Shelter For The Spirit

The world, today, celebrates in gratitude for the planet we share while wrestling with the damage done to it by our human species.  In this week, here in the US, we continue to struggle with what it means to be members of a society which aspires to equality for all while trying to hide from the realities of racism woven into the fabric of our society.

The created world could teach us a lot about how our society could function more holistically and compassionately.  But religion, as we have lived it in the past few centuries, has taught us that the created world, nature, is antithetical to spirit.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

While religion planted itself ever more firmly (in the last 600 years) in the notion that somehow spirit and flesh, spirit and earth, were separate opposing realities, it lost track of the very first thing the Abrahamic scriptures professed; that The Creator called all of creation GOOD.  The Source of Life didn’t say humans are good and reptiles are bad.  That Source didn’t say only men are good but not women.  And that Source definitely never said this breed is better than that breed, whether talking about the colors of the human rainbow or the myriad fish in the sea.

In our compartmentalized, sanitized, narcissistic society we have put environmental concern, racial concerns, LGBTQIA concerns, and so many other concerns into neat little separate boxes.  The power constructs would have us believe that we are each struggling alone in our own little box and the resources of ingenuity, sustenance and compassion have to be allocated to this box or that.

But that is not how the Creative Force designed this world.  Everything and everyone is part of an ecosystem which only flourishes in unity.  When we strip away the top soil, or burn the rainforests the consequences ripple out.  The mycelial network between fungi and trees stops functioning; stops sharing the resources to renew life. 

The same has been true for us.  As we have commodified peoples and tore apart the connections between us, our social safety-net has disintegrated.  Granted, it only served as a safety-net for some some of the time, because the game of power has been winning for a long time, separating us.  In our own little boxes, we live in fear and lack.  We don’t know how the folks in their own little boxes are or are not functioning, but we assume they must be doing better than we are.  The fear, distrust and anger grows.  It was designed that way by those who hold the power and resources. 

Those of us with white skin didn’t know what we didn’t know, and in our blissful ignorance bought the lie that “those people” (those other little boxes) where robbing us of our birthright.  The systems of oppression we have been blind to, be they poll taxes or red-lining or mass incarceration, were consciously designed by those in power.  They told us that we had something to fear, and more specifically they told poor white folk – “see you don’t have it so bad.  At least you’re not black.”  The significance of this week’s verdict will only be made real if we stop believing the lies and living in the boxes. 

The language of fear has changed somewhat but it is still about keeping us separated from those who are also struggling to get by.  Now they also tell us – don’t believe the scientists, don’t wear the mask, don’t leave your house without a gun – be afraid.  It’s a jungle out there!

If only it were.  In a jungle or a forest, yes, there are some dangers, but there is also mutuality.  There is a wisdom in nature that knows there is enough for all. We are only now learning that even the community of trees communicates and supports one another, sending nutrients and messaging through their intertwined root system. The plants, animals, microbes and waterways are a community of mutual support, taking from each other only what they need, knowing that the survival of all depends on their interconnected web of life.

The reason we celebrate Earth Day each year is because our species has forgotten that it is part of that web of life.  More specifically our American society and other colonizer societies, has believed the lie that we are somehow separate from the web of life.  We’ve built up our little boxes, put fences and highways around them, keeping ourselves separate from the wild.

But just as we have raped the planet, tearing off topsoil and mountain tops, we have destroyed the fabric of society.  Rather than growing our sense of unity and love, we have grown fear and baseless hatred.  Just as nature is supposedly unsafe and dirty, we have made women and people of color into dirty, wild things to be tamed.  We have siphoned off clean water for fracking and bottled it for sale.  We have convinced ourselves that science and faith are both suspect if they in any way remind us that we are part of the larger world; that we share in its fate and are responsible for one another. 

We can deny pandemics and climate change all we like, but it will not prevent either.  We can turn over our civil liberties in the name of safety, but it doesn’t mean that those in power won’t put a knee on our neck if we too become perceived of as Other or Enemy.

