Monday, May 18, 2009

Sh'ma

Sh'ma Yisrael YHVH Eleheynu YHVH Echad! (Deut. 6:4)

Listen, God-wrestlers, Is/Was/Will-Be is our Divine Source, Is/Was/Will-Be One!

These words are from the Torah, the words of tradition that the Jewish people have placed at the core of prayer--service of the heart--for millennia. We are meant to meditate on these words every day upon rising and laying our bodies down to rest. These words accompany the final exhale of life-giving breath as our existence rides the exhalation back into the Source of All Breath. We are being asked to listen to the syllables of Sh'ma itself:

Shhhhhhhhhhh-mmmmmmmmm-aaaaahhhhhhhhh

Shhh ... the sounds of silence, of quieting the inner marketplace of thoughts and feelings so we can hear the still, silent voice.

mmm ... the sound of satiation, gratitude and abundance, of being enough, no matter what our circumstance.

ahhh ... the release into wonder, the unknown, the known, pressing out all we hold dear to be filled once again with life-giving oxygen.

We are being asked to listen to each other--to the God we claim, whose name is pure being, whose Glory shines majestic beyond time and space, and cannot be contained in any one dimension....

Listen.....what do you hear?

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