TELL Magazine: October - November 2019

salvation, the great and the noble
and the heavenly is a world worth
having…these words remind us of
our ultimate challenges.” 2
High Holy Days and the process
of self-examination is difficult. It
involves judgement and repentance,
acknowledgement of our flaws as
well as our goodness and to do that
we need to say that some actions
are right and others are wrong. We
need ‘sin’ in order to open the gates
to forgiveness, growth, betterment
of ourselves and our world. There
is holiness in our sins as well as in
our goodness - sometimes it is those
cracks that allow the light to shine
through.
I wish for us all a season of reflection
and growth. I would like to leave
you with a poem by Stacey Zisook
Robinson:
2 ibid pg xxvii
The Holiness of Broken Things
I carry my brokenness with me
It is holyas
holy as my breath,
my heart,
my wholeness.
It is a part of me, these
scattered pieces
of shattered longing
and battered dreams.
My sins.
All of them.
I carry themall
of them;
All of these broken things
that bend me and bow me,
together with my wholeness,
these holy things.
Idols to my shame,
wrapped in gold and
adorned in abandon.
I fed the fires of that sacred forge
with fear and guilt,
and the alters ran slick with salted
tears.
I offeredofferthe
broken pieces as my sin offering,
for they are holy
and I carry them with me,
together with my wholeness
I carry my brokenness with meall
my sins
and shame
and salted tears,
and I place them
together with my wholeness
on the sacred altars
holy, holy, holy.
They twine together in red and gold
flames,
Broken
and Whole
offered together
and returned to me,
Whole
and Broken-
Holy still,
carried together
until I reach the next altar.
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