We find ourselves again in the Days of Awe.
Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, between creation and atonement, we sit, contemplating our wrongs.
I wander at the end of a very-long-day-not-yet-over, wondering about offense.
How is that we are so easily offended? And why is so hard to forgive?
A colleague on Zoom tells me something about my son, a silly little thing, that I never knew. Apparently, he loved stuffed breadsticks and once ate 12 of them and nothing else for dinner at the school he loved. The school I love. My friend was so kind to share this with me, a new nugget, and it made me smile.
My son.
On days like today, I could use his sweet embrace that often did nothing to change a thing, but somehow, still, made it all better.
Don’t worry about that, Momma, he would say. It will all turn out alright.
I’ve forgiven him for dying, of course, for driving drunk and leaving us all behind. I’m grateful on days like today that this is not my forever home, any more than it was his.
In a cemetery at sunset, I sit on a tiny child’s bench, flaked by time, and lament.
Isn’t that the point of the Days of Awe? To ruthlessly examine our flaws and offer them up to God? Ever patient, He tenderly squeezes our hearts until, squirming, we no longer seek to justify our imperfections or hold others’ against them.
It’s okay, my daughter, He whispers. I’ve taken care of that.
I look up and it’s the first thing I see.
walkwithme413 