Monday, February 20, 2012

OFF KILTER

I’m often a little off kilter just after submitting all my pieces for the monthly temple newsletter.  Maybe it’s the sermon-writing feel of spending two or three hours on my rabbi’s column, knowing it will be another week or two until anyone reads it.  Or wondering as I review all the temple upcoming activities (and check that they are all submitted to the newsletter editor) if I have forgotten some obvious event.  More likely this off balance feeling stems from having too intensely engaged with all the programs and planning for the next month, leaving me with a sense of already having lived through it yet still stuck with the anxiety of hoping it will come out alright.  

Off kilter, yes. Relieved too. There’s deep satisfaction in planning out my time, filling the boxes on my iCal with different entries in grey (work), blue (home), and purple (worship).  Over the years I have also learned how critical it is to leave empty spaces for both last minute counseling or life crises of temple members, and also for thinking time.  You know what I mean – not the putting one’s thoughts in order kind of time, but integrating and imagining time that comes from some other part of the brain. 

It’s hard to schedule that in, but today being President’s Day, I am taking the second half of the day to just read, think, and let whatever arises arise.  For the first time in months I have read through all my favorite sections of the Sunday New York Times, and even some I usually skip.  Especially liked Richard Thaler’s piece on an out-of-the-box solution to gay marriage rights, Gay Marriage Debate Is About Money, Too and the trio of pieces by Dowd, Friedman and Kristof.  I was blown away when Kristof ended with his plan to sneak into Sudan to report on human rights violations in the Nuba Mountains.  With Purim just two weeks away, he’s a modern day Mordecai and Esther rolled up into one. 

Temple life can feel far removed from the angst of the world – the injustices and pains and genocides.  That’s both good and bad.  It’s good because I need the normal rhythms of joys and sorrows that come from meeting with a family to discuss a baby-naming, or counseling a friend whose mother is on her deathbed.  Even discussing how to manage the logistics and the personalities at an upcoming Second Night Seder is really about relationships and values when you come right down to it.  I just need to remind myself that after the newsletter articles are forwarded to the volunteer editor (Karen, you’re the best!), and the items are checked off on my calendar for the day, there’s suffering and injustice that are calling out to us from across town or across the world. 

So, I think I’ll just hold on to this off-kilter feeling a little longer.  It’s a more real place to live, a place that acknowledges that our sense of completion is only an illusion.   I guess it’s just a Rabbi Tarfon kind of day.

“You are not required to complete the work, neither are you free to desist from it.”
                                                                                    Rabbi Tarfon, Pirke Avot 2:16