For the Eyes and Ears of the Gods

A thought of the day in (exactly) 100 words

The Parthenon by Sanford Robinson Gifford, 1869

Yesterday, a wonderful melody floated through while I was praying.

This happens now and then, and when it does, I often feel a kind of grasping arising in me.

I want to “keep” that melody – for a song I may someday write.

Usually the urge is so strong,

I get my phone and record it

(which feels like a capitulation,

because then my prayer practice has been instrumentalized).

So yesterday, I tried trust instead.

I let the melody go.

Maybe, like the delicate engravings on the roof of the Parthenon,

this one was sky-facing –

meant only for the gods.

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Friends, my new book, The Secret Despair of the Secular Left, is now out and about in the world — available for your reading pleasure. You can order it through your favorite local bookstore or get it online in the usual places. For a little more about it (and me), here’s a recent article/ interview in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA). The journalist, Andrew Silow-Carroll, did a really lovely job and it was an honor to talk with him.