Tag Archive for "holiness" | To Bend Light

Posts Tagged ‘holiness’

The Pulse of Holiness

Posted on: October 15th, 2018 by Alden

A meditation on the depths of love, the journey toward holiness and the abiding connection between them.

The Pulse of Holiness
The love
That echoes love
That whispers love
That breathes love
In the quiet stillness of morning
Is leading you toward light,
Toward understanding,
Toward G-d.
For love is the pulse of holiness,
The beating heart of radiance and wonder,
The rhythm of creation,
The energy of blessing,
The starburst of the divine.

The love
That echoes in your heart
Resonates eternal
With all beings,
With all souls,
With the wisdom of the ages,
And the wisdom of the earth.

Yes, love is the pulse of holiness.
Let it flow through you.
Let your countenance shine majesty
From the core of your being
To the edge of the universe,
To fill the world
With splendor.

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Please check out my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer,” and This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” To receive my latest prayers via email, please subscribe (on the home page). You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Source: Our Daily Journey

Light, Overflowing

Posted on: August 16th, 2018 by Alden

A meditation about the seeing God’s light inside of us all. See also, “Sowing Light” and “Light of God.” This piece appears in This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer from CCAR Press.

Light, Overflowing
The light in me
Sees the light in you,
Is the light of God.

Oh brilliance!
Sparkling from your eyes.
Radiating from your chest.

Oh wonder!
Shining around us.
Shimmering with amazement.

Oh glory!
Overflowing my heart.
Touching your soul.

The light of God
Sees the light in you,
Is the light in me.

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Postscript: And one more called “Secret Light.”

Please check out my CCAR Press Grateful/Joyous/Precious trilogy. The individual books are: This Joyous Soul , This Grateful Heart, and This Precious Life. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines, see “Share the Prayer!” To receive my latest prayers via email, please subscribe (on the home page). You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter. For a taste of my teaching, see my ELItalk video, “Falling in Love with Prayer.”

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Photo Source: USFWS National Digital Library

Guest Writer: Yoni Hammer-Kossoy

Posted on: May 16th, 2018 by Alden

A Shavuot prayer-poem by my kehilla friend Yoni Hammer-Kossoy. His poetry recently appeared or is forthcoming in Forage Poetry, Dime Show Review, the Sunlight Press and the American Journal of Poetry. Yoni is a featured contributor to Songs of Eretz Poetry. Born and raised in the US, he’s lived in Israel with his family for the last 20 years.

Standing at Sinai
We are standing at Sinai and the Torah is given in a heartbeat,
standing and the Torah is still being given

unfolding across time and generations.
We are standing and the others are in shadow,

those who came before and those who will someday come after,
but we feel them as a tree’s deepest roots

seek hidden pools of water,
as a tree feels in every bud the flower and fruit that must follow.

We feel them standing with us in every echo of their names
feel them say amen to what is, has been, and will be.

We feel them standing in every silent question and answer
posed and offered in family pictures

just as some future version of you or me
will feel you standing and hear your echo.

We are standing because that is the gift we are given,
and is the gift we have to give. We are standing at Sinai,

standing in the desert cold
and the heavens fill with sun like a breath overflowing and true,

the kind of breath you take to sing or shout or run for joy
because you can. We are standing in the lush summer heat,

nothing more or less than a regular morning
when a crow calls light, light, light

and the world keeps spinning.
We are standing, we are standing.

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Postscript: Find Yoni on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Source: Shalom Hammer-Kossoy

You without Peace

Posted on: April 20th, 2018 by Alden

Here’s a meditation for those who yearn to find G-d’s blessings, but cannot let them in. I’m reminded of a comment at Limmud Vancouver 2018: “We fear that we won’t find G-d. But what we fear, even more, is that we will.”

You without Peace
Oh you without peace,
Who yearn for G-d’s blessings
But push them away,
Feeling their presence
And blocking their arrival,
Hoping for grace
Without gracing the hope
Of holy communion,
Of blessings and wonder,
Know this:

Your heart is beautiful.
Your love is pure.
Your longing sings with truth.
Your journey is righteous,
Your path is lonely,
And G-d yearns for you
To keep searching
For the holiness and light
That surround us all.

