callmeschier

[callmeschier]

I've been thinking a lot about the song One Day by Matisyahu lately, mostly because the CBI Shabbat morning service I watched the other day ended with this (very impressive!) cover in three different languages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqvKDCP5-xE

It's a pretty simple song and arguably overly sentimental/cheesy, but I have a soft spot for it because it was the song I sang with the teen residents in the choir at my first CPE placement. The kids really liked the song and I'll always associate it with them. I miss those kids and I worry about them and wonder how they're doing. I have more hope for some than others, but you never know. They're all adults now, which is insane to me. I was barely an adult when I worked with them (I was only 23!).

I've been thinking about that first year (and later years) of CPE because I just applied for a part-time chaplaincy position at a local hospital on Friday. Today in preparation for the possibility of an interview (fingers crossed I'll get one) I went through some of my old CPE assignments and it was really interesting. We had to do something called writing "verbatims," which entailed writing a script-style dialogue of an encounter you had with a careseeker and analyzing your experience, essentially. I remembered some of them better than others. What stood out to me in the early ones was my lack of confidence in my abilities and how easily I was thrown by things people said that I didn't expect. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic but looking back, I think I've learned and grown from those experiences and am qualified to do a better, more confident job than I did then. A phrase that was often thrown around in my spiritual care education was "pastoral authority," and I think I have more of that now than I did then.

Honestly, I REALLY, REALLY, want this job. I miss spiritual care work and I like the structure of hospital chaplaincy. There are downsides, and COVID is a concern, but I really feel like I can do meaningful work in this position. I want the sense of purpose that spiritual care work gives me. I want to feel like I'm helping people. I feel like that's what I'm meant to do. I hope the spiritual care department at the hospital see that and feel the same. Wish me luck!

[callmeschier]

Just watched the livestream of the Congregation Beth Israel’s healing and resilience service. I thought it was really lovely. I really like Rabbi Cytron-Walker, I think I’m going to start watching CBI’s Shabbat livestreams on Facebook.

[callmeschier]

Just had a really wonderful meeting with students and faculty from my school to talk about and process what happened on Saturday. I love my community so much.

And I said something even though I was nervous and it wasn’t total nonsense probably?

Also there’s going to be a livestream service on Facebook at 5pm PST led by the rabbi at CBI and one of my classmates and I definitely plan on watching.

[callmeschier]

Good Bones on the Narrow Bridge

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

- Good Bones By Maggie Smith

“The whole entire world is a very narrow bridge and the main thing is to have no fear at all”

-Rabbi Nachman of Breslov

I heard the poem “Good Bones” by Maggie Smith for the first time in a long while the other day while listening to “Wonderful!”, which is described in its tagline as “an enthusiast podcast.” Each week, the married hosts each bring one thing they find wonderful to discuss, along with a “small wonder” or two each. It’s fairly consistently delightful. One of the hosts, Rachel, sometimes bring poems to what the couple like to call “The Poetry Corner.” This week, it was the above poem, “Good Bones,” by Maggie Smith. Rachel explained that this poem went viral in 2016, often posted on social media to accompany news of tragedies or disasters. I didn’t expect to have a reason to come back to the poem so soon after hearing a discussion about it as part of my typical weekly podcast listening menu.

 Then the news came yesterday: a rabbi and several congregants held hostage in a Texas synagogue during Shabbat morning services. Those Jews who go offline for Shabbat only found out about the crisis in the evening, after the situation had been going on for many hours. Those of us who, like me, are “terminally online” were on edge all day into the late evening, waiting for a snippet of good news, posting links to appropriate psalms to share. The longer the standoff went on, the more certain I was that someone, maybe everyone, would die. Fortunately, I was mostly wrong: the gunman was killed but the hostages all survived without physical injury, though presumably with significant psychological and spiritual damage.

 Still, almost 24 hours later, I’m not okay. I’m halfway through my first year of rabbinical school, following five years of Jewish chaplaincy school. It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that I’ve chosen a career that will put a target on my back, and I’m not sure how to deal with that. Of course, all Jews who choose to be public with the fact of their identity have somewhat of a target on their back. I almost never show signs that I’m Jewish in public, partially to keep from sticky situations that might make me seem hypocritical while I’m out (buying non-kosher food, spending money on Shabbat, etc.), and partially to fly under the radar of potential antisemites. I live near the Fairfax district of Los Angeles, a historically Jewish area and probably one of the safer places in the city to be Jewish. I probably don’t have to worry as much as I do—but when has that stopped me?

 I want to live an actively Jewish life and have a proudly Jewish career, but to do so is to take a risk. I want to be brave and take that risk, but so far I haven’t felt ready. I imagine that when I’m ordained and have achieved my goal of getting a position as a rabbi leading a congregation, I will take that risk more easily and with more courage than I currently possess. Essentially, I’m trying to convince myself that the rabbinate is a house with good bones.

 Reading Smith’s poem again today didn’t make me feel better, but it did make me feel, and maybe that’s what’s important. It didn’t lift me up an out of the mire of fear and dread that has been pulling at me since yesterday, but maybe it helped me make a bit more sense of the muck. Almost in opposition to that, I was reminded late yesterday of the saying attributed to Rabbi Nachman of Breslov: “The whole entire world is a very narrow bridge and the main thing is to have no fear at all.” It is impossible and perhaps unwise to live my life with no fear at all. That’s not in my programming. But I can try to live a life with more faith, more hope, and more courage. I love being Jewish and I love G-d and no calamity can ever take that away from me. I will keep inching my way along this narrow bridge and do my best to keep going.