growth in trust & relationship at the very centre
בָּ֭עֶרֶב יָלִ֥ין בֶּ֗כִי וְלַבֹּ֥קֶר רִנָּֽה
We lie down weeping at nightfall; but at dawn there are shouts of joy.
[Psalm 30]
A psalm which we traditionally read before we start prayers in the morning, a corner of a verse I found this week in prayer, in prison. Not locked up but serving as a chaplain.
Wisdom that mum would share, Linda Wolfe, z”l, she would say: “nothing an early night won’t fix”. Perhaps wisdom just for younger children but words that have guided me over lots of years. Sometimes the days give me an absolute bashing but an aspect of faith and listening to this wisdom permit for you to close your eyes for a night and wake up smiling again ready to do it all over again.
These first months of 2023 have been tough, as always, big highs and big lows, moments of real connection and enlightenment and also moments of lowness and desperation.
The part that I love of these words of Torah is the aspect of continued pace and perseverance in the life that we live. In each moment we have the possibility to lift ourselves up, to advance to move forward and improve upon where we had been.
I have been thinking a lot about our relationships in these weeks, how important our immediate connections with parents, siblings, partners, colleagues are and can be. These are some of the primary place where we work our ‘stuff’ out and shape who we are and who we will become. Without relationships in which we are seen and express our true selves we can remain a limited version of ourselves. In true relationship we grow, we learn and we struggle and strive in supported and mutual relationship.
Our relationships can become a great nurturing and nourishing energy for the lives we live and the realisation of our best selves.
In prison we are at our rawest point, some of the prisoners I come into contact with are both vulnerable and some not in the best shape. Without all the best distractions of our fast moving world, even more so in prison our relationships are even more crucial and fundamental to our existence. It is here that you see even more closely the importance of human connection both for prisoner and all who work inside. In exactly the same moment the possibility is that we are lifted up and cared for by those around us or put down and subjugated by the cruelty of others.
It is then perhaps not surprising that in the story of the Exodus of the Israelite tribes that Moses say to the Pharoah “Let my people go” but the actual Hebrew is not “Let my people go” but “Let my people go” …in order that they can “worship God” or “celebrate God”. The call to freedom is not a calling of absolute freedom but a call to relationship; from a forced relationship of incarceration to a consensual relationship. At the core of our foundational story is relationship, relationship in which we grow, relationship in which we are nurtured and thrive.
May our journeys be of continual striving and deepening of our core relationships with others and the Divine.
Wishing everyone a shabbat shalom x
