Welcome to the second week of our month-long writing workshop. Let me suggest that you take another look at last week’s post to solidify support for your writing.
As I look ahead to the next three weeks, I want to remind you of what’s coming down the pike: This week centers on relationships – to family, dear friends. Next week will focus on tikkun olam – when has that need ever been more urgent in our lifetimes? Our fourth and final week will explore the High Holiday liturgy.
The starting point of this work begins with you – for once, really putting yourself at the center, listening to yourself to ultimately find nourishment, insight, strength. We’ve started with the personal and will keep widening the lens, especially as you and your communities wrestle with cries for racial justice, vast inequities of resources and opportunity, and the lingering deep pain of unimaginable pandemic loss. This is what we all are balancing. As I’ve labored to prepare these materials for you, and as you work to prepare yourselves and your communities, I am heartened by an insight I achieved in a recent therapy session, and which I wrote in very large letters and left prominently on my study desk: NOTHING NEEDS TO BE PERFECT.
Further, if I may presume, as a mentor to a generation or two of clergy, and as a poet and educator who regularly addresses large audiences, I understand your terrors of, What will I say to them on the High Holidays? and, What if I come up empty-handed this year? and, I myself feel so depleted… I recognize those fears, but most relevant and important at the moment, I offer you these next thoughts as a Jew in the pew, who hopes to hear something nourishing and/or wise from those rabbis who minister to me. And at the very core of that hope lies the recognition that what comes from the heart reaches to the heart. When one of my rabbis tells a story from their own life, and offers me the sacred wisdom culled from that personal excavation, that is the deepest dvar of all for me. Yes, from those seeds also often grow traditional texts and insights, and I greatly value those as well, but such teaching can only begin and be mined from personal meaning. Which is why I work so hard to create an atmosphere where you can find those profound stories from your own lives, because embedded in them are precisely the life-giving connections your congregants yearn for. By attending to your own emotional needs first in these weeks, you will naturally come to find what it is you need to give over.
May your depleted spirits find renewal in this writing and in the true sharing among colleagues also reaching for their own courage and strength. May this early summer work offer the nourishment you need and may it be a hallmark of your day-to-day life and spiritual practice in the coming year.
Week 2 prompts (Remember this is a menu from which to make selections – be attentive to what jumps out at you and start there.)
1~ I believe that this first prompt will yield much which is important and valuable to ponder ~ I’d suggest coming back to it again, and then again.
Remember/tell the story of a special moment this past year, one of deep connection, a moment when you felt nourished, blessed by the relationship with a loved one, or shared a sacred moment with someone surprising, when you felt full of rejoicing, praising God: What were the circumstances, the details, of that relational moment?
follow-up – Reflect on that experience – what did you do to help make that happen? How might you be attentive to creating more such moments in the coming year? What are the life lessons to be gleaned here?
2~ Think of your family and closest friends: are you conscious of ways in which you may have harmed one of them, caused them pain this year, fallen short of the mark? How? Choose just one person to focus on: what is the regret or guilt you feel toward this person? What do you want the relationship to be like? What can you do to make amends, how do you need to change, turn?
Why just one? Because this is a year in which we have all been pushed to the limit and way beyond, so you need to feel commanded to forgive yourself as much as possible, release guilt, show yourself kindness, tenderness. Contemplating just one “falling short of the mark” gives you enough material to learn from it without inducing shame, self-loathing.
3 ~ Has anyone aggrieved you this year? Focus on a particular person who has caused you harm. How did they hurt you? Do you want to continue this relationship, and if so, what do you want the relationship to be like? What do you need from them to support repair? Is there something you can do to help bring about that change, healing, justice, reconciliation?
follow-up – Perhaps that won’t be possible, perhaps not even appropriate – if so, how might you find some modicum of acceptance or peace and move on?
4 ~ To whom do you feel grateful this year? Who has gently shown you compassion – a word, an embrace, a sign of appreciation or support? Remember and describe the goodness of others who have helped you through the year. How might you show your gratitude?
5 ~ Recall also your own goodness this past year – what are special kindnesses you have shown to others? How can you cultivate that inner goodness as you go forward? Think back to one of last week’s prompts about self-care and know that kindness to one’s self increases the capacity to be tender with others.
6 ~ Most difficult of all in reviewing a year coming to an end is having lost a loved one. Navigating the mourning process can be like struggling to survive a tempestuous sea without a sextant or compass. Much of my poetry dives deep into such pain, rage, grief, brokenness. For me, it is such writing, support from loving others, and time itself, which have helped to move me toward understanding, acceptance, healing. Here are just three modest prompts – What is unfinished business you may have with this person? How and with whom might you resolve some of what is unfinished? What might you like to tell them today? What of this person do you want to carry forward with you into the new year?
Blessings on your journey.