On this Earth Day, let us remember that we are all part of a rich tapestry of creation that the Source of Life called good.  That Source is a compassionate and loving connectivity, which calls us to responsibility for one another as the hands and hearts of Love.  It is not too late for us to reawaken from the epidemic of fear and hate.  It is not too late to rejoin with our web of life to heal the damage done to planet and people.  It is not too late for everywhere to be Eden once again, if only we look with compassion on this earth and all the peoples that inhabit it as our kin. 

Tonight, Jews around the world are marking Shabbat HaGadol, the Great Sabbath before Passover begins, tomorrow night. And then on Sunday Christians will celebrate Palm Sunday.  It is also a special weekend for me, as this sabbath is the anniversary of my ordination.  The Hebrew Scriptures read on this sabbath tells of the initiation (ordination) of Aaron as high priest and instructs us to keep a fire burning in the sanctuary, at all times. 

This year as I consider how I am tending my fire, or spirit, one cannot help but reflect on all we have gone through since the last Passover and Easter seasons.  Most of us will spend a second holiday season physically distanced from our loved ones.  Many of our loved ones have died in this year.  We have watched our country be divided and traumatized, over and over, as we experienced financial and health crises, political insurrection, and now multiple mass murders in just the last couple of weeks.

While many people tend to juxtapose Passover with Easter, in reality it has a lot more in common with Palm Sunday; and both have something to say about the moment we find ourselves in.  On Palm Sunday, the rabbi Jesus road into Jerusalem with great fanfare and proceeded to overturn the marketplace inside the Temple.  On Passover, Moses and the Israelites overturned the machinations of slavery in Egypt and turned their back on all they had known to step into a new life.  In both instances the common folk stood up and spoke truth to power.  And in both instances, bold actions eventually boomeranged, as reality and fear made them second-guess the voice of hope and freedom.  The Israelites built a golden calf and waxed nostalgic for the known dysfunction of enslavement.  A week after Jesus’s triumphal entrance, even his own disciples denied knowing him, and hid in fear.

The moment we find ourselves in is not so different.  I remember shortly after we all went into lock-down, folks were noticing the blue of the sky and the clearness of the waters, when we were not actively polluting our planet.  Many of us were restful, appreciating the slower pace; spending time with our beloveds (if we shared the same home).  But before long, we became restless and fearful; it has indeed been a long year.  It has been a year in which the stark disparities between haves and have-nots were laid bare, as people of color died at an even higher rate than white folk; when elders and prisoners died in exponential numbers where they were warehoused. 

When we slowed down, we could no longer numb ourselves into distraction, so the murders of George Floyd and Breanna Taylor (and so many others) jolted many into finally realizing that racism is still alive and well in our culture.  Asian folk, (who for many years had it somewhat better than other people of color), are now experiencing hate on a scale not seen since WWII, as we mourn those lives taken last week.  And yet, it is a segment of white Americans who profess fear of the Other and claim to need their guns; while time after time, those guns have caused loss of life for the innocent.  Like those early Hebrews and early Christians, fear too often displaces hope.

And yet, when we weather the fear, metabolize the trauma and return to hope, that is when the love of the Divine sets us free.  Free to recognize that we are each made in the Divine Image.  Free to recognize that only together can we become the Beloved Community.  Free to start anew. 

This time, as we enter this week holy to so many, let us begin our exodus from fear and hate, and not look back.  We are told that a great multitude went out with the Hebrews, all yearning for a new way of life.  Let us not return to a toxic normal but continue to pursue our hopes and dreams in ways that do not return to numbing busy-ness, or callous disregard of others.  Let us recognize that it is in our diversity that we best reflect the image of the Divine. When we witness and experience that hope and compassion, we free each other to become the Children of God that Jesus and Moses knew us to be.

