Vespers Walk
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
An autumn sun low in the sky signals the time of rest is approaching. Nature drops her “green screen” of chlorophyll, moving sugars to the roots for the season of rest. A couple of frosty nights produce colors in the branches. Leaves light up like torches in ostentatious colors of neon scarlet, yellow, gold and orange to warm brown. It is a Met Gala Hemisphere-wide fashion show of drama and color for October.
Trees gift us with shade, beauty, fruit and a home for many creatures. Air is the invisible environment in which we live and breathe. We do not notice air until it moves as a breeze. Trees respond with branches bending and leaves shaking. Wind is that gust of air that our ears hear and face feel. Ancient cultures call air or wind “Spirit” or “Breath of God.” In Hebrew, the word is ruah, or רוּחַ. Spirit, like air, seemingly without form yet is essential to life. There are moments we can see and feel that ruah, Spirit and it reminds us how precious life is and how Spirit infuses our beingness.
My spiritual home is under my katsura tree. I planted a spindly sapling decades ago which now displays a glorious crown of branches and heart-shaped leaves. So large, it now forms a magnificent dome, my Sistine Chapel. The shade beneath is deep and the grass is thin. Sunlight dapples the ground as the leaves wiggle in gentle breezes. Big branches are shoved aside in a strong gust revealing an azure sky, cottony clouds and brilliant light. Ruah, Spirit is present.
It’s the last days of October and a warm wind blows insistently, tempting me to drop my guard. I succumb, shedding my fall jacket, shoes and socks, to take my regular sunset Vespers Walk. I walk carefully through Oak Tree corner on the next block. Squirrels devoured and hid most of the meaty nuts, leaving treacherous whole and broken caps on the sidewalk. I pick my way carefully.
Along Maple Tree row, my pace picks up. The rising wind starts a song in my mind: Randall Thompson’s “Alleluia.” It is a simple word meaning, “Praise the Lord” repeated throughout the piece. Beginning soft and small, the a capella, the four-part harmony swells with intensity and volume just as the breezes on my walk. Crescendo after crescendo crests like the wind buffeting my face. I walk faster as the harmonies crest, deeply inhaling ruah. The melody contracts to near silence and the air becomes still. I stop in my tracks, breathing softly, lightly.
I round the corner to the west and toward home. The sun has dipped below a horizon strewn with clouds of purple, red and orange. Another day is done. Still blazing leaves swish and sursurate in the ruah. My mind hears Hannah Szenes’s poem “Eli, Eli” set to the poignant lullaby melody by David Zehavi.
“Eli, Eli” translated as “My God, My God.”
My God, my God,
may it never end –
the sand and the sea,
the rustle of the water,
the lightning of the sky,
the prayer of man.
In Hebrew, the poem reads:
אלי, אלי, שלא יגמר לעולם
החול והים
רשרוש של המים
ברק השמים
תפילת האדם
From <https://en.wikipedia.org/
I walk my Evening Vespers open and receptive to whatever ruah reveals. What more could I ask for tonight, than a soothing “Alleluia” and the soulful lullaby “Eli, Eli”? I wish you the gentle peace of a gentle autumn breeze and the loving reassurance of a lullaby as the winds of change breeze and bluster over our very human lives.