My ex used to often come home and tell me that he thought about buying me flowers, as if the mere thought should score him points. That intention isn't worth anything unless there is follow through. It's not like the thought is half the action. No, the action doesn't count until it is complete.
There's a famous Biblical story about two women both claiming they are the mother of the same child. They bring it to the judge of the land to decide. When King Solomon suggests they just split the baby in half with a sword the true mother reveals herself by telling the judge to give the baby to the other woman. Half a baby is not a baby.
A halfway developed fetus is also not a baby; that is why Jewish law places a woman's life above the life a a fetus who is threatening the mother. Though the soul hovers near the fetus while it is in the womb, the soul enters with the first inhale, transforming the potential human life into a full and complete living and breathing baby.
Dangers threaten completion of pregnancies; reaching full term is nothing other than the fulfillment of a miracle. We don't have Jewish baby showers or announce names before birth (often even delaying until the Brit ceremony) because celebration is only fitting after the baby arrives. To expectant parents we say "b'sha'ah tova", may the baby come at a good time. To new parents we say mazal tov! The counting of gestation days is over, now we rejoice.
“Half measures availed us nothing.” In Alcoholics Anonymous, these words precede the 12 Steps and are read in nearly every meeting world wide. Chapter 5 begins “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.” If you don't go into it all the way (“thoroughly”), you won't succeed. “Those who don't recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.” Recovery requires going to any lengths, “We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not.” There is a thin line between life and death, choosing life means turning over one's life and doing a searching and fearless inventory of every resentment and fear. It just can't be done with one foot in.
This week I told a friend with regrets about the four steps of teshuvah – recognizing the mistake, feeling remorse, resolving not to repeat the sin, and facing the same situation with a different response. These four steps partner with the need to ask for forgiveness, from the people we have harmed, from ourselves who we have hurt and from God who we have injured. Jewish wisdom here matches the recovery process, with steps that must be repeated again and again, all the way through the cycle, all throughout the day and year (not just on Yom Kippur). The alcoholic and addict who decides to skip Steps 7-12 is doomed. Half-measures. Step 11 demonstrates why 12 Step recovery and this particular omer counting community is a spiritual one:
11. Sought through prayer and personal meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Halfway through, today is day 25 out of 49 days of the omer. So what? Don't treat yourself to the half birthday cupcake. There's no silver star for finishing the first half, it doesn't count until we finish counting the whole. This is a personal practice, a daily opportunity to follow through on our dedication to a spiritual practice that activates a religious transformation. Go for the gold.
Lots can happen instantaneously! In prayer, a momentary moment of deep intention has the power to change the flow of divine blessings. True remorse felt through and through is more significant than days of self-pity tears or misguided acts of charity intended to balance the scales. In an instant the heart can turn in teshuvah (repentance) and hold the spiritual impact to turn a life around. The moment forgiveness pierces one's heart and soul a psychic-spiritual bond releases for good, forever. Personal practice over time is a primer that leads to the aha moments and spiritual revelations.
Today is just another day, another step towards standing in the light, receiving the love, illuminating the truth. One day at a time, this is how we lift our eyes towards standing at Sinai to greet God. Maybe we have no idea where this all is going, still we keep counting. Let's go all the way, each and every day.
Today is day 25 of the Omer, that is 3 weeks and 4 days of the Omer. This Shabbat posting was pre-scheduled.
Practice suggestions:
1.A time for checking in is quite valuable. What have your omer patterns been thus far? What feelings surround your practice? What does omer counting mean to you now? What learning gifts has it given you so far? How has your life changed in the past 3 weeks 4 days? What intentions do you hold for the remaining time? Have you identified a theme for yourself in where you are journeying from and to? What is moving in your soul? If nothing seems present, do you detect or yearn for an undercurrent of transformation?
2.Work on the 11th Step (its ok if you haven't worked 1 through 10 yet).
[11. Sought through prayer and personal meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
3.Resources
article: Beginning the 11th Step Practice of Quiet Time
meeting:12 Step Torah monthly in Chicago
experience:Netivot/Pathways Jewish contemplation, meditation, yoga, spiritual direction, with Rabbi Heather Altman in Chicago
Yoga of Recovery week in Big Sur, Yoga of Recovery weekly @ CITYOGA in Indianapolis, IN
Showing posts with label life and death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life and death. Show all posts
Friday, April 23, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
18 - Counting of a Different Kind
Counting of a Different Kind: Anticipating the Omer
written and originally published in April 2009
Last year was different in a whole lot of ways. Every Passover I resolve to succeed at counting the Omer daily. How hard could it be to count 49 days? It starts out easy at the Seder on the second night. Today is the first day of the Omer. All I have to do is remember to say one sentence each day for the next 48 days, those leading up to the next major Jewish holiday Shavuot. Every year I failed; it seems the challenge wasn't big enough or meaningful enough for me to take so seriously. After all Shavuot would arrive seven weeks later whether or not I was counting days.
