The cup of Eliyahu

In life you had a temper. Your sarcasm was a whetted knife. Sometimes you shuddered with fear but you made yourself act no matter how few stood with you. Open the door for Eliyahu that he may come in. Now you return to us in rough times, out of smoke and dust that swirls blinding us. You come in vision, you come in lightning on blackness. Open the door for Eliyahu that he may come in. In every generation you return speaking what few want to hear words that burn us, that cut us loose so we rise and go again over the sharp rocks upward. Open the door for Eliyahu that he may come in. You come as a wild man, as a homeless sidewalk orator, you come as a woman taking the bima, you come in prayer and song, you come in a fierce rant. Open the door for Eliyahu that she may come in. Prophecy is not a gift, but sometimes a curse, Jonah refusing. It is dangerous to be right, to be righteous. To stand against the wall of might. Open the door for Eliyahu that he may come in. There are moments for each of us when you summon, when you call the whirlwind, when you shake us like a rattle: then we too must become you and rise. Open the door for Eliyahu that we may come in.