Holela: A Certain Kind of Madness

Leonard Cohen, the nation's aged, craggy poet and raspy balladeer laureate, died this week at age 82.

He gave us thoughtful, poetic songs about religion and romance like "Suzanne" and "Bird on a Wire" and, of course, "Hallelujah". 

There is an irony, for me at least, about his death so soon after the death of everything so many of us thought we knew about ourselves,  each other and this country. 

Can there be many who don't know the haunting beauty of his song, "Hallelujah"? 

It's been covered so many times by so many artists in so many situations - from the movie Shrek to the Memorial at the Emmy Awards, to my personal favorite by K.D. Lang - that Cohen even agreed with a critic’s plea in 2009 for a moratorium on the song’s usage in movies and on TV.  

If you listen to Cohen's original recording of his song, on his 1984 album "Various Positions," you hear something different. Something darker. Something more ominous. Something about the death of dreams and the paradox of love and how taking the risk of living into either one can lead to the possibility of healing and/or hurt, devastation and/or inspiration.

You hear in his craggy, ragged voice something about mortality and the fragility of life. You hear something about how dreams and love can sometimes lead mere mortals to amazing foolishness and degradation as well as incredible achievements and miraculous nobility. 

He wrote the song in 1984. It's probably no coincidence that Ronald Regan was elected President of the United States in November of that same year. I remember hearing it played at the deathbeds and funerals of so many people who were dying of AIDS.

The story goes that it took Cohen two years and eighty verses - some of them written while sitting in his underwear on the floor of the Royalton Hotel in New York, banging his head on the floor. If you listen, you can hear that in his song, as well.

Which is about right for a song about which the author once said,  " . . . explains that many kinds of hallelujahs do exist, and all the perfect and broken hallelujahs have equal value."

Hallelujah - or Alleluia - is a word of no small significance in communities of faith. But it doesn't always mean what we think it means. 

Most linguistic and Hebrew scholars agree that it is an amalgam of two words, the last "jah" is derived from the Hebrew word for God YHWH.  The first part, "halal" is usually understood to be an imperative form - a command - of the word "praise", but that's the easy version of translation.

Halal is also what lamps and celestial bodies do: shine.  In Job (41:10) this verb is employed to state how the sneezes of Leviathan "flash forth light". 

The masculine noun (mahalel) means "praise" or "rejoicing" or "congratulations".  The feminine noun (tehilla), means praise, song of praise or thanksgiving or adoration; it can also denote praiseworthy deeds.

But, there are two other feminine nouns, holela and holelut, which derive from this root word for praise, but ones which denote a kind of madness. It is usually associated with a sort of inexplicable exuberance; a deep joy which defies understanding or explanation.

One of my professors, a very wise Rabbi from New York, a very long time ago, once said to me that 

"Holela is the sound that comes from the intersection of suffering and wisdom; it is the sound of prayer, the sound of faith, the sound of hope, the sound of trust in God, which suffering tells us is foolish and wisdom tells us is truth."

He may or may not have known that, explicitly, but I have a sense that that's exactly what Cohen was expressing when he wrote this song.  Holela. It's what lead him to sit on the floor in his underwear in the NY hotel, banging his head on the floor.

Holela haunts this song, dancing seductively over the words, teasing out the melody until there is a sad but merciful and creative intercourse of the two. That's why it all sounds so painful and beautiful, all at the same time. 

It's what makes the song so compelling. We know it, not so much with our minds but intuitively. It speaks with "flashes of light from the sneeze of the ancient Leviathan" to the things we keep hidden in the darkest corners of the heart and soul. Its creativity is sensual and sexual; it is deeply spiritual and hopelessly romantic.

Holela captures almost precisely what I'm feeling after the madness of this week. 

Something has died, but something new is stirring in my soul. A new clarity about my identity - our identity as a nation -  which leads me to a new resolve. An emerging but yet clearly unidentified determination. 

When I can get out of my own way - my own sense of defeat and disappointment - I find enormous waves of gratitude washing over me. For Hillary. For her courage. For her intelligence. For her years of experience and service. For her class. For her grace - especially under enormous, impossible pressure.

For her willingness to carry the dream and hold the dream and risk the dream for all of us; for love of her people and her country. 

There's a certain kind of madness to that. Especially right now, less than a week later. 

Especially after hate crimes are on the rise, immigrants and people of different skin color and religious expression - here in the 'home of the brave and the land of the free" - are living in fear and terror, and women are, once again, targets for spiritual and emotional and physical abuse.

