Category Archives: Feelings

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Mussar, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation

Call Me When You Get It

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Friday gratefuls: Good sleep. Laying around. Hanukah. Lighting my first candles as a Jew. Toba Spitzer. Mordecai Kaplan. Metaphor. God is Here. Mussar. Holimonth. Advent. Posada. The darkness. My inner Shadow Mountain. Tara’s cute new puppy. Kippur. Leo. Kepler of blessed memory. Rigel of blessed memory. Kate of blessed memory. A pinch of dysthymia. Oversleeping. Winds knocking over my trash can. Weather on the way. Cold and Snow. Rich. Diane. Tom. My son and Seoah and Murdoch.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Leo

One brief shining: The cloud as metaphor sitting in Evergreen, Colorado, talking to Rabbi Toba Spitzer in Newton, Massachusetts, while others dotted the screen from Lakewood, Georgetown, Conifer who was the live audience, us around the table in Beth Evergreen or the individuals in the cloud, or were we all simply in the Cloud alive to ourselves but bits and bytes elsewhere? The multiparity?

 

Not sure what’s going on with me right now, but I’ve slept in a lot this week. Over two hours this morning. Post-conversion dysthymia? That old melancholy coming up the chimney from its shack on my inner Shadow Mountain? Have felt slightly off for a few days. Negative thoughts showing up, not staying, not affecting my mood for long. Thanks to the how do I feel exercise Tal taught us. Yet they keep returning and oversleeping usually means a disturbance in the inner world.

 

When I drove back from p.t. yesterday though. Mary discharged me. Good work on the back and I now have the exercise tools to manage it, know when to ask for help if it flares again. Prior to seeing Mary we had the Zoom which included Rabbi Toba Spitzer answering questions about her book, God is Here. Loved her. A great mind working at the frontiers of religious thought.

Coming back up Brook Forest Drive I felt good. Reminded myself that people, people are good. I need people on line and in person regularly. Patted myself on the back for attending mussar, seeing Mary. Having meaningful connections in both places. Told Mary when she said something about her boyfriend that he was lucky, somebody out there needed her in their life, glad to know she’d found someone.

 

Janet and I had an interesting post-mussar conversation. She said the only way to find God is through meditation. She’s a Jewbu. A Jewish Buddhist. And a very bright lady.

Well, god is a universal idea so how can you be sure if the one you find in meditation is the One? Don’t we need each other for that sort of connection? She agreed we need the sangha, the synagogue.

 

I don’t think the only way to connect with the sacred is to go in. As most of you know. Though it’s a sound way. I find the sacred right out there on the surface of things. The Lodgepole. Janet. Black Mountain. Mary. Leo. Electricity. Computers. Darkness. Daytime.

Rich and I had a disagreement about this on Wednesday night. He wanted to preserve the particularity of Judaism, that its holy places in Israel, for example, were special. I asked him what Judaism points to.

I agree with his appreciation and love for the particularities of Judaism, its holy places, rituals, people. Otherwise I would not have converted. Yet. I also want to preserve the idea that we do not need the rock on which Abraham would have sacrificed Isaac, or the Western Wall, or Mt. Sinai, or even the Torah to find our way to the sacred, to recognize our inescapable linkage to and with it.

Here’s a poem that Tom offered this morning that says what I’m saying. By David Budbill

 

The Three Goals
The first goal is to see the thing in itself
in and for itself, to see it simply and clearly
for what it is.
No symbolism, please.

The second goal is to see each individual thing
as unified, as one, with all the other
ten thousand things.
In this regard, a little wine helps a lot.

The third goal is to grasp the first and the second goals,
to see the universal in the particular,
simultaneously.
Regarding this one, call me when you get it.

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Politics, Travel

Making my way in

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Hanukah. Candles. Dreidels. Gifts. Menorah. The Maccabees. Masada. The lamp that remained lit. Lights. Devali. Christmas. Hanukah. Kwanza. The Yule Log. All that brave standing against the dark. Standing with the dark. Only two weeks to the Winter Solstice, the best day of the year. For me. Yes, the light becomes greater after. But on Solstice night darkness reaches its apotheosis for the year. Fertile, restful, creativity fostering darkness. And to the Shadow. I sit on Shadow Mountain, yet I have a Shadow Mountain within, too. In the darkness.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My inner Shadow Mountain

One brief shining: Marilyn and I went up the walkway to the synagogue last night as children came out clutching bags filled with gifts from the Bizarre Bazaar, a free shopping area for Hebrew School kids needing Hanukah gifts for parents and siblings, items donated from the congregation over the last month, and Ellen, looking weary, glad that it was over, ready for home, gave me a hug.

