DEAR STRANGER

So I decided to try my hand at a bit of fiction. It's pretty rough, but here goes ...

DEAR STRANGER

Dear Love,

I have just boarded. Strapped in. Waiting. I’m trying not to think about how far I am going or if I will be back. These uncertainties shiver me. It is strange to be so alone suddenly. Somewhat restful, but very strange. I feel my thoughts begin to wander, my heart seems to be pumping more furiously than usual, my hands gripping the rests. I’m trying not to think about how far I am going. It’s funny how little I believe that this is happening. I’m trying not to wonder if I will be back. To wander. To wander is my task. Oh, love, I miss you here.

Dear Love,

The initial flight tasks are completed, all is well. I must go to sleep now. I will be further from you when I eventually awake, far further. I will be so much closer to my destination. Close and far together, a somehow poetic antithesis. I must go to sleep now. I know I will not dream, but if I did I would dream of you, oh love.

Dear Love,

Awake. Confused. How long have I slept? Feels eternity. Feel light, soft, floating. Zero. Stiff. Light. Gravity has left me floating. Floating. Feels like infinity. Out of the window, infinity. Strange sounds. Beeps and blips saying all is well. All is well. Much to do. Too heavy; too light. How long have I slept?

Dear Love,

I am on the approach. There’s a new nausea in my throat that has little to do with movement. I have wandered far, wandered wide. I wonder what you are doing? Are you thinking of me? Do you even know where I am? I have come so far. So very, very far away. The mind flips at such distance. I slept so long even I cannot comprehend the immensity. Oh, love, I miss you here. You would hold my hand and tell me there was no need to worry. You would tell me the landing will be soft, safe, that the very air would not buck at my presence in this strange land. You would remind me of the birth of the world, the wonder of new grass, new air, new land. You would hold me. I have wandered far, but you whisper in my ear. I approach.

Dear Lover,

The landing was soft, safe. The air did not buck at my presence, though I wonder if it should have. The ground is soft, there is grass. The air is not so different from the air you must be breathing. The light is strange, but not as strange as I had thought. I feel very small in this endless land. As my feet touched this new ground, I felt the weight of air, of time, the gasp of fear. You would drink these vistas in. You would gasp with me, explore the strange. I have many things to do, so very far from home, so very far from you. Oh, lover, how I miss your arms.

Dear Lover,

How long has it been? The days are different here, the nights harder. There are things I never expected, the air is beginning to hurt my chest. Perhaps it is the breaking of a fragile heart, the closing of an alien lung. I’m losing track, wandering further and further. I feel the distance, the uncrossable space, today more than ever. Oh, lover, where are you? Where are you to whisper that all will be well? A soft landing does not imply a soft stay. I think the air has begun to buck at my presence.

Oh, You,

I have started to forget the contours of your neck. Your voice has faded utterly. I have not spoken aloud since I have been here. I do not even know whether the air here would let me. I am too afraid to try. How long has it been? What are these strange nights? The sky is so alien. I wonder if one of the lights is you, or if we even see the same lights in the sky? The sky is so alien. My tasks progress, but I am beginning to question the wisdom of sending me alone. I understand the theory, it was the best possible solution. But was it wise?

Oh, You,

Such beauty today! Such awe! I could forget the pain in my chest for a while. I think I may have gasped aloud. That gasp hurt my throat. There are things here you would not imagine, things I cannot describe. They fit so well, such a perfect ecosystem. It is so clear that I am the alien here. Oh, you. If you were here we would drink in all this awe, take over this wild land. We would build here, and grow here and make here. We would break here, and destroy here, and kill here. All that beauty – I wonder what we would do to it. I have wandered so far, and I think it may be best to keep this beauty far.

