Category Archives: Judaism

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Friends, Judaism, Plants, Poetry, Reimaging revelation, Torah, Wild Neighbors, Writing

Love

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Lughnasa and the Waning Crescent of the Herme Moon

Sunday and Monday gratefuls: The Trail to Cold Mountain. Off book. Kristie. Off meds? Sunday’s Ancientrails, forgotten. Unusual. The Ancient Brothers on love. A morning with Rich and Ron. Also about love. Burn away everything but love. Study today. Jewish identity. Cool and Foggy morning. Good sleeping. Ready for packing. Cable organizer. Reinforcing off book for the Trail to Cold Mountain. So many wonderful people in my life. Korea and Israel. Same continent. 5027 miles apart. [Osan to Jerusalem]

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Good friends

One brief shining: A bowl filled with strawberries, blueberries, black berries, and slices of mango sat by a wooden cutting board with lox heaped upon it next to a lazy susan with cream cheese, capers, cut onions, almonds warm cut bagels on my plate as Ron and Rich and I sat together talking mussar, parenting sons, writing, such a good morning.

 

I have now a surfeit of riches. Wealthier than I could have dreamed possible. And, yes, in terms of money, too. More important than money though friends and family who love me. Whom I also love. Who will open themselves to me and I to them. A wonderful morning yesterday as an example.

The Ancient Brothers gathered on zoom to talk about love. Ode talked about Robert Bly’s connected universe, all atoms linked to each other in a grand chain of becoming. As are the atoms in each of us. Bill added Buckminster-Fuller’s Cosmic Plurality:

“Cosmic Plurality”

Environment to each must be

All there is, that isn’t me

Universe in turn must be

All that isn’t me AND ME

 

Since I only see inside of me

What brain imagines outside me

It seems to be you may be me

If that is so, there’s only we

Me & we, too

Which love makes three

Universe

Perme — embracing

It-them-you-and we

 

Paul offered Rilke:

Widening Circles

Written by Rainer Maria Rilke

Translated and read by Joanna Macy

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

 

Tom reminded us of the love we learn from the dogs in our lives, the angels of our youth and of our old age. Of kindness. Of the sweetness of vulnerability.

 

I spoke again of the gift given to me between Mile High Hearing and Dave’s Chuckwagon Diner: The purpose of life is to burn away everything but love. If we perfected a just society, we could live only in love with each other. So to burn away everything but love, seek justice. If we could see the ohr [the shard of sacredness, divine light] in each other, in all Trees and Rocks and Roads and Flowers that love Great Sol and Mule Deer and Elk and Mountain Lions and Bears and all Mountain Streams and all Rivers and Oceans and in the Air we breathe, we would cry out in revelation like Mohammed, like the writers of the Torah and like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, there, the sacred, it’s right there! And we could/would love it all.

 

Judaism, Korea, Politics, Travel, US History, World History

Nations. Divided.

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Monday gratefuls: Murdoch. That funny guy. Leo, gone home. Luke. Tal. 48 degrees. Clear Sky. Great Sol brightening the Lodgepoles and Black Mountain. Great Sol’s angle already beginning to visibly decline. The harvest season underway. The Midwest. Its farms and farmers. Its humidity. The arid West. Its Mountains. Dogs. All Dogs. Of all time. Angels. Love incarnate. The Sacred. Revelation.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dogs

One brief shining: A Dog lays her head in your lap, gazes up at you with adoration, follows you on a walk, waits for you at the door when you come home tired from work, tail wagging, eyes filled with you only you and you reach down, pat her, scratch behind her ears, then the world comes into focus.

 

Realized only yesterday that my travels this year will take me to two divided nations, Israel and Korea. Very different in the origin of the divisions, yes, one xenophobic and the other bemoaned on both sides yet hardened and both societies with strong military presences, the threat of imminent conflict always in the air. I wonder what to look for, how to gauge the impact of the Arab/Israeli conflict on day-to-day life in both Israel and the West Bank. In Korea the division separates a nation into two parts, a  Southern and Northern, yet considered one country by all Koreans. How though does the continuing division affect the average Korean? Not my main reason for visiting either place yet a dominant reality in both.

After my conversion in Jerusalem, I will have a strong personal stake in both countries. A Jew considering the life of Israel. And, a father-in-law with a Korean daughter-in-law, my son stationed in Korea for four years. Also, the Jang family, Seoah’s brother, two sisters, nieces and nephews, her mother and father. The deep wounds in both countries have increased significance for me.