 

Been tossing an idea around since I’ve started doing the sabbath. Why not a week where I can go anywhere I want? Down to Taos and Santa Fe. Over to Bryce Canyon or Moab. Down to the four corners area. Over to any of several wild spots in Colorado. Mountain towns. No dog to fuss about. I can just turn the key and go. But I don’t. Inertia. Maybe a week out of the month where I can make short trips would get me out of my house and on the road. Might work.

 

Making my way in. Probably me mostly, but not only me. I’m a bit further into CBE. Wearing my kippah, yes. Mezuzahs, yes. Menorahs, yes. Last Friday’s service and the odd dissonance with the Christmas concert in the same space on Sunday, yes. But also Rich commenting on my dvar torah. Israel as a koan, a lived paradox. Joan giving me more jokes. Softer. Jamie a bit more open, friendly. It is not only me. I’m being folded in, granted access in a more open way.

There’s also that feeling of inner calm. As if I no longer have anything to prove. Which I don’t. In part. Coming home to this remarkable group of individuals, this sacred communion of friends and acquaintances. In part. Saying yes to 76. Yes to being a widower. Yes to enough. And meaning enough as good enough. Plenty. Playing that back over the arc of my life. Good enough. Well done, good and faithful servant.

There is, too, Kate and her gifts to me. This house. The 401K rollover. Her blessed memory. Ruth and Gabe. Her love. They fold into this calmness as well.

 

Costa Rica. The new Canada? I know folks looking at land down there. In case, you know. Trump. Not me. Even if the worst happens somebody needs to be the loyal opposition. Especially if we have no loyalty at the top. Besides. Moving? Meh!

What a time. A rising Ocean. A shrinking democracy. Wars in the Ukraine and Israel. Damn, dude. No wonder marijuana and hallucinogens have begun to get legalized in more and more states.

 

 

 

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, GeekWorld, Health, Judaism, Mussar

Post Conversion Let Down

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Leo. Doggy presence. Luke in Florida. Tom in Atlanta. Paul’s birthday. 77. Whoa. He old. Great Sol brightening a Shadow Mountain morning. Last warm day for a while. Snow coming. Over spending on Snow tires. For safety. Giving myself the best odds. Living high. Colorado. The Rockies. The Himalayas. The Appalachians. The Smokies. The Atlas. The Alps. The Dolomites.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mountains

One brief shining: Leo lies on my rug, legs sprawled out, head down, sleeping or resting, while I sit here typing, hitting key after key with the automatic movements learned first in typing at Alexandria-Monroe High School, perhaps the class I’ve used the most in terms of daily activity, odd to contemplate though paws on the keyboard, a million dogs would not produce the Britannica.

 

I slept in this morning. On purpose. Because I liked the feel. An oddity for me, yes, but fun in a I don’t have to so I won’t sorta way. Bright eyed and bushy tailed. Ever hear that one? Don’t think I’ve felt that way since I hit 70. Awake and alert, ready to go about the day, yes, but bushy tailed? Can’t recall the day. Maybe a feeling reserved for the get up and go ages of the twenties and thirties?

 

MVP tonight. Rabbi Jamie on trust/compassion with the metaphor of rock. This small group at CBE supercharges my month. We’ve been meeting for years now, lost two members to death: Judy and Kate, and have gotten as close as a group can get. Figuring what I can make since we always bring food.

 

So. An odd, kind of silly deal with my Snow tires. Jesus told me two of my Blizzaks were at 4 mm tread. I knew it, too. I took them back last year when a tech said they could go a little further. Nope. So Jesus offered me a deal. Salvation for two Blizzaks. I don’t know how they get away with that name even in Latino circles. Too many jokes, I’d think. Anyhow. He would give me a deal on two new ones. But. I’d have to leave the car until 1:30 pm. This was at 9:30 am. Nope. Put’em on.

Drove home, ordered two new Blizzaks from Tire Rack.com. About $20 more than what Jesus had offered. Shoot. Going to big O in Evergreen on Friday to have them put on. I know. But I brought this on myself. Having good tread and good winter tires for Mountain roads? Perhaps not necessary, but prudent. And damned if I don’t have a real strong prudent streak. Always surprises me, too.

 

Post conversion let down. Had such a buzz going the last month or so. Getting ready, making schedules, preparing myself for transformation. A peak on Tuesday in the mikvah. Slowly. Like air going out of a balloon. Life deflates. Not depressing, but a daily normal state over against a time of heightened anticipation, excitement. Maybe like the time after opening presents on Christmas morning. Gathering energy for the long haul now, a Jewish life until death.

Although. I do have an inner calmness now. As if some vibratory mechanism in my inner world got turned off. That is the opposite of an excited state and I’m still getting used to it. Feels like I have enough time now, as if the future has gone quiet, not clamoring for a piece of me right now.

Changes.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Holidays, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Ho, Ho, Ho

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers on faith. Leo. Luke on his way to Florida. Scott and Rene. Snow. Christmas music. Klezmer music. Nepalese food. Gabe, Ruth, Mia coming up on the weekend. Hanukah. My Dog menorah. Holiday gifts. For Mark and Ana and the Shirley Waste folks. The lights on Black Mountain/Brook Forest Drive. Especially that one tall Spruce. Fusion energy. Coming, I hope. The long arc of a life.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Leo asleep beside me

One brief shining: Took a peppermint flavored chocolate ball as I entered the sanctuary, kippah in place, popped it in my mouth while finding a seat on the left side so my good ear would be toward the piano, a crowd of unfamiliar people in the seats to hear a local pianist, a transplanted Australian, play seasonal music, that is Christmas music mostly, a somewhat dissonant experience.

 

Relearned a lesson yesterday evening. I still have neurons caching memories of Silver Bells, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, and Silent Night. Hearing these songs in the same sanctuary where I held the Torah scroll on Friday night was. Strange.

Memories of Christmas past came floating up like visitors to Scrooge, sort of unwelcome yet also precious. And important. Teaching me that I am whole, not part. Not just this new Jew, welcomed home by CBE, but an old, well not really Christian, but American immersed in the Christmas tree, holiday lights, Santa Claus and candy cane world of December in the U.S. And, Singapore. Yet I also believe in the miracle of the mikvah, that I have always been a Jew, and so my slight outsider status to the candy cane world even long ago.

Will watch a silly Christmas movie or two. No tree. Not for a long time. Perhaps I’ll listen to some Christmas music. Each year for the past several years I’ve purchased the Jacquie Lawson Advent calendar, an English themed dive into a Victorian or Edwardian or London Christmas spread out over the season of Advent. Frustratingly this year I’ve had difficulty opening the damned thing. But I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the retro Christmas feeling these calendars have to offer.

What I’m saying here is that I don’t miss celebrating that most confusing of theological ideas, incarnation of a great God in one person (all people, yes, sure. but one person?); however, the Christmas season even with its crass buy me, buy me, buy me emphasis still warms my heart. Sleigh bells jingle. Rudolf mounts the skies. That Grinch gets foiled.

Folks put up lights in brave attempts to recall Great Sol from an apparent disappearance. Down the hill from me are inflatable moose lit with inner light, snowmen, Santa Claus, trees across Evergreen Lake, three of them the same height with wonderful blue bulbs, a Christmas light lined fence, more than one.

On Friday night when I drove to CBE for the celebration of mine and Veronica’s conversion downtown Evergreen had barriers to cars. The Christmas parade. Drawing shoppers and kitschy Mountain lovers from Denver to give local folks some cash. I like it.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Keep the Sabbath

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Sunday gratefuls: A full sabbath observance. Finishing another novel. Reading this week’s parsha. Starting Zornberg. Breakfast with Ginny and Janice. The service on Friday night. Joan and Rich. Did not do a havdalah service, but went through that time with my observance. Still much to learn about the sabbath. On a ritual and on a how do I make it work for me basis. Holimonth in full. Lights on many trees and houses along Black Mountain Drive/Brook Forest.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Christmas Lights

One brief shining: Looked up at the blackboard at Aspen Perks and saw breakfast quesadilla, ordered it, it delighted me when it came since it had crispy bacon bits in addition to the sausage and cheese, an oh my cardiologist would not approve breakfast though to be fair Dr. Rubenstein did say keep doing what you’re doing, so.

 

You might think observing the sabbath is only related to my joining the tribe, but that’s not true. Like the South American siesta which I also observed up until recently, at least the nap part, I always thought a day of rest, a day to enter sacred time, was a great way to push back against consumerist/careerist American culture. Just never quite got over the hump of a regular ritual, maybe I had too little information, maybe I was stuck in our gotta work, gotta get something done milieu.

That mikvah water though. Getting serious about Judaism. The push I needed. I plan to be like Tom’s former corporate lawyer, available 24/6. Well, maybe 12/6. Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’m not on anybody’s clock anymore. Always admired Sandy Koufax who refused to pitch in a World Series game that fell on Yom Kippur. Not so much about rule following as about serious intent to me.

Joan said on Friday that the sabbath is addictive. I know what she means. I looked forward to it this week. Starting Friday night when Veronica lit the sabbath candles. Continuing into Saturday until 5:28 pm. Had breakfast with Ginny and Janice, deciding that time with friends will be part of my sabbath. Still figuring out what will constitute the sabbath for me. Study. Reading fiction. Nice meals. Friends. Painting. Writing poetry. It will take its own shape over time.

 

Had an odd realization when I read this week’s Torah portion. Included Joseph’s coat of many colors, his enslavement through the action of his own brothers, jail time, dream interpretation.

When I chose the name Israel, I hadn’t thought about Jacob as Joseph’s father. I chose the name Joseph based on this story, a foreigner who went to a distant land and did well. When I picked my Hebrew name, I chose the name of Joseph’s father.

Might reflect the miracle of the mikvah that Rabbi Jamie told me about. Once going through the immersions, you have always been a Jew. This was always coming, this choice. I was a Jew at birth in Duncan, Oklahoma. As I grew and had various moments when Jewish life intersected my own. More on this at a later time.

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism

Matters of the Heart

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Sabbath gratefuls: A good heart. Dr. Rubenstein. Denver. The Brown Palace. Driving down the hill. Parsha. Jacob at the Jabbok Ford. Dvar Torah. Reading a psalm. Holding the Torah scroll. Leading the shema. Lighting the shabbat candles. Mindy’s flour-less chocolate cake. Joan and Rich. Marilyn and Irv. Tara. Alan in Cuba. Ron and Iris. Luke and Leo. Rabbi Jamie. My home, CBE. The oneg.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Holding the Torah scroll

One brief shining: Wearing my kippah in the synagogue now I went up to the ark and Rabbi Jamie took our two Torah scrolls out, handed one to me, one to Veronica, heavier than I had expected, while we held them I lead a spoken shema then Jamie and Veronica, who has a beautiful singing voice, lead a sung shema we returned the scrolls to Jamie who replaced them in the ark.

 

Yesterday was a heart day all the way. Left home at 7:45 to drive into and through downtown Denver to the offices of the SCL heart and vascular institute to see Dr. Rubenstein. My first visit to a cardiologist. That enlarged aorta discovered by the family practice doc in Korea. Emmie put the leads on me expertly, a baseline ekg. Took my blood pressure. Discussed my meds and my medical history. A bit later the now de rigueur knock on the door and Dr. Rubenstein entered.

That grade 1 mitral valve dysfunction? Everybody over 60 has it. The enlarged aorta. Mild. Nothing to worry about. Another echo in a year just to see if it’s expanding. If not. Probably forget about it. Keep doing what you’re doing. Your heart is fine. What I thought.

I had a question for him though. Did he ever consider the heart in the context of the Hebrew word lev? It stopped him. Not sure what you’re asking, he said. Well, we’re dealing here with the heart as an organ, but do you ever consider it as part of the heart-mind. You mean all this? He swept his hands up and down over his body. Yes.

Not in here. Here I’m focused on the organ, how it’s working. Outside of here, then I take into account the spiritual. But not here.

 

Then. Breakfast at Aspen Perks. Marilyn and Tara were just leaving as I was coming in. Talked to them for a bit and Marilyn offered to sit with me while I ate. We had a good conversation. Went home and finished the book God is Here. Turns out the author is into process theology. Whitehead. I mentioned this to Marilyn and she told me the story of Whitehead hall at her alma mater. 5 stories with no elevator. When she and Irv were dating, he wouldn’t follow her up to her classes on the fifth floor. Love dies on the fifth floor of Whitehead was a saying for them ever after.

 

That evening. A potluck, the shabbat service, the oneg. Got there a bit early to talk to Jamie. Make sure I was not included in any singing. Of which there is a lot in a Jewish service. No, I wasn’t. He had a color coded order of service that showed when Veronica and I were supposed to come up. Which he didn’t follow as it turns out.

