Category Archives: Minnesota

Family, Garden, Great Wheel, Holidays, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Plants

A Pagan Covenant

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Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

Friday Gratefuls: The Sukkah. Harvest festivals. Celebrating the intimate link among humans, Great Sol, Mother Earth, and Seeds. Fall. The sweet, sad, soulful song of Aspens and their gold. Hygge. Coming soon to Shadow Mountain. Rabbi Jamie and his high holiday sermons. Ruth, who wants to eat together again. Sunday. Boulder. Kate, my love. Talking to her. Laurie and her Chi-town food truck. Tulsa King. On the Run. Phantom Toll Booth. The Iliad. Homer.

Sparks of joy and awe: The Harvest

Kavannah: Patience

One brief shining: The CBE sukkah has wood lattice on its three sides, mesh grass matting for a roof, and three children’s decorated tapestries, with a lulav always on the table, the four species: branches of myrtle, palm, willow bound together and the etrog, a large citrus fruit separate from them, the branches waved north, south, east, west, up and down, while saying a bracha, a blessing, the etrog picked up at the end a blessing and a ritual which has a theme of Jewish unity, sure, but more to the point represents the moment in time, the harvest, which Sukkot celebrates.

Seed Savers Exchange is one of the oldest and largest heirloom seed conservation organizations in the world.

Email: diane@seedsavers.org

Corn pickers and combines. Gathering in their mechanical dinosaur ways Corn, Wheat, other Grains. A rhythm with which I grew up. Farms all round my hometown of Alexandria, Indiana, around my mom’s hometown of Morristown and on the land between the two to the south, to Muncie on the east, to Elwood on the west, and Marion on the north. I learned early to always slow down on a gravel road if a hill blocked the view in your direction of travel. There might be a lumbering mechanized giant moving very slowly just over the crest of the hill.

Later the grain trucks would back up to silos when the market was right and carry the harvest to elevators and their huge silos which held many farmer’s crops for loading on grain cars for dispersal to the General Mills, Kellogs, Cargills of the world. So ordinary. Common. Mundane. Usual. Wasn’t until l moved to the Rockies that I found myself apart from the rituals of agriculture.

Oh, once in a while I’ll see a tractor harvesting hay off a Mountain Meadow, but that’s rare enough to be remarkable. There are Cattle in eastern and western Colorado, a few up here in the Mountains, but that’s ranching. It works to different rhythms and has slaughter as its grain truck to the elevator equivalent.

As long as Kate and I lived in Andover, we observed the fall agricultural rituals albeit on a much smaller scale. Tomatoes. Potatoes. Onions. Beets. Carrots. Beans. Raspberries, Ground Cherries, Honey Crisp and Macintosh Apples, Pears, Cherries, Honey. Whatever we planted. Flowers, cut Flowers, too.

Kate would can, dry, and we both would bottle honey. Then go out to the firepit and throw a few logs on, sit with the dogs milling around, and enjoy quiet time together. The harvest season. A feast. A moment when the covenant among Soil, Seeds, and human toil revealed its promise.

Memories, Minnesota

Sacred Waters

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Mabon (Fall) and the Sukkot Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Rosh Hashanah. Yom Kippur. Sukkot. Simchat Torah. The seasons of Judaism. The Great Wheel. Its presence in liturgical calendars of all sorts. The Gunflint Trail. Grand Marais. Lutsen. Lake Superior. Pukaskwa National Park. Wawa. The U.P. Sault Ste Marie. The Edmond Fitzgerald and the Gales of November. The North Woods. Ely. The International Wolf Center. Mark and Mary both in Malaysia. My son back in Korea with Seoah and Murdoch.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gift giving

Kavannah for Tishrei, week 1: Teshuvah

One brief shining: Two trips completely around Lake Superior by car, visiting the true North Shore in Canada, in particular the Canadian National Park Pukaskwa with 700 square miles of roadless Wilderness and Wawa, the quirky little town where I first had poutine, and the bar there over which I stayed for a night each trip.

