Wake Up, Elul is Here! -- with Writing Prompts

רבי אליעזר אומר, יהי כבוד חברך חביב עליך כשלך, ואל תהי נוח לכעוס, ושוב יום אחד לפני מיתתך

Rabbi Eliezer would say: The honor of your fellow should be as precious to you as your own, and do not be easy to anger. Repent one day before your death. (Sayings of the Fathers (Avot) ch.2)

Asked his disciples: Does a man know on which day he will die? Said he to them: So being the case, he should repent today, for perhaps tomorrow he will die; hence, all his days are passed in a state of repentance. (bShabbat 153a)

Mindfulness is a hot ticket word in contemporary American culture. It goes along with meditation, yoga, contemplative practices. Some of us may roll our eyes at the term, others may say, "yeah, I do that!" and still others — perhaps most of us — have a desire to increase our mindfulness.

In the ancient wisdom of Rabbi Eliezer we find the call to be first of all mindful in our relationships. Hold the honor of our fellows high, and try not to get angry. And, knowing we will err, as surely all humans do, Rabbi Eliezer offers a way out: repent. Now.

But don't we all get caught up in the rush of daily life? Don't we sometimes rush to grumble about the person in front of us on the road, or in a grocery store? Don't we sometimes yell at our children out of exasperation even when we know it won't help anything (I did that the other day at the park, and I'm still thinking how ridiculous I must have looked to all those — one of my less pretty parenting moments)? Aren't we all sometimes selfish, sometimes abrupt, sometimes hot, sometimes judgmental? Haven't we all acted before thinking?

The blasts of the shofar, from this first day of Elul into the coming new year, call us to wake up, to check in with ourselves and see, just how mindful are we? Just how aware are we in our daily lives? 

Even if we have a daily practice of self-reflection and self-improvement — even if that practice has us turning to those we have been angry at, or have judged poorly, in the process of our daily lives — even so, very few of us don't need a reminder.

Elul gives us a month to reflect on the last year and to renew our mindfulness in preparation for the new year, and another ten days to seek forgiveness before we rehearse our death at Yom Kippur. 

Wake Up! shouts the shofar. Pay attention. How are you being in the world?

One of my spiritual teachers regularly asks the question How be you? Sometimes this sets my inner grammar police wriggling uncomfortably. But just now, I'm hearing it differently. "How are you feeling" is not the question she is asking me. Rather, I am sure, she is asking How are you being in the world? How be you?


And this is the question I offer to you. How are you being in the world?


WRITING PROMPT: If you don't have a journal, find some blank paper. Write down the question, How am I being in the world? How was I in my interactions with people today? Now spend 18 minutes (my timer is set there, but chose your amount of time) reflecting on one or more encounters you had with other people today. Focus on how you were in those interactions; let go of how they were, only judging them with honor. 

Repeat this exercise throughout the week. If there are days when you feel like you don't have much to say, reflect backward; is there an experience from the last week, month, year that you are still thinking about, that is still bothering you in some way? Reflect!

Devarim: Shaking Up Routines

וַנֵּפֶן וַנִּסַּע הַמִּדְבָּרָה
"And we turned and journeyed to the wilderness"
(Deut. 2:1)

This morning I parked in a different place, took the wrong elevator up, then a different (but right) elevator down, got off at the wrong floor, walked back up, used a different restroom, then missed my usual turn. All of which led me to a hug from my dad. And in the end I needed to sit and process, so I stopped at a favorite coffee house I don't ordinarily pass.

In this week's Parashah, Devarim, Moses begins to recount for the Israelites where they have been and what they have done. They have arrived at the border of the Promised Land a second time, nearly 40 years after the first time, and in truth the people who were there, and the actions Moses is referring to, all occurred when those present were either children or not yet born - all except Caleb, Joshua, and Moses himself.

What strikes me here is not so much the place or the people, or even the history lecture from Moses, but the quick recount of the wandering itself. A map of the wandering looks a little like a maze that crosses in and over itself. And the return to the edge of promise comes not after a relatively direct journey from Mitzrayim by way of Sinai, but rather from this loopy roundabout journey.

Just as I have seen my day differently, my mind jogged by my unusual morning route, I am sure this new generation of Israelite adults must have seen their approach to the promise of what lay beyond the Jordan differently than their parents and grandparents had.

Being fully aware sometimes requires a little interruption of routine. My routine this one morning a week has been quite comfortable, in its way, for nearly a year, now - I leave the house early, drive in usually quiet traffic, park in the garage, have breakfast with my mother, read out loud to her, then leave to go to work. Never mind that I have changed jobs, and maybe twice have had to skip a breakfast, it has been very regular routine. This morning, I got a hug from my dad, whom I don't ordinarily see on these early mornings. This morning, I learned a couple of things I didn't know, and I am now thinking of possible support for something. This morning, my transition from breakfast to work was more mindful.