The Jewish mystic, Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav told a story about a king who discovered that the current year’s grain supply was tainted and would make the whole country go insane.  There was only enough of the prior year’s grain to sustain himself and his vizier.  When he discussed this with this learned advisor, the vizier told the King, “but if we are the only ones sane then we will be perceived as the crazy ones so we’ll be the ones in an asylum.  Better we too eat the tainted grain.  But let us put a mark upon each other’s brow, so that at least when we see this mark, we will remember that we are insane.” 

These last four years it seems we have all lost our minds.  I will not get into debates with those who support the current administration.  We are not living in the same realities and so we will not convince each other.  But I do mourn what has been lost in this madness.  Civility, Compassion, Kindness.

How did we go from a country of we to a country of me.  Even 5 years ago, did anyone anticipate fellow citizens walking into grocery stores toting AR-15s, let alone threatening to assassinate duly elected governors?  It is not even just red vs blue anymore, but on both sides, there are some who say others on the same side have sold out, aren’t committed enough; unless you’re all in then you’re out.

Rebbe Nachman didn’t tell us what happened after the year of insanity.  How did the kingdom find its way back to a sense of whole and healing community?  There are those who fear that regardless of the outcome on Nov 3, between now and inauguration day things will only get worse.  Maybe that is true.

Or maybe, the world had to turn a bit upside down so that we could let go of old paradigms.  We are in a moment of reckoning, no matter which side of the sociopolitical spectrum we inhabit.  Collectively we are tainted with trauma. Trauma response disengages our ability to think, we can only react, out of our fear. 

The spiritual traditions, the world over, tell us that there really are only two choices – fear or love.  Fear leads to tribalism and dogma (both religious and political).  Love invites hope, curiosity, and bridge building.  And the deepest form of love is compassion.  The Golden Rule may be said slightly differently in each of the world’s religions, but they all has the same bottom line; don’t do to someone else what you would not want done to you.

Our country and our world are in desperate need of compassion right now, if we are to step away from the madness of our divisiveness.  We have forgotten that each one of us is an image of the Divine, in all of Gd’s prismatic glory.  No one of us has the full picture of our neighbor, let alone the sole truth about that Source which is known by many names and by no name.  We are each granted a piece – and through compassion, we can share our individual truths with one another.  Rather than blasting our fear (hidden in the form of anger) at one another, what if we could hold each other with compassion, so that in our vulnerability we can speak our fear and hear love in return?

There are nine days until the election.  Let them be days of prayer.  Not prayers of tribalism, but prayers of compassion – for ourselves and for one another.  And if the word prayer doesn’t work for you, consider this.  Whether prayer, sending light, energy, or affirmations, science is now proving the power of our words to change the worlds, on quantum physics levels as well as within our own psyches (which means soul.)  And from a trauma perspective, mantras, chants, prayers all help to regulate our breathing and open us to calming, fostering peace and resiliency.

Let us pray, Source Divine, that you will lift the madness, anger and fear from each of our hearts and minds, and fill us with Your Compassion.  Help us to see Your Beauty in the eyes of those we disagree with.  Shelter in compassion those many who are struggling to survive, financially, as well as with illness.  Bring compassion to all for the brown children in cages and the black children on our cities’ streets.  Bring compassion to those who fear for their safety.  And bring compassion to those who would serve as our political representatives, that we may find compassionate ways to support the well-being of every person within this divided country.

I invite you to join me in prayer, each day, opening ourselves up to both receiving and giving compassion, that we might heal our country and ourselves.  Then on election day, I invite those local to give yourself the gift of walking the labyrinth – mine or another – socially distanced of course.  With each step let us manifest compassion for our nation, for those we care about, for those with whom we only see opposition, and for ourselves. 

Right now, we are being given two very different interpretations of the world we live in, courtesy of the two dominant American political parties.  Each believes we are facing doom, but with very different meanings of what that constitutes. 

We witness peaceful, diverse demonstrators for police accountability being assaulted by law enforcement while those same police departments, with ties to white supremacy, are seemingly turning a blind eye to counter-protestors who are carrying guns and have now killed two protestors.

