This day makes me sad.
Friends mourn children
who never came to be while
others
turn their children into monsters
such that we celebrate their death sentences.
How can I mourn
for murderers
while Jewish potential died on train tracks
this week?
The world is filled with those who hate
(and those who love, surely)
while the innocent are
buried
under rubble
so much human waste
and I know which side I’m on
but I fear
I fear
that when I tell my teenage sister
“sometimes love just isn’t
enough”
I’m not merely speaking about her latest boyfriend drama
it’s the human drama I fear
Hate is in the lead today.
I don’t believe in vengeance and yet
I sometimes wonder what it would take to get the world
(humanity)
the clean slate we so desperately
need.
If I could immerse us all in a mikvah…
dress us all in pure-priestly white and make us
observe
the Yom Kippur fast…
Ah, but I can’t even fill my own pews.
We all fall.
We all fail.
I know with morning there will be joy
(the Psalmist tells me so)
and hope
and new children
But today makes me sad.
I know You’re out there
but I feel You not.
Come back to us.
Help me make it through this day
through the darkness and back into the light
Help me have the strength to lead others
even when I know not where we’re going
Help me to find my way back
to hope and faith in humanity
(faith in You is so much easier than faith in
Us).
Help me to remember that today, too,
has been given a death sentence
So that tomorrow might be better.
-EKG’15
Returning to Canada, May 2025!