I read his translation of a psalm, participated in lighting the shabbat candles, and held a Torah scroll as did Veronica. After the scrolls were put away and we finished leading the congregation in the shema, Jamie looked at us, indicated the congregation, and said, “Look out on your home.”

Veronica and I both did the d’var Torah, a talk or an essay based on the Torah portion for the week. Veronica talked about the conversion process while I focused on Jacob at the Jabbok Ford.

I’ll post mine when I finish writing it for Joan. She couldn’t hear all of mine. I did it extemporaneously, so I’m going to try to recover roughly what I said.

The oneg afterward included a flour-less chocolate cake Mindy offered to make for me. She’s a master baker and it was wonderful.

A lot of pats on the back, congratulatory comments. Dan Herman, past congregation president, gave me a gift of carrots pulled from his garden last week and a large prescription bottle filled with marijuana buds also from his garden. Gotta love that.

So now the conversion process itself has ended. The mikvah and the naming ceremony finished this week and an appearance as a new Jew (thanks, Alan) in a service. But. I have eight more sessions with Jamie on various aspects of Jewish life. The next one, this month, is on Jewish identity.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Still buzzing

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: An added identity. A son of Abraham and Sarah. Still buzzing from yesterday. That full Choice Moon visible on the way to Evergreen yesterday morning. Great Sol painting the Lodgepoles with energy. A blue white Sky. A great sleep. Witnesses. Ritual. Blessings. Joan. Wild Neighbors. The Arapaho National Forest. Shadow Mountain. The Mikvah. Its Water.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Israel

One brief shining: Exhale, Rabbi Jamie said, after in my first immersion I bobbed back to the surface and hit my head on the beautiful tiles that make up the mikvah-gently, oh I said, so the next time I did exhale, the second immersion, and I sank to the bottom proving why a good Jew should trust his Rabbi.

 

May it last. This feeling of inner peace. I slept soundly. Woke up with no hurry, no rush to accomplish anything. To get anything going for the day. Felt good in my own skin. Not that I don’t usually, but this feels pervasive. And, a result of the ritual yesterday. Yes, I had already chosen. Yes, for me it was a confirmation of that choice. Yet the attentiveness, the kavanah, the intention of all parties involved, including those who raised the money for the mikvah, designed and built it. Yes. The drop of blood. Yes. The beit din. Yes. The Waters of the mikvah. Yes. Immersion. Yes. The new name. Yes. Changed.

Joan said during my beit din that before WWII converts used to be looked down on in Judaism in America. Second class Jews. After the holocaust. Things changed. These were people who will stand with the other members of the tribe. By choice. The potential consequences of that choice driving the change.

Rabbi Steve warned me with a story. A man he married had converted. Shortly after his conversion he was in an airport and talking with his sister, a Lutheran minister, about it. Loudly. His sister asked him where he was. He told her. She said stop this conversation right now and we’ll discuss why when you get home. This was shortly after October 7th. You’ve had, he said, until now, the cover of white male privilege. Your new identity comes with dangers.

Yes, I said, I may be stupid about that. But I’m not going to give into those forces. Screw’em. I fight. I fight for those I love. But he’s right. There are real this world consequences to being Jewish. Perhaps perversely but probably not surprisingly to those who know me well, I embrace them.

After the ritual, we all had lunch at a Middle Eastern place. Good gyros, generous portions. Alan came and celebrated with us. It was a nice and gentle way to end the morning.

Joan invited me in for coffee when we made the long trek up her narrow driveway to take her home. I agreed. Rabbi Jamie said he’d be back for me after his staff meeting. Joan and I talked for two plus hours, ranging wide. She’s only participated in two other beit dins, long ago, and both for women. A real honor to have her there. She’s a friend.

 

 

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism

A Shortie

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Tuesday grateful: Choice day. Immersion. The prayer on the third immersion: Shema Yisrael. Adonai Elohenu. Adonai Echad. A drop of blood. Some conversation. Then, lunch at Yahya’s on E. Colfax. Kate, my guide on this journey, the one who went before me. A bit, a tiny bit, of anxiety. The unknown. A bit, a larger bit of excitement. The unknown. A day of inner change. Ritual. Thousands of years I will be part of. All my friends here and out there.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Choice

One brief shining: Heard the alarm, snuggled back into my warm blankets thinking oh today, said the Shema, stayed in bed a little longer, groaned a bit as I do in the mornings, old man noises I call them, rolled out of bed, picked up my phone and my life alert pendant, ready to change my life.