Over 180K people have died from COVID while almost 6 million cases have brought fear for family members, loss of employment and health-insurance, and poor prospects for long-term recovery, with a ripple effect into the entire country.  Hit the hardest, have been Black, Indigenous and communities of color, highlighting the disparity of access due to systemic racism.

Children still remain in cages, ripped from the loving arms of their immigrant parents, as we conveniently forget that we are a nation of immigrants.

Neither political party yet trusts a woman to lead the ticket, 100 years after the passage of the 19^th Amendment. Instead, women’s reproductive rights are being whittled away, at the same time that the Department of Education is eliminating protections for female students against rape.

The number of transgender people who have been murdered in 2020 already exceeds the total for last year.  At the same time, of the 2 million youth who experience homelessness each year, 40% are LGBTQ; those numbers are expected to rise (along with domestic violence) as a result of COVID.

Seventy-five years after The Holocaust, we are seeing a drastic increase in anti-Semitism and hate crimes against individuals and synagogues.  Muslim people continue to be banned from entry to this country, even for life-saving operations.

Yesterday a Category 4 hurricane slammed into Louisiana, that reiterated the increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters during the climate crisis.  These clarion events are the fulcrum between those who believe that climate change is a hoax and those who believe that we are at the make or break point to forestall the destruction of the world.

While we all bemoan these myriad concurrent stressors in our society, what has not been discussed much is the inter-relation between them all. 

At the root of the racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Semitism, islamophobia and the planetary degradation rife at this moment is religious wounding.

How was it, that after all of the enlightenment of the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the gay rights movement, the ecumenical strides that have been made in the last 50 years, that there are still so many people who live in fear of a judging, triumphal god?  How is it that police officers shoot unarmed black kids while professing fear for their own lives?  How is it that we maniacally rape the planet, knowing that we are sealing our own doom? When did we lose sight of growing our beloved community and common humanity and instead revert to a tribalism of racism, fear and greed?

Religious trauma, I believe, is integral to all of these.  Of course, trauma in general, as Peter Levine states, “Is a fact of life and of nature itself.”  But why is it that our human brains and hearts compel us in a way different from all other species, to turn that trauma onto ourselves, each other and the planet, all in the name of the loving Source which created it all and called it all good?  How did we lose our way back to Eden?

The short and over-simplified answer is that while, for most of these traumas, we can trace them back to primal fear within our primitive brains, in 1492 these fears were given a focus that led to one of the deepest religious wounds still causing harm over 500 years later, effecting how we relate to each other and the world we share.  While persecution didn’t originate with it, the Spanish Inquisition supercharged the demonizing and ‘othering’ of Semitic (Muslim & Jewish) peoples, and then exported and globalized that system of oppression, in the form of colonization, raping the African and American lands and killing or enslaving indigenous peoples.  That same reign of terror, also burned women healers and wisdom keepers, labelling them witches, professing all women to be inheritors of the temptress Eve.  It justified the pillaging of earth’s resources as a God-given right of ‘dominion over the earth,’ denying the original instruction to, instead, be guardians of the earth and protectors of its resources. Indeed, anything ‘earthy’: wilderness, women’s blood, darker skinned peoples, were viewed as evil and only light white European males were worthy of the Old White Guy in the Sky.  Rigid rules of behavior for men, women and those beyond the gender binary dictated how we must behave and which emotions we were allowed to express.  It established the hegemony which has reinforced the toxic system of power that exists to this day, but it did so (and still does), by playing on those primal fears.

While the dominant Christo-colonizer culture has a lot to answer for, it is not the only religious tradition to cause wounding.  Wherever we have forfeited our connection with the vibrant flow of the Breath of All Life, to replace it with dogmas based in human fear, we have caused wounding.  We have not resolved the fear that lives in our primitive ‘lizard’ brain.  No amount of philosophizing and proselytizing, has cured us of our knee jerk reaction to anything or anyone that is ‘other’ than familiar.  ‘Other’ is dangerous, thus activating our flight/fight/freeze impulses. 

