Miryam's Space

Dear Sister, A letter from Ruth

Dear Sister: My book speaks to you still, do not give up hope.

This is my book, ours, not theirs. Remember, this is not the Book of Naomi or of Boaz. This book is for us, we who struggle, strangers in a land we didn’t grow up in. We can’t go back to our home, so we go forward, moved by love, and hope of a new life. We walk, and walk  and walk, sometimes frightened, sometimes with courage. Perhaps they will never accept us as equals. It doesn’t matter -what choice have we  but to follow our hearts and our hopes. This wandering is dangerous, I know some who have been cut down, but this we who survive to hold our life more precious. I promise not to forget those who have been lost along the way. I hold no judgement for my sister who returned home, but there was no home left for me.

Then there are the cynical ones like Naomi. I pray for her brokenness to heal, and by the force of my love perhaps she will. She never wanted Elimelech to move from home, but he had babies to feed. She tried to talk him out of moving, and knew they’d all be punished for disobeying her God. So when they all died, she had spent ten years waiting for this as just desserts. I tried to tell her, “no!” this is not the true G!d, this power of vengeance.  But her inner guilt made her unreachable, inconsolable. I try to teach her faith and to look to the heavens to find hope there.

We can love people who look ever so slightly different,  who speak another language, why can’t they return our love? Is it through our own failure that we feel we’ll never be one of them? But we are the same inside. We know this who break the boundaries and love outside our group. We have the same blood and the same spark of life. And when we bear a child that bond becomes indelible in our families. And this love brings redemption. Always remember that we are in the right, this is my book, not the book of Naomi or Boaz.

My Shir Mashup

This is my own personal Song of Songs,  Shir ha-shirim, a playful attempt that I pass along to my own children on the central importance of love in life. It is almost entirely a mashup of other songs, as the original Song of Songs may have been, with an original blessing in the first and last paragraphs. My grandmother taught me to cook. The most important ingredient, she explained is love.

Prologue  by England Dan and John Ford Coley

Name your price

A ticket to paradise

I can’t stay here any more

I’ve been from shore to shore to shore

If there’s a shortcut I’d have found it

But there’s no easy way around it

Light of the world, shine on me, Love is the answer

Shine on us all, set us free, Love is the answer

Chapter 1

The beginning, The young woman (from Song of Songs)

My dove in the clefts of the rock, hidden by the cliff

Let me see who you are, let me hear your voice…

Isn’t she lovely  (Stevie Wonder) Isn’t she wonderful,

Isn’t she precious, only one minute old,

I can’t believe what G!d has done, through us G!d’s given life to one

Isn’t she lovely made of love

Your eyes are like doves, I gaze to see…

The world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower

To hold infinity in the palm of your hand, eternity in an hour ((William Blake)

When I look at you my child I vow to tray and keep you safe

I pray that G!d will be with you always

May G!d bless you and keep you, May G!d face you and grace you.

My the light of G!d shine down upon you little girl,

May you be blessed with wholeness with peace. (Wolfson from Priestly benediction)

Chapter 2 The Young Man

Yesterday a child came out to wonder(Joni Mitchel)

Caught a dragonfly inside a jar

Fearful when the sky was full of thunder, and tearful at the falling of a star

And the seasons they go round and round, and the painted ponies go up and down

We’re captive on a carousel of time

We can’t return, we can only look behind to where we’ve been

And go round and round and round in the circle game…

Dreams become the glue that bind the universe,

they can help you know the difference between the blessing and the curse (R’ Joe Black)

So now years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There’ll be new dreams maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through

Chapter 3, First Love

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or by the hinds of the field, that you neither awaken nor arouse the love until it is ripe (song of songs)

But tell me of your dreams my love that I might know your heart

Dreams of the young man Julia and Ira Levin, Child in Space

We’re all atoms dancing face to face

And the bond that we can see between us

Keeps us in this place

While the left hand wrestles with the right =

Belly goes hungry, eyes shut tight

If I should reach across the great divide

Our tears will become nourishment and heal us from inside

And the darkness will fade

Chapter 4 Take me with you, let us run together

– Dreams of the Young Woman

Merger Poem by Judy Chicago

And then all that has divided us will merge

And the compassion will be wedded to power

And the softness will come to a world that is harsh and unking

And then both men and women will be gentle

And then both women and men will be strong

And then no person will be subject to another’s will

And then all will be rich and free and varied

And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many

And then all will share equally in the Earth’s abundance

And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old

And then all will nourish the young

And then all will cherish life’s creatures

And then everywhere will be called Eden once again

Epilogue

What’s love got to do with it? What’s love but a sweet old fashioned notion? (Tina Turner)

In answer:

As I grow old, I know I am blessed

to walk among the hills and the lilies,

surrounded by light of life and family and love.

This love and this light is beautiful, and endless, intense and unfathomable.

And I know the journey has been filled with enough goodness to uplift my soul

and the spaces between us have been alive with the Presence.