Makes me wonder about the soft division (compared to Israel and Korea) that has come to dominate American politics. About its impact on our body politic here. How does a nation fare when large numbers of its citizens disagree on the fundamentals of what it means to be a nation? What is, after all, a nation? Certainly it requires some minimal cohesion among its resident population.

This Wikipedia entry, nation, has a nice precis of what the word has meant and might mean in the future. It’s important to remember that the nation state is a relatively recent invention, most scholars agreeing that the modern nation state arose in the 17th century. I found this quote from the Wiki helpful: “The consensus among scholars is that nations are socially constructed, historically contingent, and organizationally flexible.” My mental ears perked up at the first two terms: socially constructed and historically contingent.

Yes. Israel came into being in 1947, a recent expression of an old homeland, one imposed on an existing territory already occupied by Jews and Arab. Socially constructed as a necessary antidote to the horrors of Hitler’s Germany, yet oh so historically contingent as an increasingly large swath of the diaspora, Palestinians, and progressive Israelis argue it must change its nature as a nation. It is refusing to be organizationally flexible.

Korea though is an ethnic nation divided by modern politics. Both South Korea and North Korea socially constructed by the historical contingencies of big power politics, the Cold War, of the 1950’s. Because of those ties of ethnicity, most Koreans on both sides of the border yearn for unification.

Yet here. Here. The standout phrase. Historically contingent. As in, will not necessarily always exist. The nature of our socially constructed reality? Contested. Is there an organizational structure that can contain both far right and liberal Americans? That is our big question.

 

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mussar

Old skills

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Friday gratefuls: Janet. Her name is Janet. Mussar. Leading a discussion. Metaphor and the sacred. Thinking. Feeling. Lev. Luke and Ann. Ian. Carol. Gracie and Leo. Sarah and Elizabeth. Judaism. Reconstructionist. Finding religion again with no reservations. Hallelujah. Conversion in Jerusalem. Prostate Cancer. Irv. Marilyn now home. Tara in Europe. The Trail to Cold Mountain. Final edits. Now it’s a script for me to learn.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Leading

One brief shining: In a far away state at a time now long ago I used to sit down often at a table or stand in front of a room knowing my job was to take a conversation with those present through difficult terrain, perhaps deciding how to take on unemployment or a recalcitrant landlord or an obdurate city hall or one of the many corporations that wanted to reach into people’s lives and take away their agency, then make a turn from conversation to action. Oh how I loved it.

 

Yesterday for an hour and a half. I led the mussar group through the most difficult terrain of all, those things that matter to our interior, to our souls. I’d forgotten how satisfying it is to do that. I avoid leadership roles these days. Saying no rather than yes. Saying been there. But as a substitute for the Rabbi. A one time thing. I said yes.

I miss it. Reading the pulse of a group, guiding in a gentle way or a forceful way depending on the need of the moment, offering my own thoughts lightly or not at all or for the purpose of digging further into the topic. Yesterday’s topic was the purpose of metaphor and the application of that purpose to language we use about God. Also, strangely and powerfully, the question: What is God for? A lot to be said on this. We spent a fun hour and half doing just that.

Perhaps I could find these moments a bit more often. I don’t want to chair a committee. Nope. But I sure did enjoy the time yesterday. Though. I did fuzz up Janet’s name. Conflated her with Marilyn who sat beside her. Because the group has three Marilyns and Janet’s name, for some reason, skipped my mind. Don’t you love that phrase, skipped my mind? Janet danced away from available attention, played hopscotch in another corner just out of reach.

She came up to me afterwards and said, “My name is Janet, Charlie.” Oh. Oops. Ian, a visitor from California gave me a fist bump.  He’s my age. Luke came up and gave me a big hug. There was a buzz in the room, the conversation spilling over past the end of the meeting.

On my way out to the car Ginny came up to me and asked if I was converting. Yes, I said. Could I talk to you about it sometime? Ginny’s an Arkansas farm girl turned opera singer then stage actor then nurse. I told her I’d love to. Maybe the Blackbird? Which is in Kittredge where she lives with her partner.

