Daily Prophets
Day 53
“Righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist, and faithfulness the girdle of his loins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb… They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain for all the earth will be filled with knowledge of God..(Isaiah 11:5, 6, 9).
Righteousness will gird our waist, our appetites will be both restricted and satisfied. We will no longer keep gobbling everything up just because we can, big business. We will no longer take advantage of another just because we can. Our impulse to devour everything will be restrained. Our desire to be decent human beings will be in control. What a vision and what an optimistic challenge/promise!
Faithfulness is used in conjunction with our loins-an interesting choice. We will no longer be johns looking for the next hooker, we will no longer be hookers looking for the next John. We will again and restrict our sexual desires and our desire to conquer everyone and everything. We will stop searching for the answer we want and we will be faithful to the answer we hear to our question: What am I getting out of life. We will respond to God’s question: What is life getting out of me as well as Where are you? We will stop chasing false gods and worshiping at the idolatrous altar of ‘need to be right’, money, power, prestige, less than, I deserve, etc.’.
We will, at last, stop our hurting of another(s) person, enslaving people for our selfish desires, objectifying humans that we are afraid of, and becoming partners with all that is in God’s world. We will no longer have to ‘destroy the competition, grind them into the dust, etc’. We will no longer destroy the spirits of another(s) and, instead, lift their spirits up and join with another(s) to spread God’s word throughout the land. We will all have Daat, deep knowing, of God, God’s ways, and God’s path. We will live life on God’s terms, not ours.
Rabbi Heschel teaches that Isaiah’s words show that: “nations will no longer turn their eyes to Nineveh, the seat of human power, but to Jerusalem, the seat of divine learning, eager to learn God’s ways, eager to learn how to walk in His paths.”(The Prophets, pg.183). As I take in Rabbi Heschel’s words, I realize that he is channeling the way of being of Isaiah. He is telling us to stop worshiping the human power, stop going to these dens of iniquity, the modern day Ninevehs: The Family, the KKK/white supremacists, anarchists, etc. Rabbi Heschel’s stance against racism, the war in Vietnam all follow these verses. He believed and bought into Isaiah’s vision, not that it was happening but that we are obligated to make it happen! The road from Nineveh to Jerusalem is short and hard. It takes but a few steps and a difficult inner accounting and change. Rabbi Heschel, for me, wrote his books as our road map to Jerusalem.
Our politicians get worse and worse each day. We need statesman, as Rabbi Heschel said in his interview with Carl Stern. Ron Johnson, and his cronies, are still believing that Nineveh is the place to live in. They are obstructing God’s ways of caring for the stranger, the poor, the widow and the orphan, while waving the flag of Jesus!? Cruz, Hawley, Manchin, and others are going to speak about negative tweets from a woman who is more than qualified for the post while approving all of Trumps’ evil appointments? These senators and congresspeople who approved of the inciting tweets of Trump, Flynn, Guiliani, etc are going to cry about the tweets from a woman of color???? GIVE ME A BREAK. These politicians are not leaders. They are the charlatans that Isaiah speaks about in other chapters. It is time for them to join together for the good of the USA, not their own pocketbooks. Righteousness and faithfulness need to be their mottos and guide their actions.
In recovery we practice this way of being. We are dedicated to see each person as worthy of recovery, deal with others in and with righteousness and stay faithful to the principles of God/recovery. In fact without being righteous and faithful, we will not be in recovery. St. Francis of Assisi channels Isaiah’s words and thoughts in his prayer abridged here: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. For it is in giving that we receive.” In recovery we get to be faithful, righteous, creating and building when we live these words of Isaiah; and living these ways are the only paths to joy and growing in our recovery.
I have both destroyed and hurt in my recovery. A whole lot less than when I was ‘out there’ and still I am guilty. I also have built and created and stayed faithful to God, God’s principles and lived righteously an overwhelming preponderance of my recovery. As I write this, I am realizing that when I have been unfaithful it is because I have been too preoccupied with the noise in my ears than the call of my soul. All of my destructions and hurts come from not hearing the call of God and following my knowledge of God’s ways. I am shivering with tears in my eyes at this realization. While it is impossible to get it all right all the time, I can do more to hear the call of God through my soul. This writing is one of the tools I am using. How are you contributing to Isaiah’s vision? How are you staying faithful to God and acting righteously towards another(s)? Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark