One of my abiding rituals is writing this blog most mornings come rain or shine. Sometimes what I have to post is banal, I know. From time to time I catch hold of a thought that takes me deeper and, at least for me, things become interesting. And more often than not, this page acts as a spiritual diary of sorts giving me time to reflect on what is swirling around inside and out from my limited perspective. This morning I read a wise column on Krista Tippet's blog, On Being, about Rabbi Chaim Stern's insight that "ritual is poetry in action. (check it out here: http://www.onbeing.org/ blog/ritual-is-poetry-in-action/7487?] utm_ source= On+Being +Newsletter&utm_campaign=8e3dc30217-20150509_Jane_Gross_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0
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Two inter-related ideas spoke to me, notions that have been in my head and heart a lot this past week (and probably much longer), having to do with the rituals that bring meaning to my life and my current concerns about Christian antisemitism. James Carroll noted in his book, Constantine's Sword, that Judaism escaped becoming a religion of rigid fundamentalism by nurturing a commitment to conversation rather than conversion. To be sure, there are rabid fundamentalists all too alive and well in contemporary Judaism (as well as every other faith tradition.) And while these souls are vocal and violent, they are the minority report in a 4000 year tradition. What continues to shape and inform the practice is silence and stories guided by conversation and ritual.
“Ritual is poetry in action” means that ritual does for behavior what poetry does for words; religious deeds grace ordinary activities the way poetic language elevates commonplace communication. When it comes to ritual, Chaim might sit down at the kitchen table for a workday solo lunch, typically the banana and low fat cottage cheese he’d pick up at the Grand Union on the way home from the Temple. Nothing special here. But when he prefaced his simple meal with a ritual prayer, he’d locate the contents and consumption of a routine lunch within a spiritual framework. Thus a ritual contributes spiritual elevation to an ordinary deed as a poem ennobles casual language. Ritual allows for a broadened perspective on life. “Ritual is poetry in action” when a wedding ceremony provides a spiritual context for looking back on years of day-in, day-out parenting, a culmination and tallying of hours devoted to car pools and after school activities, the challenge, commitment, patience and love. Ritual calls for taking pause, for reflection on the labors and wonders of providing for and witnessing an emerging adult. A wedding ritual gives the big picture — and thus is a portal to spirituality — to a parent.
This makes profound sense to me. Most mornings I take a LONG time to get rolling. I am not a morning person by design. I like to ease into the day with tea, prayer, silence, reading and then some written reflection. Not only does this open my soul tenderly, it helps me get my bearings. On this first part of the sabbatical trip I have been aware that on those days when I can't practice my morning ritual - on the days when we have to hurry up and get on the road - I not only feel out of sorts, but cranky and resentful. It would seem that my presence in the world as a person of peace requires my careful practice of entering the day with grace. It is not a luxury - a privilege, yes - but not a luxury. Otherwise, I become what I hate and pass it along to others who deserve much better from me.
Parker Palmer speaks to this in a column he recently wrote called, "Laughter and Silence." It is his sense that both laughter and silence often draw us close to the sacred. I have long held the belief that both are spiritual disciplines worthy of rigorous practice. One story Palmer tells deserves a lengthy quote:
I heard a story from my friend Rachel Remen, a physician of body and soul, that reveals the power of silence to honor our shared humanity in the face of genuine evil—a story she retells in her book, My Grandfather’s Blessings. One of Rachel’s colleagues attended a conference on Jungian dream analysis. At a special session, participants were asked to take a card and write about a dream. The cards were then handed on to a panel of analysts, among whom was the grandson of Carl Jung:
"One of these cards told the story of a horrific recurring dream, in which the dreamer was stripped of all human dignity and worth through Nazi atrocities. A member of the panel read the dream out loud. As she listened, my colleague began to formulate a dream interpretation in her head, in anticipation of the panel's response. It was really a 'no-brainer,' she thought, as her mind busily offered her symbolic explanations for the torture and atrocities described in the dream.But this was not how the panel responded at all. When the reading of the dream was complete, Jung's grandson looked out over the large audience. 'Would you all please rise?' he asked. 'We will stand together in a moment of silence in response to this dream.' The audience stood for a minute, my colleague impatiently waiting for the discussion she was certain would follow. But when they sat again, the panel went on to the next question.My colleague simply did not understand this at all, and a few days later she asked one of her teachers, himself a Jungian analyst, about it. 'Ah, Lois,' he had said, 'there is in life a suffering so unspeakable, a vulnerability so extreme that it goes far beyond words, beyond explanations and even beyond healing. In the face of such suffering all we can do is bear witness so no one need suffer alone.'"
