Category Archives: Commentary on Religion

Commentary on Religion, Dogs, Politics, US History

Shadow. N.A.R. Storm.

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Imbolc and the Snow Moon

Friday gratefuls: Jorge Borge. Herman Hesse. Thomas Mann. Sinclair Lewis. Theodore Dreiser. Goethe. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau. William Cullen Bryant. Dante. Homer. Euripides. Moses. Ovid. Mary Oliver. Coleridge. Wordsworth. Poe. Hawthorne. Cooper Powys. Joanne Greenberg. And so, so many others.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Creativity

Week Kavannah: Patience.  Savlanut. When I rush, slow down. When I want to speak, wait. When my inner agonizer arises, calm him, move on

One brief shining: Said the shema, said my I am comfortable with who I am and what I have, turned on the oxygen concentrator when I heard a crash and then another crash from the space where Shadow was; went back out of the bedroom to find my laptop, my Kindle, various papers, and a bag of treats splayed out on the floor, a shocked Shadow looking sheepish, a little scared. So I picked things up, comforted her, and returned to bed.

 

Dog Journal: As her comfort level increases, Shadow has become more and more a regular puppy. Chewing up her brand new bed. Trying to get into the treats I left on my computer table. Being bouncy and happy and wiggly. She has learned sit, down, and touch.

She still does things that confound me. When I want her to come in, she stands by the door, won’t come in until I sit down. Often, too, she will run back outside if I get up too fast. When it’s cold outside? Annoying. Like right now for instance.

Having her here when I wake up. When I come home. Glad to see me, tail wagging. Yes. Many times yes.

 

N.A.R. notes. Wagner did a phenomenological analysis of Christian church growth. He found the most growth in Pentecostal congregations in the third world and mega-churches in the U.S. His conclusion? The holy spirit was at work reshaping the church for a new era.

From within his worldview this was a logical conclusion. Where there are signs of vitality, there is the current activity of God in the world. He also noted that in these new congregations, these gatherings local leaders were the authority. The megachurches, too. Apostles and prophets were the missing elements from denominational governance. Instead of bureaucracy there were charismatic leaders who spoke directly with God and acted in (his) stead.

We will see later how this lead to the powerful, politically motivated Christian Nationalism that we wrestle with today. Wagner’s work I’m discussing now is from the late 1990’s.

 

Just a moment: I have George Friedman’s The Storm Before the Calm out again. Going to reread his last chapters. The Trump/Musk assault on American norms of the last 80 years may be the storm Friedman predicted. Sure feels like it anyhow. A tearing down of the old paradigm followed by a reshaping. The reshaping will not be the work of the MAGA folks but of a coalition, I would imagine, of the center-right and the center-left, perhaps forming a new political party.

 

Commentary on Religion, Judaism, Memories, Mussar

Regret. Remorse. Teshuvah.

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Imbolc and the Snow Moon

Thursday grateful: Shadow. Regret. Remorse. Teshuvah. Selam. Marilyn. Rich. Joanne. Jamie. Kabbalah Experience classes. Exploring Religion and Its Radical Roots. A New Story for the Evolution of Human Consciousness. Training Shadow. Training myself. Love. Michelangelo’s 550th birthday. Art. Negative Space. Poetry.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Joanne’s mind

Week Kavannah: Patience.  Savlanut. When I rush, slow down. When I want to speak, wait. When my inner agonizer arises, calm him, move on

One brief shining: We gather around the table, some drinking wine, others water, eating the always random collection of food-I brought turtles from a Valentine gift-and settle down to discuss matters of the soul, baring ourselves to each other as we’ve done for over nine years, learning the Jewish soul language of mussar.

 

Gonna come back to the NAR. Just this for now. The top leadership in this “non-hierarchical” movement, prophets then apostles at the helm. They rely on revelation to the prophets and apostles who act as Peter, Paul, and Mary might have for Jesus.

This means new revelations can respond to the daily news stream. And be funneled through fallible human vessels. The apostles sort through them, decide how to interpret them. See the problem here? All the various cognitive biases are in play.

