Tag Archive for "holiness" | To Bend Light

Posts Tagged ‘holiness’

This is the Place

Posted on: December 14th, 2011 by tobendlight

Beauty and holiness are everywhere. Here. Now. This is the place where the darkness meets the light. This prayer asserts that holiness is already here, waiting. And so, this is the prayer I select to represent Malchut sh’b’Malchut, the Nobility in Nobility, the last night of Counting the Omer. To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows. This prayer appears in This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings from CCAR Press. Here are prayers and stories for Shavuot.

This is the Place
This is the place where the beginning and the ending meet,
Where the vast sky greets the firmament of heaven,
Where the finite and the infinite touch,
Where the breathing in becomes the breathing out.

This is the place where darkness meets the light,
Where mourning surrenders to rejoicing,
Where what we are summons what we may become,
Where all hearts beat together in joy.

Oh to see so clearly.
Oh to live so gently.
Oh to be so simply.
Oh to love so sweetly.

This is the place where holiness can be held,
Where mystery shimmers and eternity shines,
Where the core of the earth burns with the fire of starlight,
Where majesty rises like the sun
In radiant brilliant luminous wonder.

Postscript: Click here for more prayers of praise. Here are prayers and stories for Shavuot.

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 Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Menachem the Shochet

Posted on: November 30th, 2011 by tobendlight

This unlikely 103-word story is about a vegetarian shochet, the ritual slaughterer. There’s a taste of ironic humor in this short piece. To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below (website only). The text follows.

Menachem the Shochet

Menachem the Shochet wasn’t born to kill cows, wasn’t born to slaughter sheep, wasn’t born to butcher chickens. Menachem eats no meat. He can’t understand the value of taking a life for something so mundane as a meal, something so common as food, something so inconsequential as a morsel. He prepares the knife with care, praying for forgiveness on earth and in heaven. No one’s blade in sharper, no one’s stroke smoother, no one’s cut cleaner and he cries as if he has sacrificed his only child. Menachem the Shochet wasn’t born for the slaughterhouse, which is why all his meat is Kosher.

Postscript: My daughter Dana has been a vegetarian for 17 years. This story is in honor of her journey. Here are a few more of my favorite stories: “Sarah Rivkah: A Challah Baking Story” and “Obediah.”

If you like this story, post a link to your Facebook page, to your blog or as part of a tweet. And don’t forget to click “like” on this page. Thanks. For reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” in the right hand column.

I Saw G-d

Posted on: September 27th, 2011 by tobendlight

This is the third piece – written in the voice of the spiritual traveler – that loosely follows a meter and a rhyming pattern, which is not my typical style. The others are “Come Walk” and “Each Day.” The three pieces fit together loosely as a series, although this piece and “Come Walk” are more closely connected.

I Saw G-d
I saw G-d in the color of the rainbow.
I saw G-d in the color of the sky.
I saw G-d in my mirror.
I saw G-d in the color of your eyes.

I heard G-d in your laughter.
I heard G-d in your breathless cry.
I heard G-d in my heartbeat.
I heard G-d in your secret sigh.

I felt G-d in the quiet morning.
I felt G-d in the lonely night.
I felt G-d in your gentle breathing.
I felt G-d in your holy light.

I know G-d as Source and Shelter.
I know G-d as the Rock of Love.
I know G-d as Grace and Wisdom.
I know G-d as the Rock of Life.

Postscript: Check out “Come Walk” and “Each Day.” Other songs, prayers and poems of the spiritual traveler include: “Leaving,” “Remember,” “About the Rainbow,” “Bird is Bird” and “Soarbird.”

If you like this prayer, post a link to your Facebook page, to your blog or as part of a tweet. And don’t forget to click “like” on this page. Thanks. For reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!” in the right hand column.

Photo courtesy of USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service

Let Holiness

Posted on: March 13th, 2011 by tobendlight

This is part of a series of prayers invoking a prophetic voice, the voice of spiritual challenge, including “Let Truth,” “Let Joy,” “Let Love” and “Let Torah.” I use this prayer during week seven of counting the Omer, gevurah b’malchut. To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows.