 

This bridge dangles over a wild River which empties into Lake Superior not far from this point, a Rocky Gorge contains its Rapids on both sides. It’s hiking distance from the only parking and I’ve made this hike several times. Never encountered another person.

Were I a true outdoorsman I would have hiked in and camped somewhere in this Wilderness. Instead I’ve always chosen to hike for a couple of hours first on a wooden walkway that crosses a large Marsh, then on a trail through a dense Pine Forest that leads to the bridge.

At different points Lake Superior is not far from the trail and its Waves crash against the Shore, not really a Beach here, instead made of fist sized chunks of polished Granite and Basalt. Being on the Superior Shore surrounded by miles and miles of protected Wilderness always brought me a calm inner state that lasted a long time.

Lake Superior has a sacred presence known by all who encounter her though they may not name the feeling that way. Her vastness, far from any Ocean, emerges after climbing a steep hill going into Duluth, shows itself along the Bob Dylan Highway 61 which many of us have revisited, and goes in and out of visibility on Canadian, Michigan, and Wisconsin roads as well. That there are lakers, huge cargo ships that carry taconite, coal, wheat, and corn, helps you understand the connected size of these Great Lakes.

Northern Minnesota’s Arrowhead region, the only area in the continental 48 to have never lost its population of wolves, lies always near the Great Lake. Its Wildness and Lake Superior’s sing to each other, a song of longing and beauty, of Winter Snow and Ice, of Wild Neighbors: Moose, Wolves, Whitetail Deer, White Fish, Northern Pike, Muskie, Pine Martens, Sturgeon, Minx, Beaver, Lynx, and Black Bears.

Inside my heart Lake Superior lives in its cold, deep, northern way. A constant reminder that there are places, sacred places, all over Mother Earth. A few I’ve been able to visit often enough to come to know at a heart level. In these latter years of my life the Rocky Mountains have become my sacred Wild Friends, too. How could I want a heaven when I’ve known so many already and live in one now.

 

 

Cooking, Dogs, Dreams, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Oh, my

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Lugnasa and the Full Harvest Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: New credit card. Tom in Omaha. At the Air and Space museum. Good workout. Isaac coming today. Possible personal trainer. Ginny and Janice today. Cooling nights. Gold popping up here and there on Black Mountain. My son. His commitment. Palliative care. Sharpe. Salisbury Steak. A vegetable smoothie. Bad dreams.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Protein

Kavannah: Teshuvah   Returning to the land of my soul

One brief shining: Geez, ever have a night where the dreams stuck with you and you wish they hadn’t; last night I bought a used Porsche that had bald tires and rust, tried to preach in a synagogue bare foot which they said was ok, but couldn’t find my sermon, woke up agitated, out of sorts.

 

What dreams may come. Must have been feeling insecure last night. Perhaps because I got a Groveland UU e-wire announcing their dissolution. Kate and I were a part of Groveland from the beginning and I preached there off and on even after we moved to Andover, then the Rockies. I tried to help them grow. Didn’t have much luck. A feeling of failure. Though I never was their minister except for a brief period. Guess it is a feeling of failure. As I write this, I feel bad. Sad. Inadequate. Groveland was the place Kate and I landed after I left the Presbyterians.

Moods. As I’ve written. Need to return to the land of my soul. Which is here, today, this September 19th life of 2024. Shadow Mountain. Seeing friends. Living. How do I feel? Down. How do I feel? Grounded. How do I feel? Anxious. How do I feel? Sad. How do I feel? Inadequate. How do I feel? In my body. How do I feel? Grateful. How do I feel? Gathered in. How do I feel? Anxious. How do I feel? Surprised. How do I feel? Glad. How do I feel? Here. How do I feel? Sad/OK. How do I feel? Ashamed. How do I feel? Oh, yeah. How do I feel? In myself. How do I feel? Knowing. How do I feel? Back. Mostly

What I learned here was why I never served as a pastor. Not me. I’m a political activist, an organizer, but never a minister. Even though I tried on the role briefly. Twice. Kate told me it wasn’t me. She was right. I wanted to work. To mean something. Sure, that’s fine. But I couldn’t get to that being someone I wasn’t. I didn’t have the right skill set to help a congregation grow unless I was a consultant, not of the congregation. And I was not meant for a pastoral role.

