Spring 2021

 

Sitting at the top of the stoop,

Re-reading Patrick O’Brian. 

Wearing sandals, no jacket,

Enjoying a lovely faux summer afternoon in April.

A Fed Ex truck parks a couple of houses down. 

No packages for me but as he drives away

The Fed Ex man waves and smiles.  

I wave and smile back, that’s our guy. 

In this moment, he and I are not alone

And life is good.

Gifts

© Trisha Arlin

Blessed One-ness,

I give thanks for the gifts that are mine to give. 

One day,

I walked into a subway car and sat down

on a bench-seat that had just enough room for me. 

Now, I am a wide person,

I take up a bit more space

Than someone who is not a wide person,

And sometimes

I push against someone,

inadvertently,

with my wide self. 

And this time,

apparently I had.

Because the man sitting next to me

made an angry noise and said,

"Well, go ahead and knock into people,
obviously you don't care."

Which was weird,

So I watched my reaction.

I heard myself thinking,

screw you buddy,it was an accident,
get over yourself,
what do you want from me,
are you making fun of me because I'm fat
is everybody staring at me because I'm fat,i hate you.

And I wanted to ignore him,

And I wanted to curse him,

And I wanted to sink into the floor.

But then I stopped,

I breathed,

I thought about the man,

I thought about what he was feeling,

and I realized

it had nothing to do with me.

He was someone at a low ebb,

He was fragile,

So fragile that 
me 

squeezing into a seat 

next to him on the subway 

and touching him without noticing

felt like an assault

on his very being. 

I had done nothing to be sorry for,

I was right.

He was wrong.

I turned to him and I said,

"I'm sorry, it was an accident, I didn't mean to push you, I hope you can forgive me."  

I didn't need to be forgiven.

But he needed to forgive me.  

"Humph", he said, "well okay". 

And his anger was gone

And so was mine. 

It cost me nothing. 

In fact, it gave me the world. 

Blessed One-ness,

I give thanks for the gift of atonement,*

Which is mine to give so easily.

Amen.

*From Devora Steinmetz's "From Father To Son"

Your Pure Soul: Elohai Neshama

Your soul was pure:

You were in yourself,

You remember that.

You remember safety.

Amazed at the taste of food, sugar blew your mind.

You danced and laughed and told jokes.

You slept on the dog.

You loved to hear the cantor sing the songs,

You knew that God was in that room.

You loved cartoons.

Then life happened to you. 

Your soul became corrugated

And you kicked back at the world.

You forgot how to be in yourself,

You only knew how to react.

Your hurt looked like anger,

Your fear looked like sarcasm.

Other people's pain was somehow all about you.

God-ness looked like stupidity

And you were not allowed to touch the Torah.

The past was wrong

And the future was fantasy

And you thought you could not love.

Then one day you stopped.

You listened to the ambient sounds.

You listened to your breath,

You listened for that pure soul.

And you saw things as they really were:

Hurt was only hurt

And you were not the center of the universe   

And you felt compassion instead of fear.

God-ness surrounded you.

The past was past, the future was yet to be.

You began to touch Torah

And you remembered to love.

It is very difficult to get there,

It can take a long time,

But once achieved

It is simple.

Really.

Your soul IS pure.

Our souls ARE pure.

And we are each of us a part of all creation,

Protected in the One-ness.

אֱלהַי. נְשָׁמָה שֶׁנָּתַתָּ בִּי טְהורָה הִיא

Amen