Disturb Us...

I really wish I would have posted this yesterday, on Shabbat. I actually slept in yesterday and then took some time to enjoy the day and sunshine. It was nice.

This morning as I woke, my spirit is full of anticipating and yet, a sense of dread. Today is a day people either love or hate. It's Super Bowl Sunday. Living overseas for as long as I did, we did not watch the Super Bowl because it was on in the middle of the night. Now that I'm back, I realize that this day is filled with... not sure what to say to be honest. Some see it as a day to relax and kick back. Others see it as the commercials and all the hype is bad, so why watch it? The judgements begin to fly.

Commercials are always the rage. What is going to be the best? This year there are some about Jesus. And those have already become controversial. I must admit, I struggle with them. The ones that I have seen so far grieve me. They don't sit well in my spirit.

So, as all of this is raging torrents around me. This is what I read in my Shabbat prayer book:

DISTURB US, Adonai, ruffle us from our complacency;

Make us dissatisfied. Dissatisfied with the peace of ignorance,

the quietude which arises from a shunning of the horror, the defeat,

the bitterness and the poverty, physical and spiritual, of humans.

Shock us, Adonai, deny to us the false Shabbat which gives us

the delusions of satisfaction amid a world of war and hatred;

Wake us, O God, and shake us

from the sweet and sad poignancies rendered by

half forgotten melodies and rubric prayers of yesteryears;

Make us know that the border of the sanctuary

is not the border of living

and the walls of Your temples are not shelters

from the winds of truth, justice and reality.

Disturb us, O God, and vex us;

let not Your Shabbat be a day of torpor and slumber;

let it be a time to be stirred and spurred to action.

Mishkan T'Filah

A Reform Siddur

Page 173

Friends, God NEEDS us to rest as He did. He also NEEDS us to be ready at ALL times to share His Truth and LOVE. The restless feelings are there for a reason. The stirrings within us are there for a reason. We cannot run from them. We must use them in a POSITIVE way to speak TRUTH to those around us. Church, Synagogues, Temples - they are not the shelters from "truth, justice and reality."

We need to be "disturbed" so that we LIVE a life that SHOWS the world His Love. Not a life that speaks it, but shows it. Be DOERS of the Word, not hearers only. Many of us are following road signs that are taking us in circles instead of moving forward. God, give me, and all of us, the eyes to see and ears to hear Your Voice so we can move forward.

Adonai, help me be disturbed to the point that I SHARE and SHOW your love with those around me. Help me LIVE a life FULL of ALL you have given me.

Love and blessings,

Rose