Michelle Friedman - God in All Worlds: A Journey to Light

GOD IN ALL WORLDS

A Journey to Light

Michelle Friedman

Thank you
Adonai Eloheynu
for not making me a man
but a woman with three names:

Michelle Friedman
Sister Michelle
and
Michal Ish-Shalom.

Theres a crack in everything,
thats where the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen

To the Crack and the Light
in each of us.

Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not.

Thou hast given me seats in homes not my own.

Thou hast brought the distant near and made a brother of the stranger.

I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave my accustomed shelter;

I forget that there abides the old in the new, and that there also thou abides.

Through birth and death, in this world or in others, wherever thou leadest me it is thou, the same, the one companion of my endless life who ever linkest my heart with bonds of joy to the unfamiliar.

When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. Oh grant me my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the touch of the one in the play of the many.

Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore

Poem 63

Contents

My heart is hammering in my chest and my palms are sweating as I wait for my chance to gaze into the eyes of Padre Pio, a Capuchin monk whose hands, feet and side are pierced like the wounds of Jesus when he was nailed to the cross and a spear thrust in his side. I believe he is the holiest man on earth, living proof of the crucifixion. As a Catholic child, Jesus was all I had, but I lost him at the age of twelve when I was converted to Judaism in Johannesburg, South Africa.

That wasnt all I lost, I realize, as I stand here in this hot room in a tiny village in Foggia, Italy. I lost an identity, a sense of belonging and I lost my mother. Closing my eyes to ease the smarting of grief from still missing her, I drift back in time.

Im a child of eight, living in Dudley, England and my mother is dragging me through the snow as were late for Mass. Entering the church, I hear singing and smell incense. Standing in the pew I sway to the intoning of the priest clad in white, red and gold. He looks like a girl. I hear murmurs of response from the congregation as we sit, stand and kneel. My mothers body is warm alongside mine. This is the one thing we do together we go to Mass. I feel its the only time I mean something to her. She buries her head in her hands and I copy her, breathing heavily into my palms. She leaves me to go up to the altar and I follow. She opens her mouth for the priest to place what seems like a piece of round paper on her tongue. He gives me one too. What is it? I look quizzically at my mother.

Its Jesus, she whispers, nudging me back to the pew. I munch on the paper.

The dryness in my mouth in this windowless room rekindles my thirst for her love. How beautiful she was! On stage, with her auburn hair, sea-green eyes and curvaceous body, she soaked up the attention of the audience. And her soprano voice! How many times I watched, idolizing her from the wings as she sang in her fluent Italian: Un bel giorno si notera, un filo bifumo derivante, sul mare, nel lontano orizzonte, e poi la nave appare from the opera, Madame Butterfly.

One day she went away, and I turned to Jesus for love. Mass became my refuge from the craziness of life. It followed a pattern I could bank on; it had a beginning, a middle and an end. The wafer I was offered no longer seemed like a piece of paper; it was Jesus to me. Id sit and tell him everything and he never contradicted me, hed never tell me Im wrong or bad. He just listened until I felt warm again. But then my parents divorced and I lost Jesus too.

We pilgrims cluster in the shape of a crescent, curving from the sacristy door to the confessional, praying as we wait for Padre Pio. I imagine he must be removing his priestly garments now that Mass is over, and replacing them with a simple friars cassock. Hell shuffle painfully across the floor, stopping for each one of us until he reaches the small wooden, arched door of his confessional. And there hell remain all day, listening to repentant Catholics admitting to thousands of sins committed in the past. On hearing about him before I came, I learnt that for every one of us in this line holding our breath, hoping our secret desires will be met and our burning problems be solved, our encounter with the holy man will be distinctly individual. Therefore, it isnt strange that the distance between these two doors maybe fifty steps are the most coveted in San Giovanni Rotondo. Its time. Just after 8 a.m.

In this small room, hot with body heat, my eyes search for a window. Its stuffy, with the smell of drenched clothing and small cakes of muddied snow melting from our shoes. After removing my soaked leather gloves and pushing them into my coat pockets, I pull my scarf away from the heat of my breath. Glancing at the faces of my fellow-pilgrims, I wonder what brings them here. Perhaps their marriage is failing or they are terminally ill? Either a loss of some nature draws us together or maybe its simply this same love for Jesus thats brought them, from all over the world, to be blessed by the sacred hands of a man who embodies Christ a living miracle.

I scan my memory for what might have been the root of my longing. Im six years old on a flight to London, lying on a bunk in a section set aside for air hostesses. I miss my sister, Moonyeenn. Where is she? Im told that were going to our mother. Peering through the small window, I search for light in the deep, black night as I feel my heart beat with anxiety, wishing for a hand to hold. Who am I? I ask myself, closing my eyes tightly. I grasp this sense of self like a steel rod and repeat the letter I over and over again as if it holds the answer. Plunged into the unknown, I imagine myself dying, anticipating the brick wall that ends it all. I cant find it. Oh no, I go on forever! No matter how vigorously I try to wriggle out of my skin, I still exist. Theres no escape. Was it this terrifying experience of existentialism that catapulted me towards God? Or was it sheer loneliness?

I wonder if Moonyeenn ever felt as lonely as I did. As far as I can remember, we were always waiting for the skies to clear so wed be saved. Life was too fast for friendships. Wed barely arrive at a school in London when wed be saying goodbye to friends wed hurriedly made.

How I wish she were with me now. I feel a lump forming in my throat. My only sister, and weve drifted apart!

Dear God, what would my Jewish father do if he could see me now? Just the thought of my dad conjures up a vision of the three rabbis dressed in long black coats, who converted me to Judaism six years ago in 1957 when I was fifteen years old. I can see them shaking their heads at me in disbelief crying, Bist Meshugeh! In my mind Im defending myself. Jesus was a Jew! I cry. It was you, Rebbe Yonathan, who taught me Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheynu, Adonai Echad. Theres only one God; its just that Im not sure what name he goes by now!

The rabbis step back, shocked, and disappear.

I may have been converted, I tell myself, but the longing for Jesus still aches inside me. Its the same yearning I felt in the empty chapels of the small towns I passed through in South Africa last year after my BA degree, and as a member of a childrens theatre group. Into a back pew Id slide, soaking up the silence, staring at the crucifix, hoping to hear God, wishing to feel Him. It was just after that tour when Gladys, my mothers friend, sensing my hunger for something more than I could comprehend, gave me a book on Padre Pio. I felt compelled to read it. Once opened, it wasnt closed until every word had run through my body like a forest fire. Yes! I decided immediately. Here is a priest whos drenched in God and Im going to meet him! A wave of gratitude swells my heart for, already, God is answering my prayer.