Acting, Feelings, Judaism, Politics, Writing

Chesed and The Emotive Presidency

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Lughnasa and the Herme Full Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Gabe coming up today. We’ll see Oppenheimer together tomorrow. (He said he was going to wear a suit.) Prolia. Bone density. Resistance work. 2 hour workout yesterday. Ann. Her good work on The Trail to Cold Mountain. Zoom. Skype. Pixels. Computer GPUs. CPUs. Screens. Keyboards. ChabotGPT4. AI. Skynet. The Internet. Laptop. Desktop. Tablet. Smartphones. Our world of small miracles. The James Webb. Starlink. The Book. The Chair. Vision.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Internet

One brief shining: “Charlie,” the woman in the blue coat called through a cracked door so I got up and went to her; she had her left leg wrapped in blue with an orthopedic black boot up to the calf  and resting on one of those little scooters you see every once in a while now; her name was Carol it said on her blue coat, “Sit here,” I did and she placed a small tray with a syringe near me, had me turn to face the wall since the Prolia shot goes in the back of the arm, she stuck me, I said thank you, and left.

 

I mention Carol because her demeanor was so calming and warm. An instant connection. This woman cares. I could feel it. Kindness came off her in waves. Due to my delicate condition I see lots of medical professionals over the weeks and months. Few of them are robotic or uncaring, but many, most of them are hurried. And I know why. The era of corporate medicine times “patient encounters” and the ability to upcode. A patient’s feelings or the end result of a visit are not part of the metrics. In spite of those cute little surveys sent out after each encounter. Be ye not fooled. They are not striving to improve their service though they may be trying to improve how you evaluated your visit. Not. The. Same. Thing.

 

Fell back asleep this morning. Happens some times. Up at 8:30! Oh, my. I chuckled at myself. Today is Trail to Cold Mountain day. Editing the script, refreshing memory, going one page deeper into memorization. Acting class tonight.

Gabe’s visit will include Oppenheimer tomorrow. Looking forward to having him here. I need to see these kids more often. Not sure how to do that. Their lives are busy now and I can no longer hop in the car to go see them without losing a day after to recovery from the drive. A conundrum.

 

Let the silly season be seen as well underway. A NYT article reports Trump and Biden tied in a hypothetical rematch. Not sure I can stomach much more of this. Already. And we’re a year plus away from the voting. How he wrote wonderingly can this be? A man with indictments already in two investigations and other indictments likely in two others against a man whose performance in office has not been flashy, but has been much, much better than I anticipated. And in the midst of genuine crisis after crisis. Covid. The Ukraine. Inflation. The economy post Covid. We are well and truly divided.

Read this George Will column for a cogent explanation as to why this upcoming election may be so painful. Here’s a quote from it: “In a National Affairs essay with that title [The Emotive Presidency], Mikael Good, a Georgetown University political theory student, and Philip Wallach, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, argue that “Trump’s masterstroke” was to realize that, for his core supporters, his governing is of secondary importance.”

 

 

 

Acting, Aging, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Writing

Wrasslin’

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Summer and the Herme Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: A complete first draft of the Trail To Cold Mountain by Herme. A good sleep. The internet. Computers. Smart phones. Tablets. Hearing aids. Kindles. AI. Vegetables. Fruits. Eggs. Beans. Truffles. Pork schnitzel. Potatoes. All food. Great Sol. Giver of energy, life, light. The lesser light, the Moon. Giver of tides. Illumination at night. Reflected glory. The sacred. The holy. The divine. Revelation. Seeing. Hearing. Tasting. Touching. Smelling. Our bodies. Our souls. Our selves. The distinctiveness of each thing on Earth.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Writing

One brief shining: Wrestled to the bear to the ground yesterday produced a completed first draft of the Trail to Cold Mountain, a playlet, twenty minutes of dialogue and poetry, half written by me and half written by Han Shan Cold Mountain, the ninth century Tang dynasty recluse poet who lived for thirty years on Cold Mountain.

 

So much satisfaction in having a first draft of my first script. Far from finished. I’ve already made edits in the first paragraph, but I have a beginning, a middle, and a surprising end. By the 19th of August, our showcase, I’ll have a finished draft. Whether I’ll have it memorized? Doubtful. But I’m gonna give it my best.

I backed into this project with the poetry of Cold Mountain. Got most of the ten poems memorized. Tal says I sink deep into the role when I’m reading the poems. I may have mentioned that my fellow acting class members have applauded me several times. Not so much with what I’ve written.

