The hills in my back yard, a few weeks ago. They were still colorful then.

"I lift my eyes up to the mountains. From whence comes my help?" (Ps. 121) I am fortunate enough to live in a valley ringed by mountains. I remember when I moved here, thirty-mumble years ago, and I said that to one of my hall-mates in my dorm. She was from Alaska, where there are real mountains. She graciously refrained from laughing. Compared with Denali, the Berkshires aren't mountains.

To me -- coming from south Texas, where the closest thing I knew to a mountain was Enchanted Rock, the pink granite batholith where the seventh grade once went camping -- these hills are miraculous. Yes, there are actual mountains in west Texas, seven hours away by car. Those didn't feel local to me any more than did Colorado, where we went by plane. It's different to live surrounded by hills.

They cradle the valley. They make the horizon feel like an embrace. I take considerable comfort in that. I watch them change colors over the course of the year. They've just put on their late autumn garb: in the distance they look light purple, with patches of dark green where the evergreens have sway. It's not as dramatic as their early autumn splendor, or summer greenery, but it's still beautiful.

The hills remind me that I am trying to take a long view. Not a geologic view, but a generational one. I suspect the rights to our own bodies that we lost a few years ago will not be restored in my lifetime. A few days ago I saw someone comment online that right now feels like living on the coast and bracing for a hurricane, knowing that it will cause untold devastation, not knowing yet exactly how.

How do I minister when so many are devastated and afraid? How do I help those who are not afraid understand those who are? Sometimes I can't wrap my own mind around the harm that I fear is coming. How do I serve from here? One answer is in trying to take the long view. Humanity will persist, and Judaism will persist, though any one of us might not. I try to sit with that knowledge every day.

"My help is from the Holy Blessed One, creator of the heavens and the earth." (Ps. 121) I think of the old joke: "I sent two boats and a helicopter!" But we are the boats and the helicopter. God helps my heart keep beating, at least for now, but what I do with them are up to me. What can any of us do but keep lifting up whoever we can, rescuing whoever we can, however we can?