Yesterday was a long post but that is because this experience is so rich. And I use that term deliberately. This entire fellowship has taught me much about rich and poor. And not making assumptions. Towards the end of the day riding the bus back to the hotel Leilach gave us r framework for cross cultural work. OAQ. Observations lead to assumptions instead of questions. And that is sometimes how myths and stereotypes perpetuative themselves.
If you are following this blog or Facebook you had a spoiler alert. Today was my dayo to lead our sacred space time. Each day we begin with 15 minutes of a spiritual exercis Today was my day and you saw the materials I used. I added the Psalm for the day as well.
I chose this material for several reasons. The poem was given to me by the Rev. David Ferner for ordination in a book called The Active Life by Parker Palmer a Quaker activist. It was originally published by the Church of Brethern in Elgin. I went last Friday to pick up the book in person. It just seemed like all the pieces of my life are contained just in how the poem got to me. It also seems like Judaism says much about the collective. The community. Most of our prayers are in the plural. Eloheinu. Our G-d. Avinu Malkenu. Our Father Our King. Rarely do we pray in the singular. So I started with Ozi V’zimrat Yah. G-d is my strength and song. G-d is my salvation. These are very powerful words. (And also the song that got me through a bike ride raising money for a domestic violence program after Liv was killed when she stepped in front of her mother who was shot by her father. This on the day I presented my thesis on domestic violence. But that was not the point. Her mom played volleyball with the clergy in Chelmsford. Not one of us saw the warning signs.)
Judaism has a lot to say about resurrection and we don’t always focus on it. Sometimes I think it is not rational enough for us moderns. Sometimes I think it is something we ceded to the Christians. But here comes a poem that talks about resurrection in a way I had never thought of. It is not the personal salvation of Ozi V’zimrat Yah. Rather it is the collective. Resurrection is something we achieve together. In community. And that is a very powerful way of looking at these texts.
So here is the material for real:
Ozi V’Zimrat Yah. Vayhi Li’yeshua
G’vurot:
YOU ARE FOREVER MIGHTY, Adonai; You give life to all (revive the dead).
*Winter—You cause the wind to shift and rain to fall.
*Summer —You rain dew upon us.
You sustain life through love, giving life to all (reviving the dead) through great
compassion, supporting the fallen, healing the sick, freeing the captive, keeping faith
with those who sleep in the dust.
Who is like You, Source of mighty acts? Who
resembles You, a Sovereign who takes and gives life, causing deliverance to spring up
and faithfully giving life to all (reviving that which is dead)?
Shabbat shuvah — Who is like You, Compassionate God,
who mercifully remembers Your creatures for life?
Blessed are You, Adonai, who gives life to all (revives the dead).
translation from : http://www.reformjudaism.org/practice/prayers-blessings/shabbat-morning-worship-services-gvurot#sthash.zib0JHVi.dpuf
Ezekiel 37:5:
Thus says the Lord G-d to these bones: Behold I will breathe into you, and you will come to life.
Translation of the End of Yigdal
By the End of Days G-d will send our Messiah – to redeem those longing for G-d’s final salvation;
God will revive the dead in abundant kindness – Blessed forever is the praised Name.
Threatened by Resurrection:
They have threatened us with Resurrection
There is something here within us
which doesn’t let us sleep, which doesn’t let us rest,
which doesn’t stop the pounding deep inside.
It is the silent, warm weeping of women without their husbands
it is the sad gaze of children fixed there beyond memory . . .
What keeps us from sleeping
is that they have threatened us with resurrection!
Because at each nightfall
though exhausted from the endless inventory
of killings for years,
we continue to love life,
and do not accept their death!
In this marathon of hope
there are always others to relieve us
in bearing the courage necessary . . .
Accompany us then on this vigil
and you will know what it is to dream!
You will know then how marvelous it is
to live threatened with resurrection!
To live while dying
and to already know oneself resurrected.
Julia Esquivel
Parker Palmer said in the Active Life:
For Esquivel, there is no resurrection of isolated individuals. She is simply not concerned about private resurrections, yours or mine or her own. Each of us is resurrected only as we enter into the network of relationships called community, a network that embraces not only living persons but people who have died, and nonhuman creatures as well. Resurrection has personal significance – if we understand the person as a communal being – but it is above all a corporate, social and political event, an event in which justice and truth and love come to fruition. (152)
A word about technology. I traveled with my old beat up laptop. Seems there were real reasons I bought a new one three years ago. This one is missing the comma key. It needs to always be plugged in because the battery pack is not charging and when I went to print ahead of my session I could not download the file. So we will limp along. I might say that these are first world problems but I had a long conversation yesterday about terms such as first world third world developing world and global south. Does anyone remember what the second world was? I had forgotten. It was China and Russia. Reminds me of all those reports I wrote for SAP on BRIC. Brazil Russia India China.