A Prayer for the Year

The Jewish New Year, 5771, begins tonight at sunset. Beginning the year in the fall, when the harvest comes in and school begins has always made more sense to me than when we celebrate it on January 1. Anyway, a few years ago, I came across the following prayer, and want to share it with you. Please read all the way through -- the good stuff begins at the fourth paragraph. 

Rosh Hashanah Prayer

On Rosh Hashanah it is written 
And on Yom Kippur it is sealed:

How many shall leave this world; and how many shall be born; who shall live and who shall die, who in the fullness of years and who before; who shall perish by ire and who by water, who by sword and who by a wild beat; who by famine and who by thirst, who by earthquake and who by plague, who by strangling and who by stoning; who shall rest and who shall wander, who shall be serene and who disturbed, who shall be at ease and who afflicted; who shall be impoverished and who enriched, who shall be humbled and who exalted.

BUT REPENTANCE, PRAYER AND DEEDS OF KINDNESS CAN REMOVE THE SEVERITY OF THE DECREE.

Each of us is an author

Writing, with deeds, in the Akasha

And each of us has the power

To write lines that will never be lost.

No song is so trivial,

no story is so commonplace,

No deed is so insignificant

That it is not recorded.  

No kindness is ever done in vain

Each mean act leaves its imprint

All our deeds and thoughts, the good and the bad,

Are noted and remembered in eternity.

Remember always

What you do lives forever.

The echoes of your words

Resound until the end of time.

May our lives reflect this awareness

Mar our deeds bring no shame or reproach

May the entries we make in the Akasha

Be ever acceptable to You.

[Note: I have changed a the words "Book of LIfe" to Akasha and "Him" to "You" to make it feel more personal.)