 

Another way. Two Jews, three opinions. Commentary on the Torah that uses non-rational techniques for interpretation Different readings delight all, insight coming from the many voices, no one trying to claim Biblical or ecclesiastical authority. All searching for truth, that layered and nuanced notion, all knowing definitive truth lies outside our ken. And are thankful for it.

Last night at MVP we discussed regret, remorse, and anger. We shared our earliest memories of regret. Mine? Age 12 or so. New fancy slingshot. In my bedroom at home on Canal Street in Alexandria. A car pulled up on the street outside. A man got out and walked to our house.

I thought. Huh? Wonder if I can hit his windshield? I could. Got caught immediately. Mom and Dad sentenced me to do the dishes, at twenty-five cents an hour until I’d paid off the window. Smart parenting.

Here’s an example of the kind of thought triggered by these evenings. From Rabbi Jamie:

“…in an attempt to understand why the author of Orchot Tzaddikim (Pathways of Moral Leadership) paired the two midot of regret (charatah) and anger (Kaas), I offer the following “definitions”:
Haratah / regret is the productive emotional responses to an encounter with the gap between my lived conduct (action or inaction) and my ideal or aspirational conduct.
Kaas / anger is the productive emotional response to an encounter with the gap between the real world such as it is and the ideal world, such as it ought to be, e.g. unfairness or injustice, disinformation and deceit, etc.”
Now I have to come up with a practice for the month. Right now: Become aware of regret. What comes next? Need to get a more focused idea.
An important group in my life.
Commentary on Religion, Politics, US History

Know thy adversary

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Imbolc and the Snow Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: MVP. Snow storms. Tourney weather. Indiana. Small towns. The 1950’s. Mary and her morning ritual. Mark training a new generation of Saudi engineers and physicists. Diane healing. Shadow and her still forming personality. Chewy. Kate, always Kate. Bond and Devick. Sue Bradshaw. Dr. Buphati. Kristie Kokenny.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Salaam, dog sitter

Week Kavannah: Patience.  Savlanut. When I rush, slow down. When I want to speak, wait. When my inner agonizer arises, calm him, move on

One brief shining: Shadow scratches the familiar sound of a collar against nail; she cleans the Snow out from between the pads on her paws put there as she flew like a small black missile through drifts from the recent Snow, pure Dog and Puppy delight, oh Shadow.

 

New Apostolic Reformation. Finished my second book on this almost invisible movement. The New Apostolic Church by C. Peter Wagner. As I mentioned before, I studied with Wagner during the late 1980’s in a two week church growth seminar at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.

This movement began to be understood as a new thing under the Sun thanks to Wagner’s academic work on church growth. He began as a student of church growth. Where was it happening? How was it happening? Were any of the things he learned replicable?

Those of us responsible for the health of congregations in the former mainline Protestant denominations sought answers to the opposite problem, church decline. That’s what led me to this prominent conversative seminary seeking answers that might help us turn things around.

My thesis for my Doctor of Ministry showed that the Presbyterian Church had begun to decline as a percentage of the U.S. population in the 1920’s though numerical increases hid that decline until the 1970’s. We were not alone. United Methodists, U.C.C., ELCA, and Episcopal churches had begun shrinking, too.

Maybe the church growth movement had some answers. Wagner had the most information and experience, so I went to him. Didn’t help. All the former mainline churches have continued a slow sinking into obscurity. Chatbotgpt offered these numbers about the Presbyterian church:

  • 1983: 3,131,228 members ​
  • 2013: 1,760,200 members.​
  • 2022: 1,193,770 members.

Wagner looked at these and the comparable numbers for other mainline denominations, saw the decline in conservative denominations which was smaller, but still noticeable at the time, and declared the beginning of a Post-Denominational era.

