A Prayer for Librarians, by Trisha Arlin
Source Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=59885
open_content_license: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license Date: 2025-01-30
Last Updated: 2025-02-18
Categories: Congregation & Community, 🇺🇸 Thanksgiving Day (4th Thursday of November)
Tags: 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., American Jewry of the United States, civic prayers, Donald Trump, English vernacular prayer, memory, Prayers as poems, יזכור yizkor
Excerpt: "A Prayer for Librarians" by Trisha Arlin was first shared via their website, Trisha Arlin: Words of Prayer and Intention, on 7 December 2024. . . .
Content:
A Prayer For Librarians
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Blessed One-ness
We forget a lot:
Data and addresses,
Old loves and enemies,
Where we put the keys
And where we put the freedoms.
But there are the people who remember
Or who remember where to look when it’s time to remember—
Librarians
Archivists
Collectors
Even hoarders
Cataloguing the past,
Keeping knowledge safe,
Sometimes at great risk
Because the first thing dictators do
Is ban books, history, music, science, art and journalism.
But libraries keep our stuff safe
Until it’s time to emerge.
The monks of the Middle Ages
The archivists of the Warsaw Ghetto
The librarians of MAGA America
Are heroes
And we give thanks.
May they have all the courage they need.
Amen
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“A Prayer for Librarians” by Trisha Arlin was first shared via their website, Trisha Arlin: Words of Prayer and Intention, on 7 December 2024.
Contributor: Trisha Arlin
Co-authors:
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Name: Trisha Arlin
Bio: Trisha Arlin is a liturgist, teacher, performer and student of prayer in Brooklyn, NY and was a part-time rabbinic student at the Academy of Jewish Religion (AJR), 2012-18. Trisha was the Liturgist-In-Residence during the National Havurah Committee’s 2014 Summer Institute, has served as Scholar or Artist In Residence at many synagogues where she has read, led services and taught her class, Writing Prayer. since the pandemic began, Trisha has been on Zoom teaching prayer writing, sharing her liturgy and doing readings with Ritualwell, Haggadot.com, for synagogues around the country as well as small freelance groups. She is a founding builder of Bayit’s Liturgical Arts project. Trisha received a BA in Theater from Antioch College in 1975 and MFA in Film (Screenwriting) in 1997 from Columbia University. In 2009/2010, Trisha was an Arts Fellow at the Drisha Institute. In 2011, she graduated from the sixth cohort of the Davennen Leadership Training Institute (DLTI). A longtime member of Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of our Lives, a progressive unaffiliated congregation in Brooklyn NY, Trisha’s liturgy has been used at services and ritual occasions and in newsletter there and at venues of many denominations around the world. Her work has been published in her book, Place Yourself: Words of Poetry and Intention (a collection of liturgy and kavannot. Foreword by Rabbi Jill Hammer, Artwork by Mike Cockrill. 2019 Dimus Parrhesia Press); the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion; Seder Tefillot, Forms of Prayer: Prayers for the High Holydays (Movement for Reform Judaism); B’chol Levavecha (CCAR Press); Beside Still Waters: A Journey of Comfort and Renewal (Bayit & Ben Yehuda Press); A Poet’s Siddur (Ain’t Got No Press); Studies in Judaism and Pluralism (Ben Yehuda Press) and can be found online at TrishaArlin.com, at RitualWell, and of course, the Open Siddur Project. You can support her work by buying her book, making a one time donation through PayPal @trishaarlin or monthly support via Patreon.
Website: https://triganza.blogspot.com
Profile Link: https://opensiddur.org/profile/trisha-arlin
Featured Image:
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Title: “December Gifts” drawing by Frank Lloyd Wright for Liberty Magazine
Caption: “December Gifts,” drawing by Frank Lloyd Wright for Liberty Magazine