Four of the characters have speaking parts. Herme, The Seeker, Gaius Ovidius, and Han Shan. The fifth, a helper, does not. I feel confident about Herme and Han Shan. But the Seeker (an Asian woman) and Gaius, a Roman Centurion, need a lot of work. Defining them clearly and separately while finishing revisions of the script. That’s my task over the next three weeks.

 

More and more leaning away from October 8th. Too much to do before I leave for Korea (see above and below) and too little time after I get back on September 27th. Thinking about 2024. Either on my birthday, my 77th, or in the late Spring. Still focused on celebrating aging. On aging men. In this divided country of ours.

 

On August 17th I have my first of ten sessions with Rabbi Jamie’s Introduction to Judaism. Perspectives on Jewish Identity. Here are a few of the 9 questions. 1. What is Judaism? Is it a religion? A culture? A set of observances?  2. What does it mean to be Jewish? 9. Consider these four dimensions of Jewish identity:

Cultural/Ethnic – cuisine, dress, calendar, etc.

National – ties to land and country, political affiliations, etc

Communal – Circle of extended family and friends, synagogue membership, etc.

Spiritual/Religious – personal beliefs, rituals, values, etc.

Profile your own identity using these four categories. Now use them to profile a Jewish Israeli.

I look forward to digging into these and the other questions, then discussing them with Jamie.

 

 

 

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

Religious Life

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Summer and the Herme Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Erica, Yolanda, Nancy, Sophia. Helen. Stacy. Jamie. Alan. Ann. Gracie. The Bread Lounge. Evergreen Market. Sugar Jones. CBE. Evergreen. The Muller Retaining Wall company. Gettin’ the job done at Evergreen Lake. The detour. All detours. Hunting for the sacred. Finding the holy. Walking with the divine. Racial justice. Economic justice. The Ancient Brothers. My convergence. That Bull Elk. Still imprinted and present. Korea. Israel, a land of revelation.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Revelation

One brief shining: CBE filled up with members of For His Glory church last night a project of Rabbi Jamie’s to advance racial justice by partnering with a black church, sharing services, gospel music, and friendship first through that most religious of human activities, a potluck, then a kabbalah shabbat service with traditional music.

 

I went for the potluck. Met Erica, Yolanda, Nancy, and Sophia. We had a long conversation. In a difficult setting for me. The Sun shone in my face and the babble of others filled my one hearing aid. Talked with them about my conversion. About their lives. Erica manages corporate relocations internationally. About Kate. They wanted to know if I could remarry. Yes, I said, but it would have to be a very special woman and I haven’t met her. At least not yet. Tithing and the synagogue’s dues structure. Tzedakah. Yolanda wanted to know what questions the rabbinic court (beit din) might ask. Hmm. I said. That’s a good question. I’ll have to ask Rabbi Jamie.

My sense of politics wants to move faster, engage quicker. Do something. Always. But this approach may work over a longer time. Building friendships. Shared experiences. Then let the political grow organically. Grow out of a common life nurtured over potlucks and joint services.

 

News of my conversion has begun to leak out. Not that it was in hiding. More and more people know. And the warmth I’m experiencing makes me feel good. Mindy came up last night and said I hear you’re going to have a very special moment in Israel. Yes, I am. She offered to help me with my Hebrew or anything else. Her husband David said later as I was leaving, one thing I love about Judaism. We’re not evangelical, but if you decide you want to join we’ll find a way to include you. Over lunch on Thursday Rebecca, on hearing my news, said, Welcome. Alan wanted to know about my bar mitzvah.

 

Revelation has begun to loom much larger in my thinking since the Bull Elk and the conversations stimulated by God is Here. Here’s a wiki definition: “In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entity or entities.” As I’ve begun to think about it more, I realized that revelation is at the base of most if not all religious truth claims. In other words revelation can be seen as the core religious experience, the one from which all others grow. Think of Joseph Smith and his golden tablets. Moses on Mt. Sinai. Mohammed and his angel. Jesus in the desert.

The problem comes when we ossify and/or reify the revelations of others. When we stop hunting for or opening ourselves to revelation. More to come on this. Much more.