Last year counting was a matter of life and death. Counting is a serious thing. A superstitious Jewish custom forbids counting people as numbering lives diminishes them. This wisdom came long before the Shoah when the Nazis tattooed numbers for name replacements on our people's arms. At the same time, we encourage community and require ten people gathered for most prayer services, and even three for an official opening to the grace after meals.
In ancient times these days between Passover and Shavuot were a time of uncertainty and a struggle of hope and faith and fear and longing. My ancestors in the wilderness left slavery for a promising yet precarious future and they marched on through the desert motivated by a glimmer of redemption that they didn't fully expect. When we look back today, we know that the reward was the revelation of Torah on Shavuot, but they did not know that. Their grumbling and faltering shows that they barely believed, nor expected a gift of any sort.
One year ago Passover I was in my 25th week of pregnancy with triplets. Most people count months of pregnancy but when you are carrying triplets you actually count days. Zero percent of triplet pregnancies make it full term, and they are so fragile that there is a high chance of spontaneous abortion until you reach 20 weeks. Fifty percent of triplet pregnancies are delivered by 32 weeks, minimally eight weeks premature. Until 28 weeks gestation chances of survival are tiny, and the likelihood of serious life altering complications are great. Every single day the babies stay inside the womb and grow increases their chances for life and for health.
Once the 20 week mark went by I took a breath - just one. Then I looked at the calendar and set my next goal. Instead of the 28 week mark, I would switch to the Jewish calendar, striving to count through the entire period of the Omer and through Shavuot. That would put me at exactly 33 weeks. From there I would reevaluate and set a new goal.
In contrast to years past, all I could do last year was count. I counted another day of keeping my babies alive, another day for them to grow, another day for building fat reserves to keep them warm, another day for their lungs to develop so they could hopefully breathe on their own. Each day in the womb reduces the days in the NICU by multiples.
When we held our first Seder I was 25 weeks and 5 days pregnant with my triplets. I was already confined to home, barely able to walk, triplet heavy with babies. My belly was already the size of a full term singleton pregnancy. Instead of a cloth napkin I used a table cloth. I counted my weight gain. I counted the clothes I outgrew. I counted the vitamins I swallowed. I labored over breath. I had few moments of sleep or comfort the entire pregnancy.
I counted to keep myself going. I did not know how much I could endure nor what outcome would befall me or when. I was at the mercy of fate and fellow. I had no choice but to let people help, to force a smile on my pained face to offer thanks for food delivered, meals served. It is difficult now for me to recount the details and to face the reality that I endured. Triplet pregnancies are amazing and all, but they are not pretty. As my doctor said again and again, bodies aren't made to carry three babies. It is miraculous that my uterus accommodated three babies, yet no cell of my being managed to make it through unaffected.
I went into labor towards the end of Shavuot. Even though I reached my goal of completing the Omer counting, 33 weeks was still too soon. As much as I wanted to meet these babies, I wanted them to grow bigger inside me even if it meant tolerating more hugeness and more heaviness and more hell. If I were to be really honest about the whole thing I would tell you in detail how I lost all my dignity, how vanity and self were decimated as I surrendered moment by moment with determination to do right by these souls.
Writing these words, I cannot continue to be present to the teary memories of those thirty-three weeks and the four days that followed, so I fast forward until Shabbat arrived with an eerie yet elegant air of serenity. The Shabbat Queen surely entered and changed the quality of time as I enjoyed dinner with my husband, step-daughter and father-in-law. The next morning I awoke to silence and sunrise over Lake Michigan. Upon awakening I couldn't predict that counting days was complete and by the next morning and for the rest of my life I would be counting in threes. Counting with confidence in the outcome is relegated to the past. Now I do not expect that just because I am counting the revelation will be granted. Far from simple, when we begin to count we cannot expect we will reach completion. When each day is a matter of life or death, we must count carefully and consciously.
Tonight, Friday April 16, 2010, after Shabbat arrives it will be the 18th day of the Omer. 2 weeks and 5 days of the Omer. 18, chai, life!