In silence, there is a depth of communion that trumps what we can achieve with words. In laughter, there is a depth of communion that trumps what we can achieve with solemnity. If personal and communal wholeness is what we seek — a wholeness that embraces the tragic and the comic, the darkness and the light — the odd couple of laughter and silence can help take us there.
One of the things I have been trying to embrace over the past year is holding the suffering and anguish of others in silent reverence in my heart. Personally I can never know the brokenness of another. Politically I cannot comprehend the grief born of genocide. Prayerfully there are no words for the pain that wounds so many of those I love. So, I have been trying to embrace the historic pain of both my cousins in Judaism and Islam - Israel and Palestine - in my heart in silence. It is too early for me to share words. It is too easy to offer my suggestions. Rather, what I feel is necessary is sitting in the discomfort of this silence and listening... to stories, to the news, to conversations and emails, to the scriptures and to histories. Indeed, there is a "depth of communion that trumps what we can achieve with words."
com/opinions/will-israel-miss-its-moment/2015/05/07/624a582e-f4f1-11e4-bcc4-e8141e5eb0c9_story.html?hpid=z7
The armies from Israel’s
main strategic adversaries — Iraq, Syria, Egypt — are in disarray, while the
Israeli armed forces have become the region’s superpower, in a league ahead of
the rest. More important, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states find
themselves in a tacit alliance with Israel against Iran. In Gen. Abdel Fatah
al-Sissi, Israel is dealing with perhaps the most anti-Hamas (and tacitly pro-Israeli) president in Egypt’s history.To
understand the depth of this strategic shift, consider this: It has been
reported that Arabs are thinking about creating a combined
armed force. The last two times that happened, in 1948 and 1967, the
purpose was to wipe Israel off the map. Today, the aim is to fight Israel’s
main foe, Iran, which is why,one Haaretz commentator
notes, “Not only is Israel not alarmed, it is actually ecstatic.”
He then offers what I think is a wise conclusion:
So while it faces real dangers, Israel has policies to fight
them with force and effectiveness. The danger for which it has no defense is
that it continues to have control over Gaza and the West Bank, lands with 4.5
million people who have neither a country nor a vote. The feeling on the
Israeli right, which now rules the country, seems to be that if the Palestinian
problem is ignored, it will somehow solve itself. But it won’t, and the tragedy
is that this is the moment, with so many stars aligned in Israel’s favor, when
enlightened leadership could secure Israel permanently as a Jewish democratic
state and make peace with its neighbors. It is a golden opportunity, and it is
staring Netanyahu in the face.
Silence does not mean neglect. Nor does it mean an unwillingness to act. It does, however, invite a deeper patience than I often comprehend as well as a trust that God will bring a measure of clarity to my head and heart if I wait in trust. This growing call into silence is potent. Last week in NYC, we slept late on Sunday morning and missed worship. We attended a jazz vespers liturgy later in the day, but we both realized that we had missed our time for sitting in the quiet with our community and listening for the wisdom of the day. On Tuesday, we slipped into an Anglican church in the East Village and listened as the choir master practiced the organ. We were bathed in the beauty of stained glass and solitude. It was soul food. I hope we find a place for worship tomorrow.
So now I am ready to enter this day in a public way: I wonder what it will bring?
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