Where were churches growing? In Latin America, China, and Africa. Pentecostal churches for the most part. Non-denominational. Also megachurches in the U.S. which had begun to plant smaller versions of themselves. These were the congregations Wagner began to call the New Apostolic Reformation. Denominations were a post-Luther Reformation phenomenon, usually created by division over doctrine.

These independent, non-hierarchical congregations had the current energy and vitality in the Christian church globally. Over the final years of his life, Wagner died in 2016, he served as a visionary apostle (his language, or, rather his use of New Testament language) to help these loose knit congregation develop cohesion without becoming denominations. An apostle in this sense has the same status as an apostle of Jesus. They lead. Prophets, a notch below them in spiritual authority, receive new revelation from God, the apostles execute the commands of the new revelation.

Neither apostle nor prophet had a role in church governance before the N.A.R. Instead there were denominational bureaucracies. These bureaucracies managed selection, education, and ordination of clergy who then served as employees of congregations.

The NAR form of governance, while eschewing formal bureaucracy, relies on individual, usually male, leadership who have power only in their domain.

This is getting too long for one post. I’ll share more tomorrow.

 

Commentary on Religion, Commentary on the news, Dogs, Family, Fourth Phase, Politics, US History

More Shadow and Faith

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Imbolc and the 78th Birthday Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Shadow. Ruth. Diminished stamina. Mark(s). Snow. Cold. Skittishness. Gabe. Puzzles. Enigmas. Thoughtful resistance. Learning about the New Apostolic Reformation. Books. Poetry. Lodgepoles. Great Sol. The days of our lives. Our lives in days. Bananas. Pears. Apples. Mandarin Oranges. Subway

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My dispersed family

Week Kavannah: Love. Ahavah.

One brief shining: Oh, Shadow, my Shadow, who chewed through my oxygen concentrator tubes leaving me breathless, who, when I figured out how to have them looped up high, then chewed on the cord of my electric blanket so it ceased working.

 

Oh. The dog. Challenging me. In good ways. Do I have the stamina for her? Still not sure. Can I, I mean, wait out her puppyhood long enough for her to be easier to care for? If so, then yes, I have the stamina. We’ll see. Ruth recommended I take the full three weeks for the trial. She’s right. And, I will. Honesty. So important.

I liked having Ruth here. So much so that I asked her if she wanted to commute. Free rent and food. Half her gas. No, she said. Too long a daily drive. Right at an hour both ways. Wise lady.

 

My son and Seoah will come on Wednesday. It’s been a year a half plus since I’ve seen them. I’m excited. Seeing them and having Shadow. A rich week in my life. Filled with love and caring.

Annual wellness checkup with Sue Bradshaw, too. And a visit to the medical oncologist’s P.A. A big week for this Shadow Mountain boy.

My peskyfowlatarian diet has proved easy to handle. Fish, other seafoods like shrimp and lobster, chicken. Gives me choices. Pushes me toward more vegetables. Plan to make chicken bean soup today or tomorrow.

Learning to love chicken subway sandwiches. A little tasteless. But o.k.

Shadow spent an hour in my lap, cuddling. I put her outside for about ten minutes, she came back to the door, pleased. I hear my own and others doubts and cautions. As Ruth suggested, three full weeks. Accepting input.

 

Just a moment: Super bowl. Nah. Too much fluff. Usually a bad game. But the two games leading up to it. Well, yeah.

More books coming on the New Apostolic Reformation. As I know more, so will you. This group is secretive, amorphous, and focused on political goals. Like creating a Christian nation.

For now, cue this:

“President Trump signed an executive order Friday to establish a White House Faith Office in an effort to empower faith-based entities.

The office will be part of the Domestic Policy Council and headed by a senior adviser tasked with consulting with various faith and community leaders in an effort to defend religious liberty and combat antisemitism, anti-Christianity and other anti-religious bias, according to the order.”  The Hill

Gotta fight all that anti-Christian bias out there. But, where is it? This is the thin end of the wedge for creating an autocratic, religion focused and dominated form of governance. Not democracy. Follow these bread crumbs. They’re more significant than they may appear.