The problem with that, as with any form of trauma, is that once those impulses are turned on, we lose our ability to think logically; to even hear each other.  So, in this moment, we see governmental officials in freeze mode rather than devising solutions to Covid and Climate Change.  We see people finding their sense of security in carrying an assault weapon.  We see the ongoing killing of unarmed black men and trans women.  We see families of queer folk feeling forced to choose between their religion and their child, and so sacrifice that child to the judging god such a system relies on to keep feeding the fear.

Just as with domestic violence, the wounded can become the abusers.  Those who are most strident in today’s divisiveness are truly afraid; they’ve been groomed by a fearful religion, and then subjugated by the power system, told that their suffering is caused by those ‘others’ who are also subjugated.

‘Otherizing’, even when it is not directed at you can, makes one afraid to speak up, lest we lose what little privilege we feel. That old tribalism in our brain makes us long to be included in the ‘in-group’ to stay safe, so we get pulled into the us vs them tribal speak. The more we parrot what our leaders promote, the more affirming attention we receive from our group.  And so, divisiveness escalates as we align ourselves with those we feel we need for survival. 

Is it any wonder that so many people have opted out of religion all together, rather than be inflicted with such a toxic tribalism? We’ve thrown God out with the Holy Water, and in so doing have lost our sense of awe in the human spirit, including our own.

Neither talk therapy nor political debate alone can heal trauma, nor can the “opiate of the masses,” (religion); when it goes no farther than professing that which convinces us that we are right and good, and “they” are bad and evil.  It is in the doing, that healing comes.  Like Abraham or Buddha or Jesus or Muhammed, it is in offering compassion and kindness to one another, that we are able to heal.  It is in sharing a meal, building a home, sewing face masks, and singing songs from balconies, that we make community; regardless of what genders, orientations or colors, the mix of that community holds.

Contrary to the rhetoric of the moment, we do not live in two different universes.  We must begin to listen compassionately to what is at the heart of our neighbor’s or relative’s fear. Now, more than ever, we are being called to look at the ways we not only experience trauma ourselves, but also how we have unintentionally triggered those around us.  We have to own our complicit action and inaction for the systems of oppression and trauma which continue to cause harm.  We especially need to examine how we have used scriptures and dogmas which perpetuate the fear of a wrathful god, instead of embracing the compassion and healing of a loving God.

How do we begin to heal such wounding and divisiveness?  We begin by cultivating compassion.  Our ‘better angels’ have always called us to uplift those devastated by natural disasters, and provide comfort and sanctuary to widows, orphans and strangers.  We must cultivate compassion for ourselves and we must cultivate compassion for those we have turned into enemies.  We must cultivate compassion in our relationship with that which we call Holy, whatever that means for each of us.

Join me on September 13^th for a free intro session to learn more about religious wounding.  Then join me in October for a 4-week workshop, where we will look more deeply at the origins of religious wounding, and how it manifests for different people.  We will then explore ways to heal our individual religious wounds, and build a resiliency which will allow our individual Spirits to reconnect with our sense of Awe and Hope.

There was a tale told by Rebbe Nachman of Bratzlav, (as translated by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan): “The king’s star gazer saw that the grain harvested that year was tainted. Anyone who would eat from it would become insane. “What can we do?” said the king. “It is not possible to destroy the crop for we do not have enough grain stored to feed the entire population.”

“Perhaps,” said the star gazer, “we should set aside enough grain for ourselves. At least that way we could maintain our sanity.” The king replied, “If we do that, we’ll be considered crazy. If everyone behaves one way and we behave differently, we’ll be considered the not normal ones.

“Rather,” said the king, “I suggest that we too eat from the crop, like everyone else. However, to remind ourselves that we are not normal, we will make a mark on our foreheads. Even if we are insane, whenever we look at each other, we will remember that we are insane!”

