Prayer For The Young And The Old

It is our current inclination to despair:

  For the young

  It is maddening to be left with a future

  Of environmental degradation 

  And fascist cults.  

  And for the old

  It is grievous to see lifelong struggles 

  Take too many backwards steps

  From what were happy endings.

It is our current obligation to hope:

  For the young

  It is exciting to plan the fights ahead,

  The anger and the camaraderie 

  And the eventual celebrations. 

  And for the old 

  It is amusing how life comes in waves—

  Inevitably the bad guys will go too far

  And they will fall, some day. We know this. 

Blessed Holy Wholeness:

  It is true,

  Kingdoms are overturned,

  Temples are destroyed. 

  Church overwhelms State,

  Fear tramples freedom. 

  Rights are won then lost,

  There is oppression. 

  There will be more pain. 

  

So go ahead, 

Young or old,

Give up on dreams. 

Or,

Young and old,

Don’t. 

Amen

I Am Learning

  

I am learning 

That I have control 

Over not much more

Than what to have for breakfast 

And even that depends 

On whether I remembered to get yogurt 

Or if that week

I can afford blueberries. 

I am learning that world events

Do not recognize my opinions 

And that cruelty doesn’t care

If I am appalled. 

I am learning 

That I no longer want to march or rally:

My knees want me to stay home

And sometimes I think I may be aging into apathy. 

But enough of that, I’m bored with despair 

And prefer to think of the hopeful young

In cahoots

With the stubborn old

Which makes the act of teaching,

Like blueberries,

Downright optimistic. 

And I am learning.

Prayer for New Year's Eve

Baruch Atah Adonai

Brucha At Shechinah

I am glad that I don't believe in an intervening God of cause and effect, 
In a petty king and insecure supreme being 
Who plans everything that happens on our planet.

Because if I did,

After this last year,

I would be way pissed off.

Baruch Atah Adonai

Brucha At Shechinah

I am glad that I do have a knowingness
Of connection and holy conversation,

Of community and friendship and family and love and resistance 
That I call God.

And tonight on New Year's Eve

And in the coming year

I will have hope.

Blessed One-ness

We see the truth

And we see the possibilities.
Blessed be the truth!
Blessed be the possibilities!
Happy New Year.

Amen

The Light

Illustration by Flash Rosenberg 

© 2020 Flash Rosenberg

flashrosenberg.com

Imagine that you are in a room in your home
A room that has a door
And the door is closed
Your favorite room
The room you feel safest in
A room where nothing changes
And nothing challenges
And you sit in this room
And look around you
And you see that the room is dark
Very dark
That the safety of the room has taken all the color out of this room
Where the darkness becomes darker
And the days grow short
And you do not see what you do not want to see
And you are safe
And warm
But you are ignorant.
Sit in this ignorant safety for a moment.

Now in this safe dark room, you look towards the closed door
And you see a sliver of light coming from underneath
Imagine that you rise up and walk to the door
And you open it
And you see that outside this safe room
It is winter
Everything is covered in snow
But you are in the dark room,
This narrow place
So you leave the room
You are outside in a beautiful winter meadow
Covered in snow
And you have your winter clothes on now
So you are warm
But the ground is covered with whiteness
And the light is bright
And the trees surrounding the meadow have no leaves
But the light is magnificent
It’s still cold
You can’t pretend it’s spring
You must see things as they are
You must wear warm clothes
But the days are growing longer
When the world seems most devoid of life
You can see the future.
Someday there will be spring.

You see the beauty and the cold
You see the truth
You see the possibilities
You are one with the One-ness
In the beautiful winter light.

And in this light, you see Light.

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Thank you!

Trisha

Somehow: Rosh Hodesh Kislev

Kislev is the month for despair.

The sun fades away

And we get depressed.

We forget that the light will return:

We lose faith in change.

Kislev is the month for re-inventing courage.

At the worst possible moment,

The days gets longer. 

We imitate the sun with bright lights

And make plans for a possible future.

Blessed Holy One-ness,

Giving us the month of Kislev

In which to lose hope 

And find it again,

Somehow. 

Amen.

This Week I Needed to Connect

11/3/12

This week I needed to connect:

To the world

To my community

To Brooklyn

To New Jersey

To Breezy Point

To my family

To the power grid

To Facebook

To the local news

To Mayor Bloomberg

To Governor Cuomo
To Chris Christie and Barack Obama

To good-deed-doers

To my rabbi

To my cantor

To the volunteers

To those in need

To the MTA transit workers

To the  NYC police

To the NYC Fire Department
To freezing friends

To prayer

To politics

To Jon Stewart

To tragedy

To grief

To loss

To stupidity
To my solar phone charger

To randomness

To truth

To Shabbat

To my cats

To my sofa

To candy

To children dressed as ladybugs and elephants and gumball dispensers
To my block

To my landlord

To music

To anguish

To heroism

To despair

To foolishness

To hope

To God

This week I needed to connect.

And I did.

Blessed One-ness,  when we most need connection,  it is there.

Amen