Reflections for a New Year

This post is going to be a little different from my normal post something I find interesting and sometimes comment on it MO.

I want to write out some thoughts -- bear with me here, I know this might be rambling, but at this point in the Jewish calendar we are commanded to reflect, repent, and make amends. I always liked that we're required to make up with people, repay debts, apologize and fix relationships, and I love the idea of taking communal responsibility for sins - we chant a list of transgressions in unison, taking responsibility even if we, individually, may or may not have committed a particular act. But I also always found this Holy time to speak to internal reflection and a commitment to really challenging ourselves on a personal level to DO BETTER. Just do better! Care more! Make goals that are attainable and relevant and thoughtful! And then keep to them!

So my immediate resolutions for self-care this year were going to be: take my multivitamins, be more conscious of myself and my impact on those around me, and breathe more (as Eliza says, BREATHING IS GOOD!). But after a session last night with Rabbi David Rosenn, the Exec Director and Founder of AVODAH, I started thinking about what it means to reflect... how we tend to think of reflection as something to do once in a while instead of regularly, or something to do in free time rather than something we psychically need in order to survive. Rabbi Rosenn talked about how if we don't DEAL with challenges and dissonance through reflection we will accommodate those challenges into our existing frameworks and not actually learn or grow at all. Rather we need to deal with our discomfort and address it... And not just once a year.

I want this new year to culminate in a year's experience, not one day's experience 365 times.

I want to make a time for reflection, a set time, a purposeful time, and not to think of reflection time as a refuge from other times but rather to conceive of reflection as an ongoing dialogue and interaction between my consciousness and my (inter)active life. I hope that I make time to keep the theme of figuring out a way to forge/create/find common ground central to my existence. I need to find our humanity! At the MR 60th celebration the other night Rev Wright talked about putting the PEOPLE at the center.. if we keep the people at the center the world will look different. That seems so basic but is just ... not realized. I want this year to be a year of working towards putting the people at the center.