Daily Prophets
Day 143
“Thus says God…I will gather you from the people… and I will give you the land of Israel.I will put a new spirit inside you; and I will take the stony heart from their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh; That they may walk in my statutes, and keep my ordinances, and do them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”(Ezekiel 11:17,19,20)
Ezekiel has another of his visions of the Chariot, the Cherubim, the fire and above it all is God-not in form of any kind, rather in spirit and voice and he is beginning to hear God’s mercy and compassion as well as God’s need for humanity to do right.
In the first verse above, Ezekiel is reiterating the promise given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as well as to Moses and the Israelites in Egypt. God will gather us from the scattered places and bring us all to Israel, again! While this is a physical reference, I am struck by how scattered we are as individuals and as a people as well as how scattered are the people of the USA (and other countries) from each other. We have forgotten that we all made it to freedom together. Thinking about Moses scolding the tribes of Reuben, Manasseh, and Gad for wanting to stand on the sidelines while the rest of their cousins were going to fight for Canaan, I realize how scattered we can be.
The wars we fight with each other and call it business as usual, the polarization, obstruction and hatred/racism/anti-semitism, etc that we experience here-these are all because we have scattered inner lives and we have come to see each other as enemies, the other instead of another human being seeking God’s light and bringing a word of God to all of us.
God knows this will happen and the cure is the same as the cure stated in the second verse above; a new spirit is inside of us, if only we would allow it to prevail. While Ezekiel is a little over the top about his visions, I think he is exhibiting for use, a new spirit from the one he had as a priest. We all are infused with a new spirit each and every day- when we say gratitude for God returning our soul to us, we acknowledge a new spirit-yet most of us don’t allow it to overwhelm our emotions and minds enough to change our behaviors.
Instead, we hold on to our “stony heart’. We see this when people do not forgive another who seeks forgiveness and reconnection for errors made. We see this when people “stand idly by the blood of their neighbor”, we see this when people “bear false witness” and engage in “murder of the soul of another”. So, Ezekiel reminds us that in freedom, we have a heart of flesh, not stone and God gives us this heart of flesh so we can enhance and grow our freedom as well as share it with another(s).
We do this by living the last verse, walking in God’s ways first and foremost. The ordinances are the social ordinances, how to live as one people together with all of our differing viewpoints. Walking in God’s ways is to be fully immersed in truth, justice, kindness, compassion and love. It means to, as Rabbi Heschel teaches, have the interests of another(s) be our concerns. It means to, in the words of Rabbi Heschel, “ask what life got out of us today”, instead of being preoccupied with what we are getting out of life. Freedom is accepting God’s authority, it is receiving the gift of being God’s people with joy, reverence, and commitment and it is never being indifferent to life’s beauty and challenges. God is always God to and for us, when we live the verses above, we are aware of this, act accordingly and connect to each other and to God in a deeper, more meaningful and joyous manner.
In recovery we are aware of the stony heart we had and each day we are grateful for the heart of flesh God has placed in us. We are desperate, in positive way, to walk with God and in God’s ways. We constantly work 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” as the 11th step of AA guides us. We are so aware of our need to constantly clean out the lies and BS that keeps us scattered internally and look for connection and communion with God and another(s). In recovery, we use our past history of being scattered to ensure our togetherness today. We are aware that we have to see life anew each and every day-“same shit, different day” doesn’t work for our recovery. Instead, we adopt/adapt Rabbi Heschel’s teaching of not taking anything for granted and being surprised each and every day. We notice miracles today that used to be unnoticed and boring. In recovery, we celebrate the gift of being a person of God and being able to live with God as our Guide.
I find myself still getting scattered at times. I know I am when I can’t see or hear those closest to me. I know I am when I find myself distant from God. I am blessed by God’s kind and loving action of bringing me back from the edge, I have not gone back to the drunk and criminal I was. I acknowledge and live through my new heart and my new spirit to the best of my ability. I am grateful that I am transparent, even when it isn’t so pretty. I am saddened by the fauxthenticity of others around me and I am grateful for the authentic connections I have to family, friends, and community as well as to God. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark