonder. There is a willingness to be vulnerable and naked - a willingness to disallow preconceived ideas of how things work/ There should be a sense of God, of beyondness. And I know I'm making up words, but I'm trying to pull this together and the words I know aren't getting me far enough.

Wonder is a startlement, a gasp of recognition and beauty. It is God and fractals and a double helix, twined in an intimate dance. It is a leap, from a field of liquid green laced with late summer gold to a glorious hymn to God, made of bright color and soft breezes.

And all of this may be true, but it doesn't even come close to the sense that is wonder. But there's this - I went to service with my son one morning. I, because I wanted to; he because I insisted. And there was enough love, enough trust, enough a sense of rightness and respect, that we sat, for an hour or two, praying, listening, fiddling, laughing and loving. For all the geometry and beyondness: there is breathtaking wonder in that simple and glorious  moment.

If you're interested, there's a poem I wrote a few years back, about startlement with a bit of wonder and exultation. If you've read this far, and want to read a bit more, here's the link...

https://staceyzrobinson.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-startlement-of-song.html?m=1

Shana tovah. May we all have a year filled with wonder.

Imeinu Malkateinu hear our prayer

I knew my mother was a queen.

She wore the night sky like a crown,

and she blessed us with her endless bounty. 

We feasted on cherries in the warm summer air

until our fingers were stained red

and sticky.

She held court at the kitchen table,

ruling us all with equal parts 

mercy and justice. 

Be kind, she commanded,

and oh! how we tried to please her,
live up to that mark!

But we were children,

and so were sometimes cruel,

and she would call us to account,

because she was Queen,

and she always knew.

We would tremble some,

standing before her,

waiting for her measured justice,

fear and shame twisting in our bellies

because we knew, always,

that we had failed her,

and so had failed ourselves.

Sorry, we would cry, every time -

time after time after time again -

Forgive us, we would plead.

We will do better,

we would promise.

Next time, 

we would say. 

My mother would gather us close,

Be kind, she would say again,
gentle, and merciful as a kiss,

and she wiped our red stained fingers 
with a soft cloth

until they were clean. 

Avinu Malkeinu

Today is a day of reckoning
And I can hear my mother say
"Wait ‘til your father gets home!"
Today we stand in our Father's house
King of the castle,
Lord and master,
And I am small again,
a child, waiting, trembling,
shuffling and awed

Will You hear us?
Will You save us?
We rise in Your house
Forgiveness and mercy on our tongues
standing on holy ground,
hearts bared,
heads bowed.

Please.

There is no place that god is not.
There is no time that god has not been.
But today the doors are open,
the gates flung wide,
and sunlight catches silver,
and it is holy holy holy.

We rise,
because we have fallen.
We have sinned,
missed the mark.
I have. We all have.

Who are we,
that You have regard for us?
Children of dust,
sins of ash,
and still You call us to return.

Avinu Malkeinu, hear our prayer