Stuff

[liv]

I wasn't visibly bisexual on the internet yesterday, and I didn't read any novels or tell the internet about them because it was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. So I was in synagogue all day, or more precisely, I was in the pulpit all day, and that is too much, one person should never do the whole of Yom Kippur single-handed, but anyway, I did it, and I still just about had a voice and the ability to stand by the end.

I've done that thing where I get out of the habit of posting, and I feel like I have to start again with something significant, indeed I have a couple of long thinky posts half composed in my head. But that always ends up just blocking me; it'll probably happen that something else will catch my attention and I'll never get round to posting the thinky stuff that's been in my mind lately.

I know I'm not the only one in this situation, so let me take the opportunity to start up a game that worked well in the past:

When you see this post, feel encouraged to post something in your journal. Short or long, trivial or profound, it doesn't matter, just something. And if you like, you can pass on the token by copying this notice at the bottom of your post.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

Great to hear from you. And congratulations on performing the service!

[liv]

Thank you! It's really encouraging to know that people still want to hear from me when I've been quiet lately. And I do feel pretty good about the service, I think.

[alexseanchai]

All day? I am impressed.

[liv]

Well, it's mostly a result of not entirely good circumstances and me being a sucker and not very good at delegating. But yeah, I was leading services from 7 to 8:30 Tuesday night, and from 10 am to 2:30 pm yesterday, then I did get a break in the afternoon, then I came back and lead the concluding part of the service from 6:30 to 8 pm. At which point we had to deal with someone wandering in off the street whose behaviour wasn't entirely socially appropriate, doing that delicate balance of wanting to be welcoming and inclusive and not ableist, but also worrying about safety issues. Which is hard at the best of times but particularly stressful when I had just come off a long, intense day and was ready to just collapse for the evening.

[alexseanchai]

Nod, yes. Still impressive that you made it through.

[liv]

Thanks for saying!

[davidgillon]

Ouch, that would be a long day just curled up working on your own, to do all that time standing in a pulpit, wow!

[liv]

Well, to be fair plenty of people have regular jobs that involve being on their feet for six hours with a break in the middle (or worse). It's hard to do it while also fasting and generally leading services is quite intellectually and emotionally intense. But it's mainly cos I normally have a nice cushy sedentary white collar job that I complain about this sort of thing.

I was thinking at some points during the day, I'll know I'm getting old when I physically can't stand for hours at a time, or even for the 40 minutes or so of a single block of prayers in the long services. But hopefully by the time that happens I won't be the only person around with the skills to lead services, and if not, I guess I'll set an example by sitting down to lead. I did a lot of reminding people that they have to work with the bodies they have and just because the prayer book says "stand" it doesn't mean they have to if that's painful, so when my spine and joints get too worn I'll be sure to model that.

[davidgillon]

Well, to be fair plenty of people have regular jobs that involve being on their feet for six hours with a break in the middle

True, but there's that extra performing element to leading a service, and six hours on stage is a lot!

if not, I guess I'll set an example by sitting down to lead.

Good plan. I mostly gave up on Mass, too much sitting on grossly inappropriate pews, but when I do go I sit even through the standing sections.

[liv]

Oh yeah, lots of churches have fixed pews, that's a problem I hadn't thought of. I mean, it's not unheard of for synagogues to have pews, but it's not as traditional. Old buildings in general are hard and expensive to adapt for disabled congregants, but if you can't even alter the seating, that's a challenge. It's a lot more than just attitude, but I'm trying to start from having a good attitude and check my assumptions about normative bodies.

[ewt]

Oddly I usually find chairs in churches much, much worse for my joints than pews. When there are chairs I end up standing longer because sitting hurts more.

Several bits of the rubrics at St Andrew's say things like "we sit, stand or kneel for the prayers" which is helpful.

[davidgillon]

My parish church up in Durham puts bucket seats down the side of the aisles, which at least gives some variation, but they're not ideal for me either. Of course I'm something of a worst case where seating goes.

And a good attitude goes a long way. If nothing else it's a sound foundation to build on.

[lomedet]

*fist-bump of solo-leading YK solidarity* This morning, there is not enough coffee in the world.

And thank you for the encouragement to post in my own (sadly-neglected) journal! I will take you up on it as soon as I get back from the fellowship interview I foolishly scheduled for today.

[liv]

Wow, that's not a type of solidarity I expected, I really didn't think anyone else was fool enough / desperate enough to do it solo. Thank you, that strangely does make me feel better. And I hope the fellowship interview goes well; I'm lucky that I just have a day of low-brain admin to deal with, and even that feels like too much.

[seekingferret]

Solo leading Yom Kippur services? You have my admiration and sympathy. Me, I just put my Yom Kippur on difficult mode by walking 7 miles over the course of the holiday.

[liv]

Yes well. Thank you for admiring me instead of telling me I'm an idiot. I did have a little bit of help, a very experienced and good gabbai, and a congregant sang the actual Kol Nidrei prayer for me. But yes, five services and two sermons and three Torah readings (ok, one's tiny) and answering everybody's theological questions and Yizkor and the High Priest's psychodrama bit.

I am not too too bothered by transport on shabbat, but in an ideal world I'd definitely like to walk at least for YK. I'm about 2½ miles from shul though, so it wasn't plausible given I was also ש''ץ

Anyway, I hope your day was everything YK should be.

[ceb]

Oof! That sounds like hard work.

[liv]

Preeeeeetty much, yeah. I know lots of other people (eg retail workers!) are regularly on their feet doing emotional and physical work all day, but it's hard going for me, especially when I'm fully fasting.

[angelofthenorth]

Cuddles. Sounds exhausting - I thought the rites of good Friday were hard enough. Much love and sympathy and admiration.

[liv]

Thank you so much! It really means a lot that you have such a good understanding what's involved in doing big emotional services like this.

[jesse_the_k]

Congrats from a reprobate Jew who's never been inside a temple on Yom Kippur, but admires your stamina anyway. And thanks for the prompt.

Shorter is better than none, and any response is better than silence.

[liv]

Aw, icon love, and thank you for the kind comment! I definitely think it was a good thing the last time a meme like this went round, just post something, it's better than silence. And it's a positive feedback mechanism because the more posts there are the more lively your little neighbourhood of DW feels.

I am a very synagogue focused person, but I do feel like if you're going to attend rarely Yom Kippur is really the wrong service to pick. So good for you not giving in to pressure to turn up on the Big Day.

[silveradept]

Congratulations on surviving the long session of prayer.

It being a day of atonement, is there a proper saying or blessing for the day / year upcoming, something like "May The Being Represented By The Tetragrammaton find your sacrifices sufficient to grant forgiveness"?

[liv]

Thank you! I love your imagination of what the blessing might be. We tend to be quite shy of saying anything that directly theological, but the sentiment is not far off. People wish "a good conclusion and a good seal", which refers to the metaphor of the Book of Life, the idea being that the names of the forgiven are written in a book which is then sealed at the end of the festival.

[silveradept]

Ah. When your background is Christian and your culture saturated with it, the directly theological tends toward the default for blessings and curses.

A good conclusion and a good seal, then.

[sfred]

I like reading your posts whatever their weight.

Well done on the all-day service: that sounds exhausting.

[liv]

Thank you so much, that's a really heartening compliment. I was indeed pretty exhausted on Wednesday, but as ever I'm glad I was in fact able to do this for the community.

[ewt]

Well done on service-leading. I think I did something like 9 hours of playing and 4 hours of cantoring plainchant during the hymnathon, but I wasn't fasting or preaching!