Thank you for participating in the Online Omer Counting Community, for reading, for following, for sharing your comments and sharing with your friends. Shabbat Shalom!
written and originally published in April 2009
Last year was different in a whole lot of ways. Every Passover I resolve to succeed at counting the Omer daily. How hard could it be to count 49 days? It starts out easy at the Seder on the second night. Today is the first day of the Omer. All I have to do is remember to say one sentence each day for the next 48 days, those leading up to the next major Jewish holiday Shavuot. Every year I failed; it seems the challenge wasn't big enough or meaningful enough for me to take so seriously. After all Shavuot would arrive seven weeks later whether or not I was counting days.
Last year counting was a matter of life and death. Counting is a serious thing. A superstitious Jewish custom forbids counting people as numbering lives diminishes them. This wisdom came long before the Shoah when the Nazis tattooed numbers for name replacements on our people's arms. At the same time, we encourage community and require ten people gathered for most prayer services, and even three for an official opening to the grace after meals.
In ancient times these days between Passover and Shavuot were a time of uncertainty and a struggle of hope and faith and fear and longing. My ancestors in the wilderness left slavery for a promising yet precarious future and they marched on through the desert motivated by a glimmer of redemption that they didn't fully expect. When we look back today, we know that the reward was the revelation of Torah on Shavuot, but they did not know that. Their grumbling and faltering shows that they barely believed, nor expected a gift of any sort.
One year ago Passover I was in my 25th week of pregnancy with triplets. Most people count months of pregnancy but when you are carrying triplets you actually count days. Zero percent of triplet pregnancies make it full term, and they are so fragile that there is a high chance of spontaneous abortion until you reach 20 weeks. Fifty percent of triplet pregnancies are delivered by 32 weeks, minimally eight weeks premature. Until 28 weeks gestation chances of survival are tiny, and the likelihood of serious life altering complications are great. Every single day the babies stay inside the womb and grow increases their chances for life and for health.
Once the 20 week mark went by I took a breath - just one. Then I looked at the calendar and set my next goal. Instead of the 28 week mark, I would switch to the Jewish calendar, striving to count through the entire period of the Omer and through Shavuot. That would put me at exactly 33 weeks. From there I would reevaluate and set a new goal.
In contrast to years past, all I could do last year was count. I counted another day of keeping my babies alive, another day for them to grow, another day for building fat reserves to keep them warm, another day for their lungs to develop so they could hopefully breathe on their own. Each day in the womb reduces the days in the NICU by multiples.
When we held our first Seder I was 25 weeks and 5 days pregnant with my triplets. I was already confined to home, barely able to walk, triplet heavy with babies. My belly was already the size of a full term singleton pregnancy. Instead of a cloth napkin I used a table cloth. I counted my weight gain. I counted the clothes I outgrew. I counted the vitamins I swallowed. I labored over breath. I had few moments of sleep or comfort the entire pregnancy.
I counted to keep myself going. I did not know how much I could endure nor what outcome would befall me or when. I was at the mercy of fate and fellow. I had no choice but to let people help, to force a smile on my pained face to offer thanks for food delivered, meals served. It is difficult now for me to recount the details and to face the reality that I endured. Triplet pregnancies are amazing and all, but they are not pretty. As my doctor said again and again, bodies aren't made to carry three babies. It is miraculous that my uterus accommodated three babies, yet no cell of my being managed to make it through unaffected.
I went into labor towards the end of Shavuot. Even though I reached my goal of completing the Omer counting, 33 weeks was still too soon. As much as I wanted to meet these babies, I wanted them to grow bigger inside me even if it meant tolerating more hugeness and more heaviness and more hell. If I were to be really honest about the whole thing I would tell you in detail how I lost all my dignity, how vanity and self were decimated as I surrendered moment by moment with determination to do right by these souls.
Writing these words, I cannot continue to be present to the teary memories of those thirty-three weeks and the four days that followed, so I fast forward until Shabbat arrived with an eerie yet elegant air of serenity. The Shabbat Queen surely entered and changed the quality of time as I enjoyed dinner with my husband, step-daughter and father-in-law. The next morning I awoke to silence and sunrise over Lake Michigan. Upon awakening I couldn't predict that counting days was complete and by the next morning and for the rest of my life I would be counting in threes. Counting with confidence in the outcome is relegated to the past. Now I do not expect that just because I am counting the revelation will be granted. Far from simple, when we begin to count we cannot expect we will reach completion. When each day is a matter of life or death, we must count carefully and consciously.
Tonight, Friday April 16, 2010, after Shabbat arrives it will be the 18th day of the Omer. 2 weeks and 5 days of the Omer. 18, chai, life!
Thank you for participating in the Online Omer Counting Community, for reading, for following, for sharing your comments and sharing with your friends. Shabbat Shalom!
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