Impeded Streams

Many mornings when I awake, I have a song looping through my groggy noggin. Often, they carry a message for me. Sometimes, they are downright hilarious. Always, they are amusing or at the very least, grist for the wheels in my mind.

This morning I awoke to a current pop song by Julia Michaels looping endlessly in my head: I Got Issues. The part which was looping endlessly is:

"'Cause I got issues
But you got 'em too
So give 'em all to me
And I'll give mine to you
Bask in the glory
Of all our problems
'Cause we got the kind of love
It takes to solve 'em

Yeah, I got issues
And one of them is how bad I need you"

This song loop reminded me of one of my favorite Bastille songs, Flaws:

"When all of your flaws and all of my flaws are laid out one by one
A wonderful part of the mess that we made
We pick ourselves undone

All of your flaws and all of my flaws, they lie there hand in hand
Ones we've inherited, ones that we learn
They pass from man to man

There's a hole in my soul
I can't fill it, I can't fill it
There's a hole in my soul
Can you fill it? Can you fill it?

You have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve
And I have always buried them deep beneath the ground
Dig them up - let's finish what we started
Dig them up - so nothing's left unturned"

I admit to being highly amused by this time, what with these song loops circling the circuitry in my brain. It's an obvious message.

Then I opened a few emails, did a little research, and guess what I stumbled on next?

 "It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings."
Wendell Berry


I admit, I like this Wendell Berry quote quite a lot. I often feel that I am "too complicated" and that the people who love me most would like me much better if I could be "easier."

As Popeye said, "I Yam What I Yam."

As Wendell Berry says, we only get to the real work and the real journey when we hit the walls, and then find a way to keep going despite the complications. We embrace the hot mess and, like the impeded stream, keep singing our song. With Michaels, we embrace the fact that "I got issues." And with Bastille, we sing, "Dig them up, let's finish what we started. Dig them up, so nothing's left unturned." The most important part is that we share this work with others who love us without judgment or conditions. That is when we get to the real work at hand.

This is not the easiest task in the world. For me, as I articulated a few weeks ago in my post about my highest spiritual aspirations, it is the most important task of my life. And I am blessed in that G!d has given me some very loving, caring, supportive people who are also striving for their Highest and Best Self, and we only get there by facing the issues, digging through the muck and mire, and being on the wild ride of the impeded stream.

By now, I have come to the conclusion that the people who love me the most would not even be the same people if I were "easier," for I would not be who I am now. I'd be what I Y'Aint rather than what I Yam. 

At the end of the day, aren't we all impeded streams learning our songs as we rush the banks and snake our way around the boulders and upturned balls of massive tree roots? Maybe it's hard, but I wonder if it makes for a vastly more interesting journey than a placid lake as smooth as a mirror offering no resistance to the kayak. Placid certainly has its place, but if there were never any white water rapids, we might find it rather boring after a bit. 

This week, may we find our soul songs as we who are impeded streams sing our way through the challenges thrown at us at every bend. Let's finish what we started, no matter how challenging the journey may be. And, let's do it together, hand in hand, heart in heart, soul to soul.

Yasher koach for our work ahead.

(Yasher koach is an idiom usually spoken to someone who has just given a dvar or read Torah at service. While it basically means "Good job!", it carries with it the hope that this mitzvah will give you the strength to carry on to do more mitzvot. It's a thumbs up with a little sum'n sum'n more. It's usual response is "Baruch tihiye" which literally means "may you be blessed" or "blessed you will be". Which is a fancy way of saying back atcha.)