Three years.
The Mourner's Kaddish doesn't once mention death. This is one of the things I love about Judaism. And it's a beautiful prayer. Even if you say it alone, you hear it, all the hundreds of times you and people like you have said it together. The sound of it is a beautiful sound: Yitbarach v'yishtabach, v'yitpa'ar v'yitromam v'yitnasei, v'yithadar v'yitaleh v'yithalal sh'mei d'kudisha, b'rich hu, l'eila min kol bir'chata v'shirata, tushb'chata v'nechemata da'amiran b'alma, v'imru: amein.
This year I went to work on the day. I'm fine. It's been a better year. I can feel how much New Mexico helped. On the train home, I read this wonderful profile of Stephen Colbert, who is a very religious man in the best possible way, and who has known some terrible tragedy in his life.I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.
I asked him if he could help me understand that better, and he described a letter from Tolkien in response to a priest who had questioned whether Tolkien's mythos was sufficiently doctrinaire, since it treated death not as a punishment for the sin of the fall but as a gift. “Tolkien says, in a letter back: ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” Colbert knocked his knuckles on the table. “ ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” he said again. His eyes were filled with tears. “So it would be ungrateful not to take everything with gratitude. It doesn't mean you want it. I can hold both of those ideas in my head.”
[...]
“It's not the same thing as wanting it to have happened,” he said. “But you can't change everything about the world. You certainly can't change things that have already happened.”
[...]
The next thing he said I wrote on a slip of paper in his office and have carried it around with me since. It's our choice, whether to hate something in our lives or to love every moment of them, even the parts that bring us pain. “At every moment, we are volunteers.”
Oh, I teared up at that.
This morning I read some older things I had written, six weeks after, six months after. I don't have much to add today.
May the Source of Peace send peace to all who mourn, and comfort to all who are bereaved, and let us say amen.
This was originally posted on Dreamwidth, where it has
comments. I would love to hear from you at DW! If you can see this post, you can comment here using OpenID. Thanks!
This year I went to work on the day. I'm fine. It's been a better year. I can feel how much New Mexico helped. On the train home, I read this wonderful profile of Stephen Colbert, who is a very religious man in the best possible way, and who has known some terrible tragedy in his life.I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.
I asked him if he could help me understand that better, and he described a letter from Tolkien in response to a priest who had questioned whether Tolkien's mythos was sufficiently doctrinaire, since it treated death not as a punishment for the sin of the fall but as a gift. “Tolkien says, in a letter back: ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” Colbert knocked his knuckles on the table. “ ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” he said again. His eyes were filled with tears. “So it would be ungrateful not to take everything with gratitude. It doesn't mean you want it. I can hold both of those ideas in my head.”
[...]
“It's not the same thing as wanting it to have happened,” he said. “But you can't change everything about the world. You certainly can't change things that have already happened.”
[...]
The next thing he said I wrote on a slip of paper in his office and have carried it around with me since. It's our choice, whether to hate something in our lives or to love every moment of them, even the parts that bring us pain. “At every moment, we are volunteers.”
Oh, I teared up at that.
This morning I read some older things I had written, six weeks after, six months after. I don't have much to add today.
May the Source of Peace send peace to all who mourn, and comfort to all who are bereaved, and let us say amen.
This was originally posted on Dreamwidth, where it has
comments. I would love to hear from you at DW! If you can see this post, you can comment here using OpenID. Thanks!