in trying to accept Yom Kippur as meaningful (there are a lot of ways I could see the holiday as exactly the WORST parts of my issues, and I used to; I'm never exactly going to LOVE this holiday, it's not easy and it's not supposed to be, but I don't want to resent and hate it anymore) I've started seeing it as essentially forward looking.

ANY coming year is full of challenges and here facing them involves accepting my failings (lojong slogan "Drive all faults into one"), accepting or trying to remember connection to a larger world beyond getting caught up in my immediate experiences, and that part of the larger world is that people have a lot more going on than just the part I immediately see and judge. I can think of a fair number of places where I run right up against irritation, fear, fatigue and self hate on the regular, places where I could go reeling off into all kinds of mara.

However the year I'm about to go into is full of big places where I could be upset, and where I can be (and at some point WILL likely be) profoundly hurtful, thanks to a contentious election which yes, involves trying to most compassionately react to people I hate saying and doing things I hate (it's going to be difficult no matter who wins, since that's "trying to retain some sense of compassion while desperately scared" - it's just how the desperately scared aspect plays out); a horrifying war where it would be very easy to dismiss actual peoples' pain, grief and needs through taking a side (and I really worry about my gut level reaction to folks here); and on a far more personal level, my mother's declining health and my father's related role as caretaking making both of them simultaneously more difficult to be with and more VITAL to be with them.

Let's be careful out there.