The Liturgist

The liturgist sighed, looking out at the abandoned field. He sat, feet in the tan, dry dirt, more rocks than nutrients between his toes. Empty. Looking around, he saw his cousin, widdling into some olive wood to pass the time, desperate to provide some product of value so that his family wouldn’t starve. Food had been getting more and more expensive now, as there was so little of it.

The liturgist faced the field again, fighting back tears. He thought of his mother. He knew it wasn’t helpful, but it felt as though he couldn’t help it. She had been confined to bed for almost two weeks now; her body unable to handle famine. She has a graceful spirit, and thanks God for her “mandatory Sabbath.” This liturgist held within himself a fearful spirit, and did not want to lose his mother in this way. This isolation and fragility were too unnatural.

He shivered a little as a cool breeze interrupted his autumn musings. This harvest season was ending, and it had never even begun. They should all be tired from work, from moving soil and gathering grains; their bodies should be exhausted from grinding and cooking and wrapping up the season, not from the anguish of unexpected ceasing. “Our minds and spirits are not meant to be more tired than our bodies,” he thought, “This is not balance, and, no, mother, this is not Sabbath.”

“Our minds and spirits are not meant to be more tired than our bodies,”

This week, the family would be building their tents in the fields for Sukkot to celebrate the last week of a good harvest. He laughed bitterly. “Season of our joy” indeed. “How on earth was he going to inspire the community to raise a Hallelujah in the temple this week? And pray the Hallelujah Psalms, like Psalm 116? Thanksgiving for deliverance from illness?” He thought of his mother again.

Yom Kippur had been easy. Even quite meaningful. Their whole community was forced in the absence of security and comforts to really focus on God and right-relationship with their Creator; to reflect on all God provides for them, to atone for their sins, their broken relationships with both God and each other. The liturgist himself felt in the past few weeks how sacrifice was able to help him recenter around the Creator of the harvest, not just the harvest itself; to honor Creator as much as he so naturally appreciated creation. 

"The fasting was supposed to cease."

But now, Yom Kippur was over and done with. The fasting was supposed to cease. The time of atonement for the annual spiritual journey of his community was over, and it was his job to lead them into Sukkot, “the season of our joy.” And yet. . .

Can his community, like the psalmist, walk before the Lord in the land of the living? The psalmist did not utter such words of hope until after he was healed and saved. In his distress, he dwelled on his suffering “I am greatly afflicted!” the psalmist said. He was bitter, accusing others of being a liar. What were those others saying to him? Words of hope, perhaps, that he could not hear at the time?

If the holy psalmist could not proclaim hope during his suffering, what is this that God asks of me and my people now? Are we to say “Hallelujah!” and look up into God’s light as it shines into our tents? Are we to pitch our tents of joy in the middle of the barren waste-land that is our fields?

“Yes,” came the response. “Yes, please. Pitch your tents still, please. Make space in the roofs of your tents to let the light in. Walk in the land of the living. Say how your Creator is merciful, compassionate, bountiful, even if others call you a liar. Even as you call yourself a liar.”

The liturgist took a deep breath. He felt the oxygen awaken his mind. He took another breath, sent the oxygen to his shoulders, and woke them up. He took another breath. He sent the breath to his eyes, and found that he could see farther than the barren field, towards his neighbor’s family. He took another breath, and he directed God’s spirit towards his hands. He began to find it funny how he had been breathing this whole time and hadn’t even felt it.

"he could see farther than the barren field"

His fingers moved a little, the Holy Spirit that lives in the temple empowered the sanctuary that is his body. One more inhale, and the spirit moved his hands together in prayer. And he prayed the Hallelujah Psalms. And he prayed the Psalms in the temple. And all the people did what the psalmist could not. That, while even in the midst of their anguish, they shared hope and praise with one another. Sometimes they called each other liars. Sometimes they called themselves liars. But God’s spirit remained as constant as their breath.