Spiritual Ruminations

Two of my dearest friends are on pilgrimage in Israel. My hope is that the depth
of experience I felt when I was there on pilgrimage in 1994 will be theirs as well.
It may well be more, but it is of an interior realization. The images and landscapes
are still a deeply felt part of my being - life long present and ever re-newing in
their personal journeying and awakening.

Funny that this would be part of a different journey here. I was invited to be a
part of another dear friend's granddaughter's Bat Mitzvah recently. The grounds
were similar. The roots of spiritual experience had common experience. I had
a personal draw of mutually experienced spiritual self knowledge.

Perhaps it was the beloved psalms all our traditions share and the beauty of hearing
them chanted along with prayer. I felt I was in a continuum of shared worship and
liturgical wonder, I belonged in both. The mutuality of it all was both a comfort
and also something new - something trying to define itself in the core of my very
being. It was the oneness I felt, both home and not at home.

Then the reason we were there to be witnesses, a young person was declaring their
citizenship in the temple, the taking on of the adult responsibilities to the community
of faith and the expression that their study and proclamation of faith demanded that
their presence and willingness to enter a higher responsibility be noticed and accepted.

Christian confirmation should do the same thing, but it does not. The community
of faith and tradition in the temple and the support it gives from both family and wider
community is, in a trite way of expression, almost overwhelming to the witness
of yours truly. The assumption and taking on of responsibility in the place of faith
realized is what this ceremony is about. And it is bigger than the casual observer
generally notices or comprehends.

So, true this is to the pilgrim, walking the ancient steps and digging deep to realize
their own place in the bigger picture.

My wonder blooms. My appreciation for rites and their possibilities grows. And
my faith journey tugs my soul into the realm of re-discovery.

R

The Quartet

I recently attending a very good friend's granddaughter's Bat Mitzvah in North
Carolina. It was a truly spiritual experience for me in many ways. But ultimately
it was the people who dominated the blessing I felt.

My dear friend and I could be a duet - endlessly and continually creating new
tunes, reprising old ones and always developing new themes and creating new
textures and melodies. Into this duet a trio reconstituted itself returning to beloved
music and favorite songs. But the trio was emboldened into a quartet with the presence
of the trio's third person's marriage partner who brought new depth and melody
to the music we created in our intertwined relationships. With four songs inter playing,
the possibilities seemed endless until the final denouement.

Others joined this basic quartet as the events unfolded in ceremony and celebration. And
a new symphony of delight and mutuality of expression made its presence known. Life
can be music when ears are opened and hearts freely express their true feelings.

And this is a mitzvah - a blessing - so deeply experienced that the core of one's
being is forever altered.


R