Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

The other day, during prayer, my heart suddenly became immersed in an amazing realization, the realization that every single moment of my conscious life has been marked by the Presence of God. Even before I had self-awareness, God enshrouded me. As the Psalmist writes, "you knit me together in my mother's womb. I am awesomely, wondrously fashioned {by God}." Many of my earliest memories center on God. This Divine Being has been the consuming Force of my life, cradling me through heartache, giving me occasional, ecstatically close moments that have remained with me and enabled me to become a better person.

You often told me, Mom, that from the moment you found out you were pregnant with me, you rose each and every morning, drove to the First Baptist Church, knelt at the altar, and dedicated me to God. You often reminded me of the time, when I was three, when you stood watching me ride my tricycle from one end of the block to the other, and then you asked who I was waving at. "God," I told you. When I rebelled and did some pretty horrible things, you told me God loves me unconditionally, and that nothing I could ever do would separate me from that love. Your greatest desire for me was that I never forsake God.

In the decades that have passed, my ideas about God have changed drastically, but my connection to God has only become more intense, deeper, stronger. A week ago I had one of those occasional, ecstatic moments of connection to God which affected my sight spiritually, emotionally and physically. As a result, I've finally gotten a grip on some of my emotional struggles. I've spiritually broken through barriers I'd erected in prayer. And yes, I'm even visually noticing amazing details of all the life in motion around me.

I want more of God. I long for more of the Divine. And my longing makes the Divine accessible, immanent.

A little more than a year ago, you left the earth to be with God and I'm wondering at this moment where you are in your journey. Recently, at kallah, we chanted parts of the kaddish, and were told to chant it not as a personal praise, but as an awareness of our deceased loved ones singing these words of praise

through

us. When I left that room, I was unable to speak for an hour. This was the moment I just wrote about, the moment I felt and saw sparks of the Divine in everything around me - the foliage and sky and even a pile of rocks emanating life. And I know that wherever you are in your journey, you are experiencing that ecstasy 1,000 times beyond this. Your being sings the same essential praise to God that I sang for you and dad last week. Your being

is

the same essence as that of the Divine.

I know that as I begin my studies to become a rabbi, it isn't what you thought would happen to me. You never even knew that six years ago, I became a Jew. I could never tell you because you had grown old, were entering senility, and I couldn't let you leave this world fearing for me, heartbroken that I no longer believed in the Jesus of your religion. But I think you know now that I'm vastly beyond OK. You know now that we're serving the same

Echad, and

that all of our theology is beyond the Being of God. You were the first to teach me of that encompassing love.

Thank you for dedicating me to God.

Love,

Mary

Singing My Prayers

Originally posted June 3, 2009

This morning I sang all of my prayers, as I always do. That's one of the loveliest aspects of Judaism, I think - that we sing our prayers. Most Jews don't sing all their prayers, but I do. Every single one of them. I use both modern and traditional tunes. Before I wrap myself in my tallit (prayer shawl), I sing both a meditation and the blessing. I go slowly and I begin to feel enshrouded in the Presence of God the moment I begin.

Some Jews rush through these prayers and it's said to have the same effect as a chant or mantra or meditation, but I want to savor each word. Once, I expressed my worries to one of my teachers, Reb Zalman, that I didn't make it through all the spiritual realms symbolized in the progression of prayers in our siddur (prayer book). "My dear," he said to me, "stay in the Presence." So I do. It doesn't matter that I only make it through some of the prayers. It matters that the prayers I do offer emerge from my heart.

As I stand on my back deck, birds swoop down all around me, pecking at bird seed, and a sparrow puts the finishing touches on a nest it's building in one of Joe's sculptures just behind me. Facing East, I look out on an expanse of green - huge trees, a lush lawn, bushes that line the creek running behind my house.

When my longing for God feels tangible, I'm able to progressively move more deeply into an altered state of mind. In the first of the four realms, the physical, in which I pray, I sing the modah ani, a song of gratitude that I've "arrived" safely to greet another morning.

The second realm is one of emotion and praise, and I can't doubt that it's true because it's here where my heart breaks open and I begin to cry. Here are the first few lines of my favorite prayer, which I sing both in Hebrew and English:

"Melodies I weave, songs I sweetly sing:
longing for Your Presence, to You I yearn to cling.

In Your shelter would my soul delight to dwell,
to grasp Your mystery, captured by Your spell.

Whenever I speak of Your glory so resplendent,
my heart yearns deeply for Your love transcendent.

Two worlds remain - one in which I begin to feel at one with God, and the final in which my soul melts into that of the Divine. At the end, I take three steps back, re-entering the world of everyday life, and as I do, I sing a song of peace, bowing to the left (towards my Christian neighbors), to the right (towards my Muslim neighbors) and forward (towards my atheist neighbors).

As I finished these prayers this morning, I came inside and sat down to write about one of the many posts that's been buzzing through my head all week, but instead, I wrote this one, still fresh in my heart. It allowed me to bring into my home and into my everyday life what I just experienced in my prayers.

Mary