By Susan Esther Barnes
This morning, as I was getting ready for work, I could feel that my blood pressure was significantly higher than normal. I know high blood pressure is called the “silent killer” because most people can’t feel it, but I can. One day I expect to write a post about how feeling God’s presence is like feeling your blood pressure. You can learn to sense it once you discover what to pay attention to.
I took one of my cats to the vet last week because of an inconvenient but non-emergency issue that arose. They did an exam and sent some samples to the lab. Today, I had to take him back so they could do some more lab work and take an X-ray. I’m worried about the cat.
Also, Thursday before last, I went to seek some medical advice for myself due to something unusual I noticed, and I ended up getting an unscheduled mammogram. At first the nurse practitioner said she’d call me that afternoon with the results. Then, after the mammogram lady looked at that day’s images, she said they were going to order copies of the images from my mammogram from last year to compare, and it would take three or four days before they got back to me.
After a week I still hadn’t heard anything, so I sent an email asking what was up (I made the appointment online so I didn’t have the phone number). The next day I got an email back saying they don’t know, but they’d call me back that afternoon. Monday I sent another email. As of Monday night I still hadn’t heard anything. So, yeah, my blood pressure was high.
This morning I was in the car, driving the vociferously unhappy cat to the vet, knowing he’s got something wrong with him but not being sure whether or not they’ll have an effective way to treat it, while at the same time wondering whether I have breast cancer, and whether the delay in getting the results to me is giving it extra time to grow and/or spread. I know I tend to over-react to this sort of thing, but that’s where my head was.
I exited the freeway, and suddenly realized I had gone one exit too far, mistakenly taking the exit to the synagogue, not the exit for the vet. Even with the cat crying in his carrier in the seat beside me, like a homing pigeon I had subconsciously headed to a place of comfort rather than my intended destination.
I very much wanted to drive to the synagogue and go sit in the quiet sanctuary, soaking up God’s presence and the serenity and strength of community permeating that special room. Just ten or fifteen minutes could have done wonders.
I’m pretty sure the cat wouldn’t have appreciated that, though, so I turned left and headed down the road to the vet. I then turned on some cheery music in the car as I drove to work, where I settled in to wait for results for both of us.
Then I decided, “screw that,” and I dug around online until I found a phone number for the medical office I’d been to and I talked to a nurse, who looked at my results. She said the mammogram looked "pretty normal" and they recommend a regularly scheduled follow-up mammogram in two years, which is what I believe they recommend for every woman my age. She says they mailed me a letter with the good news yesterday.
I’m still going to take those ten or fifteen minutes in the sanctuary later on this week, though. As a wise person once said, if you only hang out with God when you’re worried about something or want something, what kind of relationship is that? Certainly not one fit for a homing pigeon.
Showing posts with label sanctuary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sanctuary. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Homing Pigeon
Sunday, May 2, 2010
The Binder
Enough time has passed since I wrote the following piece that I'm certain nobody can figure out who the boy in the story is. Extra credit question: To what, or whom, does the title refer?
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By Susan Esther Barnes
There was a period of time last year when I repeatedly asked God, “What do you want me to do?” and the answer I kept getting was, “Pay attention.” I kept trying to pay attention, but it seemed God might never give me the answer to my question. It took a while, but eventually it dawned on me that God wasn’t saying, “If you pay attention, I will tell you what I want you to do.” Rather, God was saying, “What I want you to do is to pay attention.”
Yesterday morning I was greeting people at the synagogue entrance when Rabbi Lezak asked if I was planning to stay for services. I told him I was, and he said, “There are a lot of boys here today. They are very excited…” I responded, “Maybe I should sit behind them, and if they make trouble, I should smack them on the back of the head?” He just smiled and walked into the sanctuary.
Often, when a lot of kids come for a Bar Mitzvah, they sit toward the back of the sanctuary. For some reason, these kids chose to sit in the front, to one side. Consequently, I couldn’t sit behind them, but I was able to find a chair beside them, in a place where I wouldn’t normally sit.
