Teeth cleaning a.m. Kate and I now schedule teeth cleaning and annual physicals together. I call it medical entertainment. Just like going to the Tallgrass Spa together. Almost.
Mussar afternoon. Soul cleaning together, too. I’m learning a lot about Judaism with her. And, I’m impressed with what I’m learning. Here’s the key new insight: Judaism has, from a long time ago, insisted that abstract ideas like mercy, compassion, judgment, faith have embodied reality. That’s what all those laws are about, how to make the faith work in daily life.
This is very different from the Christianity in which I was trained. Christianity unhitched this very earthy, practical religion from the notion of embodied abstractions, letting the abstractions become dominant. This led to a growing gap between dogma and actual practice. Of course, many Christians work at making their faith inform their lives, but the tools are not as good the ones in Judaism. It’s not the laws themselves, but the spirit of actively grappling, every day, every moment with what it means to show mercy, to judge, to practice loving kindness, to exhibit patience that gives Judaism its lived flavor.
Rabbie Jamie and congregant
Still don’t want to be a Jew, no interest in converting, but I have a lot of interest in learning how to live from the community of Beth Evergreen. Probably the best religious experience of my life.
Last Wednesday evening at Beth Evergreen Rich Levine asked what is the sound of a pure soul. Kate gave an answer that resonated with the group and has stayed with me: “When I would walk into the nursery and other sounds were muted, I could hear the susurration of infant’s breathing and moving. That’s pure potential.” Her comment was heartfelt and it moved everyone. It’s beautiful to me to see Kate opening herself up like this.
The framework of mussar, this was an evening, once a month potluck session, provides the opportunity for deep exploration of our inner world, its motivations and its possibilities. It does this through a long tradition of written helps, guides like Mesillat Yesharim, that limn a subtle and very nuanced spiritual psychology gathered from Jewish practice and scripture. Mussar’s purpose is to develop ethical behavior (musar=ethics) through learning middots, or character traits.
I feel lucky that Kate and I have found this together. Mussar gives us a common language for deep matters and a community of other folks who have the same yearnings, the same desire to probe their inner world and grow in their character.
Black Mountain barely shows itself in the cloud of snow over it. We’ve had snow since yesterday, winter is back. We’re glad here on Shadow Mountain. This Colorado feint of warm weather in the middle of winter keeps me thinking spring, then the sky turns white.
It’s been one of those days when the adult quotient required exceeded my ability to manage it. When I went out and found the guy from Geowater working on our well-head, installing a product I didn’t want, then found out he’d ordered a $1,000 pressure tank to replace our current one, well, let’s just say I didn’t handle it well. WTF! No, I didn’t think it, I said it. Oops. I had them walk back the work order, pushing the day’s bill down from around $7,000 to $2,000.
Then, they nicked a water line from the boiler and had to call a plumber to fix it. That set things back on the right emotional track. I had to get on my hands and knees, literally, to crawl into the space under our house and apologize. I was hot and said sorry. One of the guys fist bumped me and said thanks. The other guy was not quite so quick to forgive. Still, after I apologized that was his issue.
One of those situations where I wish I’d taken the mussar way and introduced a pause between the match and the fuse. I could have gotten the same result without being hostile. Maybe by the time I’m 80?
Anyhow, the ph in our water is now up from 5.2 to 7.5. Much better for the boiler and the copper piping. This was preventive maintenance, something I seem to be doing a lot up here. Of course, our Andover house was a model so everything was new; though over 20 years, we did end up doing some preventive work and some replacements.
In, but not of. Yesterday at mussar, a spiritual/ethical system within the Jewish tradition, I had a complex moment. We were discussing truth and mercy, the relationship between them. To compare mercy and truth I defined mercy as suspension of judgment. Truth though is a sword and a judgment. If that’s correct, then not all truth is merciful. Rabbi Jamie started to dispute that, but had to leave for his daughter’s wisdom teeth extraction.
