Hadassah-Brandeis Institute

At the year’s turn, in the days between,

we step away from what we know into the spaces we cannot yet name.

Slowly the edges begin to yield, the hard places soften, the gate to forgiveness opens.

We use it — wisely or not. We fill it and mark it. We try to stop it, but there is no end to it. And yet, we never have enough.

It is a circle, and it is a line. Moving forward, day by day, year by year, we come round and round again. Again the spring, again the fall—but every leaf a new one, every fall a new shape falling.

Always starting, never finished, we live always in the Between.

No time, we say, we have no time. Yet we have all the time in the world.

And there is no time like now.

All vows — all promises and pledges —

that we have made to ourselves and that no longer serve for the good —

may their grip be loosened

that we be present of mind and heart to the urgency of the hour.

Like an eagle stirring its nest, hovering over its young, taking them up on widespread wings, lifting them to its breast. — Deuteronomy 32:11

She hovers over us,

her fledglings — the bereaved, and the brokenhearted —

lifts us to her, takes our sorrow.

In the depth of her shade: Home.

Praise the world — praise its fullness and its longing, its beauty and its grief.

Praise stone and fire, lilac and river, and the solitary bird at the window.

Praise the moment when the whole bursts through pain and the moment when the whole bursts forth in joy.

Praise the dying beauty with all your breath, and praising, see the beauty of the world is your own.