Even so, I find myself whispering, "Holela." It is my prayer. It is my statement of faith. 

It's the last verse of Cohen's song that has gotten me through this dreadful week. 

I did my best, it wasn't much

I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Here I stand, with nothing on my tongue but Holela.

Thank you for the inspiration and permission to do that, Leonard Cohen.

Thank you for the inspiration and courage to do that, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It's a certain kind of madness, I know. But, at least I have gotten up from sitting on the floor in my underwear; I have stopped banging my head on the floor.

It may be different for you - no doubt, it is, and that's okay - but even though it all went wrong, standing upright before God, whispering and croaking "Holela" from the depths of my broken heart, seems absolutely the right place to be at this particular moment in time.

Call me crazy. You may be right. I stand in good company with women, ancient and modern, from all countries and cultures and creeds.

Holela!

A Prayer for November 9, 2016

 Note: I got up early on the morning of November 9th - I hadn't been sleeping anyway - and realized that I had to change the meditation I had prepared for my Hospice Team. So, I wrote this prayer. I share it here in the hopes that it may speak to you, as well. 

Dear God,

This new day has dawned with this country more divided than it has been since the days of the Civil War. Half of your people are rejoicing while the other half are stunned and sore afraid.

What divided us then continues to tear at the seams of the fabric of this nation.

We are a United Divided States.

Help us to remember that the experiment called democracy is not over; it is still being tested. After 240 years of existence, the final results are not yet in. We still have work to do. It stretches out before us, across wheat fields and deserts, from the mountains to the prairies, from sea to shining sea.
 
In the midst of our sense of victory, help us to remember your call to us to love one another as you love us.

In the midst of our sense of defeat, help us to remember that you still reign; you alone are worshiped; you alone are God.

Help us to put aside our own feelings – jumbled and confused as they may be at the moment – in service of others, our families and friends and neighbors – here and around the world.

Help us remember your high calling to us to be agents of forgiveness and reconciliation, love and peace, healing and hope in a world made dark by fear and hatred and brokenness.

Help us to rebuild this nation by seeking out your image in the face of others, finding the best in us to serve those who are the least, the lost and the lonely.

Help us to remember the words of one of your servants of old who reminded us that ‘perfect love casts out fear’. Help us perfect our love.

We are your people. You know us by many names. You are our God. We know you by many names.
 
May we find strength in our diversity and seek the courage to live into what is written on every piece of currency in this nation: In God we Trust. In God. We Trust.

For only in you can we live in safety. Only in you will we find justice. Only in you will we know the peace that passes all human understanding.

Amen.

Calling All Saints

I am not superstitious. I am the granddaughter of Maria Lima Medeiros and the daughter of Lydia Medeiros Souza and they were superstitious. Except they called it being "religious".

They - like all the women in my family and neighborhood - had "pocket rosary beads" which they would whip out at the sound of the siren of an ambulance or a fire truck or police car and "shot arrow prayers" for anyone who might be ill or injured or in trouble.

They had a shelf in the pantry lined with votive candles - of various sizes and colors - which were taken out, in turn and as needed, and lit before a plethora of statues of various saints for various and sundry petitions of prayer. A slip of paper with the "special intention" scrawled on it could be found under the base of the saint.

Every night, before bed, my grandmother and/or mother would gather the children around the particular saint or saints to say the rosary - a decade (or 10 Hail Mary's) to each saint for each petition of prayer - preceded, of course, by the Apostle's Creed, the Our Father, the Glory Be and one of the Sacred Mysteries.We were to meditate on the Sacred Mystery while reciting the Hail Mary.

There was a ritual to these prayer sessions which had to be strictly followed. No joke. This was serious. If anyone messed up, you might piss off the saint and then he or she wouldn't grant the petition and it would be ALL YOUR FAULT.

Oh, and this was done kneeling. In front of the statue. Which was on the bureau in the bedroom.  On the hardwood floor. Which, when you're under 10 years old, is asking a whole lot. If you were lucky, you got the spot on the small carpet by the bed.

If we complained or got figgity, my grandmother would remind us of the "sacrifice" Jesus made for us on the cross, saying, "Oh, your knees hurt, do they? Just imagine how Jesus felt with his HANDS AND FEET NAILED INTO THE CROSS. He did that for YOU, remember. To save you from YOUR SINS, even though you didn't know you were a sinner and didn't even know to ask for it."

Nothing can hush a figgity child better than that image. 

We won't talk about the nightmares and neurosis it later produced. 

It worked in the moment and that's really all that mattered to women who were trying to change the world the best way they knew how.

