And you shall be holy, because I am holy.
And the laundry list of obligations begins.
Fear your mother and father.
I wish I’d learned about this earlier.
I was never afraid of my parents
although one of them is much taller than me.
He travels undefeated in every circle.
It would be reasonable to be cautious but
instead we developed a camaraderie.
I’m teaching my son the same.
And you shall be holy, because I am holy.
I’d say I wish there was an instruction manual
but this is the instruction manual.
You shall not collect the fallen individual grapes
of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor.
And I wonder if the old possum who’s lived here
longer than us counts as the poor. I caught him
in our almond tree and soon there were no almonds.
We haven’t seen peaches grow to their fruition in years.
Meanwhile the homeless build camps under
freeway overpasses blocks away, and our
neighborhood gathers their pitchforks.
Why is the animal innocent and the human
animal a scourge?
And you shall be holy, because I am holy.
This is the citizenship test of mother earth.
When you plant a tree, you shall not
eat its fruit for three years.
I wish they’d told me this when we planted our
pomegranate tree a few months ago.
We expected to be counting the seeds for
the new year, but now our son will have met
double digits before that sweetness meets our tongues.
We’re not sure why they planted a dwarf sized tree either.
But it is in the ground now and this is a lifelong commitment.
And you shall be holy because I am holy.
This whole thing is a lifelong commitment.
You shall observe My Sabbath.
This isn’t the first time this has been mentioned
and, I’ve read ahead, it won’t be the last.
Six days is pretty impressive to make a world
and in the end it wasn’t us who did the work.
So out of deference to the enormity of the project
take a break. This is the ultimate Miller Time.
Or whatever craft brew you prefer. Or maybe
you’re an abstainer. That’s the point, abstain,
at least for a day, at least every week.
And you shall be holy, because I am holy.
This is the stuff that puts marrow in your bones.