Right now, it seems we have all gone insane. One part of the country is storming state governments with their AK-47’s strapped on their backs, because our medical and science authorities are calling for continued social distancing. While the other part of the country has reached its collective limits, that yet another black man was senselessly murdered; burning down police precincts.

Lost in all of that despair, are now more 100,000 American souls, dead from Covid. The number is too huge for us to contend with. If we held a moment of silence for each grandmother, friend, or child who has perished to Covid 19 we would be standing in uninterrupted silence for 70 days. How much more so, the unaddressed losses: hundreds of thousands of black bodies over the last 400 years; millions of Native American bodies; 700,000 bodies have died from HIV and AIDS since the beginning of that pandemic.

But we are not taking the time to mourn our dead. There have been no community wide rituals to reflect on our losses. With more than 40 million on unemployment, there is, neither, a way to metabolize the fear and angst which is as much a pandemic as the virus.

Like the king and his astrologer, how do we join in the madness of this moment, while still remembering that it is all so crazy? We need to acknowledge that, yes, we are all crazy. We are all operating from our primal tribal instincts instead of from our logic and compassion for the “strangers” in our midst. When life is no longer, can no longer be, normal can the insanity give us a new perspective? We are hearing from those most accustomed to living in trauma, that normal, never really worked for a great many people. And even those who are clamoring the most to get back to “normal” seem to be operating from a reality that is based in fear and desperation, not from the largesse we would expect if we ever were truly “GREAT”.

The craziest thing, is that like the old bad joke, we keep doing the same old things and expecting a different outcome. If it hurts stop doing it! Stop buying in to the myth of divisiveness and bigotry. Stop believing in an “American Dream” which always only worked for a few, and left the rest with crumbs. Stop reacting in fear to anyone who looks or believes differently from you. Anyone who has overcome an addiction or a bad habit knows that the longer you ignore the problem the bigger it gets; we have to stop our addiction to Othering.

Our bodies, and our planet, have a wisdom we need right now. The increase in storms didn’t get our attention; the virus only got our attention for a moment; now the fever of violence has us turning on each other, neighbor against neighbor. And still, do we not hear the weeping of Mother Earth, or the words of the sages, or the commandments given by the Divine – to love one another, to care for those less fortunate, to be stewards for nature lest it wither and disappear. We were each created from the same energy and stardust; each made in the likeness of divinity.

What if we all did something truly crazy? What if we stopped fearing one another, stopped hating one another, stopped allowing ourselves to be used as pawns in a political game? What if we beat our swords (or rifles) into plowshares, for peace within our communities? What if, instead of burying our feelings of grief and worry, we planted a tree for every life lost; renewing the lungs of our planet as a living memorial to those we love? What if, instead of being enslaved to Wall Street, we plant gardens which feed our creative souls and grow a more equitable economy? What if, instead of placing children in cages, we open the doors of our homes and communities to a shared vision of hope.

It might be crazy, but since hatred and fear are not working so well for us, can we try love?

We are all on a journey, this holy week.  In addition to the Christian Easter observances of Palm Sunday and Easter (Jesus’s journey into Jerusalem & from death into resurrection), last Friday marked Muhammed’s journey (in one miraculous night) from Mecca to Jerusalem, and on to an audience with God, in the highest heaven.  Wednesday marks not just the journey of the Jews from Egypt into their birth as a people, but it also marks the births of Buddha as well as Hanuman (the Hindu monkey god & avatar of Shiva).

This year, these journeys are held in counterpoint to the journey of COVID-19 through the communities of the whole world, leaving death of thousands due to the pandemic.  But it also invites us to an inward journey, to look with new eyes and hearts to what we are being birthed into.  At its heart, the Passover tale is not merely about liberation from that which enslaves us, but also manifests a birth into a new way of being in the world. 

