The Cost of My Oil
Meditations on the Price of our Presence
For the last four months I have been attending my first year of Divinity School. I have met gorgeous souls, warm and soft and wise. I have had wonderful conversations, sat in nourishing classrooms, and had my mind enriched profoundly in this short time. It has and continues to be a gift.
And still, there is a melancholy that follows me around. It returns most clearly at night. I am familiar with it, as it has been my companion for much of my life. In meditation, I return to the morning I was interviewed for the program. That day, I spent the morning listening to a song from my childhood — Cece Winan’s “Alabaster Box”. I entered the meeting, with my camera positioned away from the mess of my apartment. The truth of me, always covered.
I remember crying much of the morning, and feeling this rage with G-d. That after everything, I am still offering. Still holding onto Her. And that rage always softens into grief, and then the grief parts, and I return to Love.
During orientation, we were asked the question “who are you bringing with you?” to HDS. My immediate answer brought shame, but as I return to it months later, I hear a deep truth. A yearning. A rumbling, I have spent much of the last few months covering. My answer was “myself”. I am here, for many reasons, and one that is essential is myself.
My alabaster box overflows.
And I paid for every drop.
And I want to offer every drop.
Within it, twenty-six years of life in this body. And I am here, to remind myself and others, of the deep holiness we offer. The holiness that springs up from where we are told it is not. It is there, where the Presence most profoundly dwells.
I have found myself at tension and odds with the experience of Divinity School at times, because this space — historically and inherently — can be/ is not a place for myself. I find myself overcome by the magnitude of my life at times. This is not to say I have had it the worst, merely to honor this feeling of disillusionment I find myself experiencing. I merely want to say, and claim, and hold — I am a miracle.
The reasons why I know this, are not for sale. Are not to be bartered with and weighed. Measured against what is deemed worthy. I merely need to know it, claim it, and hold it. I am not a citation of evidence, I am walking liberation.
I am a miracle. And so are You.
I love you. Thank you for being here.