Whether or not the Israelites that stood on the precipice in Deuteronomy were literally a new generation, I can only imagine that they stood there with new eyes, with a new perspective, because of their circuitous journey through the wilderness. Perhaps more than that they would no longer remember slavery personally, which might be a valuable difference, their journey had given them something valuable - had set them up for positive interactions with their neighbors by giving them a tour of the area as a free people.

I am grateful for the periodic diversion from the direct route, for the jog to my mindfulness that comes from shaking up--or being shaken from--my routines. Although I admit - forty years of such diversions might have me throwing up my hands and begging to set down roots. Indeed, while I have traveled across our country, lived in many states, and journeyed internationally - I am so very ready to stay in one place for a very long time. And the timing of this could not be more apt, as we near the first anniversary of my having returned to my "homeland," the city in which I was born and raised, after 24 years of wandering.

WSP: Writing as Spiritual Practice (1)

Something happens when I write. Actually, a lot of things happen when I write - to varying degrees depending on what, when, even how I am writing.

There are so many categories of writing, and categories within categories. Journal or diary writing varies based on time-of-day as well as what intention (processing, projecting, reporting, etc.) I put into it. Then there is expository writing with the purpose of showing or teaching others about what I am thinking, reading, focused on in life - taking a variety of forms depending on topic and intended audience (call this blog post that sort of writing). And there are all the little bits of writing - email queries and responses, marketing materials, lists, reminders, notes to self or spouse or coworker. And, on the side, I do a little creative, spiritual fiction.

Writing in the morning or evening is very different, in ways partly but not entirely specific to the of the type of writing I am doing. I am very definitely a morning person - I am at my most creative, typically, when the day is barely begun. In the evening, I'm more likely to reflect backwards - and if I'm writing fiction, just as when I'm writing in my journal, that produces a different voice than my morning writing. I can force myself to process in the morning, or to think creatively forward in the evening, but it's far less natural.

Writing by hand is by far my preferred mode. I use it for journaling, for first drafts of sermons and other expository writing, for fiction and creative nonfiction, and still sometimes for letters (I miss formal letter writing - and receiving). I think differently - more slowly (by force), but also in ways I can't quite describe - when I am writing by hand rather than typing. Interestingly, most of my blog posts are written strictly on the computer, and I wonder about that sometimes.

All of these - the what I write, the when I write, and the how I write - move me. Whether journaling in the morning about something I hope to have happen, or creating a fictional scene, writing transforms me in much the same way that reading transports me - I find myself experiencing the world differently than when I don't write. I connect with the world outside of myself, I see myself in the larger picture, I discover how relationships connect or divide.

Writing is a spiritual practice for me, no matter what I am writing. Over the past couple of years, writing has been essential in my journey, offering a place to process and engage change as it has come my way, and providing inspiration to make meaningful transitions - mindfully.

Writing Isn't Always for Sharing

In the age of the blog, in which everyone can write publicly, and many many do, it is valuable to remember that not all writing is meant for sharing.

I say this without considering whether all writing should be read, though I could argue that a LOT of what is out there simply isn't worth reading.

But some writing isn't meant to be shared. Blogs are not diaries, though some people treat them as such. Blogs are not private - even when you share a URL only with your intimate inner circle, once you put something out on the internet, it can more easily be shared. Even a private email between two parties can shared and spread under wrong circumstances.

I am leading classes and workshops in Writing as a Spiritual Practice. It is tempting to tie such writing to sharing within spiritual community.

Some amazing writing may come out of these workshops - and some may be great for sharing, with community, in blogs, or even in publishing contexts.  Most of that writing will take careful editing and reworking, whether it is poetry or Torah (bible) commentary or prayer or creative fiction or memoir.

But the truth is that my understanding of writing as a spiritual practice is that it is regular writing, practiced with the purpose of developing mindfulness and discovering the self. It is important for there to be a kind of safety in this writing.

I have a "Stickie" that appears every time I open my computer, which says "No one ever has to read a word I write." I got that from someone else. That puts it all on the potential reader, though, so I have added "I don't have to share anything I write, unless I want to." And this is the part that I'm sharing with my students in Writing as a Spiritual Practice groups.

You don't have to share. Let yourself write freely. Don't expect to share it, even if you have a particular audience in mind.  You may come back and rework a piece specifically for sharing, but often enough writing prompts may lead to a kind of tohu vavohu, a world unformed and chaotic, as in the biblical beginning of time, still needing to be ordered.

