Last weekend, on a beautiful, sunny, warm but not too hot day, my husband and I spent several hours wandering the paths of the Chicago Botanic Garden. It is an immense place, wonderfully and invisibly tended, the variety of growing things uncountable. What evidence of God’s power of creation! Yet, here, too, were the spent blooms, the bare ground where plants had been removed; in this month of growing things, reminders of life’s fragility. So, the month of Av, summer month of plenty tempered with the sorrow of its ninth day.

Three years ago this week, what had seemed only a summer cold escalated to pneumonia. I have been disabled and oxygen dependent for a long time, the result of radiation treatments and chemotherapy that spared my life in my twenties and thirties. For me, then, pneumonia was a challenge handled poorly by my body. When I woke up in the Intensive Care Unit, I found that those days lost to me had been busy ones for my caretakers. It is with thanks and overwhelming gratitude to the One Who made us all, that I share this psalm with you, my prayer as I lay mute, attached to a ventilator. Time has forced change, time has healed, but God is constant.

The message I had anticipated was there when I logged on Sunday morning: "Sandor is spending Shabbat in Heaven, the perfect peace, the perfect rest. How he struggled, how desperately he wanted to stay with us, but he finally answered God’s call."

Soon after I began writing psalms, I spent many hours listening to a friend who was going through a difficult divorce. I wrote something I hoped would give her courage, and she told me she carried it with her every time she had to go to court. Several months ago, when I was speaking to a synagogue’s Feminist Forum, another woman, a stranger to me, greeted me before the reading. She showed me the same psalm, bookmarked by the "Serenity Prayer." She shared that she was a recovering alcoholic and that this psalm, like the Serenity Prayer, was part of her daily affirmations. I was also delighted when the editors of the new Siddur Sim Shalom, the Conservative movement’s prayerbook, decided to include this psalm in their additional readings.

The recent meetings of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform) has resulted in a new Pittsburgh Platform, outlining directions for the movement in the next century. An emphasis on making ritual a part of our lives was a key part of the Platform.

As resident psalmist at my synagogue, I am sometimes able to write words especially for congregants who are in crisis. Early in my tenure, one of the members of our community was diagnosed with a rare form of connective tissue cancer. In his forties, married with a young daughter, he was a teacher in our daily Preschool. It was painful for all of us to follow the downward course of his illness - despite chemotherapy and surgery. But we were all blessed by his spirit; he was a man who, in his final days, still proclaimed that he was "the luckiest man on earth." During his last month, we talked on the phone many times, speaking of curing and of healing.

Last Thursday, I let myself be admitted to the hospital for a tune-up and oil change. After several months of respiratory infections, it was time to "give in" and let the stronger antibiotics and more frequent breathing treatments help me get ready to enjoy the warmer weather. Surrendering gave me a chance to find serenity, and indeed, rather than my usual anxiety and crankiness, I feel calm and cared for. Rather like the peace to be found in the quiet of Shabbat.

Perhaps the most dramatic moment of our communal worship comes during the Torah service. As the reading is completed, the Torah is raised, the portion of the week displayed (hagbah) and we say: "And this is the Torah that Moses placed before the people of Israel, according to the commandment of the Eternal to the hand of Moses" - from the Mouth of God to the hand of Moses.

I keep hearing and reading about studies that seem to indicate that people who pray regularly live longer. The link to God sustains us and prayer is a vehicle to maintain that link. But, sometimes, when I pray, my mind can wander. The words are so familiar. I try then to find that heightened awareness we call kavannah, a holy intention that moves the words to a loftier plane.

Several years ago, my mom, who is now, thank God, in stable health and due to celebrate a significant birthday this year, was hospitalized. How impotent I felt to help the one who had always been there for me, who had taught me to take time to taste the wonder of clouds, to savor the melody of the universe. Each year we laugh at the absurdity of the "Hallmark holiday" called Mothers’ Day. I don’t need a day apart to tell her I love her.