I found work that mattered, that was me, in Andover. Gardener. Bee Keeper. Dog wrangler. Lumberjack. Cook. Husband. Writing. Learning. Oh, the joy I felt. We felt. How much time I wasted trying to fit into square holes when I was a plant shaped peg. A lover of dogs, plants, bees, writing, Kate.

Here in Colorado I have a new focus. The Mountains. Judaism. Friends and Family. Writing. Learning. All about love.

 

 

Memories, Minnesota, Politics, US History

The Flyover

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The Off to College Moon

Friday gratefuls: Dreams. Irene. Mnsaves. 529’s. Cash. Sue Bradshaw. Great Sol. My Lodgepole Companion. The sweetness of life. Alan and Joanne. Tom. Joy. Diane. Indiana. Morristown. Alexandria. Muncie. Ball State. Wabash. The liberal arts. Ruth and the UC-Boulder library. Coach Prime. Finding a jeweler for my Pearl. Whippets. Irish Wolfhounds. Sight hounds. Wolf-dogs.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The lessons of pain

Kavanah: HOLINESS קְדֻשָּׁה Kedusha   Holiness, dedication, specialness   (רוּחָנִי Ruchani: spiritual, cognitive function = intuitive/abstract)  On this one I part company with tradition. I do not consider these antonyms poles of this midot. [גוּפָנִי Gufani: physical, earthly; literally “bodily/fleshly”; cognitive function = sensory/concrete] [חִלוֹנִי Chiloni, Common, worldly, secular] I specifically seek-and find-the holy, the sacred in the physical, the earthly, the body. In the ordinary and the common.

One brief shining: Long ago my journey veered away from any notion of transcendence, of anything spiritual that took me away from my body, from my deep interconnection, even interpenetration with the world as I experience it daily; the Celts taught me that yes there is an Otherworld, but that it does not distract from, rather it enhances the holiness of Animals, Plants, Water, Fire, Air, Mother Earth so that this world and that world meet, in my case often through the wonder of my own body or the gentle swaying of the branches of my Lodgepole Companion or the fawn, already losing her spots who dines in my backyard.

 

 

Since Tim Walz’s nomination for Vice President on Kamala Harris’s ticket, the Midwest is having a moment. Having lived in the Midwest from the age of one and a half through sixty-eight, I’d say I qualify as a Midwesterner. I now have both the experience of those sixty plus years and the kind of clarity that ten years and nine hundred miles distance provide, having lived in the Rocky Mountain West since late 2014.

Here are the states I consider Midwestern: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan-the Upper Midwest and Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio-the lower Midwest. The U.S. government includes Missouri, North and South Dakota, and Kansas, but they fall, in my thinking, in another category. Perhaps the Plains States. My criteria is neither demographic nor geographic, rather it is what I felt was the Midwest all the time I lived there.

Though raised and schooled through undergraduate work in Indiana, the Lower Midwest, I spent my adult life after college in the Upper Midwest, first Wisconsin, then Minnesota. The distinctions between Lower and Upper are real, yet so are the shared realities.

I find these stereotypical “finds” by those writing about the Midwest at least mildly insulting. Hotdish. So, casseroles. So what. Found in church basements and kitchen tables all across the U.S. Friendliness. Maybe more a surface congeniality rather than the surface grumpiness of New England? Both conceal a wariness about strangers I find usual rather than unusual. There’s a wholesomeness in the Midwest. Check out any Midwestern high school, bar scene, the back pages of a big city’s free newspaper. Look at this silly article and see other stereotypes like Midwesterner’s say jeet (?), have never worn a proper Halloween costume, and wedding photos are taken in fields. Come on, guys.

