i feel known and you can’t get better than that

Blessings of being awake: I have heard Tziporah say with her passionate, heavy Brooklyn accent ‘he got me’ and I could feel her heart softening into joy and delight. My heart joined my friend’s and I was not remembering then an experience of 'being gotten' that I would have stopped me in my tracts so that I would spontaneously say out loud 'she got me!'. Andrea once spontaneously told me 'I want to be known’ and I heard this deep intuitive response from my very private introverted daughter and wanted this for her and yet was not quite sure what that would look like for me.
Spiritual Challenge: Being' known' or being ‘gotten’ requires me to 'show up' be bold with my energy and light; to be my Self, a leader among leaders, a priest among priests. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner writes in his Book of Letters about the letter vav, that it stands erect in its uniqueness, confident in being separate among others and linking with others to create a whole unity. I am learning that only when I am willing to risk being seen do I have more chances of being 'gotten' and 'known'.
For about the last 9 years on Friday afternoon I have tried to connect with my daughters, fill them in on my life and ask what is happening in theirs and bless them with a Shabbat Shalom, a Sabbath of peace and wholeness. This Friday Andrea called me and was most energetic as she told me about Oprah’s guest today, Dustin Lance Black, Academy Award winner for the screenplay written directly for the screen for the movie Milk. She explained that her excitement was two fold; one she was deeply moved by his story and second the movie Milk had not come to Beaufort that she knew of and she voiced her frustration about the kinds of films that came and the duration of their stay. "I will get to see it, yet' she said with great determination.
In her initiating of this conversation I felt deeply connected to my daughter in this tender place of needing to be known and now as I remember the conversation I again am noticing the emotions as tears well and fall on my cheeks. And I in that moment smiled; I had been gotten by my first daughter, my friend who was committed to loving and knowing me and my ‘difference’ and all within her very homophobic world. For the first time that I can remember she was the one who brought up this important place for me and I was able to take her knowing me into my body and rejoice in being gotten by her.
Spiritual Practice: The phrase ‘known’ in biblical Hebrew translates to a sexual experience as ‘Adam knew Eve.’ And as I heard with Andrea and saw in the movie Lost in Translation an erotic, fully alive moment, can happen without sex when the main characters enjoy each other in a long-into-the-night collaborative conversation. Coming-out or self-disclosing can be as easy as getting dressed in your favorite clothes or as hard as stating an opposing opinion to a new friend. My practice is to notice when I withhold me from coming-out and love that frightened part. So I have begun taking voice lessons and playing with coming out from my whole body in all kinds of new ways in a safe place. And maybe get to know me and get me in whole new ways!