 

 

Commentary on Religion, Commentary on the news, Dogs, Family, Politics

Shadow. One small bite.

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Imbolc and the 78th Birthday Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Ruth. Shadow. Loss. Grief. Joy. Close cousins. Mussar. Brother Mark, teaching in Al Kharj. Friend Mark, recuperating in Mexico. Colder, some Snow. Old age. Journalism. NYT. WP. Colorado Sun. Axios. Ground News. Safeway. Grocery pickup. Ruby.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

Week Kavannah: Love  Ahavah

Limitations of AI on display here

One brief shining: Images of others, far away, Mark playing foosball with his Saudi Arabian ESL students, Ode in a deck chair in sunny, warm Mexico, Diane with her sling, healing on Lucky Street with atmospheric rivers overhead, Mary on campus in Melbourne, my son and Seaoh traveling today to Minnesota from Hawai’i while Shadow and Ruth and I enjoy the return of cold weather on the top of Shadow Mountain.

 

The Shadow puppy saga continues. Put her in the crate while Ruth and I went to Jackie’s for my haircut. After we went to Buster’s natural pet food store. Got a new leash, some treats, a few durable toys. Then, Subway.

I’m considering a raw diet for Shadow. She’s so small l could feed her a raw diet for what I paid for Kep and Rigel’s food. She’s still a puppy so not yet. More research.

That’s if I keep her. I’m pretty tired. Haven’t got back to my workouts. They will raise my energy level as my better nutrition already has. It’s a balance.

Having her here has already buoyed me up in ways I’d forgotten were available. That tail wagging. Her soulful eyes. Her learning curve, so rapid. Engaging my problem solver for another. Her cuddles.

Ruth came up last night in her green Subaru SUV. She got most of the money to pay for it from the insurance payout after she totaled Ivory, our old Rav4 which we gave to her. She loves her car.

She’s a sweetheart. Feels so good having her here. We talk a lot. She apparently took Shadow up to sleep with her last night. When I got up… No Shadow.

Glad I stayed here, didn’t go to Hawai’i. Although, I do find myself watching NCIS: Hawai’i and Hawai’i 5-0. As much for the scenery and the memories as any plot.

No, my travel bug has not gone dormant. When I see Sue next week, I’m going to ask for an orthopedic consult on my back and right hip, maybe a pain doc. See what I can do further to become mobile enough to fly.

Though. Moving to the Rocky Mountains has been a journey, a travel experience of long and wonderful duration. Kate felt like she was always on vacation up here. I feel grateful each day to see the Mountains, Wild Neighbors, Trees and Streams. And for the unexpected and improbable Jewish journey unveiled by the Mountain Jews of Congregation Beth Evergreen.

 

Just a moment: I’m appending the first paragraph of a New York Times editorial with which I am in agreement.

Ginny, of Ginny and Janice, heard a woman who suggested taking a small bite out of the huge wormy Apple. For example, become an expert on one small field of the Trump mess. Really dig in. Something that interests you, or you have expertise in already.

I’m picking the New Apostolic Reformation. It’s deep background, yet it forms a large mass of his hardcore base. Something I have knowledge about with seminary education and having been in the ministry.

Start communicating with others about it. In conversations, blogs, e-mails, letters to the editor, phone calls and e-mails to members of Congress.

Together there are enough of us to rock this sucker back on its heels. Separately? We’ll get steamrolled.

 

*”Don’t get distracted. Don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t get paralyzed and pulled into the chaos that President Trump and his allies are purposely creating with the volume and speed of executive orders; the effort to dismantle the federal government; the performative attacks on immigrants, transgender people and the very concept of diversity itself; the demands that other countries accept Americans as their new overlords; and the dizzying sense that the White House could do or say anything at any moment. All of this is intended to keep the country on its back heel so President Trump can blaze ahead in his drive for maximum executive power, so no one can stop the audacious, ill-conceived and frequently illegal agenda being advanced by his administration. For goodness sake, don’t tune out.” NYT, Feb. 8, 2025.