 

 

Judaism

The desiderata trap

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Summer and the Herme Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Meds. Marina Harris. Ana. A clean house. Converting. Reconstructing. Reimagining. Paganism. The whole World in our hands. Kwangju. Osan. Incheon. Seoul. Murdoch. Seoah. My son. Itaewon. The DMZ. History. Geological time. Mountains. Their time. Humans, our time. Great Sol. Sukkot. Tu B’shvat. Simcha Torah. Shavuot. Purim. Rosh Hashanah. Yom Kippur. Holidays. Holy Days. Ordinary Holy Days. Every day. Spacetime. Eternity. Now.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Torah

One brief shining: Using morning energy today I will rehang my Chinese painting bought in Beijing, fight down the ghost bill haunting my mail box since late last year, check on flight information for Korea, get copies made of house keys, unlock my phone, find out about using credit and debit cards while on the road but not until I pour milk in my big pyrex bowl, add oatmeal peanut butter butter sugar, cook it and pour in blueberries, drink coffee, and read about the Kwangju rebellion. First things first.

 

Tuesday is a utility day. No workout. I can focus on the desiderata of my life. In my gratefuls a bit back I talked about the desiderata trap. Here’s what I meant. There’s always a problem bill I want out of my hair, a repair I need to get done, finishing a project like Herme, going to plays or music or museums or zoos, figuring out how to get more money, better hair, a better figure, a new career, planning a trip. Things I need or want that take time. Require me to turn my attention from the now and toward the future. When one is done, another pops up. Like whack a mole. This is the trap. We never finish desiring, wanting, projecting need onto the go board of our life. To use another rodent metaphor the hamster wheel never stops turning.

What if we gave ourselves a day a week when desiderata were off the table. Nothing to accomplish. A time to reflect, read, enjoy family, friends, self. What if we had, say, a sabbath? A day to go deeper into the ordinary. No cooking. No work. No planning. Has always sounded good to me, but I’ve never put it into practice. A friend of Tom’s, a high powered business attorney, said to me, “I tell my clients I’m available 24/6.”

Part of my conversion will be about picking up certain Jewish rituals that I’ve only observed slightly or when Kate was alive. The sabbath is one I look forward to implementing. Not yet. I’m not ready, but I will be. Lighting the candles, saying the prayers, observing the full day, marking its end with the havdalah ritual. Learning how to slow way down. To break away from the desiderata. An anticipation of the time when everyday will be a sabbath day. When neither desiring nor wanting will have any place.

So, yes, I will change my life in certain ways. And I look forward to doing that.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Mountains, Our Land and Home

Bonus Post on Paganism and Judaism

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Summer and the sliver Summer Moon Above

 

From the beginning of my turn toward paganism I identified it as an ur-religion. That is, one all of us could embrace even if we layered on top of it another tradition like Buddhism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Judaism.

I’m still there. Why? My paganism locates the sacred, the holy, the divine in the stuff within me and around me. That is. The Lodgepole. Leo sleeping beside me on the rug. My lev. The Soil beneath me and the Rock beneath it and the core of the Earth beneath that. The Robin and the Magpie. The Fly and the Katydid. The Morel and the Candensis. The Worm and the Snake. The Stream flowing and the Pond resting. Beavers and Marmots. Mountain Lions and Bears. The Microbiome in my gut. The Mitochrondia in our Cells. Our Galaxy. Those Galaxies. Dark Matter. Multi-verse Worlds.

I believe this non-dogmatic, non-sectarian sort of paganism crucial to caring for our Planet as we go through the fiery apocalypse of Climate change. And, it is not in conflict in any way with my Judaism which insists on a unitary view of all things. All things contain a shard of ohr, or holy light, holy energy. All things.

I choose Judaism for my human and humane interactions. I choose paganism to undergird and focus attention on the World which holds us like a Bird’s nest holds fragile Eggs.

 

Asia, Dogs, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Korea, Literature, Politics, US History, World History

Korea and Reading

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Sunday gratefuls: Leo. Lying here beside me. Luke out having fun. Books. Oh, did I mention books? Korean history. Seoah. Murdoch. My son. Working hard. Korean schools. American schools. Having a dog in the house. Korea. The Korean civil war. The armistice. Kim Il Sung. Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Un. Presidents in South Korea. Chaebol. Zaibatsu. Samsung. LCD. Hyundai. Different ways of organizing economies. And nations. Trump’s legal trouble. The House G.O.P. The Extremes. Showing us a path to nowhere.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Knowledge

One brief shining: Leo lies here on the green rug with Cypress Trees, I write this blog letting my fingertips move over my split keyboard, all while a bright blue Colorado Sky backdrops Black Mountain its Lodgepoles and Aspens, there is no sound except the slight click of the keys.

 

More reading in Cuming’s history of Korea. Two chapters on the Korean civil war. He believes we should have let them fight it out, burned out the divisions and reordered their culture. As we had to. As Vietnam had to. Instead we put in amber the tensions and conflicts present after the Japanese Occupation ended. If I read Cuming’s account correctly, the North would have won the civil war, probably easily without us. Even with our involvement they came close. Then Koreans themselves would have had to sort out a new political order. Instead we have my son and his colleagues still in country, maintaining a very fragile and often fraught peace.

It was a time of big power conflicts, especially the USSR and the US. The architects of the idea of containment Dean Rusk, George Kennan, and Paul Nitze influenced the U.S. role in the war. Containing the Soviets, not China.

Korea is more than you know. Much more than I knew.

 

Realizing I privilege reading over most other activities. If I’m on a topic, an enthusiasm, I’ll sometimes read for hours at a whack. For days on end. Cup of coffee at hand. Now with my reading glasses perched on my nose. When I get tired, as I did yesterday, I watched a TV program, a K-drama just to stay in the the mind-world and went back to Cuming’s afterward. I’m neither a fast nor slow reader, I adjust my pace to the material. If it’s difficult, I’m slower. In the middle, as history usually is, I go a bit faster. With fiction I gallop.

Right now, as you can tell, I’m on Korea. When I finish Cumings, I’ll start another, the Two Koreas. Though. I might go back and reread the earlier chapters in Cumings. His long synopsis of Korean history before the late 19th century fascinated me since it contained so much that was new. For me.

Also, I’m building a conversion library. I already have a lot of books on Judaism, but I’m going to organize the ones I need for my study and put them up here in the home office. Had to order others. Looking forward to that reading, too.

 

Asia, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism

The Hermit Kingdom

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Saturday gratefuls: Leo coming up for the night. Fruit salad. Sleep. Good sleep. Korean history. Changing my view of northern east Asia. First full draft of Herme complete. For the acting class. Going to work with it today. Finding my sweet spot with exercise, reading, eating out with friends. A full life. Brother Mark and his rental car. The trap of desiderata. Opening myself further. Living on Shadow Mountain. In my mostly finished home. All the Creeks, Streams, Rivulets, Ponds, Marshes of the Mountains

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Change

One brief shining: A therapist lives in my finger tips ready to take on any inner problem dice it up, spread it out on the page for consideration and evaluation then continue on through a resolution that often ripples through my lev in a way I can feel in my chest, the issue put in a new context, revealed as an old pattern, or tucked away behind my ear as a learning to keep close.

 

Went part way down the hill to Morrison. The Cow. Alan and I met there for breakfast. It was a Friday, but the damned place was so busy. We had to wait twenty minutes. The closest sort of Mountain town to Denver Morrison sits right next to the famous Red Rocks Amphitheater. Downtown has plenty of places to hoover up tourist cash. The Cow among them. Apparently the only breakfast place though. Which makes sense since Red Rocks Concerts are evening affairs.

Alan’s first question when I told him about my planned conversion? When’s your bar mitzvah? Hadn’t thought about that. Maybe around my birthday next year?

 

Spent most of yesterday reading in a one volume history of Korea, Korea’s Place in the Sun by Bruce Cumings. I’m about halfway through and finding it fascinating. He focuses on contemporary Korea, but had to give an overview of earlier Korean history to put this time period in context. I’ve learned so many new things. How little I know about Asian history for one. I mean I knew I didn’t know much but the vast field of my ignorance has never been more obvious. It matters, too. Not my ignorance specifically but the general ignorance of Americans about Asia and its long, long history.

Up until the end of the nineteenth century Korea was the little brother to China. Korea’s king went to the Emperor of China for investiture and the two nations had cordial relationships, including significant trade. But. China took no role in Korea’s internal affairs nor its external affairs except to serve as a deterrent to outside invaders. Korea kept itself to itself, repelling foreigners with force. That’s how it came to have the title the Hermit Kingdom.

Did you know we had a military government in Korea from 1945 to 1948, immediately following the collapse of its Japanese occupation? Or, that the communists who were influential in the North were Russians, not Chinese? I didn’t. Only a hint of the insights and new facts I’ve gained.