Thursday, November 25, 2021

Sursum Corda

 



From near or far,
Here we are,
Gathered around
the table abundant.


Too long, too long apart;
It’s difficult to remember
The proper way to start.


We join our hands,
We pray for all lands
— for as we have suffered,
others, likewise, have—
And recall those, bright and bold,
Who now the arms of history hold,
Since last we met like this.


The warmth of touch,
Oh, so warm! to share the lively
Pulse of light and life! so much
Missing from living, lately!


Within the candles’ glow,
Within the warmth of home,
This meeting is where we sow
Seeds for Spring in the receptive loam.


Let’s lift up our hearts, Dear Ones!
We lift our cups for the toast,
We lift them up!, reply all tongues,
Gratitude and joy, uppermost—


—Reminded and ever mindful
That all the primary things
Are not things, at all.






Sunday, October 3, 2021

Colibri Animato



for the Feast of St. Francis

3 October 2021
     - my 60th birthday


There is a language we share:
the air that together we breathe,
beneath the open sky!


Who could have known that would be enough
to bridge such an enormous gap?


But even the diary from one year ago
does attest:


“Rounding the corner,
and there you are!


-- We share this life,
though one is fractional
to the other

-- We share this home;
though our dwellings differ,
we are only liminally separate
-- In truth, we are together."


Of another shared aspect,
--that of torpor--
our intersectional relationship
reaches the overarching conclusion:


Choose life!


For, suspended animation is merely life incremental,

slowed to the blessing of the molto adagio,
where the dream that animates us bids us all to live

to each newly dawning day,
slowing each passing moment of awareness
so that we may all be the moment together, and in time.


For how long, my friend,
shall we bless one another’s company,
in the newly dawning om of day?


You greet me by landing on the tomato cage,

despite that fruit being no longer in due season.


Only in the most foreshortened sense of being
can my three-score years coincide with your own

-- yet will I delight in your special greeting,
in the beauteous now that we have,
in the blessing to have been truly seen
and to also have truly seen,
in the mutuality of seeing and acknowledging,
of knowing,
and of caring,
and seeking to live cooperative within that notice--

yea, let this, what we have, be our deepening moment
for as long as providence may bless us both
with such patience and perspicacity,
with such sacred and familial union,

as is that rounding of the corner,
to be with you,
        where you are with me
and we are joyously
together.


© 2021 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.com

 

Saturday, September 11, 2021

September 11, 2021: A Meditation on Being

 



Rosh Hashanah is here. A time to turn and return. Here is one fundamental lesson I learned from a small portion of the sermon, given by Rabbi J. Perlman, something I had not known and found to be utterly amazing. 


The name of the Holy One (one, at least) is not a noun! It is an action verb, an imperfect action verb because the action is incomplete. To offer clarity, scriptural Hebrew has only two tenses Perfect Tense (denoting a completed action) or Imperfect Tense (denoting an incomplete action); these tenses are related to function, not to time. When Hebrew is translated into English, where all the tenses are time oriented (past, present, future), obvious difficulties are encountered.


This is a rather important detail Christian – and readers of scriptures in other language renderings – would likely miss because of the vagaries of translation. Indeed, just how to properly translate certain Hebrew phrases into English and other languages has been argued about for a very long time, and there is no concrete answer or agreement to the discussion. This is an open discussion.


What in the heck am I talking about, you ask?


It is that passage in Exodus (3:14) where the Holy One answers the question Moses asks: “What is your name?” The answer is given in many English renderings as “I AM THAT I AM… tell them I AM sent you.”


The Hebrew, transliterated, is “ehyeh asher ehyeh”; ehyeh is the verb “to be.” Because time is not a factor in Hebrew, verbs must be understood contextually. The meaning of the short phrase “ehyeh asher ehyeh” is less like “I am what I am” than “I was/I am/I will be what I will be as I continue to evolve [because I never end].” As I am not a linguist of ancient Hebrew, I had to consult an array of information on the internet to provide this particular, wide-ranging, personal understanding for you to consider. 


Moses found the enormity of this reply difficult to comprehend; the entity he had encountered was most definitely above and beyond any being he could imagine, but how do you identify – how do you name – such an apprehension, such a limitless, uncontained being, to others? How do you name something that cannot be understood, seen or embodied?

 

Ehyeh realized this was a problem, a stumbling block, for Moses; this is why Ehyeh goes on to say everything contained in the remaining passages of Exodus 3, identifying what has already been done for this set of people l’dor vador (from generation to generation), and what indeed will be done next, if Moses will go back to the people and proclaim the news.

