Friday, March 6, 2009

rote & ritual

"Still I miss Jewish ways. I miss the rhythms and routines that drew the sacred into the everyday. I miss Sabbaths on which I actually rested. I have even found that I miss the drudgery of keeping kosher. I miss the work these practices effected between me and God." p. vii

"Your faith might come and go, but your practice ought not waver. (Indeed, Judaism suggests that the repeating of practice is the best way to ensure that a doubter's faith will return.)" p. ix

For years I have tried and faltered and wished for "rhythms and routines that drew the sacred into the everyday." I want daily actions and seasonal traditions in order to honor the sacred that I know and experience. But I also want them to hold a place for what I have not experienced and yet hope to know.

I think of these rituals and daily practices like a skeleton or a bowl. They bear witness that there is hot rich marrow to fill these bones, flesh and life to clothe them. There is something, however numinous, that this bowl is waiting to hold.

By tending these containers I invite the Holy to me, into my life.

Winner, Lauren. Mudhouse Sabbath. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press. 2003