Shanah Tovah!

Today is Rosh Hashanah. Sometimes I wish there were a Lutheran-Episcopal version of the Jewish High Holy Days. Take a week to remember the past year: the good and bad that have that happened; the things you did well and poorly; the good things you failed to do… Not because if you don’t, God won’t forgive you; but because you won’t grow or learn or appreciate life. Because you won’t remember your life as it slips through your fingers.

A friend posted memories of her father in law, who just passed away. I didn’t know the man, but her account of him made me cry. It was beautifully written, but also — she was remembering him.

It’s fall, isn t it? The calendar says we have 20 more days of summer, but I know it’s over. We must reach a point in the orbit where the earth makes a swift change. I feel it in the light in the sky — that aching, poignant fading light, like the last act of a tear-jerker movie.

20130904-125156.jpgA Jewish friend posted a piece of art on this day, Rosh Hashana.

I love the text inscribed.

Blessed are you,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe!
Who has granted us life,
sustained us and
brought us to this season.

There must be some symmetry in the fact that the High Holy Days land just as farmers are bringing in the harvest. I don’t know which came first, the chicken or the egg: the physical harvest, or the soul’s need to take an inventory of one’s spiritual harvest. But this is the time to do it — before your attention is stolen by school or work or the tyranny of the urgent.

Take time to remember you life before it slips through your fingers.

11 Comments

  1. Susan, do you do the examen? It’s a daily thing, but I imagine you could use it for the preceding year as well.

  2. Beautiful post, btw. Thank you.

  3. Beautiful post indeed, thanks Susan!

  4. Heartfelt and beautifully written. Of course.

  5. There’s a wonderful book on the examen called “Sleeping With Bread: Holding What Gives You Life”.
    Thanks for this post…

  6. I ache for the same in our Christian calendar; how odd that fall would be so empty in it. What a great meditation at the end, as to which harvest came first…

  7. Hey! Good to see you blogging.
    I’ll just wait here for the next one.
    :)suzy

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