And, if the prayer petition wasn't answered? Well, my grandmother would NOT be pleased. In fact, she would blow out the votive light and turn the statue of the saint to face the corner, admonishing him or her, "And, you will stay there until you answer my prayer."

That's the thing with saints and prayers. You gotta show 'em who's boss or they just walk all over you.

So, this morning, I lit a small votive candle when I said my prayers. I called on the spirit of my grandmother and those aunts and women who were born before women had the right to vote. 

I called on the spirit of my mother and aunts and those women who were the first in their family to vote. 

I called upon the spirit of the women who dressed in white and called themselves the Suffragettes who fought so hard and sacrificed so much for women to have the civil right to vote.

I called on the spirit of all of those women to be present to us today. 

I thanked them for all that has been, the spiritual gifts of those sacrifices and witnesses that have brought us to this day.  

I asked them to bestow upon us the spirit of reason and wisdom. 

I asked them to drop some knowledge and appreciation of our past - the struggles hard fought and well won - into our present awareness. 

I asked them to make us keenly aware of our identity as Americans so that we might put country over political party, faith before ideology, civility before entitlement, justice before righteousness.

And then, I got up, got washed and dressed, and put on the special pair of Hillary socks which I bought just for today.

I did not do any of this because I am superstitious. 

I did this because I am the granddaughter and daughter and niece and cousin of a whole long line of very religious women.

And, the apple did not fall far from the tree.

Now, go vote, everyone.

The saints are here. 

And, they are watching us and waiting to help us to do the right thing.

Don't let them down. 

It never goes well when you do. 

Just sayin'. 

Walking on Broken Glass

I'm going to go watch videos with puppies and kitties in a minute but I have to say that I just read an article in the NY Times, the headline of which proclaimed that Trump was "ebullient" over the emails being investigated by the FBI.
 
You know. The ones Comey doesn't know anything about, much less whether they are important or even pertinent. He's not sure HRC wrote them or sent them. Not sure they are classified or not. They could just be duplicates of what has already been deemed insignificant.

I also saw Trump's campaign manager, that ubiquitous, whitest-of-white women, Kellyann Connors, beaming as she pronounced this "a very good week for our campaign."
 
What kind of people rejoice at the misfortunes - the injustices - done to others?
 
That's a serious question. I can't get my head wrapped around this.
 
When the Access Hollywood tapes were released and we got to hear Donald describe himself as a sexual predator, I don't remember HRC or anyone in her campaign gleefully clapping their hands.

And, when yet another woman came forward to testify that she was groped by Donald, just as he had described, I don't remember HRC or anyone from her campaign pronouncing this "a very good week for our campaign."
 
It is so tempting to turn the tables on Donald and say, "You know, you're right. The system IS 'rigged'," but that would be stooping to his level. It wouldn't be right; neither would it be correct.
 
The system has lots of stupid people - incompetent people - little people who do not have the courage to be leaders. The "system" is also filled with prejudice and bigotry toward people of color - ALL people of color - and women and LGBT people and people with disabilites.

 It needs to be changed. Fixed. But, it is not 'rigged'.
 
I have this feeling, deep in my gut - it's inexplicable, really, just a feeling - that this is all going to work for HRC.
 
In a few days, Comey is going to be pressured - by BOTH sides - to say more about those emails.

And, it's going to blow this whole thing up. Donald will have his usual conniption fit, shoot himself in his foot with something that comes out of his mouth and blame everyone else because he's limping.
 
And, HRC will, as usual, handle herself with grace and style, skill and confidence - even as the GOP continue to metaphorically go through her underwear drawer, contemptuously sniffing around to see what they can find.
 
That will go on for the next eight years while she is POTUS. It's not been an easy election. It will not be an easy presidency. The "boys" will make absolutely certain of that.
 
Sometimes, when you break a glass ceiling, you can get cut by falling glass shards. I believe that's what this whole Comey email "scandal" is all about. Glass shards. The ceiling is cracked. It's about to be broken. Things will never again be the same.
 
Did you really think this would be easy?
 
Off we go, then, into the last 10 days of this most despicable election season of all election seasons. Just keep repeating Michele's mantra: "When they go low, we go high."
 
Say it again, "When they go low, we go high."

Once more: "When they go low, we go high."
 
Got it? Good. Now, back to work with the lot of you.
 
We've got a cracked ceiling to break.
 
Mind the glass shards. There's bound to be a few more.
 
But first, just a few minutes to watch videos about puppies and kitties.

Cuz, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to get the job done.