 

The reply of Moses, at the start of Exodus 4, is understandable: They won’t believe me – in part because you have not appeared to them, as you have appeared to me. That response is natural, and it speaks to blind faith in the invisible, which struck me as blind faith in the future, given the context of the Rabbi’s sermon, the one I heard just a few days ago. [In my own Christian tradition, this brings context to that passage where Thomas needs to see the wounds of the Jesus that has returned. Jesus does not rebuke Thomas for his reaction, he draws near, remarking: Seeing is believing.] That would be food for an interesting discussion, but that is not what engaged my mind, on this particular Rosh Hashanah.

 

The Divine is being, and we are being also, in the image of the Divine. I will date myself by making a reference to the Flip Wilson Show, of the 1970’s, where there was an infrequent silly segment called, “The Church of What’s Happening Now.” 


The Holy One is always more about “what’s happening now” than anything that happened in the past, ever urging people to keep up and keep clean with current issues and relationships, rather than dwell on old ones. This is why the High Holy Days are so vitally important. Turning and Returning is not about dwelling on the past; Turning and Returning is about now and future. This is why reconciliation and forgiveness are such important features of the Days of Awe. How can we move forward, after all, if we allow ourselves to be hindered by what happened yesterday, last year, or decades ago. Anything that binds us to the past keeps us from participating in and realizing the future good we can be or make.


Dwelling on the past – also fundamentalism and orthodoxy – can be seen, in this light, as hindering our ability to move beyond “the way we’ve always done things;” it limits what we can apprehend and what our responses should be to what we apprehend. When we Turn and Return, it should always be toward forward momentum, following in the wake of Ehyeh, always moving ahead of us. This does not mean forgetting, this means getting on with life.


In a few days, on Yom Kippur, these words will be chanted (Deuteronomy 30:19), and I have edited the passage to represent the Divine in keeping with this discussion: 


This day, I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love being, apprehend what it is to be, and to hold fast to being. For to be is your life’s work, and being will give you many years in the land Being swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.


Today is the 11th of September. We can mourn our losses and remember those we lost. What we should not do is be stuck in a past that leads to further destruction, further strife, further war. 


Even later in the day on Yom Kippur, a portion of these words will be chanted (Leviticus 19: 32-37), and I have edited the passage again, to fit the context of this discussion:


Show honor to the elderly; stand up when they come into the room. And show respect to your leaders. I am Being. Do not do bad things to foreigners living in your country. You must treat them the same as you treat your own citizens. Love them as you love yourselves. Remember, you were foreigners in Egypt. I am Being! [I declare that ]You must be fair when you judge people, and you must be fair when you measure and weigh things. Your baskets should be the right size. Your jars should hold the right amount of liquids. Your weights and balances should weigh things correctly. I am Being. I brought you out of the land of Egypt. You must remember and obey my ethics. I am Being!”


On this September 11th, let us mark the occasion by remembering, but then by moving forward, choosing life! The best way to honor those we’ve lost is to be! The expectation of the Divine is that each individual engage with Being by being all that we can be, doing as much good in this world as we can. Being is our sacred birthright; being our very best is our sacred duty.


Blessings to you, and let us say: 

Amen.







Monday, May 24, 2021

Pentecost 2021

 



From Passover and Crucifixion
to Passover and Crucifixion,
the people had been closed off,
locked away from one another
by decree by fear, and by death
wrought by a raging pestilence.


But today, such decrees were lifted,
and all gathered together;
no matter their language or culture;
they gathered in one space,
to be of one mind,
in gratitude.


Into that singular mental space,
from all and in all directions,
a purifying wind blew,
and a refiner’s fire
filled the collective soul.


All at once, the people began to speak,
some in languages they’d never studied;
everyone heard and was heard, 

everyone understood and was understood,
everyone one in being with one.


Everyone one of heart, exult
in all of one for one
and dwell now in hope,
no longer abandoned to Gehenna;
we who have seen death
have also seen life,
and we have chosen life.


What now shall we do?
The people asked, as one voice.


And the answer came to all:
Be penitent for all past double-standards,
serve the divine by serving your neighbor;
believe that all are equal to love divine,
and live to that truth.


If you do this, you will have welcomed
Olam Haba, and shall be embraced therein.


In gladness and singleness of heart,
All breathed as one and, as one, sighed:
Amen. 


© 2021 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com