My Midwest has a distinct and often apposite combination of heavy industry and agriculture. Beans and corns vie with Detroit, Akron, Gary. Both have taken heavy hits over the last part of the last century and into this one. The Rust Belt. Corporate farming. My Midwest has Chicago as its big city though Cincinnati and Cleveland, Detroit, and the Twin Cities are also major urban areas. My Midwest does have an emphasis on county fairs and state fairs that does mark it out, primarily due to the strong agricultural sector in all these states. My Midwest may have been more religious once, but that has changed rapidly in past decades.

My Midwest shares with other regions systemic ills like racism, sexism, classism. Witness George Floyd, for example.

Not sure how much further I want to go with this today. Thought it would be more fun to write, but it kind of brought me down. Why? Don’t know.

 

 

Memories, Minnesota, Politics, Science, US History, Weather +Climate

I’ve seen Fire and I’ve seen Rain

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Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Shabbat. Leo. Luke in Jacksonville. Ginny and Janice. The Blackbird. Kittredge. In case of flash flood climb to safety. Black Mountain Drive to Brook Forest Drive. Down the hill to Evergreen. Passing a green Arapaho National Forest. Full Streams thanks to recent Rain. Seeing individual Trees like the Ponderosa growing alone on the side of a Cliff.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rain

One brief shining: Leo sleeps on the rug next to the computer, dreaming of Luke and bones and tennis balls with squeakers in them while I hit first this key then that, glancing up to spend a bit of time with my Lodgepole Companion, looking past them to Black Mountain and beyond to the milky gray of a Cloud resting above it, wondering if that means yet more Rain.

 

We have had Rain. Seems like more than average though I can’t find data to support that. Hoping for a healthy Monsoon season which usually starts in July. Afternoon Rains. Whatever combination of precipitation types that keep our wildfire risk low.

The Cloudy weather we’ve had on occasion over the last couple of weeks reminded me of an early problem I had with Colorado. Too many Sunny days. I missed good ole Midwestern gloomy, overcast weather. Weather that meant I needed to stay inside. Read. Write. Cook. Sunny days meant I needed to be outside, enjoying the limited moments of great weather. Which meant. I constantly felt like I needed to go outside, not dither around inside. So much so that I longed for a stormy week loaded with Thunderheads and pelting rain.

Over that now. Except. When it’s Cloudy and Rainy. Then I revert to Midwest nostalgia, remembering Rainy days curled up in a chair reading. The world of the moment subsumed by the world of the text.

 

Just a moment: Yeah. He should step away. Too much confirmation of stereotypes and GOP talking points about his capacity. Yes, I believe he can still do the job. But I don’t see him or Democratic chances in November recovering from the debate debacle. We need to win this election. It matters and we all know it. If Biden can’t win, we need someone who can.

 

Friend Tom Crane found this. It had a profound affect on me as I watched it.

“About 12 seconds into this video, something unusual happens. The Earth begins to rise. Never seen by humans before, the rise of the Earth over the limb of the Moon occurred about 55.5 years ago and surprised and amazed the crew of Apollo 8. The crew immediately scrambled to take still images of the stunning vista caused by Apollo 8‘s orbit around the Moon. The featured video is a modern reconstruction of the event as it would have looked were it recorded with a modern movie camera…”  Astronomy Picture of the Day

Memories, Minnesota, Politics, Travel

Arriving

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Sunday gratefuls: Steve, the Uber driver. The Chancellor. Powell Street. Cable cars. The Moon of Liberation standing over the Hyatt Regency. Amtrak. My back and its pains. A good night’s sleep. Diane. Her town. Mission and Fremont. Traveling. Vacating. Seeing the U.S. West, then the Pacific.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Uber

One brief shining: Left Roomette #21 behind pushing my bag, down the stairs, off the train, pushing bag again, show ticket to shuttle bus driver, board the bus, cross the bridge from Oakland to San Francisco with the Bay rippling underneath us, Alcatraz brooding off to my right, get out at Mission and Fremont, call an Uber, get in and ride to the Chancellor on Union Square.