Dear Stranger,

How long has it been now? I can no longer reckon time here, in this strange land. I know I am the stranger here. I am too strange. The air has begun to push me out. I am getting weaker but my imagination stronger. I have completed my assigned tasks. The soil is caught, the air captured, the life preserved in tiny jars. Why was I left so alone? Today I packed the final samples, wrapped and swaddled them like the most precious of children. Each drop of liquid, each grain of soil, each molecule of air is in its place. Packed and ready. As I stare at the ship that will bring me back, at the world hidden in its guts, I shiver. The air here does not want me, does not want us. We have ripped the guts out of each other, we have grown so close; me and this strange land intertwined, connected by blood and flesh and guts and spit. One more night. One more strange sky, and I shall leave it all behind, bring this strange land’s guts and blood and sweat and spit back with me.

Dear Stranger,

Dawn. The night is over. I should board, should start the engine. Should begin the endless journey back. I should leave this strange and awful land and come back. I know I am the stranger here, I know I am alien beyond reckoning, i know I should come home. I shall board, I shall sleep, I shall wake confused, I shall land to cheers, I shall fall into the arms of a stranger, I shall spill the guts of a far and alien land, I shall lay that land open. I shall help to dissect it, to excise it, to remove the mystery and the awe. I shall make the land safe and homely, I shall set the plough to it. I shall kill, and break, and destroy it. Oh, Stranger, what would you do? Would you board, start, journey? Would you stay, and wander further, allowing the air to crush your lungs and steal your heart? Would you leave those back home to wonder? Oh, Stranger, what should I do?

KOL NIDRE - ALL VOWS

The prayer service on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, begins with a ‘pneuma’ or a soul-breath at the start of the recitation of Kol Nidre. It is indeed a breath-taking experience.

Kol Nidre is at base nothing more than a formulaic legal declaration which says that all vows between people and God are from this night until the next Yom Kippur, null and void. Vows between people remain intact. It contains no poetic language, no professions of faith. Despite this, it is one of the most stirring and emotional parts of the Yom Kippur service. Through almost a millenium of recitation it has taken on meaning far beyond its mere formula. It has become an opening of gates, an entrance into a space of quiet and calm.

Although I am atheist, Kol Nidre is one religious ritual that I partake in every year. I must hear the chant, the soul-breath, I must allow it to open a gate in my mind to reflection, meditation, thought. In the same way as a dry formula can take on an intense and exquisite meaning, so too can seemingly empty rituals become important – and often for reasons which have little to do with the rituals themselves. The prayers themselves may not stir me, I do not give obeisance to any god, but the Kol Nidre chant always makes me reflect on vows, on love and loss, and on restitution.

Kol Nidre is an absolution of vows between a person and God, and very importantly not an absolution of vows between one person and another. It is clearly stated in various learned commentaries that such intra-personal vows cannot be absolved until restitution is made between the individuals concerned. Immersed as I am at the moment in peace education, this need for restitution strikes a particular chord with me. So much of what I am doing here questions the idea of absolution, of amnesty and of how to gain reconciliation. I think that the need for restitution is vital if true and lasting reconciliation is to take place. Restitution can take myriad forms and I am deeply inspired at the moment by the efforts of the National Homecomers’ Academy to make restitution. The Homecomers are people returning from often very long stretches in prison who have decided that their incarceration was not true restitution. In an effort to rebuild their own sense of purpose and worth, they in turn help to build and repair the communities they once hurt. Through various programmes they have dedicated the rest of their lives to ensuring that their communities become whole, strong, and safe. I feel deeply privileged to have met some of these wonderful people who are striving for true goodness. They also display what in Judaism is called chesed (loving kindness) and in Christian traditions agape. This is a love which is based on kindness, on empathy, on unconditional acceptance. It is, I believe, an essential part of reconciliation. That people who have had such hard, breaking experiences can develop this chesed gives me such hope. I want to thank them. I thank you all for the chesed you displayed towards me and the wonderful work you are doing to help fix a broken world.

I take another soul-breath and turn my thoughts now to love and loss. I am privileged to have known and continue to know so many forms of love. Tonight, though, it is not the joyous love I think about, but love as it ties in to loss. I think about my father every day and most of those memories are delightful and funny. I have so much to thank my father for. On Kol Nidre night, I cry for the loss of my father. There are no words that can properly express the hole that has been left in the universe with his passing.

In pain there is also hope, out of harm can come love, out of ritual can come meaning. What a wonderful world we live in.