 

 

 

Commentary on Religion, Commentary on the news, Judaism, Politics, US History, World History

New Apostolic Reformation. Oh my.

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Yule and the Quarter Century Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: 1 degree. 3 inches of new Snow. Talmud Torah on Zoom. Tech meets that baby in the reed boat. Joseph and Moses. Compare and contrast. That hygge feeling as Snow falls and the temperature sinks. Love it. NFL playoff games. Another Gray Man novel. Zohar volumes. The sacred world as we see it. Everyday.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My son and Seoah, visiting next month

Kavannah 2025: Creativity

Kavannah this week: Appreciation of Opposition   Haarecha shel machloket

One brief shining: As the calendar rolls on toward the inauguration of cousin Donald, the movement of his big day inside the Rotunda shows who rules this country and the world, Mother Earth.

 

Expect a long Ancientrails sometime in the near future about the New Apostolic Reformation. After reading the Atlantic article about it, which came just after the Anti-Social Century article I talked about on the 16th, I found what might be a purpose for me over the next four years. Being in opposition to it. Partly why I chose appreciation of opposition as my kavannah for this week. The other one being so, so obvious.

Here is the illustration in the style of a National Parks poster, reflecting the contemplative and thematic connections of your paragraph.

If you look at the Wikipedia article about it, you’ll find that it references C. Peter Wagoner as its founder and chief influence. Hard for me to believe but I studied with this guy back in the 1980’s. In Pasadena at Fuller Theological Seminary. At the time he was a guru in the church growth movement and one of my tasks as an Associative Executive for the Twin Cities Presbytery involved consulting with churches on just that topic.

I discovered in the Atlantic article that part of their work began as a counter to the Liberation Theology movement then ascendant in many Latin and Central American Catholic churches. In 1974 I attended a weeklong conference focused on bringing Liberation Theology to North America. Cornel West was part of the conference. My sentiments were then and are now with the spirit of the Liberation Theologians, not the New Apostolic Reformation, yet I seem to have connected with key figures in both movements. Odd. To say the least.

Just a moment: A hostage deal. Back home in the Hoosier State we’d say, day late and a dollar short. October 7th 2023 is a long way back. 94 hostages remain alive and in the hands of Hamas. The cease fire? Bout time. I hope this leads to a full stop to this horrendous chapter in Israeli and Palestinian history.

At some point the pieces have to get picked up, if they can be found, and a new era in the Middle East will slowly emerge. What will it look like? No one really knows. A weakened Iran. Syria without Bashar and with a new government of Islamic jihadists. Houthis still firing missiles toward the Persian Gulf. Lebanon with a weakened Hezbollah. Israel with Gaza and the West Bank still Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas weakened.

I’d like to see a Saudi Arabia/Israel brokered diplomatic initiative, though I don’t expect one. And of course, cousin Donald now enters. What could possibly go wrong?

Commentary on Religion, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism

Writing and Connecting

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Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Sukkot. Lab tests. Jennie’s Dead. Clipping out a large section. Sleep. Lunch with Joanne on Friday. 44 degrees. The Leaves. Blowing in the Wind. Colonies of Aspens with Golden Leaves. Colonies of Aspen already skeletal. The changes of the Arapaho National Forest. My home. Less than three weeks until our long national nightmare either gets worse or better. The smell of just brewed coffee.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tom’s visit

Kavannah: Yirah

One brief shining: Phlebotomists with butterfly, I. V. needles, phlebotomists with the more usual empty barreled needle, both swapping out one plastic tube, then another, sometimes another and another, an alcohol swap, a small piece of gauze and a piece of tape or a brightly colored wide wrap and bob’s your uncle, more of my vital fluids are ready for a centrifuge, a slide, a reagent that give up messages in the bottle.

