Beginning Again
I posted a meme on Facebook this week.
"She can't get inside the building because of her wheelchair."
No. She can't get inside because the building is not accessible. The building has a barrier that does not let her in. The wheelchair is not the problem; the building's lack of access is the problem.
Words matter.
Some folks commented compassionately about wheelchairs.
Some folks wrote me privately with concern about my ankle - which I broke on September 4th.
My ankle is healing well.
Thank you.
Mobility via wheelchair is the specific example in the meme, but not the point of the meme nor my point in sharing it.
Point lost in Facebook Post brevity, I think.
"Words matter" says the meme. True story.
This Shabbat is parshat Bresheet, and so it begins again and of course it’s with words that God began to create the world.
בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ׃
When God began to create heaven and earth—
וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהוֹם וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל־פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם׃
the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—
וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יְהִי אוֹר וַיְהִי־אוֹר׃
God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
God said and there was. This probably isn’t the first time you’ve heard that in our origin story God created our world with words. Of course, as partners in creation, so do we. The poetry of this first parsha in our Torah is so beautiful to me, especially as I understand more and more of the Hebrew, and the stories are so layered and complex. As a writer my mind wants to play in its words.
Which means, this isn’t the blog post I’ve been planning to write all week.
I am also a teacher and I considered writing about a new class I taught through Truvie last month called I Was There at Creation. I had three students. We had a great time imagining ourselves IN the story. I know there is much love for my “today in fourth grade” posts and I was going to bring a bit of that here. We made a Days of Creation comic, we created our own animals, and we wrote a collaborative poem.
I Was There
If I was there at the very beginning,
I might have seen a bunch of lava becoming the earth's core,
and parallel universes,
and the swirling and gathering of a planet.
I think I would see a lot of stars -
just forming.
I'd see the darkness form into the first black hole, and
I'd get sucked in and see all of time
playing out in front of me, but very fast.
Or maybe I'd take a video of the whole thing
in
slow
motion.
I'd see the blood of the universe.
Swirling.
Me?
I'd probably see nothing.
I don't really care for big events.
By the I Was There at Creation class, 5782
But Stan Johnson (z”l) taught me to follow the path opening in front of me, and it keeps taking me back to my Facebook post.
I have, and will very likely always have, an immune system that requires trustworthy, reliable community participation for me to safely be in physical community.
Sometimes that means I will not go somewhere because of previous experiences or because of the way the communication plays out. If I have learned that keeping myself physically safe will always be on me and that the communal participation necessary is expressed as burdensome, creativity is impossible, communication isn't compassionate, and I will definitely not be included in seeing if we can figure out how to make it work - well, it’s not a space I want to be in anymore.
I’m tired of explaining that if I am in a community of twenty and we decide to do what’s right for 17, we become a community of 17. There might be really good reasons to become a community of 17, but if we do that, if we make that choice, we should be honest about it. And we should be clear that our choice isn’t about the 3 or because of the 3. It’s because of us, the 17 of us around whom we’ve drawn the communal circle - around whom we’ve built the building. We should own up to it and say, “Yes, we recognize that we’ve made a world in which there is not space for you.” Maybe we could even say, “We are sorry we haven’t had the capacity or imagination to make a bigger world.”
I get that some places and communities cannot make their way into being places and communities for me anymore. I genuinely do get it and I hold grace for that, but forgiveness has to be earned. Forgiveness comes with change.
I'm not unique in this, even though it means I so often feel alone.
I understand why some Jewish trans and nonbinary folks I know have given up on Jewish spaces because - as they've shared with me - whatever positive things happened in their Jewish communities was just too little too late. I understand why some Jewish Deaf folks I know don't want to bother being in spaces where Deaf experience isn't even an afterthought - it's not a thought at all. And I know the bits and pieces of ASL I've learned don't cut it. Which is why I also understand why some folks have given up on me because whatever I would need to do for them to fully participate - it was something I was not or am not able or willing to do. Maybe what I could do was too little too late.
