“When you are in a world where people are not behaving like human beings, strive to be a human being.” Rabbi Sydney Mintz, sharing an old Jewish saying on Yom Kippur.

I am still thinking about our spur of the moment, whirlwind Yom Kippur trip to San Francisco. It’s so unlike my friend Beth and I to up and leave Haines for a big city. But… we are working on changing the narrative. I love to fly! Can’t wait to pack a carry-on, find a proper purse, find my wallet, find a phone charger… find the phone.

Mostly, I’m just trying to show up for people and events I care about. Plus, after we looked up Yom Kippur (we are not Jewish) and learned that the favored footwear is sneakers– to show humility- and white is the color to symbolize mortality ( death shrouds are white and we feel the years passing), and purity ( well, that ship has sailed, speaking strictly for myself, but purer thoughts are always a goal.) And since we both have sneakers and white linen shirts, we did not have to fret about clothes.

The Emmy Lou Harris tribute concert was a highlight, the best I’ve ever been to. Bluegrass in sunny Golden Gate Park was fun too. But the peaks were the three temple services and Shabbat. Two hours on Wednesday night, the mediation in a redwood grove on Thursday morning and the youth lead service Thursday afternoon. We sang a version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah in Hebrew. (Or the kids did, I hummed along. It takes more than two days to learn Hebrew.) Friday night we prayed the Shabbat prayers and broke challah bread with the women of the Thirteenth Tribe. They treated us like cousins from Alaska. Honored guests.

Before we left Haines, Beth’s husband gave her a wad of five-dollar bills for the homeless people but they weren’t as ubiquitous as we’d been led to believe. The last morning, we finally saw someone sleeping in a doorway on our way to the Presidio Park and Beth woke him up to give him money.

The Yom Kippur services were all about repentance, forgiveness, change and a fresh start to a new year. The prayers recognize our individual and collective errors, mistakes, sins. Together we confessed, forgave, and vowed to go forth and change the world and ourselves for the better. Specifically– as in make a plan to do something real. Write letters, make the calls to congress every day. Ask your children to forgive you, even if you don’t think there are any issues. There are. Forgive the jerk that broke your heart, or at least toss the voodoo doll. Give more money, more time. Help. Stack the chairs after the meeting. Wipe the sink in the airplane loo. As my brother-in-law Norm says when he signs off on his country radio show—watch where you step and tell someone you love them. Because, As Rabbi Sydney Mintz, who is our friend, and why we were there, said in her Kol Nidre sermon: “If not now, when?”

She told the story of twins Jacob and Esau. Jacob had wronged his brother and became a big shot because of it. Esau said he’d kill him. Decades later, Jacob met Esau in the desert, figuring Esau was going to make good on the threat and that he deserved it. But Esau forgave him. He kissed him. The rabbi said: “When Jacob sees Esau’s face, he says seeing your face is like seeing the face of God.” Then she said, “We can keep reliving Cain and Abel or we can live a life where looking into the face of another human being is a wholly transformational act that invites us into compassion, into love.” She told us to turn to somebody near us, look at their face, their eyes– look, she said, really, really look at the contours of their face, “and see the face of God.”

Here’s something else: in that big old beautiful temple, there are huge stained-glass windows. They are all colored bits of glass. There are no scenes from the Bible, there are no icons with any human images– no paintings no statues. Because they believe since God created humans in his image, if you want to know what God looks like look at the security guard at the door, your mother, the Uber driver.

One of our Uber drivers was Muslim, originally from Pakistan. He has been an American since he was thirteen. He drove us from the temple to the hotel. We talked about faith and religion and how they aren’t always the same. They can be very far apart. He said, Islam, Judaism, Christianity all have the same roots, and all have extremists, but that’s not what faith in God is. Love is God, he said and hate, all hate, is the devil. He said these are hard times, but he has confidence God, Love will win.