I'm ready for autumn and greeting an extremely early new year helps. Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashonah.
So what if I'm baptized? So what if I embrace with deep delight the Christian liturgical calendar? Deeper still is the rhythm of the Jewish calendar, even if I cannot accurately recite the months in Hebrew and need to consult Rebbe Google for dates of the High Holy Days.
This year, Rosh Hashonah begins at sundown on September 4, 2013. I'm ready...and not just because I have linked it to the end of summer. I'm about due for paying closer attention to what, in the world of Twelve Step recovery, shows up as Steps 4 through 9* and for what, in the world of Ignatian Spirituality, is the stuff of a Daily Examen. Actually, I'm a bit overdue for this interior spelunking.
The traditional greeting, L'shanah Tova, is a wish for a "good" year. On my list of Prayerful To Do's during this year's Days of Awe: contemplating the upside of unhooking "good" from "happy" and what being "inscribed in the Book of Life" might require in the days, weeks, and months ahead.
So what if I'm baptized? So what if I embrace with deep delight the Christian liturgical calendar? Deeper still is the rhythm of the Jewish calendar, even if I cannot accurately recite the months in Hebrew and need to consult Rebbe Google for dates of the High Holy Days.
This year, Rosh Hashonah begins at sundown on September 4, 2013. I'm ready...and not just because I have linked it to the end of summer. I'm about due for paying closer attention to what, in the world of Twelve Step recovery, shows up as Steps 4 through 9* and for what, in the world of Ignatian Spirituality, is the stuff of a Daily Examen. Actually, I'm a bit overdue for this interior spelunking.
The traditional greeting, L'shanah Tova, is a wish for a "good" year. On my list of Prayerful To Do's during this year's Days of Awe: contemplating the upside of unhooking "good" from "happy" and what being "inscribed in the Book of Life" might require in the days, weeks, and months ahead.
5774? Bring it!
*
Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step 6: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step 7: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Step 8: Make a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step 6: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step 7: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Step 8: Make a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