Buddha, Jesus, Moses, Muhammed, Hanuman…. They each provide us with gifts to sustain us in this moment of global heartache, and to begin to envision the possibilities this moment can offer us, if we will but envision the world we want to enter when we leave our sheltered homes.

Buddha was raised in wealth and privilege.  But his journey awoke him to the suffering around him.  It also taught him, that the fears and angst we cling to are merely illusion.

Jesus was raised to honor Torah’s precepts, which demanded justice for the stranger, the widow and the orphan.  His journey broke open his heart, to have compassion for each person, as a child of God.

Moses, forsook life in the palace of Pharaoh, because of the cruelty of his slave drivers.  His journey, led him to speak truth to power and liberate his people from enslavement and hopelessness.

Muhammed rose from the life of an illiterate orphan to bring unity to the scattered Arabic peoples, uniting them with the other Peoples of the Book, through devotion, prayer and compassion.

Hanuman, born (through the capriciousness of the gods) with the face of a monkey, was known for selfless service to Lord Rama.  His journey led him to remember the powers and gifts he had forgotten; to leap into possibility.

In this week, of rising anguish and death, may we remember our gifts. May we see through the illusions caused by fear.  May we become the face of compassion.  May we be of service to all those in need. May we be reminded that when we are united in our common humanity, we can overcome any challenge.  May we take the leaps of faith which will open the doors of hope to the kind of world we all wish to live in.

As I’ve continued to sit with and listen for the Voice of Creation, I am seeing that we have replaced the addiction of busy-ness in the outside world with a busy-ness in the digital world. This is not reducing the fever of fear, I think, but rather amplifying it. Like homeopathy, small doses can be useful, but overdosing becomes toxic. In our house we have decided to limit our digital engagement and instead, ground in home, hearth and spirit.

As I’ve sat in meditation the last couple of days, I am noticing that instead of constant screen time, spirit is calling for me to reclaim a balanced life. Instead of fear and frenzy, we need time each day to:

• Be in prayer & mediation
• Express Gratitude
• Move our bodies (exercise, garden, dance, etc.)
• Move us forward (work, learn, tackle home projects)
• Be creative (draw, make music, write, craft)
• Play (read, play a game, daydream)
• Eat healthy food
• Connect with loved ones
• Rest

Source of Creation, known by many names and no name,

Be with us in this time of fear and crisis.  Be present to us through the interconnectedness of all life, even when that means our human species must refrain from physical connection with one another. Some of your children will not survive this pandemic.  We grieve for those who have already lost their lives, and continue to hold hope for the many yet to be touched by this virus.  Though we each must face the unknown within the solitude of our own homes, let us know how blessed we are, if we do have homes, sustained by our closest loved ones.  Be with those who are not so blessed, that they may find shelter and support.

Help us to recognize that the fevers within our bodies and the struggle for breath in our lungs, mirrors that of the cradle of our existence, Mother Earth.  We have long distanced ourselves from her, abused her, polluted her, robbed her of her life-sustaining waters, trees and pollinators.

Forgive our arrogance, to believe that we were separate from the rest of creation; our delusion that we were superior to other species and other peoples. Forgive our self-isolating from the realities of those who live without homes or hope. Forgive our selfishness and greed, which blinded us to the suffering our way of life has caused for planet and peoples.  We have become lonely, oblivious people, even as we’ve been surrounded by the busy-ness of society’s media.

Now, Holy One, we are instructed to isolate further, so as to halt the spread of this dis-ease.  May we take this time set apart to re-member, to remember that the want and hunger we feel is not for things but for true connection and intimacy. To remember that we are each but one strand in the fabric of our world, but that together we are The Web of Life.

Heal our bodies.  Heal our minds.  And Heal our souls. Breathe into us hope, compassion and resiliency.  Bless us, as we pass through this valley, to do so with our eyes opened (maybe for the first time) to our responsibility to one another and to Mother Earth.  Let this crucible refine us, and give us the fortitude we will need to heal our planet, so that all may be Eden once again.

