Working Through the Wreckage

            We all “come clean” sooner or later.  The realistic fact of life that touches everyone is that we pick up some pretty nasty habits along the way.  It is difficult, nigh impossible, to not follow some of the false leads we have been shown.  Or have gotten away with.  People in various forms of recovery speak of becoming “clean”.  Drugs, alcohol or sex muddied former lives.  With desire to “clean up their act” comes the hope of scrubbing away the filthy barnacles that have attached themselves to the psyche.

            Around that same period we spiritually fell asleep.  The earth lost its luster, its vibrancy.  The hues of the grass and luminescence of the moon were reduced to monochrome.  With age, and practices that took us away from the awe and splendor which we once knew, comes a bleakness which makes the soul want to cry, “Is this all there is?  Somehow, I remember more...’

            While Judaism is concerned with “cleaning up one’s act,” it aspires to something far greater. 

One of my favorite writers, John Steinbeck records a dialogue between some people on a ranch.  One of them approaches a foal and remarks, “Starts fast when it starts, doesn’t it?  Did it all come at once?”

“Oh no, you just stopped looking for a while.”

            Amazing the things we see when we wake up.

            It seems to me that a lot of what our faith emphasizes is about waking up.  You know the feeling when you arise on one of those warm, bright argent mornings.  The suns warmth touches everything and even dirt appears to be animate.  The world sings.  We are the audience.

            I am ever humbled by the beginning of every berakha “Barukh Ata HaShem Elokaynu Melekh haOlam asher kidshanu...” Who has made us holy.  Each time we utter a blessing, we say that we are in process of accessing our holiness.  Chutzpa? 

           I would like to think that our sights can be set on a consecrated life, one which perceives a joy and excitement in living.  If our tradition stresses any great ideal it is this: Practice the art of consecrated living by approaching the world through then lens of God.