 

No Wifi on train so my first trip posts will be above this one. Wrote them on Scribener and will import them when its update gets finished. Write now I’m in room 1304 of the Chancellor, a boutique hotel on Union Square. Writing now, too.

The back is an issue, but not a deal breaker for travel. Slower and with more management of pain. Sorta like home.

Steve, my Uber driver, was from Phoenix, now married to a S.F. gal. He drove a white Tesla and showed up within a minute of my booking. A critical move for my back. In times past I would have preferred to walk the 19 minutes to the hotel; now I know that level of effort would stress my hip and set me back.

My original flaneur idea, when the back flared for the first time in Korea, is the right one. Go slow and easy. Keep up the exercise. Do pain management.

That’s ok. The buzz of the new and the different still feeds my soul.

 

Yesterday as the train made its slow, delayed approach through poor suburbs, boulevards and underpasses filled with the makeshift homes of the unhomed, I got that sense of unease that always accompanies evidence of our failed political economics.

Then we came to Grizzly Island Wildlife Area. Egrets and Blue Heron. The Marsh. A Fox loping along for an evening meal. Wild Neighbors for San Francisco and its burbs. Calm returned to my soul. Not because there were no trailer parks, burned out cars, Target shopping carts, but because this felt like my place, a home away from home. Here I knew what to notice, how to exist.

In the so sad introduction to a major world metropolis my heart clogged up, the scenes of poverty’s devastation boiling my blood. Agitating me. Wanting to make me scream. So much so that I looked up M.I.C.A.H., the Metropolitan Interfaith Coalition for Affordable House. Yes, still there, almost 40 years now. And the Minnesota Council of Non-Profits. Fancy website. Couldn’t find Jobs Now though it may have morphed into something else. It was there the last time I wondered if what I’d done really mattered.

Yes, economic injustice and its tragedies are and will be with us. But so will those whose lives are spent trying to change them and if change can’t happen right now, ameliorate their effects.

Colorado, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Jefferson County, Judaism, Minnesota, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain, The West, Travel, US History, Wild Neighbors

New Identities

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Spring and the Purim Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Yet more Snow! Today. Blue Colorado Sky with scattered white Cumulus Clouds. The Ancient Brothers. Hafar. K.L. S.F. Maine. Minnesota. Jackie in Bailey. Aspen Roots. Kissing Frogs. Movies. Nights. Days. Resurrection. A new life. The Shema. Full days. Travel. Dogs. Marilyn and Irv. The Socrates Cafe. Meeting new people.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Questions

One brief shining: Each month I drive eight minutes from Shadow Mountain to Aspen Park, going by the new bakery the Wicked Whisk and my old personal trainer at On the Move Fitness, past the physical therapists who got me through knee surgery, to the never in my time up here full suite of offices and business that contain the Pinball place, the massage folks, a live theater, Thai 202 which makes the wonderful Crying Tiger, and hop up the stairs to Aspen Roots where Jackie cuts my hair and tells me she loves me which I say back.

 

Long enough now. Long enough for relationships to have come and gone. And for some to remain. My tenth year on Shadow Mountain, begun last Winter Solstice. This is where I live, a Coloradan, a Westerner, a Mountain dweller. All distinct identities created by geography and geology and the human imprint on both.

As a Coloradan I inhabit a former red hate state, transitioning to a blue progressive state. As a Westerner, I have heeded Horace Greeley and gone west though not as a young man, but as an older one. Greeley, Colorado* is named after him. The Western identity has a good deal of complexity to it as does Mountain dweller.

