Wednesday, October 14, 2020
Yesterday I learned that I had lost a colleague and a friend. Judy was one of those rare creatures who in her own idiosyncratic and brilliant way could pull you into a thoughtful discussion of ethics coupled with acerbic comments on life, her life, and life in general.
How does one measure the value of life? Of what we have lost? Of how terrible it is for a mother to bury her daughter? The Mourners’ Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead starts where we should start: Glorified and sanctified is God’s great name throughout the world which God has created according to God’s will.
We can measure the value of Judy’s life by the many lives she saved. Blessed and praised, exalted and glorified, extolled, and honored, adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be God, beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world; and say, Amen.
Justice, justice you shall pursue, and she did that. Blessed be God.
Prayer for the Day
Like those of old, we cry out today, O God, we cry out in grief
For the loss of a friend, for the loss to the world,
Comfort us, O God, not with just a rainbow on the horizon
But with the fire of your words of justice and righteousness.
May we comfort each other by striving to fulfill your promise
Spoken through prophets and sages,
Realized through the One we follow,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.
Abraham Lincoln, President (1809–1865)
I am in the world to change the world.
Muriel Rukeyser, American poet and political activist (1913–1980).
Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud,
be gracious o me and answer me!
“Come,“ my heart says, “seek God’s face!”
Your face, O Lord, do I seek.
Do not hide your face from me.
Psalm 27:7–9