50 Words of Teshuva

So many discoveries as we stay close to home. New places to hike, walk, cycle; beautiful forests, hills, trails, ponds to explore. For the new year, discoveries close to home take on a different meaning as I look inward. Pay attention to my inner voice. Listen. Stop moving. Time for change and growth.

My high school ambitions come to a halt. A different experience, unfair. Old friendships fade as new ones take their place. Striving for greatness, infusion brings me up short. IV, hospital, nurse. In this new beginning, I strive to radiate love and kindness to those who need it the most.

Almost six months since Passover, and still I hear, next year may we all be free. I miss the feeling of the prayer book, the smell of the sanctuary, the kiddish. I turn toward a new year’s hope, a reconfigured temporary community. My prayer: we work for a shared freedom.

I miss yameinu c'kedem; being amid others - their ideas, songs, laughter, silences. Nowadays my companions are poets reaching from another century. Lea Goldberg confides of waiting in a cafe at night, longing for her beloved. Yehuda Amichai shares prophesies granted by fruit acquired at an outdoor market. Together we pray.

A spacecraft bound for another planet inevitably needs a course correction so it can fall into orbit around the planet and land on the surface. Likewise, embodied souls need occasional course corrections to fulfill their potential. May Elul provide some of the course corrections you need to make it so

Jewish and Buddhist practices help me live meaningfully through crisis and the unknowns. How to become a more peaceful “warrior”, the most holy version of myself? My teshuvah means acquiring ometz lev (a courageous heart), integrating my thinking and working for just causes to contribute to the radical changes that are needed in our world.