When my little sister, Milly, and I were kids, mom would give us a penny to toss into the fountain in our town. We were told to make a wish. As we flipped our coins, she warned, “Don’t tell a soul about it.” It would be my secret. The world opened up as big as the ocean, a place that could catch all the pennies we could toss. I didn’t think secrets should be kept from my mother, yet this was mine, she said. My wish. My game.
“Game” in Sanskrit, the oldest written language, is translated Leela, the Divine play of God. In Hindu cosmology, She comes in ways that jingle and shine. Always a sweet trick involved…a hidden secret that sinks deep. The Leela is teaching us. There is strength in the hope for things to come. For the coin and the wish. The Divine, dressed up like a mystery, hides around every corner, waiting for the chance to surprise us.
The young rabbi was asked a question about a coin.* A trap set to catch him not bowing to the ‘powers that be.’ It was about taxes, and who owes whom. He brings attention to the fact that there are two realities happening at the same time. One, the current social structure. The other, ethereal. As he flips the spinning coin back to the proud man, with a vandal’s smile he says, “Caesar can have it. It’s got his face on it anyhow.” Your faces, however, are worth so much more. All of you adorned on the currency in my father’s pocket, hidden in the seams of my mother’s dress. Your faces radiant, like lanterns on the sea. Pools of living water, deep enough to make a wish. Toss your life like a sacred coin, back into the fountain heart of God.