 

Been reading Jennie’s Dead. It has two long sections I wrote because I got excited about translating Ovid on my own, a story in the Metamorphosis about Zeus and a council of the gods. I wanted to use that material because I myself had wrested it from the Latin into my native tongue. I like it, too. A piece in Jennie’s Dead that gives backstory to the power of Typhon, the many armed, snake-legged giant who challenged Olympus and cut out Zeus’ sinews. However. It complicates the narrative flow and is, at least to the me reading Jennie some year’s later, extraneous. To this story. Might become one of its own. Like I want to write a story focused only on Lycaon, the ancient Arcadian King turned into a Wolf by Zeus. I overcomplicated an otherwise good narrative with a sidebit about American Immortals as Emanuel Ezekiel named them. Superior Wolf.

So now Jennie’s Dead will become a straight forward narrative about good witches trying to survive against a very strong mage, one with the powers of Loki. Needs more character development, more backstory. I have time to do that and I will as soon as I finish my reread. Probably this week.

 

The new year, 5785, has found me reaching out to Derek, my neighbor. Long neglected. Calling Joanne and setting up lunch. Stopping my silliness with not liking phone calls. Leaning into my writing, privileging it. Doing some cooking. Not resolutions. After effects of teshuvah, returning to the land of my soul. No longer mired in grief. Seeing the cancer clearly. Changing but not terminal. Also ongoing effects of the pain reduction occasioned by the celecoxib and the tramadol. The support I feel from palliative care.

A good bit of spontaneity thrown in, too. Doing things just because. Because they’re fun. Fun has not been high on my list. Not that I don’t have any. I do. Just didn’t seek it out in a casual, playful way.

Being a Jew has given me a new lens through which to view being human. It’s given me a new understanding, especially Reconstructionist Judaism, of the word religion.* Mordecai Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionism, said the great need of contemporary life was belonging.

I converted due to my strong friendship links at Congregation Beth Evergreen. I imagine it is strong bonds like these that draw people into religious communities and it’s certainly those that keep them there. Understanding religion as deriving from the Latin religare*, meaning to bind or connect, may have been taken in the wrong sense. That is, religion is more about binding and connecting humans to one another than it is about dogma or belief.

 

*The English word “religion” originated from the Latin word “religio,” which meant “obligation,” “bond,” or “reverence.” However, the exact meaning of this term is still subject to debate among scholars. Some experts suggest that the word “religio” may have derived from the verb “religare,” meaning “to bind” or “to connect,” while others argue that it may have originated from “relegere,” which means “to read again” or “to carefully consider.”  Wordorigin

 

Asia, Commentary on Religion, Commentary on the news, Judaism, Politics, World History

Where would a grounded conversation begin?

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Mabon (Fall) and the Sukkot Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Ruth. College. All Jewish students on campus. Israel. Palestine. Gaza. The West Bank. Hamas. Hezbollah. IDF. Iran. Cool nights and blue Sky mornings. Combines and Corn pickers. Grain elevators. Soy Beans. Heirloom Vegetables. Honeycrisp Apples. Cosmic Apples. Pink Lady. Wild Blueberries. Blackberries. Mark in Georgetown, Malaysia

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Expat Life of my Sibs

Kavannah: Teshuvah

One brief shining: Alan and I sat outside at the Dandelion Cafe, plastic tumblers filled with cold Water, Coffee, shiny knives and forks, soft white napkins, the orange vested team from Safety Control #1 leaning against their truck talking, waiting for breakfast, as we turned over and over the complex and nuanced mess of Israel, the IDF, Gaza, Hezbollah, and the real foe behind the curtain, Iran.

 

Where would a conversation begin? Back when a young painter of questionable talent decided to take up politics instead? Don’t forget the pogroms in Russia. The massacres in England. Or, maybe during the era of Muslim and Jewish flourishing in southern Spain extinguished by the reconquista and its ugly stepchild, the inquisition? Perhaps during the years of the Roman occupation? Or, before when the remnants of Alexander’s conquests divided up the Middle East? Or, further back when slaves in Egypt rose up and fled their pharaohonic  masters? Could start when Joseph’s brothers sold him off as a slave.  Perhaps with the story of Abraham and Sarah, my lineal Jewish ancestors (as a Jew by choice) and their child Isaac and Abraham’s other child Ishmael with the maidservant, Hagar? Of course, Noah. Really, though, with the first fratricide, the first murder, Cain on Abel. The Jewish story soaked in the blood of fear, of eliminating difference, of full on complex/simple murder.