When I looked for a prayer book, I noticed a thin binder sitting in the seat back in front of me. Sometimes classes or meetings are held in the sanctuary, so I assumed the binder contained notes someone had left there earlier in the week. But something about the binder was bugging me, so I picked it up and turned it over. On the front was a label with someone’s name, and some doodles. I thought, “Yes, I was right, it’s some kid’s class notes,” and I put the binder back.
Then, I suddenly thought, “That name sounds vaguely familiar…Is it the name of the kid having the Bar Mitzvah right now?” A part of my mind told me, “Stop with the binder already. You’re supposed to be praying,” but I just couldn’t let the thought go. I gave into my compulsion and picked up the binder again. This time I opened it. Inside I found some handwritten pages, and in the pocket on the left was a typewritten sheet headed by the word, “Drash.”
“Okay,” I thought, this is the Bar Mitzvah boy’s binder, but maybe this is just an extra copy of his Drash.” I thought about waiting to see whether he needed the binder, and running up with it if he did, but as I pictured him standing there and starting to panic if he thought it was lost, waiting didn’t seem like the best option. By this point, the Bar Mitzvah boy was starting to walk the Torah through the congregation, so I took the opportunity to take the binder up to the front of the sanctuary, where I handed it to Rabbi Lezak, saying, “In case he needs this.”
When the Bar Mitzvah boy returned to the bimah, he set down the Torah, looked around, and then turned to his parents, making a gesture that looked like he was holding up a binder. Just as he was starting to look concerned, Rabbi Lezak handed him the binder. He looked relieved, opened the binder, took out his Drash, and began to read.
Maybe the boy won’t remember this small event, since everything turned out fine. But maybe, somewhere in his subconscious, there is the thought, “On one of the most important days of my life, when for a moment it looked like everything was about to go horribly wrong, the rabbi stepped in and saved the day.” Down the road, where might a thought like that lead? God only knows.
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By Susan Esther Barnes
There was a period of time last year when I repeatedly asked God, “What do you want me to do?” and the answer I kept getting was, “Pay attention.” I kept trying to pay attention, but it seemed God might never give me the answer to my question. It took a while, but eventually it dawned on me that God wasn’t saying, “If you pay attention, I will tell you what I want you to do.” Rather, God was saying, “What I want you to do is to pay attention.”
Yesterday morning I was greeting people at the synagogue entrance when Rabbi Lezak asked if I was planning to stay for services. I told him I was, and he said, “There are a lot of boys here today. They are very excited…” I responded, “Maybe I should sit behind them, and if they make trouble, I should smack them on the back of the head?” He just smiled and walked into the sanctuary.
Often, when a lot of kids come for a Bar Mitzvah, they sit toward the back of the sanctuary. For some reason, these kids chose to sit in the front, to one side. Consequently, I couldn’t sit behind them, but I was able to find a chair beside them, in a place where I wouldn’t normally sit.
When I looked for a prayer book, I noticed a thin binder sitting in the seat back in front of me. Sometimes classes or meetings are held in the sanctuary, so I assumed the binder contained notes someone had left there earlier in the week. But something about the binder was bugging me, so I picked it up and turned it over. On the front was a label with someone’s name, and some doodles. I thought, “Yes, I was right, it’s some kid’s class notes,” and I put the binder back.
Then, I suddenly thought, “That name sounds vaguely familiar…Is it the name of the kid having the Bar Mitzvah right now?” A part of my mind told me, “Stop with the binder already. You’re supposed to be praying,” but I just couldn’t let the thought go. I gave into my compulsion and picked up the binder again. This time I opened it. Inside I found some handwritten pages, and in the pocket on the left was a typewritten sheet headed by the word, “Drash.”
“Okay,” I thought, this is the Bar Mitzvah boy’s binder, but maybe this is just an extra copy of his Drash.” I thought about waiting to see whether he needed the binder, and running up with it if he did, but as I pictured him standing there and starting to panic if he thought it was lost, waiting didn’t seem like the best option. By this point, the Bar Mitzvah boy was starting to walk the Torah through the congregation, so I took the opportunity to take the binder up to the front of the sanctuary, where I handed it to Rabbi Lezak, saying, “In case he needs this.”
