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    This is a special issue for the New Year 2022. Instead of the usual format, it will consist only of two poems as kavanot/intentions for the New Year 2022. Just as the Israelites were challenged in the moment of leaving slavery for freedom, we too are challenged by how we will enter this new year. Next week we will return to the newsletter's regular format.

                                                                 michael  (michaelstrassfeld.com)      
                                                                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                     

       

Instructions

Give up the world; give up self; finally, give up God.
Find god in rhododendrons and rocks,
passers-by, your cat.
Pare your beliefs, your Absolutes.
Make it simple; make it clean.
No carry-on luggage allowed.
Examine all you have
with a loving and critical eye, then
throw away some more.
Repeat. Repeat.
Keep this and only this:
   what your heart beats loudly for
   what feels heavy and full in your gut.
There will only be one or two
things you will keep,
and they will fit lightly
in your pocket.
                 Sheri Hostetler

 
For Citizenship
 
In these times when anger
Is turned into anxiety
And someone has stolen
The horizons and mountains,
 
Our small emperors on parade
Never expect our indifference
To disturb their nakedness.
 
They keep their heads down
And their eyes gleam with reflection
From aluminum economic ground,
 
The media wraps everything
In a cellophane of sound,
And the ghost surface of the virtual
Overlays the breathing earth.
 
The industry of distraction
Makes us forget
That we live in a universe.
 
We have become converts
To the religion of stress
And its deity of progress;
 
That we may have courage
To turn aside from it all
And come to kneel down before the poor,
To discover what we must do,
How to turn anxiety
Back into anger,
How to find our way home.
                    John O' Donohue       
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