Taking Stock – Looking Within

For our Jewish siblings it is the time of the high holy days. Rosh Hashanah marks the New Year and asks us to look deep within to see what might need to be cleaned up.

I think of the all important need to forgive ourselves and others, accept forgiveness and grace, and to grant and receive reconciliation.

Especially as we approach the Day of the Dead and remember that all of us are mortal, and since we don’t know when our time will end, we truly can’t afford to leave any “I love you’s” and ‘I’m sorry’s” unsaid.

Consider deeply anyone you need to reconcile with and don’t wait.

Rosh Hashanah reminds us of the importance of this introspection. But it need not wait for a special time of year.

I received this beautiful poem in an email post from Keah Calluccie (she/her), Multifaith Program Manager for Earth Ministry.

I share it here as a Rosh Hashanah blessing.

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The Offering: A Tashlikh Prayer

by Rabbi Jill Hammer

I cast this gift to the water.

It is my past: blessing and regret.
It is my present: reflection and listening.
It is my future: intention and mystery.

It is what I did
and did not;
it is yes and no and silence.

It is what was done
and what arose from what was done
and what arises in this body remembering.

I let it all go. I own
neither the sting nor the sweetness.
I hold on to nothing.

The river has no past.
Each moment of rushing water
Is a new beginning.

Harm that has been:
heal in the rush of love and truth and time.
We who are lost:
let the current take us homeward.

May these waters churn what is broken
into what is whole.
May each separate droplet
reach the ocean that is becoming.

The journey awaits.
I have no power to refrain from it;
only to steer it when I can.

May the One who is
the great Crossroad
guide my turning.

Three times I declare:
It is finished.
It is born.
It is unending.

Three times I listen:
It is love.
It is the river.
It is before me.

May my offering go where it is meant to go
and may the one who offers it
find the way.

Amen.