Issues of Faith - Betsy Wright Rhodes
Published 9/24/04 in the Virginia Pilot

Wisdom of Yom Kippur: "Live now...Forgive now"

This evening at sundown, Jews the world over will conclude their observance of Yom Kippur, thus ending this year's season of High Holy Days.   In his weekly message, Rabbi Michael Panitz of Norfolk's Temple Israel summed up the importance of these days: "The High Holidays remind us that time passes inexorably, and that our lives are limited.  The question which we must face is, what to do about that?  And the great virtue of the High Holidays is that they spin us to face the question, if we dare."

Panitz went on to tell how the various sages have answered the question of "how should we spend our limited time here?" Personally, I like Moses' solution best.  "Moses, the first of the prophets, sums it all up: 'Choose life,'" Panitz wrote.  "Which we may understand to mean:  Live now. Love now. Forgive now."  That is wisdom, indeed.

Another bit of wisdom comes to me recently in an e-mail from reader Diane Herbert of Chesapeake.  She wrote a long and lovely letter in response to my column about the idea of "sacred geography."  I believe Herbert's thoughts blend nicely with those of Rabbi Panitz.  Here are her eloquent words:

"'Holy Ground' is more than a place marked by walls or geography.  Holy Ground is also that space in time when two people connect; profound moments of spirit meeting spirit, person touching person.  In that interchange, something transcendent happens.  It often comes unannounced, intruding itself into the ordinariness of life.  The chores, the errands, and the busyness of daily routines are halted by these unexpected encounters.  We stand in awe, changed, and renewed.  The sacredness of life becomes apparent."

"I stepped on Holy Ground in 1975, when as a teenager riding a bus in Birmingham, Ala., I witnessed a white man nodding off, unknowingly resting his head on the shoulder of a sleeping black man.  When I pulled out my Polaroid and took a picture of this remarkable crossing of the racial divide, the click of the camera work them.  When they realized what had happened, they awkwardly smiled an one another and then quickly hid behind the wall of cultural differences.  But for a brief moment, this was Holy Ground.

"Holy Ground can be the tedious, tiring, heartbreaking, scary and yet sacred process of caring for a deteriorating parent.  I've experienced that twice now.  The first time, I was pregnant with my daughter and my father was dying of cancer.  My body was giving life; my father's body was losing life.  Holy Ground came when the doctor visited the house, bringing an ultrasound machine so my dad could hear the heartbeat of his unborn grandchild, one he would never meet.

"Years later, my mother was suffering from the last stages of emphysema.  Too weak to dress herself, she asked for my assistance.  As I lifted her shirt over her head, I instantly flashed back to myself as a child when she did the same for me.  My mother's forehead fell forward to my chest, as this simple act had exhausted her.  She then looked up at me in her bare nakedness, eyes needy like a child, smiling in gratitude.  A pang of deep sorrow pierced my heart, and then, at the same moment, I felt deep gratitude that I could return the favor of my mother's care.  As I drew my mother's head against my heartbeat, I knew this was Holy Ground.

"Watching a loved one dies is a terrible beauty.  It is exquisite sorrow mixed with the last precious opportunity to be of any assistance; to express the depths of one's love.  Ask anyone who's been there.  It, too, is Holy Ground. Indeed, we do not have to visit places deemed Holy Ground.  The Sacred Presence moves beyond the physical limits of structures or walls, and it permeates our existence with hope and a song.  It places our lives in juxtaposition between the ordinary and the transcendent, between what is seen and what is unseen - and we are never the same again.

"This is Holy Ground."