my wailing wall

A couple of weeks ago over lunch, my friend Sherry and I spoke of the things that we grieve in life. I have a creative career that includes lots and lots of music. She has a husband ("the man of all men," she calls him) and three small, energetic, intelligent children. We marvel at one another ... and often long for each other's lives. I told her that not having children is my chronic grief: my wailing wall.

My wailing wall.

Time held its breath and suddenly everything made sense. We agreed that I needed to explore this on my writing retreat.

The first few days were consumed with preparing for studio recording. Then I had a sore throat on recording day and the exertion completely did me in for the last day and a half of retreat, so the new song, "My Wailing Wall," was begun but not even half finished.

Even so, I did a lot of thinking and research about the wailing wall, reading from several angles, especially the Western Wall in Israel and May's wall in The Secret Life of Bees. I dabbled in some musical ideas and even started a different song about Hannah, Samuel's mother. But a song called "My Wailing Wall" was not ready to emerge.

Then something happened a few days later that felt like a crisis, and I spent a full morning anxious and agonizing over many and varied things and pouring it onto several pages in my journal. It was cathartic. It was a form of praying. It sent me to that emotional "wailing wall" that I hadn't been able--or willing--to visit on the retreat.

Today I was aching over that same thing and I heard the Lord whisper, "I want you," but it seemed small comfort at the time.

This evening I turned on my computer, noticed the wailing wall picture on the desktop background, and suddenly understood something else about the wailing wall: it's a place to lean on.

I can just lay my cheek against its cold, rough firmness and rest in knowing that this is a holy place.

Over and over I revisit my aching and grieving. This is my wailing wall. It is a holy place.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is thought by Jews to be the most sacred of places, because the temple itself was thought to be the place where God resides on earth. Praying at the Wailing Wall signifies being in the presence of the Divine. Jews from all countries, and as well as tourists of other religious backgrounds, come to pray at the wall, where it is said one immediately has the “ear of god.” Those who cannot pray at the wall can send prayers or ask for the Kaddish to be said for departed loved ones. Prayers sent in are placed into the cracks of the walls and are called tzetzels. (What is the Wailing Wall?)

North of “Barclay’s Gate” is the well-known Wailing-place of the Jews, a small paved area in front of a portion of the retaining wall which is supposed by some writers to be the nearest point, without the enclosure, to the position of the “Holy of Holies.” (The Wailing-Place of the Jews)