Every Day is Sacred & Meaningful!

I recently reread a book I found some years ago, Toward a Meaningful Life: The Wisdom of the Rebbe by Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who was head of the Lubavitcher movement for over 40 years and died in the mid-1990s. The book has many practical ideas for bringing more spirituality into one's life and it really got me thinking about the many sacred moments in my day that seem to be mundane, but really aren't.

One chapter focuses on one's daily existence, and how to make it more holy. Start the day by praying, with intention (kavannah), the Jewish morning prayers.

Elohai Neshamah shenatata bi, t'hora hi. (the "i" in "bi" and "hi" rhymes with "he"): The Soul You have placed in me is pure.
OR,
Modah (fem) Modeh (masc) ani l'fanecha, melech chai v'chayyam. Thank you God for restoring my soul to me.

When you sleep, your soul travels. Just before you awaken, if you are to awaken, God places your soul back into your body. For that, be thankful! Then, before you get out of bed, reflect on making the day meaningful, scanning over the things you have scheduled and the approach you want to bring to these encounters.

At night, many people say the Shema. Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheynu, Adonai Echad. Hear (Listen Deeply) People of Israel, God/Adonai's Majesty is Everywhere, All United/Whole.
Some say this as "protection" from evil occuring while they sleep. As you lie in bed, before you go to sleep, reflect on the day, reviewing how you used your gifts, where you found purpose, peace, and sacredness in your encounters, and promise yourself to do even better tomorrow.

Just bringing this realization to your consciousness will do much to help you find more peace and holiness in your seemingly mundane encounters and experiences each day. It will also help you feel lighter and more joyful, no matter what might be burdening you.

Doorways

Endings and beginnings... doorways to the future and past. I'm not one to make "new year's resolutions" for I tend to pay more attention to things like the seasonal changes, or my birthday, as signposts for growth. However, any opportunity to stop and take stock of life is a good one. Standing in that doorway and looking back to see what you've learned and how you have matured is always helpful. Getting stuck there is not. But, take that in-between moment and savor it, because it is neither past nor future. The past is done, and you are greeting the future. Your future can be shaped by your past actions, certainly, but you also have the power to make other choices. To repair where it is needed, no matter how difficult a task that may be.... but, for this moment, on the cusp, just pause and enjoy the beauty of the present.
Open your heart to All That Is, and let the sensation and beauty of that wash over you. You are a perfect being, containing everything there ever was and will be.
******************

The Sacredness of Your Life

What are you thankful for? Even in the midst of pain, can you find the blessing in being alive? It is said that the Creator is breathing us into being every moment. How "yirah" (awesome) is that! That this infinite being wants us to be alive and breathing and contributing to this Creation in our own way. We usually go through each day not really thinking about it, taking for granted the fact we can go to work, prepare and eat meals, tend to our families/friends/selves, etc. It's easy to get caught up in the seemingly mundane, ordinary life we live. But, is it really all that ordinary and mundane when you think about the fact that all of Creation is being willfully breathed into Being, and if the Creator stopped willing us into being, we would be no more?
I may not say the morning blessings exactly the way they are written, but I do awaken each morning, sun streaming into my windows, glad to be alive and wondering what the day will bring. What surprises will come my way? What does the Creator need me to do, how do I need to be, to take me further on my journey towards becoming a better person? When I really pay attention and notice the miracles of life around me, I am feeling blessed and grateful that the Infinite One sees fit to continue to breathe life into me.
The one guarantee in life is death, but we never know exactly when that will occur, so how do you live each day that the Creator has willed you into being?
***************************

Oy vey.... whining and complaining

In this week's Torah portion, B'shallach, we read of the Israelites flight from Egypt. One of the things that stands out for me is the fact they complain incessantly about the heat, the walk, the lack of water, the taste of the water when they get it, the lack of food, the manna isn't good enough, on and on. We laughed about it in class, but at the heart of it, it wasn't so laughable. Sure, we as Jews have a bit of a stereotype when it comes to complaining, and there are some jokes I've heard that make fun of this facet of life. But why do we complain? Why aren't we grateful for whatever it is that is given to us?
We complain about our bodies, we complain about work, we complain about our spouses, or children, or parents, or friends. For some people who have made an art form out of it, nothing is ever right. Nothing is ever perfect, or lives up to our expectations of what it should be.
Judaism makes a big deal out of distinctions. There are many boundaries we don't cross, and many that we do. It seems to me that everything in life can't be holy, it can't be perfect, for we're not in Gan Eden anymore. So, can it be that the things we complain about are the things that haven't achieved holiness yet? Or we don't see its holiness because it's obscured by pain, or ego, or something else that clouds our vision?
Maybe the fact that my body aches when I wake up is just a fact of life in growing older. But at least I woke up (Modah ani l'fanecha). And I have another chance to make this world a better place. Our bodies are imperfect packages for our souls, but HaShem made them that way for a reason. It's a mystery to me, but that's ok.
The next time I complain, I'm also going to ask myself that whatever I'm complaining about might not have achieved its holy purpose, but eventually it will!
********************************

