Exhibit "A" is for "Awe"

Worldwide, observers of Judaism are celebrating the "Days of Awe," the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It is a time of introspection, prayer and good deeds. The shofar, a ram's horn, is blown at the end of each service of Rosh Hashanah and is considered a wake up call. Rabbi Maimonides, the great Spanish Torah scholar, described the shofar as saying "Awake, you sleepers, from your slumber ... examine your deeds, return in repentance, and remember your Creator." Notably, Maimonides is also known as "Rambam," a virtual onomatopoeia in reference to this quote.


So why am I bothering to write about the Days of Awe, the shofar, Jewish philosophers and onomatopoeias? Well, mostly because inter-religious dialogue remains a theme in my life and work, and because I find Judaism so rich in wisdom, ritual and challenge. And because I believe in an awesome God, so finding myself in the midst of what practicing Jews call the Days of Awe sparks my interest and wonder. Ah yes, wonder. I am curious always about the many ways the Divine finds expression in our lives, and the many rituals and prayers believers of various faiths practice in an effort to articulate the Divine encounter.


Maimonides' words about the call of the shofar strike me as pertinent to the human condition. Wake up! Look at yourself! Are you the human being that you want to be in the world? How simultaneously beautiful and horrifying it is that Judaism brings this front and center each year with Rosh Hashanah. Beautiful, that the faith instructs its followers to turn inward and give an honest, hard look at the life each is living. Horrifying, that each year Jews must come before God and their community with all their dirt and failures. I mean, in theory, Christians only believe in one judgment day in the end times, not a yearly examination of one's self in the world. Perhaps the season of Lent is somewhat akin to this time of inner reflection, but I continue to be struck by the dramatic task of redefining one's self in one's relationships on a yearly basis. How profound, how daunting, how brutal.


I can honestly say that I am not the human being that I want to be in the world. Exhibit A: Tonight I made the misjudgment that I am gifted with the ability to art & craft, and I attempted to make candles. I collected the leftover wax from my candles that have lost their wicks and put them all in a pot on the kitchen stove. I put the burner on high. I went into the next room and began futzing around, something I truly am gifted at, only to be called by the panic of the smoke alarm back to the kitchen. The wax was on fire! How something that surrounds flame is suddenly flammable is beyond me. Again, I'm gifted in futzing around, not physics. Or the art of putting out fires, apparently. I lifted the pot off the burner (plus one for using logic!) and blew on the flames (minus ten for being an idiot!). This of course brought the flames to flare up even higher, and let me just say that I am god damned lucky to still have eyebrows. My next plan of attack was to put the pot of ignited wax into the kitchen sink and turn on the faucet. I cannot tell you why, but this caused the flames to flare up to the ceiling and the fire continued to blaze. At this point, the incessant smoke alarm was more mocking me than saving my life, and I grabbed my phone to call 9-1-1. I think I dialed right, but I don't know because the phone wasn't ringing and I think I dropped it when the flames in the kitchen subsided. Dark smoke filled my apartment--not just the kitchen--but the actual fire had stopped. Thank God! I believe I followed this moment with some actual logic, such as opening windows and calling my roommate to tell her I almost killed everyone in our building and can she please come home right now because oh my god I almost burned down the apartment! I was shaking. My hand got burnt.

Photo courtesy of http://ritard.tumblr.com/

This is one of those distinctive moments in a young woman's life. My kitchen is on fire, I'm home alone, and all I can think is that there's no parent to call for help, no adult that can assume responsibility for this disaster and save me ... I am my own adult. This is a devastating realization. This realization almost makes me want a husband to kill spiders for me and solve the problem of the kitchen-sink-on-fire.


I am not the human being that I want to be in the world. I have the sense that the shofar calls to wake us up from our delirium, from the false world we build up around ourselves. Wake up! Look at yourself! Look at that part of yourself, Kelly, that you are not comfortable confronting. The part of you that wants to be saved, that wants the adult to step in and take over, the part that is passive, dependent, immobile, paralyzed by fear. Wake up! Wake up and smell the smoke filling your apartment. Well, it may not have been graceful or logical, but (thank you Jesus!) the apartment is intact, nothing was actually damaged, and I am not harmed. I am awake to the fact that I am my own adult. And as the Days of Awe fall away and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, approaches, I can decide what kind of adult I want to be in the world. Probably the kind that owns a fire extinguisher.