Amen.

Rev. Theresa “Rivka” Gevurtz
March 16, 2020

For some of us, wrestling with faith has left us battered and bruised.  Some walk away disillusioned, and search for meaning in other ways.  For others we are called, like Abraham and Sarah, to a place we’ve never been before.  My own journey led me from a Catholic childhood, to finding acceptance in the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, to conversion to a Judaism which welcomes my LGBTQ family and inspires my social justice commitments.  I learned along the way that there are many pathways to the Divine. And unlike the childhood Sunday School understanding, a mature and mystical understanding of the Ineffable Source of Being cannot be limited to a static image of “The Old White Guy in the Sky.”

So why Jewish (and a Reverend)?  I chose Judaism for my personal faith for many reasons beyond the fact that my beloved was Jewish.  The spiritual technologies of Judaism are not only filled with ancient wisdom, they continue to provide relevance for me today.  I and my beloved found acceptance first as a lesbian couple and then later, my beloved was blessed on his journey as a trans man, within our congregation.  It inspires and informs my commitment to caring for creation. Judaism has taught me gratitude and mindfulness through its many expressions of Blessing.  And its system of honoring grief is grounded in the truth of the ways grief continues to shape our reality long after our dead are buried.

But unlike many people who choose a new faith, I wasn’t leaving behind that which didn’t feed my soul, so much as I was welcomed into the Jewish tradition of wrestling with the divine and co-creating covenant.  I continue to find gifts in the traditions of my youth.  The beauty and empowerment of Mary, as she accepted her role in birthing and guiding Jesus into his ministry.  The unconditional love and humility which instructed The Teacher to call out, “Abba”, Father.   The shared wisdom within the Elder and Younger Testaments that we have a Divinely-inspired duty to protect the widow & orphan, uplift the refugee, and steward the planet. 

And like many, I feel challenged by calcified constructs which are human foibles. Each of our world religions have nurtured countless souls; and each has inflicted deep wounds.  What I’ve learned is that any tradition can cause wounding when it clings too dearly to dogma.  One of the many names of that which we call Holy, is Breath of Life, and like our breath It must be free to move, inspire awe and fill us with creative sparks.

So why (Jewish) Reverend?  I used to joke that the Divine chased me through 3 traditions.  Time and again I felt called to serve Source.  When I finally accepted that call, and was in turn accepted into seminary, I realized that I needed to bring my full journey of soul-seeking with me.  Wiser teachers than I, in many of our world traditions, have recognized this as a time of paradigm shift. We are all being called to a place we have never been before.

Churches and synagogues alike have seen their memberships fall, as the numbers of those who identify as Spiritual But Not Religious has grown.  Many of us still feel nourished by the ancient wisdoms. It is not that SBNR folk reject a sense of Awe; but instead recognize that their journeys don’t fit in a singular box created for a different time and reality. 

In an age of global strife and climate catastrophe, we must each search within for how and who we want to Be, as the world shifts around us.  Each of us are on a singular journey, but like the “100^th Monkey,” as we grow our compassion for self and open our hearts to the wisdoms found in the journeys of others; we can shift our collective and individual reality to become partners with the Divine, inspiring our lives and, with hope, healing our planet.

I invite you to join me on this Multifaith (and for some post-faith) Journey of seeking the wisdom within our own souls, the wisdom we can gain from one another, and yes, wisdom from the ancient ancestors as well.  I am a practicing Jew who is also an ordained Interfaith Minister, Spiritual Director and Chaplain. 

In January, I will be launching my private spiritual practice, Shelter For The Spirit.  It is not a church nor a synagogue. It is companionship using a variety of spiritual technologies. It is meaning-making and ritual weaving that calls forth a post-modern and (Godwilling) post-colonial, & post-capitalist world.  It is a ministry which draws on the wisdom of many traditions as well as the wisdom within your own truth. It is witnessing the face of the Divine in each individual, in all of their multiplicities.