Finding Purpose in Suffering

In Hebrew, the word for "Illness" is Makhlah. When you rearrange the Hebrew letters from this root word what results is a telling list of new words:
Kholeh - one who is ill
Khalom - dream
Lekhem - bread
Khalee - sweeten
Makheel - beginning
Khel - (apply) bulwark
Chaiyel - warrior
Melchamah - battle
Makhol - dance
Khemlah - compassion, pity
Mekheelah - forgiveness
Chalah - dough offering
Lakh - moist
Lakhem - connect

When one is ill (and here I mean when one is experiencing a time of physical, emotional and/or mental challenge), makhlah, often one has dreams about how to deal with that illness. The illness often becomes "bread" to sustain us, in that we find meaning and purpose in the obstacle that is facing us. This new information may bring "sweetness" to our lives, and often becomes the beginning for a new phase of our growth. Often in illness we need to be a warrior and face the battle by applying the bulwark of our strength (even when that comes from others prayers and compassion). We dance the dance of this new phase of our lives and often that means forgiving ourselves, or others and making peace with things. We may use our new knowledge as an offering to HaShem, being thankful for the challenges we are able to meet, and for the abundance ever-present in our lives. Illness can connect us to others, and to deeper aspects of ourselves when we allow its "moisture" to enter us and cleanse us, as we soften the places where we are too hard and unyielding. Use these words as a basis to come up with your own meanings for the challenges you may now be facing.

There is much more to this in Rabbi Gershon Winkler's book on Jewish Shamanic Healing called Magic of the Ordinary.

Response-ability

I have a great little book that I pick up from time to time called Be Within, Stay Above more meditations from the wisdom of the Rebbe condensation and words by Tzvi Freeman, Class One Press 2000. Each page contains a gem of wisdom on an aspect of life. I would like to quote a page titled UnProphets (p. 209):

"If we were prophets or people of vision, we would see what is important and what is not, what will bear fruits and what will remain barren. But we are simple people in an age of confusion. Our lives are filled with uncertainties--anything could happen, and we have no way of telling.

"We cannot decide which mitvah is important and which will bear fruit. Neither are we expected to make our decisions that way.

"What's expected of us is to simply grab whatever G-d sends our way, and do our very best at it. What will come of it? What is its purpose? Only He needs to know."

I love this book! To grab whatever comes our way is like being on that merry-go-round, and grabbing the brass ring, open to whatever we are to learn, and to trust that we are going in the right direction. To respond in our best way. Response-ability--the act (art?) of responding ably, to not react, but apply ourselves wholeheartedly to the choice we make as the response to an event in our lives.

Everything Happens for a Reason

On this list, we deal with joy as well as suffering. Our prayers bring comfort to our loved ones, and we hope the fact that we are all joined in this together helps to ease their suffering. Our work is healing work, and that brings me to mention a book I have been reading about healing, called Everything Happens for a Reason by Mira Kirshenbaum. She is a psychotherapist from Massachusetts who has helped many people find the meaning in their pain and suffering. It has always been my belief that inside one's greatest pain is one's greatest gift. Perhaps you grew up with "less than ideal" parents, or in a horrible living situation. Or, you're dealing with a health crisis right now, or some other life-changing event has occurred. How we face such circumstances can make us stronger, wiser, happier, and closer to realizing our soul's true purpose in our lifetime. It reminds me of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and how he managed to survive and thrive during the Holocaust by finding the meaning in his suffering. Kirshenbaum's book provides many questions to ask of yourself to see which of the 10 meanings might fit your present circumstances. She asked hundreds of people many questions and discovered that their responses fell into 10 basic meanings; feeling at home in the world, self acceptance, letting go of fear, uncovering hidden talents, and living with a sense of mission are just a few of the reasons she uncovered.What it boils down to is this: you have been given the gift of a life. Don't squander or waste it. The experiences and trials that test you are there for a reason. The people or events that have been difficult in your life can teach you something very important about yourself if you open the door to them and give them a meaning for your life. Your soul is on a journey to return ever more purified and refined, and the meaning you make of your circumstances can help bring that purpose to light, to be even better and more evolved than you were before the moment when your life changed.