In the conversation that followed afterward my use of the sword metaphor was identified as a Christian trope, “I come to not bring peace, but a sword.” I’ve been working very hard over the last year to bracket my mode of theological thinking while absorbing a Jewish style of thinking. This requires effort because though I abandoned Christianity over 30 years ago, my seminary education and professional life as a clergyman reinforced my already strong Judaeo/Christian enculturation. Christianity does still define much of how I think and feel about matters religious and secular.
While that’s obvious, I still felt a flush of embarrassment at being identified with a New Testament informed concept. That flush, as mussar teaches, is an important signal about where growth is necessary.
On the way back up to Shadow Mountain I described my situation to Kate as similar to traveling. “I love to go where the culture is very different from mine, where I’m a stranger. It helps me know my self.” Kate’s journey is one of a Jew deepening her own understanding, her own identity as part of a religious world. My journey is closer to travel, “It feels like I’m traveling on the inside.” In this case no geographic change is necessary for me to be a stranger.
This inner travel exhilarates me, but it also confuses and, in a mild sense, scares me. I’m trying to gain wisdom and personal growth from Beth Evergreen while maintaining my own identity as a pagan. But, not only that. My life as a pagan is not divorced from my enculturation as a Christian. I’m a cultural Christian in many ways. That means I encounter many shocks to my inner world, shocks that wake me up, like a Zen koan, but that also and in the same instance disorient me.
Yaowarat
It’s like being on Yaowarat Road in Bangkok on a weekend night. On Friday and Saturday night the sidewalks of Bangkok’s Chinatown, of which Yaowarat is the main street, fill up with small restaurants, often two tables, some chairs and a street vendor style kitchen with a wok, propane tank, utensils and a stack of plates and soup bowls. What food are they serving? I don’t know. I speak neither Thai nor Mandarin. Many people are there who do understand the food offerings, how to eat them, but I’m not one of them. I’m in, but not of the street life. Observing, yes, eager to learn, yes, but even after sampling some food and gaining some insight, I will go back to my hotel, a stranger traveling through.
I’m grateful to the folks at Beth Evergreen and Kate for putting up with my being present as a stranger and an inner traveler. A long journey, barely begun.
No snow. 10% humidity. A spate of small wildfires. Result: stage 1 fire restrictions put in place by Jeffco. In February. Winter has gone on holiday and the outlook for summer is fiery if we don’t get more moisture in March and April. Like death, oddly, I find the whole wildfire possibility invigorating. It motivates me to work on our lodgepole pine and aspen and it brings those of us who live in the mountains closer together. A common foe.
Lodgepole pine. From our bedroom window I look out and up to a jagged line of tree tops. On clear nights stars often align with the tops of the pines, giving them a decorated for Christmas look. Sometimes stars also align with branches further down, emphasizing the effect.
Which reminds me. Monday or Tuesday night of this week I looked up at the pines, as I often do before falling asleep. They were lit up with what looked like lightning bugs. What? The phenomena went on for quite a while, small specks of light flashing off and on. Obviously in February and up here on Shadow Mountain, no lightning bugs. A complete mystery.
While waiting on the Rav4 to finish its spa day at Stevinson Toyota I spent some time considering whether I had become a Coloradan yet. First thing. I left my prostate and significant portions of my left knee in Colorado. No flowers in my hair, but I do feel I’ve contributed in a meaningful, whole body sort of way. Then, living in the mountains. Everyday. Learning the rhythms of mountain seasons, the wildlife, the vast number of hikes and sights and sites to see. And we’re adjusted to life at 8,800 feet. A very Colorado and mountain thing.
Of course, there are Jon and Ruth and Gabe, family links to schools, synagogues, sports, life as a child in the Centennial State. Our dogs, too, as Dr. Palmini said, are mountain dogs now. Due to the spate of mountain lion attacks on dogs in the last month or so, I have a concern for their safety that is very Coloradan. In fact I bought a powerful LED flashlight and have my walking stick ready to do battle with a mountain lion if necessary.
