Holy Change
Just a few weeks ago, the cold, the gray, and the damp seemed impermeable. And yet, this week, it happened. Spring came like a promise kept. Buds poked out of bare branches, mourning doves and sparrows greeted each other with gusto at dawn, the parks filled with soaring frisbees and circles of friends. I watched the sun set after school. This particular seasonal change is always a high point of the year for me. And from the looks on the faces of my fellow New Yorkers this week, it seems I’m in good company.
But not all change lands so sweetly. Along with hopeful signs of new life, this change of this spring carries grief. This is the first spring without my beloved granny. If she were alive this week, she would have called me to giggle about the impending daffodils and cherry blossoms—to whisper a description of the cardinal sitting on the dogwood outside her kitchen window. Her absence in this moment of beauty feels uncanny.
Beyond any personal experience of loss, the world at large has given us all occasion for grief. The experience of waking up on a beautiful day carrying the pain of war and images of desecrated life can be jarring—disheartening even. The flowers know that it’s time for change, yet our news cycle drones on with the same worsening catastrophes.
Atah Gibor l’olam Adonai. God, You are endlessly mighty. The second blessing of the Amidah depicts an all powerful God. It then goes on to tell us what God does with that power. God brings rain and dew in their proper seasons, enlivens the dead, props up the fallen, heals the sick, and releases the bound. The highest power of our Almighty God is to affect change.
As exciting as it may be for us, seasonal change seems commonplace in comparison to healing the sick or reanimating the dead. After all, I have yet to experience such a miracle as resurrection, but we witness seasonal change four times a year. The inclusion of holy change we can detect almost constantly, alongside change that feels further from our reach, is purposeful and powerful. It’s a reminder that God not only has the capacity to sustain our lives and the world through transformation, but is invariably doing so at all times.
God’s capacity to effect change is an invitation, as much as it is a miracle. We are partners to God in holy transformation. God may bring the rain in its proper season, but it is our work to till the soil, to plant the seeds, to prune and to harvest. It is our work to expand the possibility of what holy change can bring and do. So too, in the face of political violence and tragedy, we must usher in and nurture the inevitable holy shift toward peace. It is our job to anticipate such change, and create the circumstances for peace to flourish and sustain us.
May we allow the beginning of the spring to grow our attunement to and our faith in holy change. There is grief and despair now, but like the trees and the birds and the fluctuating rains teach us, in the world God has set for us, change is inevitable.
Suggested listening:
Shabbat shalom,
Iliana Brodsky