Omer. Day Nine

I'm a bit all over the board to day. Some might say that's a step up for me. I have no idea when I became so discombobulated by life. I used to think I was organized. I am awesome at creating systems. I can color code and categorize with the  best. When I was in grad school, I had a 500 page binder of note cards, all with headers, dub-headers and timeline - for a 20 page paper. So what that the actual writing of the paper got away from me: I was on top of all the tiny, tiny little pieces.

When did I go from keeping on top of all minutiae to making piles that meld into the other piles that have long since toppled into one another, waiting only for me to grow annoyed enough with all the piles to attack them one afternoon, and create brand new, totally separate piles with a bag of paper and other office litter that is too heavy for me to lift. Bonus: I usually do my battle on bright and sunny days, when the air is sweet and the humidity low. My subconscious works overtime to add one more to my list of inanimate object resentment. My sub-subconscious is trickier, and gives itself a high five at finding an appropriate punishment for my procrastination.

I always feel better after these battles - lighter, cooler, able to breathe a bit easier. There is a sense of accomplishment: Ta da! I did it! I vanquished all that paper and mail and evil... Oh wait. It's just paper. There will be no parade in my honor, no confetti (that will remain on mt floor until the next dust up with the enemy). Dammit.

I could promise to change. Have promised to change. To keep the piles low, to set up a schedule, to make a plan. And stick to it. Really I will! But (wait for it) I don't. It is all a piece of the controlled chaos that is my life. Which really, when I lay it out like that, is kinda crappy. Who wants to live a life of chaos - and pretend that it's controlled in any way?

So I write notes and make files. I but boxes and accordion folders in awesome colors. And there's e-calendars and timers and reminders. And I throw most of the junk mail out as soon as I get it. And I at least fold the laundry these days, and mainly hang up the stuff that needs hanging. And the bills get paid mostly before I get passive aggressive robo-call reminders. And there's food on the table and a roof over our heads - and yeah - it sounds as if I'm justifying my crappy behavior. Maybe I am. Or maybe, just maybe, all those piles - even the tumbling ones, are a little smaller than they were a year or three ago. And the chaos is a little less chaotic than it used to be. And the time between doing fierce battle with all the mess (physical, mental, spiritual - pick one) grows a little shorter.

It's progress, not perfection. And I think that, these days, I have chosen to dismantle the biggest of the piles - the most threatening, dangerous and twisty pile: the one I've kept hidden, that holds all the nasty little voices that tell me I am less than, and broken, and beyond repair. It hides the fun house mirror of distortion and lies. I think I'm ready to walk away and finally leave that pile behind.

So, if you ask me, on this omer-journey what do I carry, what will I leave behind, I think the answer is not as mysterious as I once thought.

And so we count nine/

Omer, Day One

Tonight is One.

First steps are hard for me. It is so much easier to stay stuck in one place, unmoving. Even the pain of that - the pain of stuckness, the pain of sameness and stasis - all that seems so much easier than change.

I see infinity with every step, and it terrifies me, overwhelms until I can't move. I wait. I watch. I fear.

You get the picture.

Here's the thing that saved my life, heard at a time I needed it, when I was so mired in my infinity that I was drowning in it and I could barely breathe - I am not responsible for infinity. I am not even responsible for the Whole Picture, the Everythingness of my actions, the sum total of all the rest of my life, here at the starting line of whatever journey of change or discovery or unknown leap of fucking faith: Pray to God, and row towards shore.

One step. That's all I need do. One. The infinity, the everythingness that I hold so tightly - so that my back is bent and my fingers cramp with the strain of seeing that first step turn into that first mile into that first day into that first misstep into that muddy quagmire of mistakes and the unknown - 

All of that is (as a dear friend once told with, with all the love in her heart) is none of my damned business. All I have, all I can ever do, is take one step, the one that is right in front of me.

What happens from there? No idea. That's the deal - one step, whether I am inching along or racing by in my seven league boots - that One is filled with my faith (and my fear) - faith that I will be able to face whatever it is that stares me down in hat moment, faith that I know I will be ok - not that everything will magically go my way whenever I take that one step, but that I will survive it, with as much grace as I allow.

Some days I am more graceful than others. But it only happens when I put one foot in front of the other.

So tonight begins the Counting of the Omer. Whatever the ancients did with it, I choose to honor this mitzvah, this commandment, by taking a spiritual journey through these next 49 days, to discover what it is that I carry and hold on to as we all move from the Narrow Places of our slavery to the wide open spaces of the Wilderness and freedom - and binding, and grace, and community and revelation.

It's an awesome journey - literally - but however awesome, however rich and difficult and energizing this journey may be, it all begins with 

One. 

Tonight we count One of the Omer.

#countingthe omer #passover #journeytofreedom

At the urging of a harp: a poem for Elul (#blogelul)

I stand here,
ready to begin
again,
to follow this road
of dust, that stretches
before me, but I cannot
see where it bends
and splits and
turns in on itself.
I have walked this
road before,
seven times seven,
and then seven more:
brought here
returned here
again and again
and yet the road is still
mystery.

David's harp urges me
and the horns of Abraham's
dilemma push me,
and Jacob's ladder is crowded
with angels. They move aside,
not without some attitude,
so I may stumble up those
narrow rungs; still -
elevated though I am,
there is only dust
and a blaze of Glory
in the far distance.

I am meant to follow,
with open hands
and open heart,
to feel the quickening
of my blood
that moves in equal time
with my shame
and my joy, my fear and
love, my grief and my ecstasy,
So that i may claim them
all, as they have
claimed me;
so that i may dance
at the gates
and be whole.

Ten Words

What ten words rule you?
Which move you?
Bring you forward
and return you?
What ten words
bow you
and bend you
and fill you full?
Which serve you,
or demand that
you serve?

Which call you
to your journey,
to dive inward,
move outward,
and carry you to distant
trackless shores -
a barren wilderness
that is more vast
than sky,
more filled
than stars
and time?

And yet those words,
those ten,
they carry you -
From all that
you know;

Ten words lift you
into a boundless unknown.
bring you to self;
bring you to God.


For Shavuot
based, in part, on Exodus 34:27, in honor of "Aseret ha'd'brot" - the Ten Words

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.

Hineini

I will walk the requisite path--
The one that begins here,
Right here, in front of me.
I have stared at its armored edge
for a small taste of Forever.
Really -
It looks no different From any other spot;
There is no demarcation,
no arrows or exes
to shout its beginning.

It is not a parade ground,
That bared-earth spot,
So there is no confetti.
It's just ground,
(as if ground were not wondrous enough:
a place to stand and catch your breath,
which is the holy name of God)
But it is merely ground -
Holy ground,
hard and empty.

I would prefer confetti.

I will walk the requisite path
On hard, bare ground,
Starting here, right here.
There is no there,
or I might take that one.
There always seems so much more than,
and I feel its tug so much more
Insistently.

But there is no confetti, and no
There.

So here is a good place to start.
And here I stand, and wait to begin,
Wait to step into the Infinite,
Because the infinite
Lies on hard, bare ground
Unfurled at my feet.

Here,

Not there, without fanfare.
It waits, patient and ready
for my step, my beginning.
Bending inwards,
curving, twisting
a double helix of Infinite discovery
That begins - and ends
with a single step,
A single breath
That is the name of God

Here.