Let Holiness
Let holiness sparkle from your face,
Radiate from your eyes,
Emerge from your lips.

Let holiness enter your heart,
Infuse your lungs,
Expand your chest.

Let holiness fortify your bones,
Fire your nerves,
Enliven your flesh.

For holiness is in the earth and the sky,
The storm and the quiet,
The flow of blessings from G-d’s creation,
Divine wisdom and mercy,
Calling out to you dear sisters and brothers:
‘Awake you slumberers!
Awake you who move empty and hollow from sunset to sunset.
Have you become blind to awe and wonder?
Have you rejected the gifts that surround you?
Have you abandoned your hope and your being?’

This, then, is G-d’s command:
Let holiness enter you,
Fortify you,
Shine through you.
Let holiness carry you into marvelous moments
And majestic years.
Learn and teach,
Study and pray,
Lifting your life with zest and zeal.
Let holiness be your journey and your destination.

Blessed are You, G-d of holiness.

Postscript: See also: “Let Truth,” “Let Joy,” “Let Love” and “Let Torah.”

Photo Credit: Kiriat Moshe

About Shabbat

Posted on: March 4th, 2011 by tobendlight

This is from a series of prayer/poems in the voice of the one who has a question that doesn’t need an answer. The series includes “About the Rainbow” and “About the Heavens.” Here’s another lovely Sabbath prayer, “For the Arrival of Shabbat,” as well as two stories, “Sarah Rivkah: A Challah Baking Story” and “Mendel Baruch: S’hema on Shabbat.” To listen along, click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows.

About Shabbat
Majestic Sovereign,
Well of blessings,
How did You decide
To create heaven and earth?
Was this Your purpose:
To make a world of work,
For us to toil in service?
Did You bring forth a day of rest
As a gift to Your creation?
Or was this Your only option,
After first conceiving
The glory of Shabbat?
Was the Sabbath itself
Your only intention?
Perhaps You summoned
Time and space
Solely to bring forth
The magnificent splendor
Of Shabbat.

Postscript: See also “For the Arrival of Shabbat,” as well as two Shabbat stories, “Sarah Rivkah: A Challah Baking Story” and “Mendel Baruch: S’hema on Shabbat.”

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Photo credit: The Little Minyan

For the Arrival of Shabbat

Posted on: January 26th, 2011 by tobendlight

A prayer to celebrate the gifts of Shabbat. The closing lines are from Shalom Aleichem. Please listen along as you read. (Click on the triangle in the bar below. The text follows.)

For the Arrival of Shabbat
Well of Life,
Bless my heart with the gifts of Shabbat,
The presence of Your love in my pulse,
Your glory in my chest
And Your wonder in my breath.

Bless my eyes with the gifts of Shabbat,
Seeing the beauty of the candle sticks,
The Kiddush cups and challot.

Bless my lips with the gifts of Shabbat,
Rejoicing in song and prayer,
Singing melodies ancient and new.

Bless my ears with the gifts of Shabbat
Hearing hymns and praises,
The nigunim of old,
And blessed words of Torah.

Bless my soul with the gifts of Shabbat,
Awe and thanksgiving,
Calm and surrender,
Beauty, righteousness and peace.

Let these gifts descend gently on all Your people Israel,
So that together,
Wherever we may be,
In one voice
From the four corners of earth we sing,
Boachem l’shalom
Malachay ha’shalom,
Malachay elyon.

Postscript: You may enjoy these two short, short stories about Shabbat, “Sarah Rivkah: A Challah Baking Story” and “Mendel Baruch: S’hema on Shabbat.”

If you use this prayer, please click “like” on this page and subscribe. Please take a moment to post a link to your Facebook page, your blog or mention it in a tweet. Thanks. For usage guidelines and reprint permissions, see “Share the Prayer!”

Photo Source: WikiMedia Commons

Posts Tagged ‘holiness’

This is the Place

Menachem the Shochet

I Saw G-d

Let Holiness

About Shabbat

For the Arrival of Shabbat

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