To be a Westerner means to enjoy the benefits of manifest destiny, of the push west of the frontier, the railroads, those seeking gold, those fleeing law or custom or poverty in the the East. Of those who slaughtered the bison and the indigenous populations who lived here before we arrived. Those who clear cut the Front Range to build Denver and the many, far too many, hard Rock mines that pollute the Creeks, Streams, and Rivers here. The Western U.S. We who arrived later are not innocent. Yet no one is innocent. Either here or there.

What happens now. What we do today. Who we are in this moment matters, too. We are the stewards, the fellow travelers in this magical wide open place. We are responsible for what happens here as are the Wild Neighbors, the Forests and Streams. The descendants of all those who lived here long ago and all those who altered the landscape not so long ago. We must build the sustainable way for humans to live here for as long as human beings can live.

The Mountain Dweller is the most personal of these three identities and the most narrow, representing that place where I live and love and have my becoming. Each day my eyes open to the top of Shadow Mountain, to the taller prominence of Black Mountain, to the Lodgepoles and Aspens that cover them both. My lungs take in the scarce air of 8,800 feet as I set aside my nighttime oxygen canula. Often Mule Deer will be around, hunting for grass.

To go anywhere. To see Jackie at Aspen Roots. To get groceries at Safeway. To breakfast with friends. To the synagogue. To the doctor. I drive on Mountain roads. Two lanes, blind curves, sudden changes of altitude, vistas opening and disappearing.

Mountains whose names I do not know rise on either side, the Streams that drain them flowing often near the road itself. Sometimes I am up high and able to see for miles, then I go down into constricted views of only Rock and Trees. All the while, not far off the road Wild Neighbors living their wild lives. Beavers damming Streams, their Ponds. The Mountain Lion on a rocky shelf waiting for Elk or Mule Deer to walk below. In my own way I appear and disappear from view around curves, into a valley, only to suddenly reappear in Evergreen.

How have these three identities changed me from the sea level view of life that was my birthright as a Midwestern boy? I’ve become more of a spectator of life outside of the Mountains. Back east. Or on the coasts. They are not close to me, and their struggles seem far away. My world has become more focused. There are fewer people out here, less urbanization, less agriculture. In those senses the Colorado/Western/Mountain world was unfamiliar to me.

I live within a smaller world altogether. My fourth new identity, that of a Jew, makes this world, this more narrow and circumscribed world, a friendly and friend full one. As has the nine years plus of living here, making connections like Jackie. And now the Socrates Cafe. This is important because, like most of us who live up here, going down the hill is not appealing. And that’s where the bon vivant of urban life plays out. Even for those things I enjoy I have to factor in a long drive in and a long drive back. Most often the positive gain is too weak to justify the hassle.

For me. Today. This Colorado guy, this Western guy, this Mountain Man has found his spot and become one with it.

 

 

*Greeley began as the Union Colony of Colorado, which was founded in 1869 by Nathan C. Meeker, an agricultural reporter for the New York Tribune as an experimental utopian farming community “based on temperance, religion, agriculture, education and family values,” with the backing of the Tribune‘s editor Horace Greeley, who popularized the phrase “Go West, young man”.[7][8][9] wiki

Memories, Minnesota, Politics, Weather +Climate

Big Storms

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Imbolc and the Purim Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Snow. A lot. More on the way. The generator. Good sleeping. Mountain late winter. The cold. Still there. Tired. Less sneezy. Mostly fatigued. Reading. New Joe Pickett novel. Jewish holidays. Come and Get It by Kiley Reid. Politics. So consequential, so out of whack. My storm larder. Bean soup. Pork steaks. Plenty of food for body and soul.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A Winter Storm

One brief shining: Sure enough, around noon Snow started off and on, tailing off around three, coming back an hour later in a steady, straight down imitation of a good drenching Rain, continuing all night with today predicted to add 9-13 inches and tonight another 6-10 both on top of the overnight last night total perhaps putting us past even the predicted three feet.

