L'Shana Tova

A friend shared this reflection tool and I found it too beautiful and thought-provoking not to share.

From: Levy, R.D. (Ed.) (1985). On Wings of Awe: A Machzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Hillel Foundations. pp. 104-106.

The day has come

To take an accounting of my life.

Have I dreamed of late

Of the person I want to be,

Of the changes I would make

In my daily habits,

In the way I am with others,

In the friendship I show companions,

Woman friends, man friends, my partner,

In the regard I show my father and mother,

Who brought me out of childhood?

I have remained enchained too often to less than what I am.

But the day has come to take an accounting of my life.

Have I renewed of late

My vision of the world I want to live in,

Of the changes I would make

In the way my friends are with each other

In the way we find out whom we love

The way we grow to educated people

The way in which the many kinds of needy people

Grope their way to justice?

I, who am my own kind of needy person, have been afraid of visions.

But the day has come to take accounting of my life.

Have I faced up of late

To the needs I really have –

Not for the comforts which shelter my unsureness

Not for honors which paper over my (really tawdry) self,

Not for handsome beauty in which my weakness masquerades,

Not for unattractiveness in which my strengths hide out –

I need to be loved.

Do I deserve to be?

I need to love another.

Can I commit my love?

Perhaps its object will be less than my visions

(And then I would be less)

Perhaps I am not brave enough

To find new vision

Through a real and breathing person.

I need to come in touch with my own power,

Not with titles,

Not possessions, money, high praise,

But with the power that it is mine

As a child of the Power that is the universe

To be a comfort, a source of honor,

Handsome and beautiful from the moment I awoke this morning

So strong

That I can risk the love of someone else

So sure

That I can risk to change the world

And know that even if it all comes crashing down

I shall survive it all—

Saddened a bit, shaken perhaps,

Not unvisited by tears

But my dreams shall not crash down

My visions not go glimmering.

So long as I have breath

I know I have the strength

To transform what I can be

To what I am.

The day has come

To take an accounting of my life.