By Rachel Barenblat
God sits in her kitchen
with her gnarled hands folded.
She doesn't needlepoint much anymore.
She's waiting for us to knock.
We always forget the door is already open.
God remembers when each of us was born.
God remembers when creation was born.
Closing Her eyes and touching that place
deep inside, the swirling void
within which all life was grown.
God remembers every child She has lost.
God remembers every time
one of us has been unkind. Each night
she lights memorial candles across the heavens,
our souls remembered across the sky.
God wants to say: it's okay that you didn't write.
It's okay that you didn't call.
You stayed away because you didn't want
to disappoint Me. You could never disappoint Me.
Do you know that I still love you?
God sings lullabies to us, rocking us
even though we don't think we fit in her lap any more.
We blink and old mama God is transformed.
Her creaky kitchen chair is a throne,
her house dress an ermine robe.
How often do we sit here in shul
reciting prayers we didn't write, signing postcards
and dropping them in the mailbox
instead of coming home? God is waiting
for us to come home.
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From The Velveteen Rabbi, a poem that she says was inspired by a sermon by Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig entitled "God is a Woman and She Is Growing Older."
The toilet in our bathroom broke late Thursday night -- something in the flushing mechanism snapped -- so I had to wait all morning and half the afternoon for the plumber on Friday, and when he arrived, he needed to turn the water off to the entire house, so I made Paul come home because he piles all sorts of crap in the storeroom that makes getting to the water valves impossible. I was already sleepy and grumpy after staying up too late to watch the Ravens humiliate themselves in Denver (at least the Orioles won today 4-0, though the Nats lost 7-0).
I got Valjean/Javert earrings in the mail, posted a review of Deep Space Nine's "Nor the Battle to the Strong, which remains excellent, and saw three bunnies before we went to my parents' for Rosh Hashanah dinner leftovers, which were also excellent. Then we stopped at the food store to get fruit for Adam's track meet tomorrow, came home and watched the Dateline episode about last year's Everest disaster, then caught up on this week's very upsetting Broadchurch -- excellent as well. Here are some of the animals we saw at the Maryland Renfaire last weekend:
Elephants give rides...
...as do ponies (for free!)...
...and camels.
The Dragon's Den has alligators and crocodiles...
...plus this huge alligator snapping turtle.
The faire also has some wild animals, like this skink...
...and the frogs that live in the pond beneath the lovers' bridge.
But the scariest animal of all was the sea monster in Orlando Furioso.
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