Counting our days
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Posted by Katrien Vander Straeten Apr 11, 2007 |
I have always been interested in counting. You just have to be excited by it!
For instance, counting your blessings, eager count downs to special events - the coming of Sinterklaas, a highly anticipated visit from friends and family, the launch of a space shuttle, the exact second of the New Year...
My 19-month-old has started counting. She has known the numbers, from 1 to 10, in three languages, for a while now, but until now they were mere sounds. Even when she "counted" the five fingers of a hand correctly, some more prodding revealed it was from memory, not from understanding. Now, however, she is counting: one - two - three (then: four - four - four). You can see the excitement in her eyes, no doubt mirroring my own.
The Jewish people have always struck me as people who value the count: they often organize the world - natural, supernatural - in terms of orders and numbers. Imagine my joy when I discovered that they devote an entire "literugical season" to counting.
They "count the Omer": a 49-day period from the second day of Pesach to the festival of Shavuot. Every evening on those days they recite, out loud, solemnly, in Hebrew and using a precise formulation, the day and the week of the Omer.
I wrote two articles about this here:
I think we should all spend some time, at some point in the day, every day, counting. We could count the days of the New Year as it gradually grows old, the weeks we have spend with our loved ones, the years we have lived this life here on Earth. Just selecting what would be the best yardstick and starting point of our count would be a wonderful exercise in self-discovery and meditation.
It would be a reckoning of praise for the time and joy we have received so far. And a reminder that more is to come, and that we should make it count.