listening, breathing
Vitality. Are you feeling it today? Gray skies, bad news on the airwaves, daily frustrations, and planks in our own eyes. Listening to a conversation with Rabbi Nahum Ward-Lev leads me back to YHWH, the Living Presence, perhaps pronounced as the sound of our breath. I found myself wanting to rewind and listen again. They seemed to be talking about all the things that we have been recently discussing. The character of God and the unfolding of God’s creative purpose in the world.
An enlivened interpretation of creation is a good place to (re)start. Ward-Lev speaks of God’s creating as a liberation of potential, a partnership with the earth that God models for humans to emulate. The power dynamic is different, one of mutual relationship rather than control. God observed at each stage that it was tov, translated as “delightful” or “vital.”
When Moses asks for the name to speak to the Israelites, God responds: I Am Who I Am orI Will Be Who I Will Be. One seems static, unchanging. The other dynamic, creating. God’s answer connects Moses back to the ancestors and to future generations. Who was, Who is, and Who is to come. I need that connection- past, present, future.
I scribbled notes on the back of my grocery list.
Justice is abundance fairly shared.
Elaborate systems of redistribution.
Generational wealth, not for a family, but for the whole.
If you align yourself with the vitality of creation, you will be uplifted.
There is too much to summarize and share in one pass. So I encourage you to listen for yourself. And/or read The Liberating Path of the Hebrew Prophets. My hope is that you will be encouraged. Revitalized. I think it will also prepare us for this Sunday’s teaching and for our continued conversations and life together.
As we go about our day, may we breathe in the presence of God, the Spirit which enlivens us, and exhale God’s name with us in every breath. –Renée