17/21: (Saturday) Today marks 17 days along the journey of the three weeks where the crack in everything beckons a polishing the luminal darkness of this time. Yearning emerges for a prayerful presence amidst apparent absence of the universe the more you confront suffering. Such contemplation of this absent presence is expressed here Benjamin Shevili’s recent collection, Poems to Yova (2022):

Hear O Israel how
will it help if I recite it
if I’ll really look into what i shall see
within me I peek between
the lattices & see a tiny bit of
light hear O Israel
how will it help me if i walk
towards suchness underway
towards myself
with a wall
of melancholy hear
O Israel how shall it help
me if I walk on
& you already are not hearing
Israel all the poems
inscribed in a notebook
& the notebook is not
full my secret God

Questions for self-reflection:

1. When do I feel the act of praying to be heard allows me to hear as a godwrestler of Israel?
2. How does hearing in this deeper way guide me through the contours of disappointment and suffering?