On God Avoidance and Other Activities in the Garden

So already, the other night as I was getting ready for bed, I realized I had no interest in reading other people's stories, fictional or not. That surprised me, because the week before I'd finished reading Daniel Mason's North Woods, which I loved--so much so that I'd gone to the library a couple of days later to borrow an earlier Mason book. And two weeks before that, I'd finished reading Omo Moses' The White Peril: A Family Memoir, which I also loved, so much so that I blogged about in February.

It's my habit to read a little before I go to sleep, and I wanted to take in some words, but not the kinds of words I'd been taking in during the weeks before. As I climbed into bed wondering, "What words, what words?" I realized I hadn't given God much thought or attention in the last few months. 

Why that thought at that moment? Probably for three reasons.

 

The first was that a couple of days earlier, I'd recalled how last fall, after my mother died, I'd gone to synagogue a couple of times and felt very disconnected spiritually. Despite the kindness of so many in my congregation, I knew I was not connecting with God through the services' formulaic prayer and familiar language, nor did I feel like making the effort to do so. My feelings were in no way a criticism of God, my fellow congregants, or liturgical prayer; they were simply an expression of my orbiting in this strange new mother-less galaxy.*

The second was that twice quite recently, God had entered my mind. But He'd stayed there only briefly, as if in passing.

 

The first time was while I was walking--something I hadn't done much recently because of February's stubborn ice, low temperatures, and gusty winds. As if to say "enough" to winter's persistent harshness, I headed out to my usual salt marsh on the last day of February when the potentially lethal ice had finally vanished from the trails. Being there reminded me that Donald Trump and Elon Musk don't have dominion over everything--certainly not over the salt marsh and the ducks' seasonal rhythms.

 

The second time was while I was reading Peter Beinart's Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. The book explores the assumptions and priorities of various Jewish individuals and groups as Beinart understands them politically, culturally, and historically; offers his opinions about their practical and moral costs and benefits; and asserts that a consideration of Jewish values and teachings can and must guide Israel's way forward. In particular, I appreciated his discussion of Jewish chosen-ness, which is all about relationship to God and the obligations associated with that, and its implications for the future of Israelis, Palestinians, and American Jews.

 

The other night as I sat in my room, I found myself missing having some kind of an ongoing connection to God. But I also still wondered what part of my "what words, what words" conundrum was a response to Donald Trump's degrading treatment of Volodymir Zelenskyy  in the White House on a recent Friday, and what part of it was the latest expression of my experience of the loss of my mother--which is more akin to emptiness and disorientation than to sadness. 

 

Next to my bed was a book of daily meditations called Healing After Loss, a gift of a good friend, that I hadn't been reading regularly--only because I was feeling more weird than bereft. But seeing it there did remind me that I had a couple of other books written by rabbis that offered daily meditations, or short enough "chapters" to lend themselves to bedtime reflection. So I pulled out both Floating Takes Faith: Ancient Wisdom for a Modern World by Rabbi David Wolpe and Restful Reflections: Nighttime Inspiration to Calm the Soul, Based on Jewish Wisdom, written and edited by Rabbis Kerry M. Olitzky and Lori Forman. 

 

I read the first entry in the former and the March 3 entry in the latter. Remarkably, they both spoke to me, tempering my profound sense of puzzling absence.

The March 3 meditation in Restful Reflections, entitled "The Voice of God Has Never Stopped," talks about the Shema, translated as "Hear, O Israel"--the prayer that's known by heart in both Hebrew and English by virtually every American Jewish person, regardless of how they feel about being Jewish and how observant they are. The meditation's author, Rabbi Levi Meier, explains,

The 'Hear, O Israel' is a statement of faith, love and commitment to listen to God's voice. And to live that belief means bringing oneness and wholeness into the world. It means bringing people together, bringing unity and peace into the lives we touch. (51)**

For the last months, I've been wondering why I do what I do--literally, why I fill my hours with what I fill them with. Rabbi Meier reminded me that lots of what I routinely do, whether I'm an organizer or simply a member of the group, brings people together to do something meaningful and even pleasurable together. If that "meaningful" has peaceful aspects, my glass is half full, despite my nagging sense of absence.