Photo Source: NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) Collection

Art and Practice

Posted on: January 14th, 2018 by Alden

Send a blessing. Be a blessing. These are two of the arts and practices of inspiring love and sowing peace. Here’s a new meditation on embodying G-d’s gifts.

Art and Practice
These are the practices of love,
And the arts of peace…

Gratitude is the practice of sending blessings.
Compassion is the art of being a blessing.
Kindness is the practice of granting mercy.
Forgiveness is the art of being mercy.
Wonder is the practice of seeking holiness.
Humility is the art of being holiness.
Hope is the practice of seeing abundance.
Joy is the art of being abundance.

These are the practices of love,
And the arts of peace.
Gifts of G-d,
To share with each other.

Photo Source: Connection to Healing

The Pulse of Holiness

Posted on: December 28th, 2017 by Alden

Yesterday, in the early morning, two ideas drifted in and out of my consciousness as I drifted in and out of sleep. Love, and holiness. After waking, this is what I wrote.

The love
That echoes in your heart
Resonates eternal
With all beings,
With all souls,
With the wisdom of the ages,
And the wisdom of the earth.

Yes, love is the pulse of holiness.
Let it flow through you.
Let your countenance shine majesty
From the core of your being
To the edge of the universe,
To fill the world
With splendor.

Postscript: See also, “Evidence of Holiness.”

Photo Source: NASA

The Temple

Posted on: July 11th, 2017 by Alden

Today is the 17^th of Tammuz, a minor fast day commemorating the breach in the outer walls of Jerusalem prior to the destruction of the Second Temple on Tisha b’Av. Today, the breach is not in the physical walls of the city, but in the spiritual hearts of our people. The Kotel isn’t a place where Jews can pray freely, according to our own diverse customs and practices. The Kotel is a hostage to ultra-Orthodox control. This prayer turns the tables: the Temple mourns our inability to hear God’s voice, the priests mourn a divided House of Israel and the sacrifices mourn those who’ve forgotten G-d’s sacred call.

The Temple
Do not mourn
For the Temple Mount.
The stones mourn for you.
They mourn for you who have forgotten
That God’s Voice
Can still be heard in the hills.
The stones mourn for you
Who have forgotten
That God’s Voice can still be heard in the valleys,
In the forests and deserts,
In the waters and skies.

Do not mourn
For the lost priests.
The tribes mourn for you.
They mourn for you who have forgotten
That God’s people are one.
Ephraim and Judah,
The Levites and the daughters of Zelophehad,
Ask why we still divide the House of Israel,
Why we still cast judgment,
Why we spurn each other with anger.
The tribes mourn for you who have
Forsaken your brothers
And rejected your sisters,
Closing your minds and hardening your hearts.

Do not mourn
For the lost sacrifices.
The yearling without blemish,
The ephah of fine flour and the hin of oil,
Mourn for you.
They mourn for you who have forgotten
That God requires your love and your power,
Your hope and your deeds.
The yearling, the flour and the oil mourn for you
Who have forgotten
That God wants the blood that flows through you,
The strength of your days,
Your song and your laughter,
Your wisdom and healing.

Tear your clothes
And sit in ashes
If you must.
Then, rise up!
Rise up and listen to God’s call:

Love My People Israel,
Love all of My People Israel.
Then, you will know the depth of My righteousness
And will drink from the well of My compassion.
Give them your heart.
Give them your days in service,
With joy and thanksgiving,
So that My Glory will dwell among you,
And that your days are long on this earth.

Postscript: Instead of the phrase “Do not mourn for…,” I considered using “When you mourn for…” I ultimately decided to leave the introductory lines to each stanza as originally written, choosing to challenge our relationship to the Temple and to each other head on, without pulling the punch. Here’s a link to another prayer/metaphor that uses preparing to say the Shema as a dream/vision of the in-gathering of Jews to our land.

Photo Source: Alden Solovy

Falling in Love with Prayer

Posted on: April 4th, 2017 by Alden

What is prayer? Perhaps an invitation to holiness and healing, bending the light from heaven toward tikkun olam. Have you ever fallen in love with a prayer? That’s the theme of my ELItalk, “Falling in Love with Prayer.” Please check it out. Loving prayer is a favorite topic of my work, including “Rise on Wings,” “Prayers of My Heart,” “Whispered Prayer” and “Prayer for You, Prayer for Me.”

