The Turning | A Yom Kippur Song of Teshuvah

Teshuvah isn't a debt paid off to escape a verdict — it's a turning. On Yom Kippur we account for who we've been, alone and together, and reset direction for the year ahead: not as judges of the harvest, but as caretakers of ground we didn't finish planting. Verse 1 I stood in front of the mirror this morning Before the fast, before the words And counted up the days I turned away From what I knew and what I'd heard Not the tally of some cosmic ledger Not a debt that waits to be redeemed Just the honest sum of who I've been becoming And the person I still mean to be Chorus This is the turning, not the reckoning Not a judgment we cannot appeal Teshuvah means we get to face the compass And find out if the needle's real This is the turning, not the drowning Not a debt we carry to the grave This is the chance to face the year already coming And choose which way we're brave Verse 2 We stood together in the room this evening Strangers mostly, family some And said the words that none of us said only For ourselves, for what we'd done The wrong I did was carried by my silence The wrong my silence let another do We said we sinned — not I alone but we did Because what breaks the one breaks the two Chorus This is the turning, not the reckoning Not a judgment we cannot appeal Teshuvah means we get to face the compass And find out if the needle's real This is the turning, not the drowning Not a debt we carry to the grave This is the chance to face the year already coming And choose which way we're brave Verse 3 We were not handed a finished garden We were handed dirt and rain and seed And every choice becomes the soil beneath us For whatever comes of what we plant and need We are not the judges of the harvest We're the ones whose hands decide the row Caretakers of a world still being written Co-creators of what it will become Chorus This is the turning, not the reckoning Not a judgment we cannot appeal Teshuvah means we get to face the compass And find out if the needle's real This is the turning, not the drowning Not a debt we carry to the grave This is the chance to face the year already coming And choose which way we're brave Bridge Not to punish, not to please a verdict Not to earn a passage past the gate Just to turn my face toward what I've broken And begin again before it's too late The gates are closing, not on judgment But on the day I get to start Verse 4 I did not fail because I carry darkness I failed because I'm still becoming whole The failing is the curriculum, not the verdict The falling is the shape that makes the goal So I write the failures down and I don't burn them I fold them into what the new year holds Not erased but carried forward differently Into someone slightly truer than I was Verse 5 Tomorrow when the gate has finally shut here I will not be perfect, only turned A few degrees toward the person I could still be A few degrees toward lessons I have learned We will walk out of this room still incomplete Still the caretakers, still unfinished, still awake But turned a little truer than we entered That's the only sealing that we make Final Chorus This is the turning, not the reckoning Not a judgment we cannot appeal Teshuvah means we get to face the compass And find out if the needle's real This is the turning, not the drowning Not a debt we carry to the grave It's the chance to face the year already coming And choose, together, to be brave Outro The turning The turning Not the ending The turning © Richard Diamond