And So Be Patient
In tonight's insightful commentary during services at Congregation Ner Shalom I heard something I wanted to think more about, and I scribbled it quickly: "God's unutterable name is the unfolding of reality itself."
A little later, the peace and flowing river of the amidah portion of the service enveloped me and these words filled my mind:
In all the world there is only one you. Only one sacred collection of elements specifically configured to deliver the divine message that you are in and of yourself.
You bear no command to speak or create what does not flow easily and simply from you as express the divine blueprint of your being through your breath, your walk, your honest gestures as you move through your day.
If you choose to craft articulate designs of words, speech, images, still or in motion, then express let them express your truth, your truth as simply, directly, and fully as you can.
No set of words, no expression you can devise will ever completely express the all of your Being. That is the core of the commandment to make no graven images of God. It is impossible to express all of you, just as it is impossible to express all of God, in one expression, one book or even a whole set of thick tomes. “The devil is in the details”: no one, even those with a good heart and with the intention only of doing good, will not be able to see the totality of God – the totality of all that is ever was or could be – in one expression and they will not be able to perceive all of who you are either.
Between what you write or say and the comprehension of anyone who perceives what you express is the chasm of what is not perceived.
Misinterpretation is the domain wherein lies conflict, fear, and all that flows from that. The devil -- the satan – is the detail open to misinterpretation.
Of course you will speak, right, and create. Of course you will, because you are Creator, made in the image of Source, which has no image at all, but is all possibility. And so be patient. Be kind to everyone, for everyone is suffering the indignity of being misinterpreted, and the incomplete versions of their truth carried forth into all the worlds without their explicit permission.