 

Short one. I went to Seven Stones cemetery yesterday, looking at possible memorials for Kate and me. A pleasant visit. Met a woman who had been an officer at Hickam 1995-1996. Saw all the options. A beautiful location, one I would choose if it didn’t cost so damned much. On considering the likelihood of any one visiting the site the money doesn’t make sense. We’re talking minimum ten thousand dollars. Going up as far as you want. Including a $2500 opening and closing fee for putting an urn in the ground! I mean, come on. All of our dogs are there except Rigel and Kep. That’s why I thought about it in the first place.

 

A good workout yesterday, too. My back remains calmer. Not absent, but much less intrusive.

 

I plan to write a second entry today when I get back, so this will be it for now. Got to get dressed for the mikvah. Then, undressed.

Commentary on Religion, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, US History

Religion and Its Cultured Despisers

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Sunday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. Tara. The Mikvah. Shema Yisrael. Adonai eloheynu. Adonai echad. Prayerful humility. Being a new Jew. The Sabbath. Jacob wrestling at the Jabbok Ford. Zornberg. Great Sol lighting up the Snow on the Lodgepole Branches. A crisp, clear and blue Sky. The Iliad. The Jacob cycle in Genesis. Israel. Me. Soon anyhow. In shallah. All the Dogs. And their human companions. Wild Neighbors.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Books

One brief shining: Read an article yesterday about increasing nones, yes nones not nuns, in particular among Millennials and younger, which prodded me to remember Friedrich Schleiermacher and his book, Religion and Its Cultured Despisers, then to wonder why I, a man almost as far away generationally as possible from the new nones, chose to embrace a religion while others flee them.

 

No. This is not a question of doubt about my choice. It’s firm and almost ritualized. Tuesday. It’s about those cycles of history when certain institutions get shunned, disbelieved, set aside as archaic, over with. It’s about me and my choices over a lifetime and why I’ve made them. Mostly though its about religion and those who would be nones. Not relevant to those who would be nuns.

Three times I have rejected institutional religion. The first. After studying philosophy and finding Christianity’s arguments dissolved in the acids of logic. The second. After finding Christianity’s claims dissolved through love of my son. The third. After finding liberal religion, Unitarian-Universalism, had no there there for me. At that point I turned to the Soil, to the Bees, to heirloom Tomatoes, to Rhizomes and Bulbs, to Kate, to Dogs, to Great Sol and the Great Wheel. Became a pagan.

On Tuesday I’ll make my fourth teshuva, return, to an organized old religious tradition. You could look at this and say why can’t he make up his mind? I mean, geez. Really? Fair enough. Although as I look at this pattern, I see something different. I see a man who could not let go of a search for the sacred, the holy. Who was not satisfied. But also one who kept his heart and mind and soul open, willing to learn, to see what he was looking at.

Could I have gone on to my death as a pagan, devoted to the Soil and my Wild Neighbors, to the Great Mother who birthed us all and to whom we return? Yes. I could have. That’s why my pagan heart will still guide much of my search for the sacred and the holy. I will not stop listening to the Mule Deer, the Elk Bull, the crashing Waters of a Spring Maxwell Creek. I will not stop seeing the holiness in Black Mountain or in the wide Pacific or in Great Sol.

Yet my heart, which guides me now more than my mind, could not escape this. I find the sacred, the holy, the divine, in other humans too. And so many of those humans: Alan, Tara, Susan, Joan, Jamie, Ellen, Dick, Ron, Rich, Cheri, Marilyn, Irv, Veronica, Mark, Lauren, Karen, Sally, Nancy, Ruth, Gabe, Kate of blessed memory, Leslie, Rebecca, Anne, Luke, Tal, Iris, Jamie Bernstein, Stephen, yes all of these and more I know but not well, are all Jewish. When I walk into the sanctuary for a service, it is my friends who make it holy. And my heart, this insistent and stubborn heart/mind-my lev said follow them further.

Not only that. But, thanks to Kate, eight years of holidays, learnings, immersion in the Jewish world. Of seeing how dogma simply does not exist in a Reconstructionist Jewish frame. That these folks are seekers, searchers too. And willing to investigate, rethink, reimagine. Everything. Yet to still celebrate that search in a three-thousand year old vessel which carries great wisdom about how to be human. In other words, how to be sacred.

