Coming into the Presence of the Friend—Elul 27

And again, coming into the Presence, the Friend. How do you stand before your dearest friend? You may do all kinds of favors for them, and praise them endlessly, but if you don’t know what pleases them, what good is all that when you are in their presence? If they are truly your friend, you know them and what pleases them. A friend is your friend not because you have done this or that for them, given this or that to them, because you are beautiful or rich or well connected. Friendship is mysterious. It can’t be earned. One loves a friend because one loves them, because they have found favor in your eyes. As God says to Israel, “I chose you to be my treasure. You weren’t the most powerful nation. Far from it. You weren’t the most numerous people. Far from it. I chose you to be my treasure because you found favor in my eyes. Because I fell in love with you.”

I was once asked by someone, “Why are you friends with that person? You two don’t seem much alike at all?” I was taken aback by the question, because for me friendship is always inexplicable. There was no way to explain why I loved this friend. I just did—in all her frailties and strengths. Friendship, like beauty, is truly in the eyes of the beholder. What I saw in my friend this other person could not see.

And that is how we stand before the Friend during the Days of Awe, coming into the Presence of our Friend, knowing that though others (or even we ourselves) may judge us ugly or wanting, in our Friend’s eyes we are beautiful and whole, cherished for no other reason that than we are.

Let’s go and meet the Friend.

Coming into the Presence of the Friend—Elul 26

During the Days of Awe we pray often that we may be remembered in light of the “merits of our ancestors.” I often wonder about this. Are we invoking some kind of substitutionary atonement here? Look at the faith and deeds of our mothers and fathers, not ours! No. We’re asking that the covenant with them be remembered, a covenant of mercy, and that we be enfolded in that same bond of trust and faithfulness unto a thousand generations.

Which makes me wonder about that bond made with Avraham and Sarah. What is it about that bond with the One that we want to recall in these days of awe?

Some say that the name Avraham comes from haver, for Avraham was a friend of God, and God visited with Avraham as Friend. That is how I want to imagine coming into the Presence during Elul, the Days of Awe, and every day—coming into the Presence of the Friend.

Imagine being in the presence of you deepest, oldest, most trustworthy friend. They know you. They see you. You cannot lie to them, or to yourself in their presence, for they see through to the heart of all you do and have been and will be. When you stand in their Presence, if you have erred, you don’t have to wait for them to judge you, you judge yourself for having failed, for you see yourself through their eyes, as a person capable of so much good. You don’t make excuses, for in that between of honesty you know how foolish such words would sound. You feel their disappointment in your actions as if it were your own, and you vow not to slip again; you vow to be the person you and they know you to be.

That’s one way to imagine coming into the Presence during the Days of Awe as we pass in review before our Friend—fully exposed to eyes of truth and love.

Coming into the Presence: “To Be Simply in Your Presence”—Elul 25

And a last prayer from Rilke for the days of Selichot, to prepare our hearts to come into the Presence.

I’m too alone in the world, yet not alone enough
to make each hour holy.
I’m too small in the world, yet not small enough
to be simply in your presence, like a thing—
just as it is.

I want to know my own will
and to move with it.
And I want, in the hushed moments
when the nameless draws near,
to be among the wise ones—
or alone.

I want to mirror your immensity.
I want never to be too weak or too old
to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.

I want to unfold.
Let no place in me hold itself closed,
for where I am closed, I am false.
I want to stay clear in your sight.

(Rilke's Book of Hours, Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, p. 59)

Coming into the Presence: “It’s Not Too Late”—Elul 24

Here is another of Rilke’s outpourings that may give us the words our hearts need to unfold into the Presence:

You see, I want a lot.
Maybe I want it all:
the darkness of each endless fall,
the shimmering light of each ascent.

So many are alive who don’t seem to care.
Casual, easy, they move in the world
as though untouched.

But you take pleasure in the faces
of those who know they thirst.
You cherish those
who grip you for survival.

You are not dead yet, it’s not too late
to open your depths by plunging into them
and drink in the life
that reveals itself quietly there.

