Good morning America,

Yes. It is still a good morning. We’ve got work to do. Head high.

The system, while flawed, is working. The people’s voices are heard and we are a hybrid of many voices, and our questions and perspectives on how to live this life with value and validation are numerous as well. It’s real.

We have work to do, continued labor of love to move the needle higher up, inch by inch, towards justice, opportunity, dignity and freedom for all.

We urge our leaders to keep honoring every voice and count every. single. vote. 

Today I want to take a moment to reground myself and hopefully help you, our beloved Lab/Shul community find comfort and ways to keep on rising, with our four-step formula of daily presence: Thanks. Wow. Oops. Please.

Thanks:

This morning I am deeply grateful to the years of hard work that got us to this moment, and the years and tears yet to come. Every poll worker and vote-counter, GOTV volunteer and public official, every single voter. This labor of love of so many of us keeps birthing the reality we long for towards the righteous goals we so deeply deserve and desire: Human dignity and political progress co-created with fear-less activism for racial justice, for a healthy earth, for equal rights and for the protection of the most vulnerable among us, for living up to our sacred intentions and deepest truths.

I am grateful to N. for her tears yesterday: A mother of two, nurse in VA hospital, African American woman in her 50’s who showed up at one of the polls in NorthWest Philly where I was on hand to support voters as part of a national effort to defend elections if needed. N. and I got to talking about our hopes, and kids, and that night in 2008 when she woke up her two young boys and said to them – we did it. You have a chance now. And now, she started weeping. And we hugged for a long time. And then we prayed together because I had this ‘clergy’ hat on and she assumed that I was Christian and it did not matter that she prayed to Jesus – from the bottom of our hearts we prayed together to the spirit of all that’s good in the world for her boys to be safe and for my kids to grow up in a better world where none of us are harmed for who we are and all of our future flourish.

Thank you for enduring hope and effort.

Wow.

The Tree – an oak, on the street corner near the church where polls closed at 8pm and the preacher and the band were playing loud and lovely – the tree called me over and we hugged. I know. But this was not an ordinary tree. This was a tree that reminded me of what had happened four years ago on election night when I was in the backyard of a house in Columbus Ohio, after days of canvassing and now in despair as the screens went red. There was a giant Ash tree there and as I looked up into the branches the tree spoke to me and said – I have been here for a long long time, my roots are deep and my branches go higher than you can imagine – you too are a tree, so ground deep, reach high, hold on to each other as the storms are coming, and do not lose faith.

Last night the tree reminded me to hold on, deep and high, the tree of life and wisdom, long view, progress in tree years, the promise of the earth.

I woke up with Psalm 1 in my heart: 

Bless you, people, you who do not follow the advise of the wicked, avoid the path of transgression and do not sit with the cynics. You are the ones who follow the wisdom of love, dedicated, day and night, to the teaching of justice. Be like a tree, rooted in deep waters, with fruit ripe on time, leaves vibrant and strong, thriving all the way. 

Wow. to the trees that remind us to be rooted, grounded, strong.

OOPS

We are not going to solve systemic racism and all the ills of our society with good will alone and motivation. These past four year have taught us how deep the divide and how much patriarchy has to lose as it fights for retaining its hold on our lives and legacy of love and justice for all.

This is not a one time presidency but a lifetime of choices that we have to spend a lifetime to fix. With respect to all other opinions and reverence to all beings and voices, we own our human error, each of us our own, reflected in the greater reality and political map and commit ourselves, as we do on Yom Kippur – SHUVU – it’s on us to keep on rise, reckon and reset.

This dance is far from over. Long view is the way to go. 

Please

Do not lose hope or steam. We have a lot of wins to celebrate as humans, people, freedom fighters committed to anti-racism, deep healing, future guided by faith in the best outcome.

Please come showing up. Today. Tomorrow. Always. Small circles of care are the way to cultivate a community committed to compassion, mobilized by moral responsibility, dedicated to deconstructing the systemic wrongs committed in our name and reconstructing the social fabric of our lives we all so deeply long for. Friends – again, and truly, it’s on us. Show up. We’ll do this together – all faiths, races, genders, ages – all of us together, united by love of life. 

Lab/Shul is one small circle among so many overlapping ones focused on fueling our soul, accessing wisdom and creating ways to be together. We are excited to keep on being here, day after day, like the proud trees we are, ancient, and present, and reaching the future with hearts open wide.

Yesterday in Philly we kept wishing each other – let this be a boring day. And it was – no violence, no need for de-escalation. Just presence in the presence of the infinite reminder to love each other as we love ourselves in the most radical way and to show up.

Let’s keep on doing this. Let these days ahead be not boring exactly but not violent or hurtful. Let the rage channel into activist spirit of protest for progress, let’s protect each other, and let’s rise for the future that we long for and demand. We’ve got this. It’s on us.

Let’s reach out to each other today, and tomorrow, and in the days ahead with tender, love and care. 

May there be healing to all, and here’s to hope.
Amichai