Ghosting God, Ghosting Self
Day 35
Again from the prophet Hosea 2:21: “I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know YHVH.” I am stopping here because the verses before this were about Israel’s harlotry, her betrayal of the Covenant, of the 10 Sayings, of the simple command to “Love Adonai with all your heart, your soul, your everything”. No matter how much kindness, love, care, strength, wisdom human beings experience, are granted-whoring after the next ‘shiny thing’, running to the ‘certainty’ of an idol seems to win out. Israel was whoring after those gods they did not know! Hence the use of the word “know” in the verse quoted above is very telling-We the People “know” God and it is when we forget “one we came in with”, as Sinatra sings in “Luck be a Lady tonight”, everything starts to go haywire and we find ourselves stranded, alone, broke, and empty. Unfortunately, most of we the people blame another(s), blame ‘bad luck’, blame God! Rather than being responsible for our own harlotry.
I went to Sacred Heart Catholic Church last night with Harriet and a friend from the Bridge Club. I realize I was imagining what the Temple Service of old would have been, with it’s pomp and ceremony. I also realize that for Catholics, Communion is a renewing of their Covenant with Christ, Christ’s teachings, Christ’s ways of being in the world and I found very moving and profound. There were young and old people there, the service was 45 minutes, the Priest’s message was spot on for the moment we are in without ever mentioning politics, and the experience of seeing the joy, the kindness, the love of the congregants for one another, for the stranger in their midst, was/is uplifting and hopeful. I watched with awe, reverence, wonder how people resonate to the message of forgiveness, of redemption, of love and it makes my heart open even more and my spirit soar.
The problem that Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel told us about: “We don’t study the Prophets” is getting bigger and bigger by the moment. Without immersing ourselves in the Prophets, how are we the people going to learn how to remedy our errors, not make the same mistakes in the same was as our ancestors did, refuse to learn from another(s), stay willfully blind to the Truth, not whore ourselves out as the rich, powerful, clergy did in the times of the prophets? WE CAN’T!
AND there is a solution, it is a simple one that seems too hard for most of we the people: Accept God’s betrothal!! Stop whoring around, end our incessant need to sleep with anyone and everyone who tells us what we want to hear. Let go of the lies we have been telling ourselves, as the Priest said last night, let of of the “excess baggage” we are carrying in our minds, in our emotions, in our hearts (living in the past errors that we have done T’Shuvah for, neurotic guilt, etc), let go of the spiritual fears of “not being enough” and accept that God wants us, God believes in our ability to be faithful, which will allow us to suspend our disbelief in this truth. Thank you Rev Pastor Gregory Elder!
Being known by God, being loved by God’s unending love, being accepted for who we are, warts and all, imperfect as we are, takes faith, takes willingness, takes community and takes commitment. Accepting this “betrothal” is to accept our SELF for whom we are and stop trying to ‘flip our script’, LIVE into the divine need we are here to fulfill ie, the talents we are given to heal and repair, to learn and grow, and see every human being as a divine reminder, a fellow human being, no longer “judging a book by its cover”, no longer giving into the cancer of prejudice, letting go of our fears of people doing to us what we have done to them-my ‘fine white christian nationalists, my soooo very observant jewish nationalists’!
Most of all, as Hosea reminds us: We the People KNOW God! Knowing in the Bible means having intimate relations with another. Hosea is reminding us that our connection to God, our “knowing” God is innate, it is intrinsic to being human. Living in “faithfulness”, “knowing YHVH”, gives We the People the path back home, the roadmap to living with and on purpose, the joy of learning, of being curious, of letting go of old ideas, “excess baggage”, “not being enough”, etc. Our relationship with YHVH is the most intimate one we the people can ever have because YHVH is nonjudgmental, betroths YHVH to us in faithfulness and, unlike humans who hide so much of the time, is never hiding, always accessible, “in our mouths, in our hearts”.
ACTION STEPS:
Without Drama, self-flagellation, list the ways and areas when/where I have been unfaithful
Look in the mirror and realize you “can’t hide from the man in the glass” and begin to be in truth with your Self, with another.
Write down how you are going to stop being the harlot and accept YHVH’s betrothal and KNOW YHVH and your SELF intimately
GOD BLESS, STOP GHOSTING GOD, GHOSTING SELF, Rabbi Mark