There is no magic religion that will connect you to God, though there may be the path that has a magic for you. There is no gift of the spirit that comes attached to the right religion or the people with the right credentials. There is only the ability to keep silence. While there may be no magic religion, there is such a thing as magic space. It is the space that unfolds and it is here that praying is done. The reason for so much bad religion and even the insistence that there is no importance to religion is because people have lost the ability to maintain silence. Silence has to be sought out and then it must be maintained. Silence has to be nurtured. This is the only place God is ever known. People are waiting for God to speak, but he is a Man of Silence. In cultivating the quiet place where we turn our back on the noise of the world and even the constant and confused yammering of those who love us, we become quiet and join with God.

Not away from life, but in the midst of it
not out of this wreck but in it
i am the life and the life that bleeds
and if i came to show the world anything
it was the beauty of blood
and the life in the bread
and the time in the wine
i am in love with this aching
come now, lay down beside me
now that we've told this story put it
aside long enough to tell another one
they are all facets of the same
now that you have known me like this
no me by another name
this kiss, smoky
with cigarette and apple joice on your
breath
this bed, soft with the weight of bodies
and the surrender of pretens
this groaning, longing
singsonging
was really all there ever was

This semester I am in a creative writing course, and I've got a couple of options. I suppose I have many, but here are the ones that are really before me: to be lazy, or to challenge myself. It occured to me, last night, that I began writing with certain desires. I made the shift from someone who wished to be published at a great place and recognized by great people, to someone who just wanted to be a working writer. I need to go back to the person I was that first year of graduate school when I decided writing to people was the most important thing in the world.

Baruchu

What a week so far! and not that it has bee na bad one, but it has been one of challenges, one of fits and starts and starting over. We are in a time of blessing. Thinking this morning of the berakhot I am reminded that one of the principal things about berakhot is that, for mthe very beginning of the day we are training ourselves to bless our lives and bless the One who gives them to us. I grew up into a suspcious person, into one who thought it was his job to eye the gifts of God with suspicion and not to see the best in everything, one who believed itwas sacred duty to cry out in skepticism to God, one who lived in a theology where God could not be entirely trusted.

Baruch atah Adonai... Blessed are you lord, who removes sleep from my eyelids, blessed are you lord who separates day from night. Blessed are you Lord... Who is present in every moment of our lives, turning all of our lives to blessing. I am afraid, still, to relewnt, to rejoice, to bless you. I am afraid to walk across the waters. There is a part of me still waiting for the sea to come crashing down, still waiting to be shown up for being to trusting. What a fool that part of me is. Forgive him, Lord.

In the ancient world the people from who the Jews came revered places as sacred. They revered stones and mountain tops, holy boxes, the dark spaces behind curtains in the holy parts of temples. Israel said all of these were one, all of these gods were at the end one. We do recognize God in places-- Makom. We still call him our Rock. We are called, in prayer, to recognize the presence of God in everything we see.

Still riding high on the lesson of Shabbat Shirah I am making it a point to dance joyously bofore the God of Israel, to rejoicein h Fer f srael,t sing praise to the Rock of Israe Howlongi my life did I struggle to love a God I could not. Wesing and we dance to welcome the Holy Presence into our life and into our homes. We sing to welcome him into our lives. Like the children of Israel jouneyigto Sinai, led by God we journey to God. He leaps frm heaven to meet us on the mount.

And that makes me think of buying a new Torah scroll

I come to the morning after Shabbat shirah, and the morning after te first Sabbath in a long time since I've gotten to rejoice at Temple Bethel, with a desire to be joyful in God. I was going to say a DETERMINATION, but this seems like a strange thing. At this time of year there is always the tempation to fall inot blackness, to be depressed at every little thing. The days are long and cold and, really, the future seems to promise on more hardship. In the past and sometiems in the present I employ all sorts of psychological tricks to make myself feel better, be more faithful. There is, of course, the guilt about beign faithless, being ungrateful. At these times I suppose its most important to simply simply dwell in God's rpesence, singing and humming and really preparign the heart for a good prayer service, preparing the soul to welcome God, preparing the place of prayer to be God's place. Tat's really the most important thing we can do.




Everything that seems to threaten us can be a sign to us. The fear f the future, the sorrow in the present can lead us to deeper prayer, deeper singing, a deeper surrender to the spirit of God, a deeper commitment to getting of our asses and really making it to shul and keeping our commitments with friends. We don't have to deny anything, but everything can be an invitation from God to enter the dance.

ELEMENTS

Based on To Peel A Pom, I've begun associations with elements of the seasons and how they fit into Judaism. It isn't nearly as easy as I thought it would be.

Winter= Air (cold and sharp, The Swords), Water (snow, ice and rain) Fire and Light: the Menorah, the Festival lights, the Light of Torah. Miracle Earth. Paradox Earth, Magical Earth. The Frozen Earth that gives birth to the Child of the New Age (the Christ) and redemption (Chanakuh)

Spring= Water (spring rain), the unfrozen waters of lakes and rivers, the waters of the parting Red Sea at Passover, flooding. Air, water in the air. The Destroyer in the Air over Egypt. The Pillar of Cloud, Rain Clouds. Fire: The pillar of fire, the Shininah. Earth= the overly fertile earth, the mundanely fertile earth, the earth which provides food, Adonai, baruch atah adonai, elohenie melech haolam, le motzi lachem min haretz amen. The land providing bread.

Dareto be illogical. Dare to deal in what you feel to be true confessing that what we think has limits. Deal with paradox. Enter int othe place where doubt and belief, unbelef and confession become one. One of the greatest prayers is for unity, east to west, male to female, Gentile to Jew. It is said that once Man was one, male and female, divided in Eden. The Aleu prays that God may be one and, who can say, the Shema may not confess that God is one, but insist that one day God will be. Now we experience God and our lives all fractured, then, we believe, all that is divided shall be brought together. I believe this means it already is together, that we are praying not for it to happen, but forthe time when we can see it, just as praying for the eventual sunrise doens
t change the fact that the sun is always there. In that place things which seem so ifferent and often inimical are one, like belief and unbelief, like worship and the insistence that worship is not possible. In this velvet blackness, my God, I come to you.

It seems like this day is already hectic, and its just getting up in the morning time, not even six o clock. After morning prayers I feel the frustration in my stomach and settle for a few moments before the altar. The altar is one of the best things about a Catholic past and an obsession with other religions, especially hinduism. As I go on to the rest of the day, I want to put out how sad it is that Judaism has lost the custom of the altar, or at least mainstream Judaism as we know it. So many Catholci churches are open for peopelto come in and comtempalte, to meet God. But not the synagogues so much. In the future what I hope is to see more places of quiet contemplation in Judaism where people can dwell with, in silence, the God who we meet so many centuries ago.