I own my lack of capacity and insufficiency. I'm genuinely sorry and I accept that I have real limitations. I will keep working on it, but I am not looking for forgiveness. Grace, yes. Forgiveness, no. Not if I haven't earned it
I'm not talking about whether or not YOU personally wear a mask or don't or whether in my own private life I am a decent person or not.
I'm talking about community cultures, policies, and practices.
I’m talking about the worlds we create together.
The systems we build together.
I'm talking about whether we have a culture of members who are cis-het (whose gender identity matches the gender they were assigned at birth and who are straight or heterosexual - women who are attracted to women and men who are attracted to men) asking for forms to be changed from a choice between "male" and "female," questioning if gender is even relevant and, if it is, if it can be made a write-in or if the form can have more options. Do opposite-sex, never-divorced parents ask that forms with "mother" and "father" be changed to "parent" and "parent" and "parent" and "parent" and "parent"? Do congregants who are Hearing contact the organizer to ask if there will be ASL interpretation and/or captioning enabled and ask them to please include that information with the promotion of every event? Do straight, white staff recognize that police presence at an event or space does not mean all people will feel OR BE safer in that space and therefore figure out security options and communication that increases actual security and safety for everyone? Does everyone make the decision that when food is served in community there will be an accurate ingredient list that the people who are going to be eating can access?
In multi-faith communities, do we look at a calendar a few times a year and watch for relevant holidays and how they are observed and plan accordingly?
The system that keeps me from being able to safely be in physical spaces is not, actually, my immune system. It never was.
Which has me thinking again about the system in our origin story. The way our story goes, there was never nothing. Some say there was chaos, and maybe that’s what it was in that time before there was a system. There was whatever it is that we feel when we are just beginning. There was darkness and a surface and a deep. There was unformedness. There was a sweeping of a Something over the water. A Something our story calls Elohim - the plural for deities, but in context not plural. One.
There is making and there is calling out to and naming and gathering.
There is expanse and there is separation.
There is primary and secondary.
There is bringing forth and there is increase.
And there is us.
Created in the image of the Something, the plural-Elohim-that-is-not-plural.
Have you ever written poetry with kids? It’s one of my favorite kinds of chaos.
My students in that I Was There at Creation class didn’t explicitly know that when we were collaborating on our poem we were being a plural One. Read it again, though, and I think you’ll be able to see it now.
“If I was there at the very beginning,” a student said, “I might have seen a bunch of lava becoming the earth’s core.”
“Yeah. And parallel universes,” said another.
“And the swirling and gathering of a planet,” the first nodded with no indication that there had been a disruption to their idea.
“I think I would see a lot of stars,” said the third.
“Just forming, though,” said someone else.
“I’d see the darkness form into the first black hole.”
“I’d get sucked in and see all of time playing out in front of me.”
“Very fast.”
“Or maybe I’d take a video of the whole thing in slow motion.”
“I’d see the BLOOD of the UNIVERSE!”
“Gross!”
“Not gross! Cool. Really cool.”
“Swirling?”
“Swirling.”
“You mean we’re imagining that we were really there? Really?”
“Yes,” I said. “Really.”
“Oh. Then I’d probably see nothing, actually.”
“Nothing?” I asked.
“I don’t really care for big events,” he said.
The beginning came with form and intention. The beginning was made with words.
There were three plus me. I was there, too. That made us a community of four for our three brief sessions. The four of us, created in the image of the plural One, created together. And there was space for each of us and for all of our words. You know how I know?
“What is it you don’t care for about big events?” I asked.
“Everything,” he said. “The noise. The people.” He shrugged. “I just don’t care for it,” I remember him saying.
“I hear you,” I said. “It doesn’t get much bigger that this, as events go. I can imagine the noise you are imagining. It’s really loud.”
It might make me close my eyes, I thought.
And I wrote his words into our brand new world.