Certainly we could say with the death camps. Organized, efficient, incomprehensible except for their oh so thereness. Not incomprehensible because they extended and intensified acts by millennia of others who felt it necessary to kill and maim those who didn’t fit this notion of Nation or that of Tribe or of Faith. A disease of the human spirit, more deadly than cancer and capable of changing the politics of even now, here in these United States.

Why I remain a Zionist. Why I believe Jews deserve a nation where they can feel safe and secure. Sure. Yes. Look at the history. Do the Palestinians deserve the same? Of course they do. Is the foreign policy of Israel as exhibited in Gaza wrong? Of course it is. In the West Bank? Again, yes. Against Hezbollah? Not as much in my opinion. Against Iran, the great Ifrit of the Middle East? Again, no.

My sadness here. Deep. Especially since there lay, not even a year ago, an apparent path to peaceful resolution of the Middle East mess. Saudi Arabia would corral the other Sunni states; they would recognize Israel, isolate the Shiite state of Iran and its axis of client terrorists, design and execute a state for Palestinians. It was within reach still on October 5th, 2023. And, never forget, it was Hamas with their invasion of Israel, their raping and pillaging, their taking of hostages, that turned that hope into so much crumpled diplomatic talk.

Oh. What can it be now?

Commentary on Religion, Commentary on the news, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism

Rites of Passage

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Beltane and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Friday gratefuls: Retrieving my phone. Smiling Pig Saloon and Barbecue. Irv. Paul and Tom. Mussar. The Perkei Avot. Letting us heal ourselves. Kristie. Prostate cancer. Mets. Radiation and Orgovyx. Gabe and baseball. Ruth’s dinner.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: P.E.T. scans

One brief shining: Bathing in the presence of friends and family, no not that kind, the kind where folks see you, come to your Bar Mitzvah, give you presents, and say nice things about you, how significant, how important, so appreciated.

 

Two rites of passage this week. The Bar Mitzvah. Which continues to reverberate in my soul. Wild thought about that. Veronica and I did our conversions at the same time. Now we’ve done our bonei mitzvahs together. She’s 28, beautiful, talented, smart. I’m 77. Together, it occurred to me we represent youth, promise, the feminine, and the elder, maturity, the masculine. A whole person.

 

Second rite of passage. The drug holiday P.E.T. scan results. Not what I wanted. Three or four new metastases. Spinal column, pelvic lymph node. Which means. Meds. Orgovyx starting early next week. Then, radiation at some point this summer. Yet again. I will glow.

Kristie, who takes good care of me, said this is still manageable. And that she would tell me if it was not. That’s reassuring. Sort of. Still manageable made me go, huh.

Each iteration of treatment and recurrence adds up, carries its own weight. Yet I remain positive about the management and care I receive. My cancer seems hardy, able to withstand the best we can throw at it while each time there’s been something to do, something to put it back in quiescence.

That still manageable though. There may come a time. But it has not come yet.

So I will not dwell on it. As the rabbi’s say, each sleep is 1/60th of death and each morning a resurrection into a new life. Today is a new life, a chance to begin again. And that will be always true. Until death does me part from this world.

 

Just a moment: To all those embryo’s resting in cryogenic slumber. The Southern Baptists care about you. Like Alabama’s Supreme Court. Well, that’s what they’d like you to think. Actually ‘Bama and the Southern Baptists want to reach into the culture and impose on it their particular understandings of what it means to be human.

The Jewish position on this issue is clear and has been for centuries. Life begins with the first breath. Like Adam and Eve. Further. Because of this, if a problem occurs during pregnancy, the mother’s life is always given priority.

