A Word, A Phrase, A Sentence
Below please find sharings, (a word, a phrase, or a sentence) from our 10/14/23 Service of Coming Together in Prayer and Grief, in response to four prompts, that were followed by silence and time for writing and/or meditation.
Prompts:
In this moment, I feel…
In this moment, I fear…
In this moment, I mourn….
In this moment, I pray…
Sharings:
- Together.
- Although I feel unsafe I will not remove my mezuzah from my door but instead I will honor who I am.
- In this moment I feel fear, fear that G-d has abandoned us and set us a drift in his sea of despair.
- In this moment I fear the lasting damage for the children whose tender senses are overwhelmed, bombarded with catastrophic sounds of human fear and inhuman artillery.
- In this moment I feel immense gratitude for every breath.
- A life dwindling like a flame going out while another battles to hang on.
- I feel conflicted.
- I feel a lot of things, I miss talking to my elders, I feel them all around me, including my friend Maynard, I’m afraid of becoming an angry, difficult person.
- G-d will turn mourning into dancing.
- I pray I’ll see the smiles again of my two young friends who are now in Israel.
- I mourn the innocent lives lost.
- At this moment I pray that the anger I feel, at the right to defend ourselves over there, will overcome…we do need peace but sometimes war is necessary for peace.
- I fear the darkness: G-d’s diminished light and radiance fading.
- In this moment I feel horrified and scared.
- In this moment I feel sadness and anger.
- In this moment I do not fear.
- In this moment I mourn.
- In this moment I pray for our future.
- I feel fear.
- Burn candles daily bright, bright, bright in windows, light over darkness.
- “Onipa`a,” the Hawaiian word for Steadfast.
- In this moment I pray for a gasp of air.
- I feel like we will always be misunderstood.
- I pray for our collective pain to be grokked and I feel more connected to Israel than ever before.
- In this moment I fear for my dear friend and her family.
- In this moment I mourn young lives just begun with such hope gone.
- Sad and scared and praying for peace, shocked and angry, and shouting for peace.
- “To-hu va-vo-hoo” (“chaos and emptiness”–from Genesis 1:2) and searching for peace…”oy vey,” I say over and over and I’m still praying for peace: Oseh shalom bimromav, hear our prayers for peace, v’mru: amen.
To this we all said: “Shemati: I have heard you”
Link to the handout of songs and prayers that we used
