"[answering the phone] Hello, you've reached the winter of our discontent." - Troy Dyer (Ethan Hawke)
This Shabbat I am thinking about reality. Because it feels pretty messed up right now. There is such a strong desire to escape. Into a book, film, project, anything other than pay attention to what is happening. Today: reality bites.
Einstein defined God as the MYSTERY at the heart of REALITY. This has been one of my primary theology pillars.
Right now my external reality, what I see going on around me, is hard to grasp. How can we be in this place? It feel like LIES are truth and truth is irrelevant and there is no such thing as facts that we can all agree upon. We, the people I rub shoulders with at the post office and other places of civil interaction room, do not share common definitions of justice, peace, equality, fidelity or happiness. We might, I guess? But we also might not? It is 50/50?
We diverge as a society--from the places where it matters most. We diverge from that deep place of the still small voice. We diverge in the place of right v. wrong. We diverge in our sense morality and common decency.
I do not and will not accept the "new" reality that we as Americans are now working towards, the reality of the majority of representatives and our most senior and respected officials.I diverge. I am divergent. You might be too.
I am learning how to live with my divergent reality. It is giving me a head ache. I am retooling my brain for this warped reality. Part of this process is learning the power of God in my life in a new way. I am learning what it means to really "hold on" to this pillar of Understanding: the mystery at the heart of reality. I am learning like never before to trust deeply in science and the power of the intellect. We now know that our actions as human beings are destroying the earth. We are poisoning ourselves. We watch videos of injustice. "I can't breathe" We see and hear and know, yet we are told we do not understand the truth.
Science and intellectual honesty are core to my theology. This is where I place my faith. I can't look to our government and call it holy or scared or life affirming or respectable. I can't trust. I can't put my faith in it. My faith demands I take a different path. And today that path is the path of opposition to the external reality and a deep commitment to my internal reality and my own conSCIENCE.
Rabbi Kinberg
1/7/17