Berakhah - Nov 24 2021

 

Berakhah

Nov 24 2021

We never said Grace.

Never joined hands and bowed our heads

and with closed eyes

gave thanks.

Someone reciting,

the rest mumbling or mouthing

a little behind.

A practice that proclaims

we are not animals

not ruled by appetite.

A prayer, of sorts;

but with which even an atheist

could get on board.

Nor ever scheduled chores,

laundry day and shopping

coffee-klatch with friends.

Never set aside

a regular night

for family time.

Never observed

a day of rest.

Ignored

the small daily rituals

that confer a sense of order,

that reassure us

the world will continue to unfold, more or less

at it has before.

But now my brother, with a family of his own

takes one day a week

and steps away from the world.

Takes stock,

living slow and quiet

instead of fast and loud.

I observe no such ritual.

I have no time for gods.

But why not

an intentional pause

an expression of gratitude?

Because there is much be said

for stillness and quiet.

To quarantine off some part of one's life

from the daily bustle

and hectic rush.

Or if not a day, then a silent moment

to acknowledge advantage

the blessings of luck

the bounty of earth,

even the accident of birth

that landed us here.

Head down and eyes shut,

not as an act of submission

but humility,

when more has been given

and less been asked.

Not Grace, exactly

but good enough for an atheist.

And with a hand to hold, even better;

a moment of rest

around the table together

alone with your thoughts.

It's Thanksgiving south of the border tomorrow, so this poem is timely. Here's its origin.

In Garrison Keillor's weekly column, he reproduced a short piece he recently had published at RealSimple.com. The following bit is what inspired this poem.

My prayers sound pompous to me ("O Thou Who didst create the growth hormones that produced this enormous bird ... ",) and I feel odd saying them in front of Jews, agnostics, atheists, "spiritual" people, Uncertains, Rosicrucians, ophthalmologists, and the tired old Anglicans at our table.

But I also feel odd if the food is hauled into the dining room and we simply dig in and feed like jackals at the carcass of a fallen gazelle. There should be a graceful pause, a meaningful look around the table, an appropriate word or two. To that end, I had a table grace painted on the dining-room wall above the mantel.

The only time I ever said Grace was at my old YMCA camp. It was more a reflexive formality than heartfelt. I've always felt uncomfortable with Grace: the overt religiosity, of course; but also the feeling that it was either overly earnest, or performative and insincere.

On the other hand, I can see a role for ritual in life, for some sort of daily practice: something often missing from our fast-paced, consumerist, secular culture. Even, as Keillor says, simply a graceful pause that makes what follows a little more meaningful than the rest of the day. And it doesn't require belief in a higher being to take time out to practice gratitude.

My brother is religious, and quite observant. So he follows the Jewish sabbath. My parents would raise their eyebrows at this. Why impose such unnecessary and arbitrary restrictions on oneself? Why make life more difficult? I think what they missed was the value of withdrawing from the world, of slowing down, experiencing quiet, and creating rituals that elevate this brief time into something special. Especially now, when life moves quickly, the noise is incessant, and technology is endlessly distracting. The reliable structure and repetitiveness of this makes those 24 hours a sanctuary: a needed time out and something to look forward to. It's not something I'm going to do (I have a lot of quiet unstructured time in my life anyway). But I can see its value.

Grace before a meal is a small thing. An entire day something bigger. But in that they are both recurring rituals, they are the same. They both keep one grounded.

The intentional practice of gratitude has been shown to have great benefits for mental health. So combining this with ritual can only be a good thing. As for me, however, I feel self-conscious saying Grace. And it doesn't work so well without a belief in God. But I do work on gratitude, even if it isn't quite so structured as reciting a small prayer of thanks before dinner every night.