I don't know how I am supposed to do Yom Kippur this year.
Oh, I'm evaluating my deeds, as we are instructed to do; I'm looking at where I've fallen down on the job, asking forgiveness from those I have wronged.
Except this: I am not going to ask forgiveness for hating. And even worse: I don't even want to stop hating.
Yeah, I know that hate only diminishes me and love is the answer and blah blah blah, but to everything (turn turn turn) there is a season. And this season of Republican fascism, religious fanaticism and cruel injustice foments hate in me.
I don't feel like praying; I feel like fighting. I feel like fighting dirty.
Who by fire, who by water...Leonard Cohen's song, taken from the High Holydays liturgy. This week is the time of reckoning; all our deeds of the past year are examined and written on our permanent records. We have until sundown at Yom Kippur to make things right -there are no extensions or hall passes. We can't say we had cramps. Can't say we were at a funeral. We can't even say that we were in temple for a Jewish holiday (this, an excuse so beautifully bulletproof in a gentile world that it absolutely proves we are The Chosen People.)
This week I am called to search my soul. And so I am doing it, but not because I want to make sure I will not die by fire or water or smoke or pandemic or a knee on my throat; I'm doing it because it's a worthy endeavor. I got some transgressions I could clean up. God sees all, and Robin is going to get hip to my shit sooner or later.
So I've been searching. I've been poking around in there, moving around the boxes of guilt and photographs and shoulder pads and my old Mary McCaslin albums and painful memories, and hope and joy so I can see into most abandoned cobwebby corners. Looking for forgiveness. Looking for love for all humankind.
And I have come to the the conclusion that this year, I'm going down with a lot of F's and "needs to improve"s on my report card. I might not even pass 5780. Oh dear Lord, please don't make me repeat this year.
I do not have love in my heart for all humankind. I just can't muster it. I have enormous love in my heart for some of humankind. I love every single person who is going to vote the Democratic ticket. I love almost everyone who wears a mask when they go out. I love critical thinkers and scientists, and I have nothing but love for all animals. Except nutria. Nutria weird the fuck out of me and if I had to chose between saving the life of a baby nutria or saving the life of baby Mitch McConnell, well, of course I would save the nutria. But I'd probably throw up afterwards.
I could be wrong, but I am going to let myself hate for now. If my hate feeds my awareness and my awareness feeds my actions and deeds, then, you know, bless the fuel.
The last line to that Leonard Cohen song is, "...and who is calling..."
Maybe it doesn't matter who is calling.
As long as I answer.
I've just discovered your blog through Lunaea Weatherstone and I LOVE it!! Oh, how sweet to discover a kindred spirit with a wicked sense of humor and a way with words! These are such terrible, distressing times, and discovering people like you give me hope.
Posted by: Jennifer Barlow | 09/24/2020 at 03:07 PM