Nota bene: At 7:30 am I took a yardstick out to my deck. I measured 21 inches of Snow.

 

Around 3 am I awoke to jazz and my medical guardian announcing that it was “charging”, something it does each time I put it in its charging cradle at night. The rumble of the generator going off told me what had happened. Power had gone out, perhaps twice, and when it shifted this time back to the grid the guardian figured it had just been plugged in and the cd player with a Dave Brubeck disc in it somehow turned on. Late Winter/early Spring Snow storms with their wet, heavy snow often take out Mountain electrical lines. Not unexpected.

Even so, the cool sound of Brubeck’s jazz confused me as did the mechanical voice repeating, “charging.” It took me a minute to orient myself to the storm and the generator.

We’ve been prepped for this storm since last weekend. A big one. At first, maybe 2 feet of Snow! Then, no, more like 3. Giving what I’ve seen so far and what’s predicted we might exceed that. So many of the Snow forecasts this season have busted or been underwhelming. Not this one. We’ll remember where we were on March 14th in 2024.

Big Snow Storms are like irregular holidays. Anticipated with either eagerness or dread. Often preceded by trips to the grocery store. A reason to stay home from work or school. The bigger they are, the more memorable. That Halloween blizzard in 1991. Minnesota. If you were in the state then, you remember that one. Over 2 feet of snow. The arc of this storm is far from over so just how big it will be is still unknown. But it seems well on its way to the history books.

 

Just a moment: Well, my plea for Joe Biden to step aside fell on deaf ears. Mine included. He cinched the Democratic nomination. As has 45. We’re getting our dream matchup for the election that may determine the fate of democracy in the U.S. That dream, BTW, is, yes, a nightmare. A repeat of 2020. And the third time 45 has been on the ballot. Three times too many if you ask me.

My nudge to the President did come before his State of the Union speech. He caught some air with that. Still not sure he’s the right one to carry us past the golden haired boy. But I gotta hope so.

Commentary on Religion, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota

“Higher” Criticism

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Winter and the Cold Mountain

Shabbat gratefuls: Parsha Beshalach: Exodus 13:17-17:16. Shabbat candle holders. Shabbat. Joanne. Alan. His BMW in Oxnard, Ca. Breakfast with Marilyn and Irv next week. Irv and his recovery. Jazz concert tomorrow at Alan and Cheri’s in Denver. Snow yesterday. 52 on Wednesday. Colorado. The Rocky Mountains. The Atlantic Ocean. The Pacific. The South China Sea. The Yellow Sea. Sailing.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A day of joy

One brief shining: A millennia ago I lived in student housing at United Theological Seminary in New Brighton Minnesota and walked through the then still fierce Winter to the classroom building a block away where I would go through the cafeteria, down past the mailboxes collecting anything to me on the way and the bookstore to the small stainless steel elevator, get in, push 3, get out on the top floor of the library, head to my carrel, sit down and sink into both the expansive view and my intent to learn. Ah.

 

That was 1970. There were electric outlets at each of our outdoor parking places so we could plug in our engine block heaters. I recalled these memories because I added Parsha Beshalach to my gratefuls this morning. A through line between seminary and this Jewish life I’m now living is my excitement about study of scripture. I loved those “Old Testament” classes with Art Merrill and the New Testament classes with Henry Gustafson. A month or so ago I asked to have Torah study added to the adult education program at CBE. Of course, I ended up in charge of it. That’s the way of religious institutions. If you volunteer, you lead.

You might think the several classes I took at UTS would give me some expertise for Torah study, but you would be mostly wrong. Not sure if I wrote about this before, but here are the big differences. First, Jews focus on the Torah, the first five books of the Tanakh which also includes the Nevi’im, the prophets, and the Ketuvim, writings. T for Torah. N for Nevi’im. K for Ketuvim = TaNaKh. The Tanakh has most of the same material as what Christians insist on calling the “Old Testament.” My education at UTS covered the whole of both Testaments, “Old” and New. So much, much less attention to the Torah itself.

