Eden, then five, sits pretty and pensive at our passover table.

This is the first time in eight years that we won’t be celebrating Pesach (Passover) with our community. Our dishes and haggadah (prayer books) have arrived, but we’ve yet to gather the kind of friends that would want to take part in a 4 hours meal with this electic goy girl. I’m treating my Passover jones by writing about how I got started celebrating with a Seder. You can find that story over in my weekly post at BlogHer. And here’s some pretty pictures, taken by my friend Emily Button, from our first Passover with Monkfish Abbey, back in 2004.

Anointing everyone at the table before going in to dinner.

On Passover, we eat reclining on a pillow to show that we are free. (Slaves weren’t allowed to eat reclining.)

A full glass is sign of joy. Here we diminish the wine in our glass to signify solidarity with those who suffer.

Paul serves up matzo ball soup to Catie. (3 yrs)

Eden in the role of fairy at the arboretum in 2006. Picture by MadGiddy.

There is a demonstration garden at the college of agriculture and veterinarian arts, which lies between our flat and the children’s school. I walk through it sometimes, on my way back, to escape the roar of the traffic on the morning-busy streets around our new home. The garden is moving towards its finest season, unfurling leaves and blooms.

There might be fairies here, I think, and thin spaces such as the Celt’s revere. A friend of mine, a full-blown adult, believes in fairies. She is not the type to wear caftans either, or to name her children ‘Willow.’ She’s actually an incredibly intelligent and well reasoned academic. She works with the poor all over the world, and struggles to find paths of escape for those caught in the throes of human trafficking. She is wise, my friend, and knows you cannot love reason too much and still nurture hope. And so, fairies. Why not? Why can’t the earth and her energy—the creative force of fern and flower, earth and air—why can’t these things sometimes appear to those with sighted eyes? Stranger things have happened.

At the very least, there is creative power in this place, so eagerly tended by students, their futures unfurling before their very eyes—all the possibilities of their own growth spilling out with earth and seed from their mulch-rubbed fingertips. All this cultivating. All this growth. It is the first thing we know of our parental divines: God Created. God creates. In this bright urban garden, with people barely out of their teens, that holy work continues.

I walk through the curving paths, trying out a new graveled walk or step-stone passage each time I visit. Today the garden leads me to Mallard couples, sleeping in loose pairs on the grass with their heads tucked under their wings. They look for all the world like croquet balls abandoned when the players were called away to tea. There is a pond here too, with a marsh tucked into one curve, and a lily pad farm in the other. As I walk along the curve of the pond, past low borders of bent-willow fencing and calla lilies as yellow as lemon tarts, I am greeted by a cherry tree which stretches wide where the pond path meets the trail to the gate. I pause there under her branches, the beautiful cherry, always our first hope of Spring. The air seems to hum with energy. Thin Spots. Fairydom. In a heartbeat she christens me, the cherry tree and her humming court. And then, with a slight reluctance, I move on, towards the traffic and city bustle, the chores and the normal—life beyond the narrow gate.

Just before I reach the street, there is a transitional space of sorts—the brick-paved expanse of the college drive which stretches wide between the garden and the roadway. There, I am greeted by the school’s fountain: five charcoal granite slabs slick in the sunlight. I hesitate a moment, feeling obvious and strange. Then I walk up the slick lower steps to the spring bubbling forth at the top, dip in my hand, touch my forehead, breastbone, the boney crest of each shoulder.

A baptism then, into the life of fairy and mallard, lily and tree.

For most posts about my sacred life click here, or become present to your own sacred life with Sacred Life Sunday. Thank you for being here!

How much time are we willing to spend debating right thinking at the expense of right living?

The last couple of years I’ve been captivated by the idea of orthopraxy as opposed to orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is the concept of ‘right thinking,’ or ‘right belief.’ In a system which requires orthodoxy, belonging requires one to believe a certain set of assertions. If one cannot ascribe to those beliefs, then membership in that system is denied, and one can no longer belong.

Orthopraxy on the other hand is the idea of having ‘right practice.’ Rather than requiring alignment to doctrinal assertions, an orthopraxy places the emphasis on living according to a certain collection of practices.

Karen Armstrong, an interfaith specialist who writes and teaches about Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, writes in her autobiography about her own realization that one could be a person of faith without holding orthodox beliefs.

As a part of her research work, Armstrong was introduced to Jewish scholar Hyam Maccoby, who introduced her to the idea that one could have a faith based upon right living rather than right belief. In fact, he told her, the idea that faith is primarily about right belief is largely a Christian phenomenon.

“It is easy to see that you were brought up Christian….Theology is just not important in Judaism, or in any other religion really. . … We have orthopraxy instead of orthodoxy…right practice rather than right belief. That’s all. You Christians make such a fuss about theology, but it’s not important in the way you think….We Jews don’t bother much about what we believe. We just do it instead.” The Spiral Staircase P. 235,236

This is probably an oversimplification, and certainly striving after right practice can easily become a legalistic lecture about ticking things off your holy checklist. Still, after a life time of worrying about my orthodoxy, it feels good to focus on how I’m living for awhile.

I’ve been especially inspired this week by soulful folks who have found small and beautiful ways to, as Maccoby says, “just do it” in the world. Each one is an example of an orthopraxy that reflects the beauty and creativity which lies at their spiritual cores.

Tess at Anchors and Masts is spreading the word about World Water Day and inspiring people to take simple, practical steps towards getting communities access to safe drinking water.

Over at Dahl Bat small-sized projects in literacy and fair trade in Kolkata, India.

Young Laura over at Twenty Five Days to Make a Difference has taken her values viral and has inspired kids and adults alike to do something proactive every month to make the world a better place.

And finally, in an act that hits close to home, a small group of Small is Beautiful bloggers are working together to do an on-line auction for sister-blogger Jenni Ballantyne of The Comfy Place. Jen is living her last days with fierce honesty as she looks at the end of line in her fight against colon cancer. To find out how you can help raise funds for her final treatment and for her son’s future, go over to Jena’s place at Bullseye Baby and do some orthopraxis of your very own.

Here’s to orthopraxis in all the best sense of the word. Shalom!

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