Invitations
Quiet now.
Listen.
Breathe.
And listen.
Blessings float gently around you.
Your prayers set them free.

Oh, you hidden delight of heaven.
Oh, you secret gift of G-d.
Welcome you majesty and splendor.

Prayers are invitations,
Beckoning holiness and awe,
Radiance and wonder,
To join in this moment,
Summoning compassion and grace,
Healing and hope,
To spread their wings.

Quiet now.
Listen to the blessings from the earth
And the prayers in the wind.
They yearn for you,
Calling out
To join in the chorus.
Breathe and sing out
With your spirit and your voice.

Oh, you hidden delight of heaven.
Oh, you secret gift of G-d.
Welcome you majesty and splendor.

Postscript: Other prayers about prayer include: “For Prayer,” “Prayer Released” and “To Pray.” And here are four related prayers: “For Devotion,” “For Humility,”“For Joy” and “For Service.” This prayer first appeared here on October 24, 2012.

Please check out my Meet the Author video and This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day. For reprint permissions and usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” To receive my latest prayers via email, please subscribe (on the home page). You can also connect on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Credit: ELItalks

The Rhythm of Wonder

Posted on: May 22nd, 2016 by Alden

This meditation about radical amazement was inspired during a class on Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies. I wondered silently if it would be possible to write a prayer that captures the experience of radical amazement, thus creating a meditation to prepare the eyes and open the heart to awe and wonder. Here’s a link to read an essay about the allusions and metaphors in this meditation — also entitled “The Rhythm of Wonder,” on RitualWell.org.

The Rhythm of Wonder
When the mountains sing,
When the seas dance,
When a crescent moon glides the heavens
And the sun lifts day from night,
When the rivers waltz to hymns of rain,
And the oceans drum on cliffs of stone,
When the caper bush wakes
And the wild iris blooms,
Remember this,
It’s not the wind that lifts the eagle.
The eagle lifts the wind.

You are the love
That frees the baritone hills
And the pirouette skies,
A shaft of light to loose the crescendos of glory
And the colors of awe,
A heartbeat summoning the rhythm of wonder,
A yearning to hear the pulse of G-d.

When silence resounds with music,
When darkness radiates light,
When creation reaches up
From the core of the earth,
And eternity is a breeze
From the edge of the universe,
When the call to holiness shines brilliant
In the breathless dawn,
Remember this,
It’s not the prayer that lifts the blessing.
The blessing lifts the prayer.

Postscript: This prayer was inspired during a class called “Jewish Thinkers and their Worlds,” taught by Peta Jones Pellach, director of educational activities for the Elijah Interfaith Institute. During class

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Photo Source: Alden Solovy

Sowing Light

Posted on: February 17th, 2016 by Alden

Psalm 97, recited at Kabbalat Shabbat, ends with this: “Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. Rejoice in Adonai, you who are righteous; acclaim the holiness of G-d’s name.” (Psalm 97:11-12) What if, in the tradition of the rabbis, we changed one word to explore the meaning? Instead of “…for the righteous…” use “…by the righteous…” This prayer reimagines the closing couplet after changing that one word. This piece appears in my book This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day from CCAR Press.

Sowing Light
Light is sown by the righteous,
Tucked into cracks in the sidewalks,
Dropped in the grass,
Breathed into the air,
Left waiting for others to find.

You who are upright in heart,
Let your deeds declare your love,
Let your hands be a source of healing,
Let your joy be a fountain of blessing.

Rejoice in righteousness,
And spread holiness throughout your days.
Light is sown for you
To magnify in service to G-d’s holy name.

Postscript: Midrash Psalms 97:2 interprets the line to mean that a great spiritual light, created at the beginning of all things, was set aside by G-d for the righteous as their reward at the end of days. As a result, Siddur Sim Shalom breaks with the classic translation – the translation found in both Mishkan T’fillah and the Koren Sacks Siddur – by rendering the line as “Light is stored for the righteous…”

Photo Source: Selma in the City

Posts Tagged ‘holiness’

The Pulse of Holiness

Light, Overflowing

Guest Writer: Yoni Hammer-Kossoy

You without Peace

Art and Practice

The Pulse of Holiness

The Temple

Falling in Love with Prayer

The Rhythm of Wonder

Sowing Light

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