Skip to main content

Boston 4/15/13 - Part 2 - A Prayer

I cannot pray on other people's behalf and I do not presume to write a prayer for anyone other than myself. Yes, as a Jew my traditional prayers are usually in the plural - we, our, us - but for right now, my prayer is my own.

Dear God, my anger is mixed with sadness and fear. 

I know that unjustified and unfettered anger and fear are potentially emotionally dangerous and damaging to my soul, however right now my anger and fear are equally appropriate to my sadness. 

And so I pray:

Guide me in directing my anger at the right source: at the people who perpetrated evil, deliberately targeting for maximum devastation and loss of life. Guide me in channeling my anger into positive energy, finding ways to help support people whose lives were changed forever in yesterday's events. 

Guide me in keeping my fear for myself and the people I love from ballooning out of proportion to the point that I isolate and fearfully avoid living life to the fullest. 

Help me keep my sadness in check so that I can avoid moving into overwhelming sorrow and self-pity.

At times like this it's very tempting to read things written by provocateurs who only want rile up the world with their vile and outrageous comments. This nonsense feeds my rage; God, please give me the strength and maturity to stay away from this ugliness.

There will be more times of evil - we know that for sure - and it's my job to stay vigilant. So above all, guide me to work to make my community a better place to live, a place of peace and compassion, where evil cannot find a home. Keep my own words kind and gentle and my mind clear of anything other than Your goodness.

Kein y'hi ratzon - may this be Your will.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Bigotry No Sancton? Hardly.

This is a sad day for the American dream.  North Carolina voters approved an amendment banning same-sex marriages, partnerships, and civil unions on Tuesday. It joins an infamous assortment of 30 states - and the last in the South - to add this prohibition to their state constitutions. The vote wasn't even close: an overwhelming 80% of voters publicly pronounced their bigotry. Yes, BIGOTRY. There is simply no other word for it, despite the sanctimonious wrapping of opinions in their version of the Bible.  The obscenity is that the bigots invoke "God" and Newspeak simultaneously to proclaim the sanctity of their position.  According to the New York Times , '“We are not anti-gay — we are pro-marriage,” Tami Fitzgerald, chairwoman of the executive committee for the pro-amendment Vote for Marriage NC, said at a victory rally in Raleigh, where supporters ate pieces of a wedding cake topped by figures of a man and a woman. “And the point, the whole point is simpl
Post a Comment
Read more

The Words of a Tragedy

Words matter. If they didn't, if there were no consequences to our utterances - good and bad - Jewish literature would not be chockablock with cautionary tales from Talmud to midrash to watch what we say. Those stories of the rabbi and the feather pillow and the broken mirror did not come out of a vacuum; they were written for a reason. Let's be honest: politicians love rhetoric and television/radio pundits need inflammatory language the way an active alcoholic needs booze. No political party has been innocent, yet the right wing has taken the cake lately. An American president accused of not being an American, "don't retreat, reload," the "2nd amendment remedies," Nazi, Hitler (briefly abused by the left against VP Cheney but taken to the nth degree by Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and others), death panels, a Sarah Palin map of the US with gun cross hair sights over names and places of politicians who were on a political hit list and a politician hosting an
3 comments
Read more

Omer Day 1: Just enough

(graphic:  https://www.pinterest.com/serenityinhim/new-love3/ ) "With the mitzvah of counting the 49 days, known as Sefirat Ha'Omer, the Torah invites us on a journey into the human psyche, into the soul. There are seven basic emotions that make up the spectrum of human experience. At the root of all forms of enslavement, is a distortion of these emotions. Each of the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot is dedicated to examining and refining one of them. The seven emotional attributes are: 1. Chesed - Loving-kindness 2. Gevurah - Justice and discipline 3. Tiferet - Harmony/compassion 4. Netzach - Endurance 5. Hod - Humility 6. Yesod - Bonding 7. Malchut - Sovereignty, leadership" Daily Omer Meditation Over the next 49 days, I'm going to post a meditation from some source or another (perhaps myself) with my reactions/responses. Please feel free to share (with attribution, please), comment, and otherwise join me on the 49-day spiritual journey to
2 comments
Read more