In the year 5774, que sera, sera
We’re sneaking around the corner again and coming up upon Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It’s that time of year when God trots out the Book of Life and decides what will be. During the ensuing ten days after Rosh Hashanah, there is time to ask for forgiveness from anybody you have wronged and to pray for forgiveness for yourself. It’s, as you might imagine, a time for reflection. Who have I hurt? And how have I hurt myself?
This is a year of abundance for me – my cup continues to runneth over. I moved into my lovely home and the gifts have just kept a comin’. A couple of days ago, a friend and neighbor told me she wanted to donate to me several palms – queen palms and palmetto palms – for my landscaping. My landscaping was ground zero and now it is about to become a tropical oasis. Yes, that is just one of the many gifts that have arrived at my doorstep as I’ve said to the Universe, “I accept gifts. I don’t always have to be the giver.” And boy, I hit the jackpot on this change of philosophy.
I spoke earlier with a friend, struggling with her chemotherapy – we spoke of work and I was telling her as soon as I had clarity the doors started flinging open. I’m on my way to Baton Rouge to speak to the State Department of Family Health and Welfare about my workshops on race and parenting. My first workshop is scheduled for January. My book is underway. My next career is in its nascent stages but already feels 99% complete, as if it has been waiting for me.
Another friend has been talking to me about her relationship and forgiveness, trying to find out how to forgive and love and not be subsumed by the dysfunction of another soul. My only advice is to keep walking the path of clarity – does this feel right? does this make you feel good? The answers should be a simple yes or no, anything that is complicated, I fall back on what my same friend told me a while back, “God does not do confusion.”
Now that, I believe. Clarity is a balm for this troubled world. So as the New Year preparations get underway, remember next Thursday to have honey with your apples or bread to symbolize a sweet life [I’ll be dusting off my shofar], and remember to pray for peace (read: NO WAR IN SYRIA). My grandmother was born in Aleppo, Syria before she moved to Constantinople and met my grandfather, which is where they married and then left when it became Istanbul. There is a part of my DNA in Syria and I just read that a few hours ago a playground was bombed there.
Playgrounds and Bombs do not mix.
So in the year 5774, let’s all try to tune up our souls and to conspire to greatness and to aspire to peace and to inspire by the very light we become. It’s our year dear friends – it’s time to make a difference.
