I’ve been thinking a lot about creativity lately. As I try to find an agent for my novel (so far some nibbles but no bites) and find new homes for my ceramic sculptures (giving them away to democratic canvassers and GOTV postcard writers seems to work pretty well), I’ve been reflecting on my identity as an artist and the role of making things. I love to cook, to crochet, to sculpt, to write. (When I let myself get pulled in by “Reels” on Facebook lately, it’s cake decorating, though I’ve never been drawn to this IRL).
While my belief in “God” is iffy, and is nothing like what I was raised with, I do find it meaningful to reconstruct and renew Judaic practices and teachings. I thankfully wasn’t taught to believe in “original sin” in the Christian sense. I was taught that all humans were made “in the image of God,” and have come to feel that one meaning of this is that we, too, are capable of creating. Mostly I’ve seen that as a positive – art, music, poetry, culinary delights, GOTV postcards.
Clearly, though, we are also capable of creating new ways to commit atrocities. When I heard about the pagers exploding in Lebanon, I was immediately horrified, in a way that reminded me of the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers. In its stunning originality, this tactic shocked as well as killed, and created a new era of fear, TSA, Homeland Security, removing shoes in airports, etc. My gut says this week’s Israeli war crimes will have a similar effect on our societies.
It particularly hit me Thursday morning while Don and I were doing our twice-weekly Jewish prayer service. He played for me this beautiful original 2017 recording of Chava Mirel’s setting for the prayer Achat Sha’alti. (“One thing I ask of God, for this do I yearn: to dwell in the house of God all the days of my life, to see the goodness of God and to visit God’s sanctuary.” Mirel is sitting alone in a car, at night, by the side of a road, with her guitar, apparently singing to her phone on her dashboard. It is exquisite, and to my 2024 ears, devastatingly innocent — of both fear and of culpability. I’ve recently started writing Haiku again so here’s one on this experience:
voices lift in song
sunlight gilds our davvening
while pagers explode
One thing I ask is that we each do everything in our power, with all our intelligence, love, compassion, and creativity, to turn this ship in a better direction. If you’re in Madison and want to join me for one of the last two days of Postcards + Ceramics for Democracy today or tomorrow, please do! Thanks to Ann Bell for organizing the art-making and for the photo, and to all the artists and people with legible handwriting who are showing up!
Thank you, Becca, for bringing the contradictions into close proximity, bound with Haiku. Love you!
Reading this with tears in my heart and my eyes. The holidays are almost here. We pray to be written in the book of life. How can this possibly mean “us” and not “you?”
Love to you.
Such a poignant poem. It resonates that we are made in the image of the Creator, who also is capable of destroying. Yes to being aware of our power and to use it with wisdom and love to the best of our capacity. May we do so with the biggest, widest sense of “identity” — with a sense of how we are all part of the interconnected whole. No one exists separate from the rest of creation, even though it can sometimes feel like it.