Kings Peak near us 4 pm 12 29
Congregation Beth Evergreen, in addition to a religious community, also facilitates ties with people who live up here like the lawyer, Rich Levine, we saw last week. Many others, too. Kate has integrated quickly thanks to the two sewing groups she belongs to: Bailey Patchworkers and the Needlepointers. Her integration helps mine.
The town of Evergreen has many great restaurants, as does Morrison. We go to jazz and theater in Denver.
That’s the coming to Colorado part of the story. The other is my relationship to Minnesota. Of course there are the Wooly friends, especially Tom, Mark and Bill and the docent friends, many of whom I connect with through Facebook, but also through visits, e-mails, the occasional phone call. Those connections are still strong, even though attenuated by distance.
Minnesota will always occupy a large, 40-year space in my heart. That’s a long time, enough to become home. So many memories, good ones and bad ones. But, it is just that now, a 40-year space in my heart. I do not want to return. Life is here, now, and that, more than anything else, tells me that, yes, I have become and am a Coloradan.
I’m finding myself dry today. Starting and restarting topics, not settling into flow. Yesterday was busy and I missed my post. I also didn’t get my 750 words in on Superior Wolf though I did get my workout in at 6 am. Missed my newly started Latin work, too. Rhythm, for me, is critical to long term projects and rhythm needs consistency, even missing a day can disrupt a hitherto productive schedule.
Ruth in the hat
There are matters more important than productivity. Quite a few of them. Two of them showed up here on Friday night: Ruth and Gabe. Yesterday morning saw me at Beth Evergreen twice, once earlier and once for a wonderful seder for Tu B’shevat. After that, it was nap time.
Gabe at his concert
Following the nap Kate and I took Ruth into Denver for a birthday party for her buddy, Augie. They did parkour. Before taking her to the party, however, she and Ruth went shopping at Joann Fabrics. They found material to complete her costume for her Destination Imagination play. She’s the main character, a dragon. They also found cloth for Renaissance Festival costumes. Kate, Ruth, Gabe and I are going to dress up and go. Ruth wants to be a wealthy medieval woman. Gabe will be a version of Robin Hood. I’m leveraging my sparse white hair and white beard for the role of a wizard. Kate, I’m not sure what she’s going to do.
After dropping Ruth off at Augie’s home in the new urbanism shaped grounds of the former Stapleton Airport, Kate and I went to the New York Deli for supper. Kate had her favorite, chicken noodle soup with a matzo ball and I had the featured dinner, corned beef and cabbage with new potatoes. This place is an authentic Jewish deli and is a mile-high city branch of a deli of the same name in New York. In fact, their baked goods are still made in New York and flown frozen to the Denver location. They believe New York City tap water is the key to good flavor in their bagels and bread.
It was raining in Denver and in the 60’s. By the time we reached Shadow Mountain it was 32 degrees and snowing. It was good to be home.
The dogs after delivery by Tom Crane and Kate, before the boxes
The move, two years plus later. On October 31st, Summer’s End of 2014, we closed on 9358 Black Mountain Drive. Later that same year, on December 20th, the Winter Solstice, we moved in. At the time we still owned our home in Andover, Minnesota. When the boxes piled up in all spaces of our new house, we looked at them, breathed in and out heavily and took a nap. We were to breathe in and out heavily for three months or so as our bodies adjusted to life at 8,800 feet.
The winter weather on Shadow Mountain that preceded and followed our move was snowy and cold. Even for two Minnesotans. We had to learn mountain driving on snowy, slick roads though the Jefferson County snowplows did do an excellent job of clearing and sanding our main road, Black Mountain Drive (Hwy. 78).
Progress, January 2015
Even so, living in the mountains was what we wanted and it was everything we hoped and more. Every drive took us past rocky, conifer covered mountain sides. We were on and among the Rocky Mountains.
