Shabbat Parashat
Ḥaye Sarah
November 14, 2009
Ordinary Miracle by Sarah McLachlan
It’s not that unusual
When everything is beautiful
It’s just another ordinary miracle today
The sky knows when it’s time to snow
Don’t need to teach a seed to grow
It’s just another ordinary miracle today
Life is like a gift they say
Wrapped up for you everyday
Open up and find a way
To give some of your own
Isn’t it remarkable?
Like every time a rain drop falls
It’s just another ordinary miracle today
Birds and winter have their fling
But always make it home by spring
It’s just another ordinary miracle today
It seems so exceptional
That things just work out after all
It’s just another ordinary miracle today
Sun comes up and shines so bright
And disappears again at night
It’s just another ordinary miracle today
It’s just another ordinary miracle today
Morning has Broken Lyrics by Eleanor Farjeon
Morning has broken, like the first morning,
Blackbird has spoken, Like the first bird.
Praise for the singing, Praise for the morning,
Praise for them springing, Fresh from the world.
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning,
Born of the one light, Eden saw play.
Praise with elation, praise every morning,
God’s recreation, of the new day.
Morning has broken, like the first morning,
Blackbird has spoken, Like the first bird.
Praise for the singing, Praise for the morning,
Praise for them springing, Fresh from the world.
FIFTY-TWO
A Song for Morning
Hallelujah! I will praise You!
At my waking, I will praise You:
As my ears open to familiar sounds,
As my hands touch sleep tossed blankets,
As my eyes see again the shapes of another day.
Hallelujah! I will praise You!
You ease the efforts of my rising,
Because I know You are with me;
You linger as I set out the day’s tasks,
Calling me to serve You in them all.
Hallelujah! I will praise You!
Even as my life swirls around me,
Even as the world spins on,
So You will linger with me
When I call upon You for comfort.
Hallelujah! I will praise You!
I will praise You at each beginning,
For You are the beginning;
I will praise You this day,
For You have made it.
Let my acts praise You, O Eternal;
Let my life today praise Your Name.
Debbie Perlman
Flames to Heaven: New Psalms for Healing & Praise
Captain Jean-Luc Picard:
Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived.
played by Patrick Stewart, from the film "Star Trek: Generations"
Helen Keller:
I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
John W. Gardner:
The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
Francis Cook writes:
"It is wonderful to learn to do one thing at a time. When we do formal zazen, we just sit; this means we do not add to the sitting any judgments such as how wonderful it is to do zazen, or how badly we are doing at it. We just sit.
When we wash the dishes, we just wash dishes; when we drive on the highway, we just drive. When pain comes, there is just pain, and when pleasure comes, there is just pleasure. A Buddha is someone who is totally at one with his experience at every moment."
The Kingfisher
The kingfisher rises out of the black wave
like a blue flower, in his beak
he carries a silver leaf. I think this is
the prettiest world—so long as you don’t mind
a little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life
that doesn’t have its splash of happiness?
There are more fish than there are leaves
on a thousand trees, and anyway the kingfisher
wasn’t born to think about it, or anything else.
When the wave snaps shut over his blue head, the water
remains water—hunger is the only story
he has ever heard in his life that he could believe.
I don’t say he’s right. Neither
do I say he’s wrong. Religiously he swallows the silver leaf
with its broken red river, and with a rough and easy cry
I couldn’t rouse out of my thoughtful body
if my life depended on it, he swings back
over the bright sea to do the same thing, to do it
(as I long to do something, anything) perfectly.
Mary Oliver, “The Kingfisher” published in Owl and Other Fantasies
Look and See
This morning, at waterside, a sparrow flew
to a water rock and landed, by error, on the back
of an eider duck; lightly it fluttered off, amused.
The duck, too, was not provoked, but, you might say, was
laughing.
This afternoon a gull sailing over
our house was casually scratching
its stomach of white feathers with one
pink foot as it flew.
Oh Lord, how shining and festive is your gift to us, if we
only look and see.
Mary Oliver from Why I Wake Early
Two stories about knowing God in all ways:
Rabbi Yitzhak of Vorki was once traveling with the holy rabbi, David of Levov, and they came to the town of Elkish at night, at one a.m. Rabbi David did not want to wake anyone to ask for a place to sleep, for (as is famous) his love for all Jews was so great [he did not want to wake anyone for his own benefit]. “So,” the Vorker said, “we went to Reb Berish’s bakery for he would be awake and at work. When we arrived there we found him at work, by the oven, and Reb Berish was embarrassed at being found this way [in the midst of such lowly manual labor]. But the holy Levover said to him, ‘Oh, if only God would let me earn my living by the work of my hands! For the truth is that every one of Israel in their innermost hearts, which even they themselves don’t know, wants to do good to their fellow human being. So everyone who works—as a shoemaker or tailor or baker, or whatever, who serves others’ needs for money—on the inside they don’t do this work in order to make money, but in order to do good to others—even though they do receive money for their trouble; but this is secondary and unimportant, because it is obvious that they have to accept money in order to live. But the inner meaning of their work is that they want to do good and show kindness to their fellow human beings.
The boss of the moving crew was a delightful, crusty gentleman, a dead ringer for Willie Nelson. I had never met anyone so enthusiastic about his or her work, and I asked him the source of that enthusiasm, “Well, you see, I’m a religious man,” he answered, “and my work is part of my religious mission.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, it’s like this. Moving is hard for most people. It’s a very vulnerable time for them. People are nervous about going to a new community, and about having strangers pack their most precious possessions. So, I think God wants me to treat my customers with love and to make them feel that I care about their things and their life. God wants me to help make their changes go smoothly. If I can be happy about it, maybe they can be, too.” ----Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin