Category Archives: Judaism

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Travel

Decisions

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Rain changing to Snow. Cool nights. Israel. Hamas. Hezbollah. Iran. The Middle East. Shirley Septic. Home. CBE. Reasons to go to Israel. Reasons to not go. Mike. Sandy. Jamie. Bill. Steve. The Kaufmans. Islam. Judaism. Christianity. Taoism. Buddhism. Hinduism. Zoroastrianism. Santeria. Voodoo. Animism. Paganism. The search for meaning, purpose. Rabbi Jamie, a wise man. Geoff of Keshet. Shiva. Showing up for those who mourn. The Bernsteins. Rebecca. Leslie. Kate, always Kate of blessed memory.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Lev, the heart/mind

One brief shining: A cardboard box of coffee, a tray with lox, capers, onions, tomatoes, bagels and schmear, blueberry muffins on the table, a zoom linked television screen above it, possible travelers to Israel around it, talking of fear of wanting joy of grandchildren who didn’t want them to go of money of changed purpose of options.

 

Geoff the Keshet rep who lives in Israel attended our 8 am meeting. Originally scheduled for last minute details, passing out luggage tags, gathering the excitement into a group moment. All changed by Hamas and its invasion of Israel during Simchat Torah. Geoff had a serious face, not the usual smiling travel host persona. He told of his three children in the reserves now called up. Two in safer places, one stationed near the Gaza strip. His voice broke. Stopped. He talked of his sixteen year old and his eleven year old at home. Torn between business and difficult family and political reality.

I felt sad for him. The conversation passed that feeling by though in favor of: My wife and I have talked. This is not the trip we want. We wanted to celebrate Israel, find joy. Also, Delta airlines has stopped flying to Ben Gurion. And. I have personal reasons, health challenges. My kids and my grandkids don’t want me to go and I can’t leave them with that worry. And. This doesn’t feel like the right time to be a tourist. Even my friends in Israel are saying don’t come. And. Our tradition is clear. We show up for those who mourn. Shiva. Showing up whether you know the mourner or not.

Some shift. Well, if we could help. If the trip could have a different purpose. And. I will not let fear make my decision. Terrorism is about instilling fear and I won’t let the terrorists have that win. (echoes of G.W.)

At some point during this subdued but intense conversation I asked to speak. Geoff, I know the business side of this is important, but I wanted you to know that I felt sad when you began the meeting. Wanted you to know that. Others followed. The conversation shifted again. Reasons to go, reasons still not to go.

I’m for showing up, I said. A few nodded. Others remained ready to cancel or postpone. Let’s set a date for making a decision. We did. This coming Sunday at 3 pm before an all congregational gathering to discuss the Israel/Hamas war.

Afterward I went to Mike who had mentioned prostate cancer as his health challenge. I have it, too. We talked a bit. Discovered that we’re both recently off all the drugs, now in the waiting period to see what affect all the treatments have had. Both of us to have blood work after the Israel trip. Life, and cancer, goes on.

 

Commentary on Religion, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Poetry, Politics, Travel

Caverns Measureless to Man

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: CBE. Israel Trip meeting this morning. Mary, my physical therapist. Exercises. Exercising. Jet lag. A day per time zone. 15 time zones on MST. Oh. Israel. Hamas. Hezbollah. Iran. Palestinians. Two-state solution. The Pacific. The Atlantic. They Yellow Sea. The Sea of Japan. The Korean Peninsula. The Islands of Japan. The Rocky Mountains. Shadow Mountain. Black Mountain. Conifer Mountain. The Night Sky. Darkness. The season of darkness. Samain. The Winter Solstice.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Night

One brief shining: Nash from the Schneider’s will include bagels, cream cheese, onion, tomatoes, and capers for us while we try to digest the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in Ashkelon and Gaza and Tel Aviv, and civilians both Palestinian and Israeli dying in their homes as we assess whether our trip to Jerusalem is as over as we all imagine it is.

 

So. The news continues to shock, dismay. Photographs of bodies, burned out cars, wrecked apartment buildings, fences, military vehicles. I continue to have double vision. With sorrow and grief for Israel, its promise and its failure, its dead. With sorrow and grief for Gaza and Palestine, people herded into narrow spaces, walled off, virtually imprisoned. No winners here. Only the eye of history scanning back and forth for that moment when things begin to change. Will this be it? I certainly hope so. For the dream that is a Jewish homeland. For the necessity that is a Palestinian state. For both to be true and friendly.

The enmeshed politics of the U.S., Iran, Russia, even Ukraine now threaded more deeply into the bloodied tapestry of the current Middle East. We support Israel. We support Hamas and the Palestinians. We support our Sunni brothers and sisters. We support our Shia brothers and sisters. We support. But support really means we are willing to kill those we don’t. Or, provide aid and comfort while our proxies do it for us. This part of the world is a nightmare for all who call it home and for all who have interests there. Yet for those who call it home it is just that. Home. I feel linked in sadness with all those who care for these troubled lands. All.

It is strange to have a personal stake in these events. But I do. A couple of weeks in Israel beginning on October 25th. Doubt it now. Meeting at CBE this morning with a representative of Keshet, the Israeli travel agency organizing the group part of the trip. Probably will start to unwind. I didn’t buy travel insurance so I’m not sure what the financial impact of a cancellation will be for me. Whether the airline will let me have a refund or a credit. Also strange to consider personal finances while people are dying. I need to, but it’s still strange.

Have to go get ready for the 8 am meeting at CBE. Our Keshet rep lives in Jerusalem so this will be first hand about what’s happening there. Keshet sent an e-mail to all of us yesterday outlining the financial commitments they’ve made to relief work as an organization. The needs are great and if you feel like donating there are many opportunities.

 

Great Wheel, Health, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Science, US History, Wild Neighbors, World History

Consider Oneness

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Monday gratefuls: Fat Bear Week. See this link. Rebecca in India. Mary in K.L. Mark in Hafir, Saudi Arabia. Me on Shadow Mountain. My son and Seoah and Murdoch in Songtan. Israel. Gaza. West Bank. Korea. Divided nations. Night Sky. Stars above and around the Lodgepoles. The coming darkness. A Mountain Morning. Aspen Torches, Trees of Ohr. The Tree of Life. Malkut to Keter. The Wildwood Tarot. Luke. Ginny. Jimmy. Murdoch, the silly. My son, the silly. Kate, who was also silly. Jon, who was not. Ruth. Gabe.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fat Bear Week

One brief shining: A bear stands on a rock facing downstream, salmon climb the ladder of flowing water headed to their clan home to spawn, one tight powerful snap and the journey ends.

 

War. A son whose life lies in preparation and readiness for war. A nation, Korea, divided and still at war. Israel, my coreligionists fighting a war of their own creation. Oppression has a heavy price, paid too often, most often, in blood. Consider the violence of a nation that still relegates its native peoples to lands not wanted, depriving them of the lands that once sustained them. Consider the violence of a nation that systematically denies the vote, a decent education, good housing, well-paying jobs to persons descended from the enslaved. Consider a nation that denies an entire people, the Uighurs, even the crumbs of citizenship. Consider a nation, any nation, that allows its majority to wreck havoc on its minorities without conscience or care. Most nations.

Consider all these things. We are human after all, all too human. Jealous of what we already have, greedy for what we might get. Israel did not invent oppression. Nor did China. Neither did the U.S.A., even when slavery was legal. No. We humans find love, justice, and compassion often beyond our grasp even if in our individual hearts we might feel it. Collectively we protect our families, our clans, our regions, our skin color fellows, our nations. And in protecting, a noble and worthy action, deny others what they need, a base and evil result. This is the original sin of our species. To love those we prefer and exclude those who fall outside of our love’s sphere. A sad, pitiful narrowness to our vision.

Then consider the human body. Consider what the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead called the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. The often unfortunate result of a reductionist science that separates the heart as a consideration of medical care from the liver, from the gut, from grief and joy and stress and despair. That separates the teeth from the pancreas. The blood from the lungs. The thyroid from the feet. Treats each one as a thing sui generis when no. Cortisol bathes each organ, blood moves through and into and out of the lungs, the gut, the feet, the brain and into the kidneys. We are one.

Of course we can learn and know about the heart when we dissect it, image it, palpitate it, treat its actions with chemicals of our own devising. Of course. But how did the heart come to have that blocked vessel? That flapping valve? That enlarged chamber? How does the heart function as part of the oneness that is homeostasis? How is that homeostasis affected by the smile of a child? The sound of a jackhammer? The death of a loved one? The denial at every turn of opportunity?

More. Yes. My body is one. Yes, it is. But. It is one within a community, within an atmosphere. My body so individual and precious to me can last no more than a few breaths without the oxygen exhaled by plants nearby and faraway. My body so individual and precious to me cannot live more than a few days without food grown by farmers, caught by fisherman, sustained by healthy soil and oceans and skies. My body so individual and precious to me cannot last without the touch, the warmth, the smile, the greeting of others.

Our original sin. To misplace the apparent concreteness of our skin color, our tribe, our class, our nation as worthy of dominance over others. No. We are one. The Eternal One only knows unity. Only sees togetherness. Insists in its nature on love, justice, and compassion. It has ever been so, and has ever been denied. Our fault, our most grievous fault.

Health, Holidays, Judaism, Korea, Politics, Travel, World History

War

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Israel. Hammas. War. Destruction. Shiva. Kali. People in crisis. Wild Neighbors who live with death and violence everyday. Palestinians. The One that includes all of these. A swirling chaos of intermingling realities. A Fall day. Cool night. A liminal time between growing season and fallow season. The season of harvest. Sukkot. All harvests everywhere. Sustaining our human family. Mabon. Samain. The final harvest festival and the Celtic New Year. Simchat Torah. Endings and Beginnings. We come to the end and find in it our beginning. (yes, Eliot)

Sparks of Joy and Awe: One World

One brief shining: Jimmy brought me my coffee in a shiny white ceramic cup tall and slender, set it on the polished pine table top along with a small pewter pitcher filled with cream while I gazed out the window at Bear Creek tumbling and splashing over the rocks in its bed as it flowed on its way to the South Platte carrying water from Maxwell Creek, Cub Creek, Blue Creek, and Kate’s Creek.

 

Learned in some reading yesterday that among jet lag’s symptoms is gastrointestinal upset. Oh. Well, not a Korean bug, then. A gutty reminder of the intricate dance between the second brain in our digestive system and the rest of the body. This jet lag was brutal. Lasted over a week upsetting my sleep, my mental acuity, and my tummy. Gonna seek out a different way of getting to and from Korea. Probably two steps. One to the West Coast. Rest. Then fly to Incheon. Reverse. Maybe even try the phased sleep plan which seemed too complicated before I left. And now feels a bit more approachable.

In my third day of p.t. guided exercises. Back to my workouts with no restrictions except: if it hurts, don’t do it. Kate gave this sort of advice often. I have a long road back from the detraining I visited upon myself and the pain occasioned by my spinal stenosis. On it though.

Mary, my physical therapist, wanted me to take note of my hip/back pain as I was out and about over the days after my first visit. Treadmill: 25 minutes at 2.5 mph (slow walk) at 2% incline-no pain. Dancing with the Torah-about 20 minutes of jumping and twisting and moving-no pain. 20 minutes walking into a mall (remember malls?) to buy sunglasses, walk back out-no pain.

The only thing new since that first visit is the exercise regime Mary gave me.

 

3 months ago I took out a subscription to Haaretz, an Israeli English language newspaper. Dad always said, read the local news. And, I do. Right now Haaretz is an invaluable resource for the conflict happening in Israel. Its opinion pieces, photographs, and on site reporting have given me a good, and I believe sound, overview both of the events of the last two days and the future implications of this surprise invasion.

The trip which I had planned may not occur. At least not now. My plane for Jerusalem leaves Denver on October 25th, two weeks and three days from today. Unlikely this will be resolved by then. See attached below a CBE response by Rabbi Jamie sent out today.*

 

*Dear Friends of Beth Evergreen,

Friday night at Beth Evergreen (CBE), we gathered in our beautiful sanctuary to celebrate the culmination of the High Holiday Season, dancing with the Torah and one another in honor of Shabbat and Simchat Torah.  Yesterday morning, with the news coming out of Israel, our holiday joy was shaken and our Sabbath peace shattered, all the more so for family and friends in Israel who have been embroiled in internal struggles for the future of Israel’s democracy.  This brazen and unprecedented attack on Israel was deliberately timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War.  Today, we were reminded that the war continues.  And the reverberations reach far and deep.

As many of you are aware, in just a few weeks, a group of us from CBE have been planning a trip to Israel – a 9-day tour through this ancestral homeland, and a bike ride to support environmental and peace efforts of the Arava Institute.  Exactly how this  brazen and unprecedented attack will impact those plans is too soon to say, but impact them it surely will.

 In the coming days and weeks, as we watch the situation closely, we will be working with our friends in Israel and partner organizations here in Colorado to discern how to best support Israel and one another through this difficult time.  In the meantime, please consider joining me at Beth Evergreen next week, on Sunday, October 15 from 4 – 5:30 PM for a special gathering of informative dialogue, mutual support, and prayerful action to ensure the safety and security of Israel and promote peace and justice in the region.  And for something you can do right now, you might also consider making a financial donation to support life saving and peace promoting organizations in Israel/Palestine, such as Magen David Adom at https://www.mdais.org/en/donation (Israeli version of the Red Cross).

Lastly, we at CBE echo the statement issued by Reconstructing Judaism and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association made earlier today.  We are indeed:

 “…horrified by today’s massive attack on Israel by Hamas. We condemn the attacks unequivocally and join in solidarity with the people of Israel on this harrowing and difficult day. The scope and magnitude of these attacks, intentionally conducted in the early hours of Shabbat and Simchat Torah, is on a scale not seen in many years. Over 250 Israelis have been killed, over 1400 wounded, and dozens of Israelis have reportedly been kidnapped and taken hostage by Hamas. We pray for the safety of all those taken hostage and call for their immediate release.

We hold the leaders of Hamas and other militant groups responsible for this senseless loss of life, and we demand international accountability for these outrageous war crimes. Today, thousands of families across Israel are terrified. We are scared for them. We are also scared for Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza. We know this violence will lead to more violence. Israel has already launched strikes in Gaza, and hundreds of Palestinians have been killed. This is a day of profound anguish and horror.

We support Israel’s right to defend itself in line with international law in the face of such violent and indiscriminate attacks. We pray for a swift end to this violence, and we hope that a slide into even further conflagration and suffering for Israelis and Palestinians can be prevented. When it is over, we recommit ourselves to working for a just and long-term solution.

With our fervent prayers for safety, security, a return of hostages, and peace for one and all.

Rabbi Jamie Arnold

 

 

Holidays, Judaism, Politics, World History

Oh

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Simchat Torah. Sukkot. Dancing with the Torah. Holding the Torah. Ginny. Jamie. Dick. Ellen. Helen. Lisa. Elizabeth. Potlucks. Israel. Hamas. Palestine. Korea. My son, Seoah, Murdoch. Shadow Mountain. My wild Neighbors. Black Mountain. Golden Aspen. Lodgepoles. Ponderosas. White Pines. Bristlecone Pines.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dancing with the Torah

One brief shining: Hugging the Torah mantle Helen danced in her flowing skirt, twirling as the rest of us went toward her, raising our hands and clapping, retreating and holding hands, stepping together as we circled her, her long braid flowing out in an ancient rhythm, then returning to her side.

 

Resonance. An hour or two after I left Beth Evergreen last night, Hamas struck southern Israel out of the Gaza strip. Rockets. Troops. Bulldozers. Street fighting. Hundreds wounded, not clear how many dead. At least forty Israelis. Felt a surge of emotion when I read this. Different from reading a news report and going, oh. More violence. Sigh. No this surge came from the joy, real joy I felt and shared with members of Beth Evergreen as we celebrated Simchat Torah, Rejoicing with the Torah, last night.

On the side of the sanctuary there was a smaller ark with children’s Torahs, some of them stuffed. A certain red headed 3 year old found a red stuffed Torah which he carried running and zipping between adult legs for the entire evening. Other, older kids had other toy Torahs that they held and imitated the adults.

The Torah scroll, gathered by a congregant into their arms as one would hold a large child, precedes a dancing line composed of all those in attendance who are able. Seven times around the sanctuary, each time around punctuated with a moment when the Torah bearer dances in the middle of the congregation which holds hands around them. In and out. Shouts and claps. That little red head ducking under arms and around legs holding his red Torah.

When all this dancing finishes several congregants have led the dance lines and twirled in the center hugging the Torah scrolls in their bright cloth mantle. Then we all take up prayer shawls and stand an arms length apart on both sides while Rabbie Jamie unrolls the entire scroll, or as much as we can hold using our hands covered by the prayer shawls so no skin touches the scroll itself. This evening we only got through the first two books, Genesis and Exodus.

Having previously read the last few verses of Deuteronomy Jamie then reads from the first of the five books which begins, Bereshit. The beginning. With the creation story. Another year’s cycle of Torah reading completed and another year’s begun.

As I wrote yesterday this has long been one of my favorite holidays. The exuberance, the smiles and laughter, the silliness, laying hands on the sacred. That is, each other and an important part of what binds us together. I’m still smiling.

Then. To read of the attacks. The missiles. Pictures of shrapnel, dead bodies, missiles streaking through the air toward Jerusalem. Knowing in 18 days I have a flight to Jerusalem. Knowing these are now in a way different from before my people. Knowing the moral and ethical conundrums. Oh.

Holidays, Judaism, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Reimaging revelation

Embodiment

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Deep, vulnerable conversation. Healing. Colon back to on guard status and off active duty. Yay! Jet lag still dissipating. Blue day. Bright Sol. Green Lodgepoles. Scat in my driveway. Probably Fox. Olives. Simchat Torah. One of my favorite holidays. Dancing with the Torah. Friday: Forgot this yesterday. Mary, my physical therapist. Polio. Sister Kenny. Mary, my sister in Kuala Lumpur. Mark in Saudi. Seoah and my son in Korea. Diane in San Francisco. My close, yet so faraway family. Kepler. Kate, always Kate. Jon. Ruth, a young woman. Gabe. Rigel. My Star in the night Sky

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends in Colorado, good friends

One brief shining: A shiny blue Sky shone through the Bamboo mats on the Sukkah children’s hand prints on cloth decorating its slatted wooden sides, my Thursday mussar friends smiling as I came back after a six week absence.

 

Interesting. Yesterday I sat in the Sukkah with the other mussar folks, Rabbi Jamie giving me a hug when I sat down next to him. We began the conversation with a meditation as we always do. And I got this feeling of sitting in one for thousands of years. As if this moment, the one I inhabited also, simultaneously, inhabited other moments in serial regression. A sensation of at-one-ment. Sukkot is an ancient harvest festival, the sukkah supposedly similar to the temporary dwellings farmers used during the hectic last days of the harvest before the winter rains. Probably not originally Jewish in origin.

Jews, who incorporated this festival long ago-and Rabbi Jamie says it used to be the primary holiday, not Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Days of Awe-imagine these sukkah as also representing the temporary dwellings used by the Hebrew slaves during their forty years in the wilderness.

I love Sukkot and the holiday that immediately follows it, Simchat Torah, rejoicing with the Torah. Simchat Torah is tonight. I’m going even though it’s a second night out for me this week. During this holiday the Torah Scroll is removed from the Tabernacle, completely unscrolled, and the congregation, using prayer shawls to grip it, dances with the Torah. It marks the completion of the reading of the entire Torah in the old year and the beginning of the new year’s reading in Bereshit, Genesis.

Not sure why I find Sukkot and Simchat Torah so meaningful, but I have for several years. I love the physicality of them both. The sukkah and the unscrolled Torah. The dancing. Eating in the Sukkah. An embodied way of celebrating our connection to the holy, to the divine that manifests whenever we open ourselves.

Perhaps that’s it. The embodiment. The whole of me involved. Not just my head. I find the High Holidays very heady and so not as meaningful. Odd for me to say, I know. But maybe I need not an out of body experience of the sacred but an out of mind one. Take me out of the theological and the ethical and the political and let me dance with the Torah. Hey!

 

Asia, Judaism, Korea, Myth and Story, Travel

Korea

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Monday gratefuls: The month of Elul. Cheshbon hanefesh. The month for an accounting of the soul. Rosh Hashanah. The New Year begins. Sept. 15, 5784. A day with Murdoch. Golf. My son and Seoah. Black bean noodles. Fried rice. Kimchi. Pickled radish. Fried pork. Back to exercise today.  The Ancient Brothers on what it means to be a good person.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The scales of Anubis

One brief shining: The door creaks a bit on its hinges, a crooked tail comes briefly into view, Murdoch slumps down against the wall, ready to spend an hour or so with me while I write.

 

Yesterday was a travel day, as Kate and I used to name them. After a vigorous Saturday, I stayed home with Murdoch while my son and Seoah went out for another 18 holes. Wrote. Read. Watched some TV. Took a walk. Not a long one.

And yet I remained in Korea. Far away from Shadow Mountain, CBE. Across the wide Pacific, past the international date line, on a skinny part of the easternmost edge of Asia. A peninsula. Not far from Japan and connected by land to the People’s Republic of China. Even Russia is not far away. The Amur River, Vladivostok.

Of course the People’s Republic of North Korea lies between the bottom half of the Korean peninsula and a land route to either China or Russia. So no hopping in the family car for a road trip to see the famous Amur Tigers or maybe a visit to Lake Baikal.

Though. Seoah’s dad did go on a trip just a week ago to the northern edge of North Korea, getting there by flying first to China, then onto the People’s Republic. A Mountain trekker all his life, he wanted to see Mt. Paektu.*

As you can tell by reading the squib from Wikipedia, Paektu or Paektusan in Korean has a key role in Korean early history and in the hearts of all Koreans to this day. It’s one of the lesser known but nonetheless painful results of the Korean War that people from the South can no longer access it easily for pilgrimage purposes.

 

Korean recycling has a lot more nuance than Shirley Waste offers to me at home. Paper. Plastic. Metal. Trash. Food waste. All different categories and all requiring government sanctioned bags or direct distribution into the appropriate container. Recycling happens on Sunday here at Poco de Sharp which means all of the apartments in this building have to retrieve their waste and carry it down by elevator to the area set aside in the parking lot.

When I helped my son carry out the trash last night, what looked like a large children’s fort of cardboard boxes had a door like opening near the street. Inside it people put their bags of paper recycling. I guess the boxes were also recycling. Don’t know who put the fort together.

Huge recycling bags hung on large metal piping and my son distributed the rest of the recycling to its proper spot, emptying his bags into the plastic or the metal big bags. Which, now that I’m writing this, makes me wonder about the need for government sanctioned bags in the first place. A mystery for now.

 

Culture has profound implications for every aspect of life. Why I loved anthropology. In a sense culture is a particular people’s answer to the most important questions of life: who can I love? what is justice? what’s for supper? who does what kind of work? how do I get from here to there? how do I communicate with others? Who’s most important, who’s not? how can I tell the difference? And so many other issues big and small.

It’s a privilege and an honor to be here for a month plus taking in the Korean answers to these questions. Or, at least, trying to discern their answers.

Later on I hope to write some of my observations about Korean culture. A culture under a lot of pressure from technology, Western soft culture, geopolitics, and their own recent history.

 

 

“The mountain has been considered sacred by Koreans throughout history.[33] According to Korean mythology, it was the birthplace of Dangun, the founder of Gojoseon (2333–108 BC), whose parents were said to be Hwanung, the Son of Heaven, and Ungnyeo, a bear who had been transformed into a woman.[34] The Goryeo and Joseon dynasties also worshiped the mountain.”

Asia, Judaism, Korea, Mountains, Plants, Weather +Climate

Water

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Osan Air Base. A hike in the Mountains with my son, Seoah, and Murdoch. Meeting several ajuma (old women) who found Murdoch fascinating. A new TV. The dense population of Songtan and most of Korea. Buses. Taxis. Maglev trains. Subways. Cars. Motorcycles. Some bicycles. Many roads built for foot traffic or Horse/Ox powered carts. Jon’s yahrzeit. Kate, always Kate.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seoul today

One brief shining: Murdoch lying down on a brick walkway, passersby eyeing him, smiling, some pulling further away, one ajuma with a visor and a bamboo fan stopping, saying how noble he was, aristocratic, better than a human being since he would never betray.

 

Happening again. Jimmy Buffet dead at 76. Bill Richardson at 75. Not people I followed in any way other than seeing their names often but familiar nonetheless. A singer and a diplomat/fixer. Dead at my age. Reminders that each generation fades away, one former celebrity at a time, one notorious person at a time (yes, even Trump will die), one friend and family member at a time.

This thing we call life has its turn with us, with our Dogs and Whales and Paramecium, even the Bristle Cone Pines and the Joshua Trees, Mosquitoes and Mayflies. Even Mountains and Streams. Then leaves.

But, not Water. No. Water moves from liquid to ice to steam, rises and condenses and falls. Returns to the World Ocean and leaves again on Jet Stream driven Winds to Rain on the just and the unjust. There is a measure of immortality in Water.

Korea and Japan, Peninsula and Islands, are Land forms defined by Water. Risen above the depths of the World Ocean yet surrounded by it, influenced by its moods and its weather. So different from the Landlocked Rocky Mountains in which I live or the interior Midwest in which I lived for most of life.

There the Great Lakes, for example, were Water forms defined by the Land that surrounds them. Those Lakes first filled with Water from the receding Glaciers of the last Ice Age. Rivers like the Minnesota and the Mississippi. Smaller Lakes dotting the northern part of the State and even within the city limits of the Twin Cities.

One of Water’s other mysteries keeping the Lakes liquid. Water floats in its Ice form. If it didn’t, Ice would sink to the bottom of the Lakes and form cold basins with occasional melted Ice at the very top. No wonder Taoism finds in Water a metaphor for how chi, the energy of life, flows through the whole World.

In the mussar class I take at CBE we’re exploring metaphors for what has been identified with the word God. Learning how the metaphors we choose define what we imagine that word to mean, or better, what it could mean.

What if the call of the natural world, as Art Green, author of Radical Judaism defines the sacred (my interpretation of his work), could be heard and felt in the flow of a Mountain Stream or the evaporation of Water from the World Ocean or in the pelting of Rain on a roof, onto a newly sown Field? Or in the glass of Water I just finished, replenishing my body’s supply?

What if then we could say that we share in Water’s immortality? In its ability to wear away the hard, move around obstacles, change into different forms, give life to the thirsty? I can follow that understanding of the sacred.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Memories

A letter to Kate on her 79th

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Friday gratefuls: Kate’s 79th birthday. The Trail to Cold Mountain. A good dress rehearsal. A late night. Seeing Seoah and my son on Zoom. Getting closer to leaving this popstand. On a jetplane. With passport in hand. Sleeping in. Ann. The poems on parchment. The drinking gourd. My costume(s). Ruth. Seeing her today. Taking Ancientrails on the road. Korean history. Seoah studying American history. Her mom’s 70th birthday, two days after I get there. In Gwangju. Steak House. Luke and Vince. Leo.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Writing, again. Still.

One brief shining: Put on my linen medieval shirt and pants, collected my poems on parchment from Ann, picked up my walking stick, got a glass of water (filling in for the drinking gourd that I forgot), proceeded with: I’m going to tell you this story in the best way I can and reeled off a mistake free performance. Yes!

 

Kate.

You would be 79 today. Closing in on the big 80. Wanted to catch you up on some recent happenings.

I’m a playwright! A short play, about 20 minutes. The Trail to Cold Mountain. Performing it tomorrow night at CBE. The amphitheater if the weather permits.

Also, I’m converting. Yes, after 32 years with you and 8 with CBE, I realized your people are my people, too. Rabbi Jamie’s excited for me. We’re studying Judaism together. 10 sessions. But before I finish my conversion will take place. In Jerusalem! On Samain! How bout that.

I’ve become even more integrated into CBE. Joan and Alan are both in my acting class and will be performing Saturday night, too. I see Marilyn and Irv every couple of weeks, Alan once a week. I’ve become good friends with Rebecca Martin, too. Mussar remains my primary contact with the congregation although I’m considering going to regular services now that my energy is better.

Cancer. Yep, still with me. As you know. But I’m off the meds as of Wednesday and hoping for clear sailing for some length of time. A tiny chance I’m cured. If you have any pull with the cosmic powers, see if somebody could yank a lever on my behalf. Eigner is retiring. His wife died a couple of years ago and changed his perspective. I’ll see him for a last visit on November 20th.

Ruth’s still struggling. I’ll see her in the hospital today. Going to take her a bagel with caviar from Rosenbergs. Stanley Market. Gabe’s doing well. I think. Playing guitar, taking theater. He may express the Olson performing gene. We saw Oppenheimer last week and we’ll go to the last Rockie’s game of the season on Oct. 1st when I get back from Korea. They’re playing the Twins.

Oh. I’m going to Korea on Wednesday. Then, Israel on Oct. 25th. A week on my own then the CBE group trip. Excited about both of these. Joe’s a Lieutenant Colonel now. Can you believe it? Remember him stomping up and down the steps at my Irvine Park Place in ski boots?

Of course you walk through all these moments with me. Sometimes I stand at the kitchen window, look out at your Iris garden, and feel your head on my shoulder. Driving back up the hill from Evergreen I reach over on occasion and hold your hand. Your memory is a blessing for me and so many others. Not to say at all that I’m wallowing. Just that I loved you, I love you, and I will love you.

 

Judaism, Memories, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

The Last Journey

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Ruth struggling again. Still. Gabe and the last Rockies game of the season. Marilyn and Irv. A pale blue Sky. A cool night, but warmer weather coming. Kristie today. Robbie Robertson of The Band. Levon Holmes. Bob Dylan. Coltrane. Parker. Bach. Mozart. Hayden. The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Sarah and BJ. Kate, always Kate. Jon, a memory. My son, Seoah, and Murdoch.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Studying

One brief shining: Rolled my chair to the built-in desk, turned on the study lamp, took out the sheet of questions for my first class with Rabbi Jamie, this one on Jewish Identity, began to read from Art Green’s Radical Judaism, Joseph Telushkin’s Jewish Literacy, and George Robinson’s Essential Judaism and noticed how much I still enjoy studying, writing answers, thinking deeply.

 

Now it’s getting personal. Judaism, that is. No longer following the thought pathways the ancientrails of the Talmud and the Torah as an outsider, a camp follower. Reading about Jewish identity as one who will wear the kippah. Makes a big difference. Who is a Jew? What is common among all forms of Judaism? How does Israel define a Jew for the aliyah, the right of return?

This is my third, and last, venture into the inner life of a distinctive religious community. Seminary at United Theological Seminary in New Brighton, Minnesota gave me four solid years of church history, biblical studies, ethics, homiletics, pastoral care, and a bit of Hebrew and Greek. Much later, in the early 90’s I did a self-study course in Unitarian-Universalism that took two years. This doesn’t count the four years I spent earning my Doctor of Ministry degree from McCormick Seminary in Chicago.

In both of these earlier excursions I was not wholly engaged. All during my work as a Presbyterian minister, I felt apart from the main congregational life of the denomination. Because I was. My ministry was political and only became involved with congregations near its end when I worked as an organizational consultant for congregations in the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area. The UU time was a regression, an attempt to retain my ministerial role by switching to a less theologically restrictive community. In the end I found the UU movement too diffuse in its religiosity. And learned, again, that the role of minister did not fit me.

Conversion to Judaism is different. This is something I want. As Joan Greenberg said, it just feels natural. No real dogma to cleave to. So many Jews identify as atheists or agnostics. Yet, a rich and old tradition of considering life’s most difficult questions. How do we live a human and a humane life? How do we connect with the call of the natural world, as Art Green puts it in his wonderful book, Radical Judaism?

Kate found this path when she was 30. She led me to it. And my friendships at CBE have made it real. Here’s a secret wish I’ll put right out here in print. If it turns out I’m wrong and there is a heaven, I certainly want to be in the Jewish section where Kate is.