 

Another instance of religious certainty damaging human beings. Noticed Catholic Bishops have apologized for the treatment of Indians in boarding schools. That happened because Catholics of the time believed with certainty in the truth of Catholicism, the necessary dominance of Christianity over native beliefs, and the manifest destiny of American civilization. Very, very toxic confluence.

The message? Think about those things about which you are certain. Do any of them lead to harm for other people or for the world which sustains us all? Discard them now and learn humility.

Commentary on Religion, Feelings, Fourth Phase, GeekWorld, Health, Judaism

Works for Me

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Socrates Cafe today. Tara lesson today. Torah and the morning service. Rami Shapiro. Judaism without Tribalism. Ruth and Gabe. Mark in Hua Hin on the Gulf of Thailand. Three Body Problem trilogy. Breakfast at Aspen Perks. Picking up shirts at USA cleaner. Groceries today. Pickup again. Got hot dogs for Memorial Day. A very rare treat.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Lodgepoles of Arapaho National Forest

One brief shining: Have taken no shirts to a dry cleaner/laundry since Kate died, not sure why, but last week I took in my new shirts and my flannel shirts, the new ones to have a wash and an ironing, the flannel shirts for a seasonal dry cleaning, ready now to store in the closet until the next Winter, and it felt like a splurge. So expensive. BTW: I did wash my shirts in the washing machine. Just so you know.

 

A good workout week. Hit my 150 minutes again. Moving up on weights. Always feel better when I get all my workouts in. Think of Diane headed up Bernal Hill on her jogging route. Ode in the gym gettin’ buff. Watch the red meat, eat fruits and vegetables, more fish and chicken. Workout. Live longer, healthier. Maybe. No phone call yet about my P.E.T. scan. Part of it, too. Mind the cancer.

 

Got a new set of all-seasons for Ruby. Big O. They know the double entendre, I’m sure, but using it on a tire retailer? Seems odd. To me anyhow. Oil change, too. Synthetic. 10,000 miles between. Feels luxurious after a life time of 5,000 mile oil changes. Course those of you with the electrics. Don’t they beat all when it comes to maintenance. I like leaving as many dollars up here in the Mountains as I can. Help the local economy.

 

Led mussar on Thursday. Always fun to lead a group temporarily. Considering another dive into the educating realm. Right now I’m in a havruta with Gary Riskin. Traditionally talmud torah, torah study, was done in pairs. Read a text. Summarize it, analyze it. Sharpening each others thought process. A lively back and forth. Probably where the quip, two Jews, three opinions, came from. We meet every two weeks over zoom. We worked on Cain and Abel last session. The only class I’m in right now.

But. Having just finished Rabbi Toba Spitzer’s excellent God is Here, and halfway through Rabbi Rami Shapiro’s Judaism without Tribalism, with Rabbi Michael Strassfield’s latest, Judaism Disrupted: A Spiritual Manifesto for the 21st Century, ready after I finish Shapiro, I may consider creating a class using these three books. Plus maybe one of Mordecai Kaplan’s, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism. The work in Toba Spitzer’s book and Rami’s show the power of Reconstructionist thought. I find them working the same vein as Emerson.

That is, how can we use the spiritual deposit of the ages while maintaining an open, even skeptical attitude toward religion as an institution? I found Unitarian-Universalism too broad and too thin a tool for this quest. Paganism worked better for me. Until I found a group committed to the same rigorous approach to religion as Emerson and myself and committed to community at the same time. Reconstructionism.

I find Spitzer, Shapiro, and Strassfield working at the outer edges of what Shapiro calls Judaism without tribalism. Calling into question the very way we understand the sacred, Spitzer’s work on metaphors, and Shapiro’s focus on Judaism’s two key moves: teshuvah and tikkun.

Teshuvah, or return, means in his thought returning to who we really are after jettisoning other’s expectations, and being dead honest about who we are. Tikkun means repairing the world: the physical world, the political world, the emotional world. These are, according to him, the mission of Jews. To embrace our true selves and repair a damaged reality. Works for me.