 

A paragraph later, Rabbi Meier reassures that if one opens one's ear and heart sufficiently, "then the voice of God will enter your mind and your heart, and your actions will testify to the fact that God dwells here, now, in your room." Those words spoke directly to the possibility of lessening the distance between God and me, put there by me: what could be more distance-diminishing than having God come into my own room? It was as if I'd pressed "pause" on my personal spiritual CD player in late October, but the music had kept playing in the cosmos, ready always for me to press the button that would make the divine music "resume."

Next, I turned my attention to Floating Takes Faith. Actually I'd met Rabbi Wolpe once when he'd attended Shabbat services at my synagogue several weeks after October 7, 2023; he was the rabbi who had resigned from Harvard's antisemitism task force because he felt the group lacked a sense of urgency about the work it was doing. His column entitled "The First Question"--for some time, he'd published a column regularly in The Jewish Week--dealt with the first question God asks in the Hebrew Bible--to Adam, in the Garden of Eden, in Genesis 3.

"'Where are you?'" God asks, no doubt knowing that Adam is in the Garden of Eden--where else could he be? That was the part of the story I remembered. What I didn't remember was Adam's answer. As Wolpe explains, "Instead, it is a question of spiritual geography. Adam, understanding the import of God's question, answers that he was frightened, so he has been hiding."***

"Spiritual geography" immediately spoke to me since I've long been fascinated with inner landscapes. But Wolpe's reminder that Adam was hiding out of fear practically took my breath away. Just the week before, during my voice lesson, during a part of a Fauré song **** when I should have been singing out a beautiful ascending line, my voice teacher had said to me, "You sound like you're hiding."

I told her I probably was. My sisters had always hated my singing, so I had always felt I needed to conceal it around the house--and right now, I was singing in the house, my house. So my habit pulling back when I ought to be letting it rip was a well-established one. It won't surprise you to know that part of what I'm learning to do in my voice lessons is to let it rip--at least within the bounds of good vocal practice.

 

Letting it rip musically depends on a number of vocal factors, and one of them is having enough air, enough breath--and I often count on the experience of breathing deeply--whether I do so intentionally or suddenly realize I am doing it--to tell me that God is with me, or that there's the chance that God is with me.  

 

Wolpe's column comments, after talking specifically about Adam, that "Where are you"

. . . is not only the first question: it is also the eternal question. At each moment in our lives, this question is addressed to us: Where are you? Where are you spiritually? Where are you morally? What have you done with life, and what are you doing with it now? Are you proud of your conduct in the garden?"

Frankly, I don't want to deal with the question of what I'm proud of or not. I think there are any number of things I could be proud of, but an emphasis on being proud of how morally or ethically good I'm being (or striving to be) would too easily foreground judgment, put and keep myself at the center, and apply constant pressure.

 

But I like the other questions well enough, and I'd like to think more deliberately about what I'd like to do with my life going forward, should I be lucky enough to remain of sound mind and body. For sure I'd like to listen and hear. And I'd also like to get really comfortable with letting it rip, vocally and otherwise: the idea of not hiding out of fear appeals on every level.

So here I am, standing in the Garden. Except right now, for me, it looks a whole lot like my dining room, where I've been sitting for the length of this Sunday afternoon alternating between writing this blog and listening--to Ned Rorem songs (The Prince Consort's On an Echoing Road CD is beyond beautiful), to Paul Moravec songs (specifically to Jennifer Cano singing "A New America"--magnificent), to Gabriel Fauré songs. I am sure God is in these songs, and therefore He is in my dining room. Maybe it's the beginning of something--like less avoidance, or the renewal of something, or something altogether new. Time will tell.

* Screen Shot of Oort Cloud Formation Metal Print by Science Photo Library: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/oort-cloud-formation-claus-lunau.html?product=metal-print

** Olitzky, K.M. & Forman, L. (2001). Restful reflections: Nighttime inspirartion to calm the soul, based on Jewish wisdom. JEWISH LIGHTS Publishing.

*** Wolpe, D. (2004). Floating takes faith: Ancient wisdom for a modern world. Behrmann House, Inc.

**** Screen shot of "The Effect of Moonlight "(also known as "St. Valery Canal"), a painting by Eugène-Louis Boudin (1891), in the following blog: JDB. (2017, March 20). Clair de Lune redux. Wordpress. https://augenblickblog.com/2017/03/20/clair-de-lune-redux/