You don't have to share, and if you want to share, consider the right time as well as the right venue. This not-sharing is something I practice. I found myself saying "it's time for me to put another blog post up." In reflection, I find I have written a great deal in the last couple of weeks, even reworking a few pieces. One piece at least I will share on this blog, perhaps as early as next week, but more likely not for another few weeks -- because while it is meant for sharing, it needs to be shared at the right time.

And so I leave you with this - I have written to share with you that not all writing is meant to be shared. I don't mean all the junk out there that people share that I, frankly, don't want to read. And I don't mean the things people shouldn't write that can lead to job loss (e.g. dissing your employer publicly), though that should go without saying.

I mean from my internal perspective that there are things I am not ready to share, that there are things that can be problematic for one to write because one is afraid of sharing. I am talking more about the emotional safety - if you write, feel free to write without worrying that someone is going to read your words. If you need to write it for spiritual (or emotional) reasons, but you don't ever need/want to share it - burn it. 

Writing is a valuable process in and of itself. It can produce beautiful art, informative prose, supportive literature. But it doesn't always, and it isn't always meant to.

Writing isn't always for sharing. Sometimes it's just a way of learning to understand ourselves and our world.

New Beginnings, Fresh or Rotten - Your Choice

You know that one moldy strawberry in the box? The one that's touching at least five others? What is your first thought - past the ICK - when you see that mold? Contamination!

Torah speaks of the first days of the world - of the separating of light from darkness and of water from land and air - as a time of completion. Things come into being whole and ready. The herbs and fruits are ready to eat right away, "in the beginning." Adam and Eve are not brought into this world as infants, but as wholly formed adults, walking and speaking and thinking.

Rosh Hashanah celebrates this whole world, the anniversary of that beginning. And that's where we stand now, in the autumn - with a world of abundance, beginning and approaching the harvest season.

Ripe apples and pomegranates for our Rosh Hashanah dinner tables mean that the trees - and the herbs of the field - are about to go dormant, to die their autumnal death. We are entering darkness, brought by the autumnal equinox and the hibernation of plants and animals.

Now, as we leave the light of summer and the growing season behind, we celebrate the abundance of the world Created whole, trees and fields offering up sustenance that we seek to preserve to carry us through the winter.

Now, we want to carry the best of our foods into storage - and we want to carry the best of ourselves into the new year. One moldy strawberry will contaminate the whole container; molds and rot spread. We don't want that - in our food supply, or in our selves.

So we clean out the old - we take inventory of our fruits and herbs, and we take inventory of our souls. We choose what goes into our containers carefully.

We have the opportunity to put an end to behaviors that cause rot, that fester in our relationships. We ask forgiveness, and we search our souls for ways to change our behavior, to be better people in the coming year.

If we choose our fruits well, we can make it through the darkness of winter. We will have healthy food for our bodies -- and we will have clean souls and strong relationships that will carry us through the coming year, whatever it holds for us.

Wishing you good choices, solid forgiveness, and a healthy and sweet new year.

(Almost) No Complaints - Follow Up to Last Post

A couple of days ago I wrote about putting a moratorium on complaining - me complaining, since that's who I can control. It's hard!!! I am learning a lot about myself in the process. 

What to do when I step on a tiny piece of glass and it hurts - and hurts even more digging it out? What to do when it takes me hours trying to fill out online forms, trying Mac and PC, unsuccessfully, finally using "old" technology of writing and scanning? What to do when I'm exhausted and don't have time to pause between my toddler, packing, and looking for an apartment in the city I will arrive in next week? 

A couple of things of note: 

1) When I choose not to complain, I often am silent - at least for a long time.

2) I can do different things with that silence: grumble and complain internally, this blowing one of the main reasons to stop complaining; or contemplate the root of my complaint and whether to say something or do something in lieu of complaint that might help resolve things more positively. 

3) A lot of that contemplation is leading to an understanding of my complaints often being a response to grief over losses ranging from something happening (or not) outside my hopes/expectations, to "good" losses like purging so much stuff from my life and learning to live differently. 

4) Not complaining might be really hard, but I already feel a sense of integrity increasing as a result of the practice. 

So what do I do in those moments when I really have a kvetch itching to get out? I have been pausing, even with no time to pause. I have been looking at my son an enjoying his sweetness, even/especially when he spots the baby chair he has outgrown, already out on the curb, and brings it back in. 

The practice brings me back to the core teachings of Mussar: to be awake to our impact in relationship with each and every person we encounter, whether for a moment or longstanding connections; and not only the impact on them, but on me as well.

And so, I seek and find joy even when I just want to gripe (or scream). I even shed a few tears, which are so much more cathartic than complaining. 

And yes, a few complaints sneak through. And I try not to be too hard on myself.