(Rilke's Book of Hours, Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, p. 61)

Coming into the Presence: “I Am Praying Again”—Elul 23

Today and the two following days I want to share some selichot, penitential prayers of Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, in their book Rilke’s Book of Hours). His arresting images and intimate, fearfully honest conversations with the One may help us re-imagine—beyond God as our Father, our King—what it means to come into the Presence with our failings, our weaknesses, our resistances, our confessions, our longing.
Here’s the first one:

I am praying again, Awesome One.

You hear me again, as words
from the depths of me
rush toward you in the wind.

I’ve been scattered in pieces,
torn by conflict,
mocked by laughter,
washed down in drink.

In alleyways I sweep myself up
out of garbage and broken glass.
with my half-mouth I stammer you,
who are eternal in your symmetry.
I lift to you my half-hands
in wordless beseeching, that I may find again
the eyes with which I once beheld you.

I am a house gutted by fire
where only the guilty sometimes sleep
before the punishment that devours them
hounds them out into the open.

I am a city by the sea
sinking into a toxic tide.
I am strange to myself, as though someone unknown
had poisoned my mother as she carried me.

It’s here in all the pieces of my shame
that now I find myself again.
I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
I yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart—
oh let them take me now.
Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God—spend them however you want.
(pp. 97-98)

Coming into the Presence: Encounter on Sinai—Elul 22

We have come to the time of Selichot, the four days just before the Days of Awe, when we intensify our search for blemishes that will render the sacrifice of our everyday lives we offer unfit and we increase our prayers for forgiveness. Selichot, often translated as “penitential prayers,” is from the verb root “to forgive,” and this word, as a plea, Forgive, s’lach, is the opening word of the Selichot set of prayers and the refrain that runs throughout the Days of Awe.

Forgive us, our Father, for in our abundant folly, we have erred.
Pardon us, our King, for our iniquities are many.

This plea is followed by a prayer based on the beautiful witness in Exodus 34: 6-9 to the One who passed by Moses on Mount Sinai, showing him the backside of the glorious presence and Moses’ response to that Presence. In the siddur, in the Selichot and Days of Awe services, these verses take this form:

Adonai, Adonai, God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in kindness and truth, preserver of kindness for thousands of generations, forgiver of iniquity, willful sin, and error, and who cleanses. May you forgive our iniquities and our errors and make us your heritage. Forgive us, our Father, for we have erred; pardon us, our King, for we have willfully sinned; for you, my Lord, are good and forgiving and abundantly kind to all who come upon you.

As we reflect on what it means to come into the Presence, to be awakened, judged, forgiven, made new, and reflect on how to respond to that Presence should we be so favored as to experience it, it’s worth it to take a look at the dramatic encounter between the Presence and Moshe that inspired the rabbis to write this prayer. In the Torah’s endlessly wonderful laconic way, it gives us a glimpse of the Presence and our response. In Edward Fox’s translation, the encounter goes this way:

And YHWH passed before his face
And called out:
YHWH YHWH
God,
showing-mercy, showing-favor,
long suffering in anger,
abundant in loyalty and faithfulness,
keeping loyalty to the thousandth (generation)
bearing iniquity, rebellion and sin,
yet not clearing, clearing (the guilty),
calling-to-account the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons and
upon son’s’ sons, to the third and fourth (generation)!
Quickly Moshe did-homage, on the ground, bowing low,
And said:
Pray if I have found favor in your eyes,
O my Lord,
Pray let my Lord go among us!
Indeed, it is a hard-necked people—
so forgive our iniquity and our sin,
and make-us-your-inheritance!

During Elul, Selichot, the Days of Awe and all the days of our lives, we, like Moshe, climb, each in our solitariness, a mountain—a mountain of distractions, a mountain of despair, a mountain of hope, a mountain of terror and trembling, a mountain of guilt, a mountain of shame, a mountain of confusion and darkness, a mountain of struggle and longing; we are climbing toward a clear experience of the Presence, to know who we are and how we should live to be always in that Presence.

Shabbat Shalom!--Elul 21

Shabbat shalom!
Selichot begins at midnight tonight. The first of my four Selichot posts will appear then.