Ghosting God, Ghosting Self
Day 142
“This is the day Adonai has made, I will rejoice in it”! The more I write this verse, the more I realize how difficult it is to live it. I am grateful for this day, as I say in the Modeh Ani prayer, I am grateful for the life I have, which is beyond my deserving from my earlier years, I am grateful for the love in my life, I am grateful for so much. AND, seeing what isn’t and knowing it should be, knowing the “evil that lurks in the hearts of men” as the lead-in for the TV show, The Shadow, reminds us, watching in disbelief the crimes that AI is committing, listening to the President of the United States bloviate, lie, steal, threaten, and make America a slave nation again, listening to the lies of Netanyahu and fellow Jews who cannot see/admit any wrongdoings on the part of Israel and its government, knowing the tremendous toll on the psyches of military personnel across the globe, cozying up to Putin and Xi by all sorts of nations makes it very difficult to remember “this is the day Adonai has made” for many of We the People.
Which, of course, is the exact reason the Psalmist wrote these words, expressed this desire of humanity and of God for We the People to rise above the muck and the mire, to not allow our souls to become enslaved to the outer Pharaohs, to end our wringing of our hands and find some action to engage it. An action that defies these assholes, that says NO to their looting and lying, that says YES to the words of the prophets, finding our way back to the core of our humanity, the core of goodness which is within each and every one of us. It ain’t easy for sure and it is doable. This is the work of a spiritual discipline, a program of recovery from the inner and outer slave-masters that have imprisoned us in jail cells of their making, not God’s making. Instead of looking upward and asking God, “why is this happening to me” or, as my mother was wont to do, “God in Heaven, what did I do to deserve this”-always looking at me or pointing her finger at me. GOD IS NOT PERNICIOUS! God is not punishing, God is loving, God is always open to our return and only through returning to our first love, God, can We the People return to the work that our soul was created to do.
Rather than continue to act in ways that certify the indictment of Jeremiah 2:13; “My people have done a twofold wrong: They have forsaken Me, the Fount of living waters and hewed out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot even hold water”. Rather than turn back to the lessons and teachings of Jesus, Moses, the prophets, Mohammed, et al; we the people continue to believe these “broken cisterns” will, one day, hold water! Rather than “come to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity” as the 2nd step of AA proclaims, we the people continue to carry on in doing the same things over and over again expecting different results-Einstein’s definition of insanity. Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, Xi, et al are not new phenomena, their ilk has been with us throughout the history of humanity. It is the prophets who come to remind us of our greatness, of our humanness, it is Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, who have relayed the Word of God to all of us and it is we the people who continue to “hew out cisterns…broken cisterns that cannot even hold water” denying the facts of history, denying the truth of humanness, denying the call of God-AYECHA, WHERE ARE YOU
I am capitalizing because I am agitated and angry at myself, at you, at human beings who, to this day, refuse to acknowledge truth, who refuse to see one another as reflections of God, who refuse to “do justly, love mercy, walk in the ways of God”. How can this realization NOT be infuriating, how can We the People not wake up and smell the roses?
The solution is to engage in a spiritual practice, to see a physician of the soul as Maimonidies teaches in his book 8 Chapters. The solution is to learn how to say NO to the selfishness and fear within each of us, the solution is to understand the wisdom of Einstein’s statement: “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds”. We the People are being called by this moment, by the actions and teachings of all faiths to not be deterred by “violent opposition”, to be like Rev King, John Lewis, the pioneers of the State of Israel, the men of the Revolutionary Army led by George Washington, the women who have stood for change like Rosa Parks, Golda Meir, Susan B. Anthony, and all the other people who have refused to let the bastards win. I am doing my part and I must do more, you must do more also. Because We the People have the spirit of God within us our moral compass is stronger than the negativity of the deceivers and mendacious ones. It is time for We the People to live into our TRUTH and GOD’S TRUTH!
God Bless: STOP GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF, Rabbi Mark