Second, the exegetical methods I learned, that is, the methods of getting at what the text meant and its interpretation (hermeneutics), differ significantly from the Jewish approach to exegesis. I learned redaction criticism, how the texts were edited; form criticism, whether the text had liturgical or other formal construction; textual criticism, how did the variant editions and translations differ; how to translate from the Greek and Hebrew for myself though mine was a limited introduction; historical criticism, what was happening at the time the text was written; and, reception criticism, how had the text been received and interpreted over church history.

We learned two steps. First, exegesis using the best tools we knew, the various critical methodologies and any other analysis we could bring to the text. Second, the hermeneutical task, taking our best understanding of the meaning of the text, exegetical work, and applying that meaning to a contemporary situation. This usually meant writing a sermon.

Third, a lot of what I learned about the “Old Testament” had a definite Christian inflection. That is, finding those parts of the Tanakh which prophesied the coming of Jesus, the Messiah.

The Jewish approach is much different and I’ll go into that in a later post. Tomorrow if I remember.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Garden, Memories, Minnesota, Politics, US History

Neither Trump nor Biden

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

Monday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv. Lila and Liks. Ryder. 12 degrees this morning. A good Snow overnight. Spelling Bee. Black Mountain not visible. Still Snowing. The Ancient Brothers. Aleph. Lamech. Bet. Tav. Mem. Nun. My torah portion. Unboxing my cd player. The Brothers Sun. El Ninõ. Furball Cleaning. Ana and Lita. Music. Black-eyed peas. Soup. Crackers. Sardines and Salmon, Tuna.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The waning crescent Winter Solstice Moon

One brief shining: If Kate and I were still in Andover, we would be sitting at our long kitchen table, pages opened in many Seed catalogues, discussing planting for the upcoming year should we try Leeks again, what was that Iris you saw, pages riffle, oh, that’s a beauty, look at this Garlic, these heirloom Tomatoes, Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, and wondering if the Bees survived the winter so Artemis Honey could fill up more jars and bottles.

 

I ordered a couple of Seed catalogues this year. Maybe Harris and Seed Savers. They came. I looked at them briefly, but without the promise of planting, tending to the plants, harvest. I put them away. No regret. It was time to let the Gardens and the Orchard pass to other younger hands. And they did.

The memories and photographs of those times though. Rich and lush like the early May Flower beds, the late August Garden beds, a Tree weighted down with Honeycrisp Apples. Like a hive humming with Bees, flying in and out, making honey and propolis and wax. Like an Irish Wolfhound at play. Tor gently reaching through the Garden fence in September to pluck golden Raspberries straight from the Cane.

Cool fall evenings around the firepit with Kate, hot chocolate, some Oak or Ironwood crackling with orange and blue. A good life.

 

Yesterday the Ancient Brothers made four predictions each. Perhaps unsurprising in one instance. We all predicted Trump would lose. Two of us predicted unrest and chaos. I hadn’t thought of that but, yes, I imagine so. 45 has dominated and shaped an ugly era of American politics and civic life. You know that. Yet my final prediction was that, even if the worst happens, ordinary life will go on. People will get up in the morning. Go to work. Raise children. Buy assault rifles. Probably at Walmart.

Will those predictions about the election come true? Hell if I know. Our poor political system has had the stuffin’ kicked out of it. The primaries hold little suspense. The choices already seem self-evident. Old and older. Though of course that can change. I hope it changes. I would prefer neither Trump nor Biden on the ticket in the fall.

I say that because I want Trump gone and I can see several different scenarios where he gets knocked aside by a health issue or legal peril. I say that because Biden, who has performed way above expectations, guiding the ship through turbulence of all sorts, does not have what we need. Youth. Energy. Vision. A statesperson who can lift us all up, remind us of the ideals that have made this flawed nation a great nation. TBD.