Blissfully Confused
Confusion is a common state that I experience, a state in which I can find it hard to operate. It comes in many different forms, waking up on a Monday morning with a whole week ahead of me and I have no idea what to do first. I get bound up in my own frustrations for the week often spending too many hours in that same state, treading water in relation to the work to be done.
Confusion comes also in the way I prioritise, I want to work with those most vulnerable, with younger people in our community, I want to dedicate more time to home life, to dedicate time and energy to my prison work - so many options and a limited amount of time to attend to all these parts.
My confusion is also a marker of creativity, I am brimming with ideas of projects that I would like bring to fruition: growth ideas for our Havurah, a podcast, more writing, initiatives with organizations and charities I work with and more. So many options, a head often buzzing with possibility and creative juice.
If this is a core part of my regular state, why is confusion or disorientation a state so often rejected or belittled. Not acknowledged. At our best it is simply a way of being that we reject or do not acknowledge. Maybe it is time to change some of that. Perhaps being a wee bit disoriented or confused some of the time can be embraced. Leaning into confusion or momentarily accepting it can be a source of strength and a time for mental rest.
When we embrace our confusion or our not knowing, we permit for our brains to pass on decisions and decisive steps, just a moment of rest.
So from this place we have two options. The first option is to find a formula back to the active world, on this our faith tradition has at its core tools to manage transition from one state to another.
I think the subtlest of examples is found in this week’s Torah portion, perhaps verses overlooked: ‘וְיִקְחוּ אֵלֶיךָ שֶׁמֶן זַיִת זָךְ כָּתִית לַמָּאוֹר’, ‘Israelites shall bring you clear oil of beaten olives for lighting’, Rashi, one of our early European commentators explains that it is a pounding of the olives, to press from them the very first oil from them. Not the later grinding of the olives from which a less choice oil can be pressed. This verse reveals just one aspect of several dozen minute details of the communal building of the Mishkan, the mobile sanctuary of the Israelies in the desert. The line exemplifies an aspect of what it means to be focused on the small stuff, the delicate minute details and not to sweat the big questions. We are so often trying to think ten (or 150) steps ahead, here is the opportunity to attend to the smallest details and a gentle pace and for this to be part of your spiritual practice.
It is here Judaism offers a guide to life, don’t sweat the big picture, be here in the moment, each candle, each blessings, each letter and word of prayer, each festival, each moment of communal celebration is a drawing down of a divine essence and a balancing of spirit.
And then we return to the confusion: ‘וַאֲנַֽחְנוּ לֺא נֵדַע מַה נַּעֲשֶׂה כִּי עָלֶֽיךָ עֵינֵֽינוּ’, ‘As for us, we know not what to do; but our eyes are upon You’, found hidden inside our prayerbook, in the weekday tachanun, a nod to the general carnage of the everyday. There is a way that the not knowing and the chaotic can be ok, that we lean in and embrace this as just part of the way the world spins round. Keeping our eye on the horizon as the seas rise and fall is then the practice which makes it all ok, which permit us to be in focus on the tiniest of baby steps through which we grow and are nurtured …a sense of general confusion is optional.
SHABBAT SHALOM Y’’ALL x
