11/21: (Sunday) Today marks 11 days along the journey of the three weeks where the crack in everything beckons a polishing the luminal darkness of this time. Yearning for redemption grows stronger the deeper you traverse into shadow’s kingdom. The deepest point of darkness that culminates these 21 days on the 9th of Av also marks the day that births the messiah. The perpetual waiting for “another tomorrow shall he come” demands a posture of constant yearning amidst this waiting as expressed here Benjamin Shevili’s recent collection, Poems to Yova (2022):

He left & said that he’d come tomorrow
I wrote upon my bed, tomorrow passed
a day & another tomorrow shall he come
so it’s said the story never ends

Questions for self-reflection:

1. How do you position your spiritual journey within the pulsations of messianism that contribute to the ways in which “the story never ends”?
2. How does the absence of the redeemer insofar as “He left” affect the yearning for his return in having “said that he’d come tomorrow”? How you feel the presence of the redeemer through his absence in your daily life?