This morning during minyan, we added Hallel to our worship to mark the new month of Nisan and, according to "the Rabbis," the third of the four Jewish New Years. (Rosh HaShana, Tu B'shvat, and Elul, the beginning of the fiscal year, are the others.)
A new, fresh start?
Perhaps, but it doesn't feel that way to me.
The calendar may say spring, but the thermometer doesn't. It's 40-some degrees today in New York City, and a cold, damp rain is falling.
It is as though the winter rut goes on and on, and I am a cog in the work-a-day world. I go to work, I come home, I go to work, I come home. Every day is nearly the same as the one that came before and the one that will follow.
With few exceptions, I feel bereft of intellectual stimulation, creative banter, and the collegiality that fosters sharing, engagement, and collaboration. Concurrently and collectively, the daily annoyances of life - the stop-in-their-track texters, the dig-into-my-head headphones necessary for nearly every meeting, and, perhaps most of all, the cadre of incompetent nimrods that has mishandled nearly every one of my health insurance claims since January - are just about enough to push me over the edge.
It's a good thing today's "Brother, Give Us A Word" from the Society of Saint John the Evangelist is "blessing," about which Br. Jim Woodrum writes this: "What you're searching for, you already know. God has blessed us with this amazing life, with eyes to see, ears to hear, a mind to discern, and a heart with which to perceive the living presence of God in our midst."
That ought to be enough to start to turn my thinking around….
Inspired by Ima on (and off) the Bima, this post is one in a series marking the days of the Jewish month of Nisan leading up to Passover, which begins at sundown on Friday, April 22, corresponding to 15 Nisan. If you want to play along, check out this year's #BlogExodus and #ExodusGram prompts. Once again, this series of posts also is priming my heart, mind, and spirit to participate in Beyond Walls: Spiritual Writing at Kenyon, a six-day summer writing seminar that is an initiative of the Kenyon Institute at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH.
