Greet Yourself

Greet Yourself

 

Dear Brandeis community,

 

I have shared with you before our practice at leadership team meetings of “crossing the threshold,” or offering some text or idea to help the team transition from our many individual concerns to a shared space of collective thinking. It was my turn this week, and I went with Derek Walcott, who I wrote about last week in the wake of his passing, but a different poem this time, called “Love After Love”:

 

The time will come 
when, with elation 
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror 
and each will smile at the other's welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 
for another, who knows you by heart. 
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 
peel your own image from the mirror. 
Sit. Feast on your life. 

 

It is a heart-rending and beautiful poem, and more so in the poet’s own voice (which is how we listened to it as a team)—you can find a video here of him reading it, as the trailer for a documentary that was made about his life. I know I share a great many links in these words of the week, but I want to stop, and really encourage you to click that link and listen to the poet himself, see his St. Lucia, hear how the cadences of his English deepen and enrich those lines.

 

And while you all know I love poetry for poetry’s sake, I chose this particular poem for a reason. I love the image of encountering one’s self anew—in this case after love lost, one presumes, but it needn’t only be then. In Jewish tradition, one way of understanding Shabbat is that we stop each week, pause, take a rest from our hectic lives. Another way of understanding Shabbat is that we welcome a second soul into ours for those 24 hours, and so see the world through different eyes, both as Shabbat arrives and departs, and in its wake. Either understanding, however, speaks to the importance of reflective practice to Judaism as such, baked into the rhythms of our weekly lives.

 

This week, we find ourselves amidst a series of reflective practices as a school. Today and tomorrow parents and teachers and students are gathering to think back on how the year has been going, what learning and thinking has taken place, and what growth is ahead. Just yesterday we had our accreditation visiting committee share their report with our gathered faculty, staff, and board, and they reminded us to stop and appreciate how far we’ve come. The committee chair, in a very complimentary and positive report, said they were surprised and amazed at how well the school had navigated the many transitions (split, name change, new mission, new branding, new head of school, new leadership, etc.) of these past years, and that we have done so is a testament to the strength of our community and partnerships. (As one committee member said, “Dayenu!” Even one of the big changes would have been enough, yet we moved through them all, going from strength to strength, and continuing to reflect and grow.) And next week we’ll gather at our annual town hall and state-of-the-school presentation, to continue the ongoing work of reflecting, sharing, and growing (so please remember to send your questions to townhall@sfbrandeis.org!).

 

It is hard, in this world of appearances, to take the time to greet ourselves, and see ourselves anew. I am grateful to be in a community that values that hard work, and encourages it in ourselves, our students, and each other.

 

Wishing you all weekends full of feasting on your lives, my friends.

 

Warmly,

 

Dan