SEASONS - LIVING IN AWE

(Writing and photography by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

It is my own personal belief that God has given us the blessing of sacred times to help us to remember to make life-giving connections.  We do this through various forms of meaningful ritual and thoughtful personal transformation in our daily lives.  I think it is by sitting in prayer and meditation before our God that we become empowered to shine with His relevance into whatever corner of the world we find ourselves living.  God meets us where we are, but we have to be willing to take the journey.  The 10 Days of Awe are a lot like driving down the road of life and deliberately deciding to slow down, actually look at the scenery and not rush on by.  It is a pause from the typically busy hectic world.  It is a time out as we travel down the road of truth on our journey through the year.

I think of this every year as a Christian believer who observes the Days of Awe that begin on Rosh Hashanah and linger on through Yom Kippur. 

I don’t consider The Days of Awe to be only Jewish holy days.  My bible says God ordained these days forever, and I am a child of God.  I may be adopted into the family, but I am loved the same as those who were born into the family.  For me it is simply 10 days to reflect and pray about whatever transformations I need to make in the coming year to help the life I live better reflect more of the life of my heavenly Father and His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.   
  

Every year during this sacred time I begin to recall that I’ve made many terrible daily mistakes.  I’ve misspoken about friends and colleagues. At times I’ve been callous and dismissive.  Often I’ve had moments where I’ve projected my love into places where it does not belong, and then turned around and withheld it from places where it does belong.  In so  many life situations, I’ve let my insecurities paralyze me, or lead me into wrong actions.  I’ve devalued others, as well as myself, and often neglected my family, and neglected the world outside of my immediate family as well.  Perhaps it may seem strange that I admit to the crimes of most of the human race.  In short, I am painfully aware of my humanness and my lack of automatic holiness.  Realizing these things I come before God to repent.  I go to the people I know I've wronged and tell them I'm sorry.  I try to correct my actions by "doing" and not just using the words.

 

Some people feel that admittng these things to God and to their fellow human beings is shocking and repulsive.  They are afraid of facing their own imperfections.  Why do we always expect perfection from ourselves?  Am I being too hard on myself for stopping to think of these things and seeking the forgiveness of God during these 10 sacred days of this season?  After all, Jesus has me covered, right?  I know and believe with all my heart that He has forgiven my sins past, present and future, and has removed them as far as the east from the west.  So why would I stop to ponder such things and seek My Father’s Face for mercy and forgiveness during this time; is it really necessary? 

I feel it is very necessary, because it helps me to turn from wrong.  It takes me beyond just “believing” to living in a place of “being.”   God desires that we want to change.  It is not that I do not accept the grace so freely given by a loving Savior, I definitely do.  It is, however, that if I do not stop to engage these questions every year, I will simply continue to run through the days of my life filling myself up with idle distractions — shopping, vacations, career, social events — and will simply avoid the real work that needs to be done to bring about good authentic change.  Most significant of all is the fact that I would be trampling on that precious gift of grace that has been so freely given, taking the most precious thing that ever happened for granted, and making slight of what My Savior has done in giving His precious life for me. Setting aside this time honors God, My Savior Jesus Christ, and it sets me free from my own paths of careless self destruction.    

So, I welcome those awesome rituals of Rosh Hashanah that force me to stop, assess, redress, and recreate my life before God.  I welcome that opportunity each year to reengage, and to emerge from the paralysis of my own spiritual escapism. My encounter with Rosh Hashanah, The Days of Awe and Yom Kippur each year awaken within my soul the realization that it is time to wake up and stop running away and confess my faults to God, so that I may begin the sacred year with resting peacefully on The Rock of Jesus Christ.  

These High Holy Days teach me and help me to recognize that as human beings we are fundamentally different from objects, machines, plants and animals in that we are not rigid and unchangeable.  We have the ability to change if we chose, to turn, to keep trying until we are able to hit the mark that takes us to a higher place, that place that changes our hearts from duty to love, from rote worship to true desire. 

After each season has passed I feel the fresh peaceful place of knowing "Hayom harat olam" — today is the birth of something completely new. 

 I have the common sense to realize that God has given me a gift I never deserved. 

What could be more wonderful than this? 

What could be more refreshing? 

What could be a better way to enter a new sacred year?

What more could I ask from One who has already given His life for me? 

To steal a phrase from another season:  Dayenu! 

Each year the journey gets more and more interesting.  God has taught me to enjoy the challenges of life. As I bend to His will in my days, He helps me find the purposes He has created specifically for me.  Because I set aside this time every year, I know when the end of my journey comes, I can be at peace and enter safely into His joy.