Rolling and Sealing the Scroll

It is Yom Kippur, 10 Tishri 5773. It is the end of the Days of Awe, the High Holy Days that begin the Jewish New Year. An end and a beginning circle each other like vellum leaves sewn into a rolled scroll. And on this holy day of days this blog comes to an end.
Last night at Kol Nidrei services the Rabbi told the story of an illiterate man who only knew ten of the twenty-two Hebrew letters who was extolled in midrash for his prayers. When asked his secret he said that he prayed:
Master of the Universe take these ten letters and combine them in to the prayers that please you best.
And he repeated his ten letters over and over again.
I pray that God will take the words that I have offered on this blog use them in better ways than they have been written.
And now on to a new scroll...

Reading Between the Lines

I have such a hard time
reading between the lines.
I do my best to say what I mean
and do what I say.
I need others to do the same.
But needing anything from anyone
is a clear path to disappointment.
I don't know how to be in relationship
when I can't trust.
And I want to trust.
You say one thing and do another.
I know you are not alone in this.
Broken promises are nothing new.
And now I wonder at your motive.
Jealosy? Envy? Sabotage?
Or just human frailty.

A Bloody Flux

A timely repost as many prepare to preach on the woman with the vaginal hemorrhage.

The life is bleeding out of me again
the pain doubles me over
snatches my breath
and I clutch and clasp my abdomen.
I am not comforted.

My body shakes from the unrelenting waves of pain
I can't even curl up into a fetal position.

Hormonal imbalances
fibroid tumors
endometriosis
bloody fluxes
issues of blood
hemmorhages
hypermenorrhea

The life is bleeding out of me again.

The woman in the gospel on suffered for twelve years.
I have been bleeding for thirty years.
Her living Christ had a body, an accessible body
clothed in garments of prayer for her to touch, grasp, cling to.

My resurrected Christ is long gone from this earth
leaving no talisman behind
no certain healing touch
if I can just press my way
only the vagaries and unpredictabilities of modern medicine and prayer.

Unanticipated respite
days, weeks, years - five this last time
moments of grace until they are washed away
in another bloody flux.