Parakalein

I like many of you have friends who are Jewish for whom  this day is the holiest of days.  In celebration of, in respectfulness for, and in reflection of that day in Jewish history and in human history I offer these reflections:

Yon Kippor teaches all of us the import and importance of life and death, of suffering and serenity.  

It is a call and summon to a shift from offering questions to offering compassion and consolation. Yon Kippor invites all to tune into that sinfulness and emptying oneself from the burden of sinfulness into a sacred place:  to become one with the sinner and the sin, for healing and wholeness.  This is the focus of Yon Kippor:  healing and wholeness in adversity and suffering.

The suffering for sin which is universal invites all to enter a place of full compassion. Compassion releases all from the burden of suffering into the blessing in the presence of suffering. We see our own suffering and the suffering of all others as a call to the community of suffering and healing.  A part of me want to run from that suffering, run through it or to simply pause to embrace it.

With compassion the burden of our suffering is lifted while simultaneously our compassion is expanded to all who suffer lifting all of us.   In the moment of holiness, there is an at one with all.  In this "at one" moment for and with all we are invited to tune into our own suffering and then to turn with that compassion offering it to all.

The sacred place and space of unburdening and Blessing is the most holy of all acts on the most holy of all places on the most holy of all days.

The high priest enters the sacred place, on one sacred day, with the sacred purpose  of releasing all burdens and restoring blessings not for himself alone or for the Jews alone but for all people and all of God's creation for all time, all seasons, and all.

Yon Kippor is a day of calling all of us to the fellowship of human suffering, human hope, and human healing.  Tuned into the place of mercy and grace, atonement from the place and practice of sin and suffering, transported to the place of healing and wholeness.  The Yon Kippor is a day when death and suffering are embraced by and embrace the compassion and creativity of hope, healing, and wholeness.

A sacred day of sacred blessings for all.