When the Bar Mitzvah boy returned to the bimah, he set down the Torah, looked around, and then turned to his parents, making a gesture that looked like he was holding up a binder. Just as he was starting to look concerned, Rabbi Lezak handed him the binder. He looked relieved, opened the binder, took out his Drash, and began to read.
Maybe the boy won’t remember this small event, since everything turned out fine. But maybe, somewhere in his subconscious, there is the thought, “On one of the most important days of my life, when for a moment it looked like everything was about to go horribly wrong, the rabbi stepped in and saved the day.” Down the road, where might a thought like that lead? God only knows.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
In the Still and the Flurry
By Susan Esther Barnes
It is 7:45 in the morning. I’m alone in the synagogue. There are no clergy here yet, and the only staff member at work this early is directing traffic outside. It’s cloudy out there. The only illumination in the sanctuary is what little natural light filters through the stained glass overhead, plus the flickering from the ner tamid (eternal light) over the ark. The room is silent.
As I step into the sanctuary, I know I have stepped into a special place. Immediately I experience a strong feeling of power and of serenity. I walk to the front of the room and sit down. I love to be in this room when it is full of people; I love to be in this room when I am alone. Normally I would sit here and soak it in, but this is not my place to be at this time.
I stand back up, and walk to the entrance of the synagogue. I stand just outside the door, in the place where I have stood so many times before. The street across the parking lot from me is a frenzy of activity. Cars are driving back and forth, in and out of the parking lot across the street, where parents are dropping off their kids at the public elementary school. A much smaller number of cars are turning into the parking lot directly in front of me, dropping off their kids at the religious school.
As the cars drive to and fro, in and out of the parking lots, like flurries of snow tossed by the wind, it is almost eerily silent. From time to time, I hear children or their parents, or a car door closing, or a wheeled backpack being pulled across the pavement. But mostly I just hear the gentle whoosh of the tires of the many cars on the street as they dance their ballet to a music I cannot quite make out.
And it occurs to me, as I stand here on the threshold between the still sanctuary at my back and the busy street before me, that I should be contemplating the experience of standing on the threshold between two very distinct worlds. Yet it is clear these are not two different worlds at all. The power and the serenity that greets me in the sanctuary is the same power and serenity that permeates the dance of the cars and the parents and the kids. It is all one. And I am grateful to be given this chance to see it.
It is 7:45 in the morning. I’m alone in the synagogue. There are no clergy here yet, and the only staff member at work this early is directing traffic outside. It’s cloudy out there. The only illumination in the sanctuary is what little natural light filters through the stained glass overhead, plus the flickering from the ner tamid (eternal light) over the ark. The room is silent.
As I step into the sanctuary, I know I have stepped into a special place. Immediately I experience a strong feeling of power and of serenity. I walk to the front of the room and sit down. I love to be in this room when it is full of people; I love to be in this room when I am alone. Normally I would sit here and soak it in, but this is not my place to be at this time.
I stand back up, and walk to the entrance of the synagogue. I stand just outside the door, in the place where I have stood so many times before. The street across the parking lot from me is a frenzy of activity. Cars are driving back and forth, in and out of the parking lot across the street, where parents are dropping off their kids at the public elementary school. A much smaller number of cars are turning into the parking lot directly in front of me, dropping off their kids at the religious school.
As the cars drive to and fro, in and out of the parking lots, like flurries of snow tossed by the wind, it is almost eerily silent. From time to time, I hear children or their parents, or a car door closing, or a wheeled backpack being pulled across the pavement. But mostly I just hear the gentle whoosh of the tires of the many cars on the street as they dance their ballet to a music I cannot quite make out.
And it occurs to me, as I stand here on the threshold between the still sanctuary at my back and the busy street before me, that I should be contemplating the experience of standing on the threshold between two very distinct worlds. Yet it is clear these are not two different worlds at all. The power and the serenity that greets me in the sanctuary is the same power and serenity that permeates the dance of the cars and the parents and the kids. It is all one. And I am grateful to be given this chance to see it.
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