...the meaning of atonement

Today is the holiday that Jews the world over refer to as the “Day of Atonement.” It’s a solemn day of fasting and prayer, with the fervent hope that we’ve not erred so greatly as to be offed, either individually or collectively, in the coming year. 

 

I’ve been thinking about this ultra fear-based interpretation, and I am a believer in evolution, especially spiritual evolution.

 

Last week, on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, there was one sentence during the service that jumped out at me so profoundly, that I had to write it down.

 

“These are the days of reflection and hope.”

 

If ever there was something this angry world could use right now, it’s reflection and hope. 

 

Time to put the phone down, turn the streaming shows off, the constant busyness of life, and stop. Stop to reflect. Stop to ask ourselves how we’ve shown up in the past year and if that’s really served us.

 

I read the word “atonement” as “at-one-ment.” To me, this day begs us to find our center again, to ground ourselves in whatever it is we believe, and to resurrect within us – hope.

 

Atonement means to align ourselves with where we come from, and to honor that in how we live our lives. 

 

I believe we do that, not by cowering in the corner, but by owning our God-given power. 

 

For too long, we have seen ourselves as small and powerless. I don’t believe the voices of hate outnumber the voices of love. I just think hate screams louder, like the schoolyard bully, and it’s time for love to stop being silent.

 

There is a ripple effect for goodness, for kindness, for compassion. It’s time to stop distracting ourselves and get busy with what matters. 

 

That person you’ve lost touch with, call them. 

The hard conversation you’ve been avoiding, have it.

The change you’ve been meaning to make, start now.

 

There is no “big reveal” like in reality television. Mountains get climbed one baby step at a time. Accomplishment happens when you make an agreement with yourself not to stop. Not to stop when it’s inconvenient. Not to stop when it gets hard. Not to stop because you can’t see the view from the top yet. Not to stop just because you don’t know how. 

 

It’s easy to give up. It’s easy to look at our world and lament, “What could poor little ol’ me do about it? I’m just one person.”

 

But our atonement, regardless of religion, is individual, and it is as individuals that we will save the world. One good deed at a time. One meal for the hungry. One visit to the relative in a nursing home or hospital. One kindness shown to a stranger. One helping hand at a time.

 

There was one Rosa Parks. One Abraham Lincoln. There was also one Adolph Hitler. 

 

To ask for forgiveness without a change in behavior is meaningless. It doesn’t serve us to beg for something when we are unwilling to change ourselves. God is not some magician, waving a magic wand just because we don’t want to clean up our own messes.

 

I have been told my unhappiness stems from my expectations not being met. That may be true, but I can’t help but believe we have the potential for peace and expect us to figure that out. 

 

I can’t help but hope that humanity will wake up to the fact that what happens to one of us, happens to all of us, and expect us to behave accordingly. And I am unwilling to let go of the belief that we are our brother’s keeper. 

 

It’s true, I expect a lot. And I’m heartbroken when I look at a world that doesn’t seem to grasp even the simplest idea of treating others the way we want to be treated. 

 

But my job isn’t to tell everyone what to do, much as I'd really enjoy that. It’s not even to get it all done myself. 

 

My job is to live my life and make my reach such that the kind of world I want to live in becomes inevitable. 

 

It’s big. It’s bold. It’s doable. 

 

It requires changing only one person – me. 

 

What does “at-one-ment” mean to you? What could we all sacrifice to be "at-one?"

 

These are the days of reflection and hope.

 

May they also be the days we reawaken to our potential and become the best versions of ourselves. 

 

 

The Day We Were All New Yorkers

Even if I hadn’t looked at a calendar, I would have known today was 9/11. I get a heavy, somber feeling each year, when I wake up on this day. 

This year feels sadder to me than most. Not because I’ve been back in New York for thirteen years, but because 9/11 united a country that is now sorely divided.

It seems sacrilegious to say that 9/11 was a good moment for our country in any way, but in some ways, it was.

I was living in Tennessee in 2001, and prior to that day, I had been referred to as a Yankee, a Northerner, and on occasion, “you people.” 

The division in attitude came as a shock to me, when I moved to Nashville, because, in all honesty, I had never grown up thinking of any part of the United States as separate or different, other than in dialect, from another.

The five years I was in Nashville prior to 9/11 taught me otherwise. The South has more than its own dialect, it has its own culture, and in consciousness at least, it was very much its own separate entity.

Then 9/11 happened, and for one brief, beautiful moment, we were all Americans. That day, everyone was a New Yorker. And the people around me cared very much if my family was okay, my friends, everyone I knew back home.

For one instant, all the things that made me different didn’t matter.

On that day, we were united in our grief and our steadfastness. And being attacked as a democracy, we were reminded how very precious and sacred our freedom was. It was something our enemies would kill for and our citizens would die for.

I have been pondering that moment a lot lately. There is so much separation and discord now, that I don’t know if faced with the same kind of attack today, if we would come together or fall apart entirely. 

I would like to think that neighbor would stand shoulder to should with neighbor, sifting through rubble and donating blood.

I would like to think that we might remember that the great experiment of our democracy is worth resurrecting from its current state of hanging on by a thread.

I would like to think that out of the ashes, our former greatness could rise once more, that we still have it in us.

I would like to think these things, but I don’t know for sure. I don’t know if we can salvage our air and water, or voting rights, or autonomy over our individual bodies, or equality, whether racial, marital, or gender.

I don’t know whether the rule of law can survive the vast disparity between how it is applied to different citizens, or the unregulated media masquerading as news, untethered to truth, and unyielding in its vitriol.

I just don’t know.

And in my darker moments, I’m not sure a society is worth saving if it is devoid of common decency and any shred of compassion.

But in my brighter moments, I still have hope. I have to, because as I listen to the annual reading of the names that perished on this day, I do not want their sacrifice to have been in vain. 

 

So I press on, knowing that those of us who remember 9/11 vividly, have a responsibility to try and preserve democracy. We have the difficult task before us of loving one another amid the differing views and beliefs, amid the varying cultures and demographics, amid the voices screaming for our attention and our division. 

 

I press on, knowing that our survival is dependent on me seeing you, whomever you are, as more like me than not. And at the end of the day, I press on for the sake of generations to follow, in the hopes that they will put down the guns that so many cherish more than life, and come to the table with an open heart and willing spirit. 

 

So on this 22^nd anniversary of 9/11, I want to offer up a thought AND a prayer – that we may unclench our fists and lend a hand, that we may forfeit our separation for unity, and heed the voice of our better angels when they ask us to choose love.