A Tosa resident since 1991, Christine walks the dog, raises kids, cooks but avoids housework, writes and reads, and works too much. A Quaker and
, she has been known to stand on both sides of the political and philosophic fence at the same time, which is very uncomfortable when you think about it. She writes about pretty much whatever stops in to visit her busy mind at the moment. One reader described her as "incredibly opinionated but not judgmental." That sounds like a good thing to strive for!
Yesterday, September 11, was a day of remembering a terrible thing that was done to us.
And today, beginning at sunset, is a day of remembering what we may have done to others, in order to set things straight again.
Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. It's a holiday in which the observant remember with awe the power of the divine and acknowledge that human beings are responsible for our actions. It's the beginning of a ten-day period of reflection, soul searching, and atonement--very different from the New Year celebration most of us offer up.
The story of Rosh Hashanah is that God holds in his hands a book of life, and in that book is a page for each of us. What appears on that page is what we write with our own hand, our own lives. And on the basis of what he reads there, on this day God judges us.
Actually, the words are more like "decides who will live and who will die." But it's not about being perfect or being doomed, it's about being as good as we can be, about remembering to keep trying.
I've loved this holiday, which isn't mine, since I learned about it as a Norwegian Lutheran girl living in a Sicilian neighborhood and having mainly Jewish friends.
These ten days challenge believers to discern where they are not in right relationship--with loved ones, coworkers, the community, the world, with themselves. Find their own stuck places, what they have done to feed the problem, and then try to unstick it, make it right.
Of course, you also get to eat kugel and apples and sweet golden bread, challah, dipped in honey. You put little pieces of the bread into your pockets and walk to a place where the water flows, a creek or a river that's alive enough for fish to swim in it. Then you empty your pockets into the waters, casting off your sins in the process.
The ideas inform the Christian tradition, too. During a weeklong workshop on the Lord's Prayer, a friend of a friend learned to say not "forgive us our sins/tresspasses/debts," but "forgive us our forgetting." In that prayer, we ask for God's help to be who we can be as we write our lives in this world.
It's good to have a day of holy remembering, especially the day after September 11. Especially if we remember what we ourselves have done or failed to do to heal and transform the world.
It's all in the book.