I know. I admit I’m drawn to the prayers, to the rituals, to the careful and unusual hermeneutic of Torah study. That I find comfort and even solace in them. That’s the monk in me. Yet the pagan, the pilgrim still on the path finds food here, too. I am not alone in my insistence on finding the sacred and the holy in the Mountains, the Streams, the Black Bears and Mountains Lions. I am also not alone in finding the wisdom of the Rabbi’s, of the authors whoever they were of the Torah, of the whole Tanakh, a living stream, one way of seeing not only what I’m looking at but what I’m looking for.

Denver, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Holidays, Weather +Climate

The Kindness of Strangers

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Friday gratefuls: The kindness of strangers. Prime rib. Mashed potatoes. Corn bread stuffing. Green salad. Charcuterie plate. Urban Farmer. Downtown Denver on Thanksgiving. A solid workout. Snow and cold. 11 degrees this morning. Flocked Lodgepoles. Black Mountain obscured in fog. Fog last night driving home. Snow falling gently. Good sleeping. BJ and Pammy. Diane. Recovering. Mark in Hafar. Mary in K.L. My son and Seoah in Songtan. Me on Shadow Mountain. A good Winter storm.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow and Snow Plows

One brief shining: After parallel parking for the first time in a while, poorly, I closed Ruby’s door, looked over at Union Station and walked away from it toward the Urban Farmer which sits at 17th and Wazee, downtown Denver had cars in almost all parking spaces, lights were bright, and folks walked the streets hurrying to this meal or that bar when I went in and said, Buckman-Ellis for one.

 

Thanksgiving day, 2023. I had decided a month ago that I wanted to eat a good meal in a fine restaurant downtown Denver. Why? Jon died a year ago and we had Thanksgiving up here with Jen, Barb, Ruth and Gabe. My usual Thanksgiving was with Jon and the kids, sometimes my son and Seoah joined us. I didn’t feel like repeating last year’s meal, but I wanted to do something special. So. Downtown, fancy restaurant.

Though. Ruth called and invited me to Thanksgiving dinner. Her last at home before heading off for college. She cooked. Mia, my granddaughter from another mother came, too. It was a quiet meal. I couldn’t hear well so I didn’t join the conversation as much as usual. I enjoyed the food and the company.

Afterward we played a hand of Uno. I said I needed to get home before dark, so I left a bit early. As I walked out, everybody came with me. Ruth gave me a hug. Gabe ran in and hugged me. Reminded me of that awful night when Ruth found Jon dead. Mia gave me a hug. Ruth and Gabe gave me another one. Sweet. Jen watched, much as she had when Ruth and Gabe ran to me when I arrived the night Jon died.

 

The Urban Farmer buzzed. Silverware clanked. The hostess asked me if I would be ok with a hightop? No. She led me to a two top down a corridor beyond the bar. In my imagination I sat at a two-top in a quiet corner, eating, reading. Nope. A family on my left, an odd couple on my right. Three tables across the way with families. A busy, busy place. Wait people, bus persons, bartenders, chefs moved in and out of swinging doors. Every table in the place was full and before I left they lifted two sliding doors and opened yet another whole room for guests. Not quite the intimate, secluded meal I had fantasized.

I did not want Turkey. Why I went to a steak house. Prime rib. Decided on it because I like it and it was Kate’s favorite. I could imagine her being pleased with it as much as I was. Delicious. The Corn bread stuffing equaled any I’d ever had. It was a fixed price meal. $90. Reasonable with all the sides and the salad and the charcuterie plate and the chocolate cake at the end.

My waitress, a Latina, took good care of me. I noticed a young girl working as a bus person who moved fast, taking plates over here, clearing tables there. Always moving. I gave my waitress a five and told her to give it to her because I enjoyed her work ethic. My waitress smiled, said, “We call her Speedy Gonzalez!” A very sweet part of the evening because Speedy Gonzalez beamed the next time she came past my table. Thank you she mouthed.

Took out my credit card after the last bite of the cake. My waitress sat down next to me and said, “You’re good. A table already paid your bill.” Wha…? I slipped her a tip and said, “Well. That’s something.” Didn’t say why. Maybe because I was an old guy eating alone on Thanksgiving? Or, just a kind gesture… I’ll never know because they were gone. At least I think so. I was a bit flustered. Left me smiling on Thanksgiving. Something to be grateful for.