Of course, yes, we moved out here to be closer to the grandkids and to Jon and Jen, family, 900 miles closer. Jen had expected us to move closer to them and was upset we decided to live in the mountains. We never did get her to understand that our move had two related, but distinct purposes: the first was to live in a place that we loved; the second to be with people we loved. Now that the divorce is over and the apres divorce time underway we are certainly glad we chose our home based on our dreams rather than hers.
Jon and Ruth clear our drive before the moving van comes
Kate rapidly found a quilting group, the Bailey Patchworkers, and began meeting with them monthly. Out of that group came an invitation to a smaller group of needle workers who also meet monthly. I didn’t find that kind of local connection until a few months ago when we both started attending Congregation Beth Evergreen. Since then, I’ve also found Organizing for Action-Conifer. We’re both gradually becoming part of our community here in the mountains; actually, communities, because we have as much affiliation with Evergreen, perhaps more, than we do with Conifer.
It’s been a medically eventful two years for me with prostate cancer in 2015 and the total knee in 2016. Kate’s rheumatoid arthritis led to hand/wrist surgery over a year ago and she continues to have degenerative disc disease related pain. Combined with the divorce, which began in earnest in May of 2016 and continues as Jon still lives with us, it means we’ve been very inwardly and family focused the whole time so far. We both hope this year gives us a break on the medical front and that Jon finds a new home for himself, Ruth and Gabe.
fire mitigation, 2015. Just before the solar panels were installed.
Every once in awhile, we say to each other: I’m glad we moved here. And we are. The mountains teach us, every day, what it means to be mountains and what it means to live among them from snowy weather to elk and mule deer to rushing spring streams to less available oxygen. We’re very glad we’ve been here to support Jon and the grandkids. Those two reasons for the move have both manifested themselves in positive ways.
We’ve begun our third year on Shadow Mountain. Can’t wait to see what happens next.
Kate and I supplied bagels, schmear and fruit for the bagel table at Beth Evergreen yesterday. The bagel table is a casual shabbat service that includes the prayer book and the torah reading. Yesterday the parsha was va-er, Exodus 6:2-9:26, for the most part the story of the plagues sent by God on Egypt.
Rabbi Jamie said that in one instance the verb usually translated as go, as in Go to Pharaoh, is actually come. The meaning shifts a good deal with this understanding. Come to Pharaoh implies, according to Jamie, that God will be acting through Pharaoh. This falls under the difficult to understand category for me.
Kate and I talked about this idea as we drove up Brook Forest Drive. After some conversation, we decided that if you pull back, look from a historical view, then the actions of Pharaoh do work as part of God’s efforts on behalf of the Jewish slaves. His hardened heart provides the impetus, eventually, for the Exodus.
We then turned to our contemporary Pharaoh, the Trump. Could God (whatever you want to insert into this metaphysical placeholder) speak to us through the Trump? Jamie’s point was that we have to see the potential for God to speak us especially through those things or persons that we fear or despise. I suppose. Let’s try here.
Pulling back, taking the historical view, what possible liberating impulse could come from Trump’s presidency? (I take liberating impulse to equal God.) It’s true that Trump’s election highlighted the plight of the white working class, those with no more than a high school education. And, it may be, policies to address their concerns will lift all of the working class, high school educated folks. That would be an astonishing and welcome outcome, at least to me.
Too, we might consider the orders to build the wall, block Muslim refugees from certain countries, repeal the ACA, gut environmental regulations as a hardening of the heart, a so-obvious step away from justice and fairness, a big step away from a sustainable future for humanity on this planet, that the reaction to them will part the climate denying sea and create the political will for single payer health care, a return to Ellis Island immigrant welcoming that so many of us yearn for. Maybe. I suppose it could happen that way. May it be so.
As you can tell though, I’m skeptical. But, if it can be, I’ll be the first in line to admit my skepticism unwarranted.
The end of the day here on Shadow Mountain. The sun, disappearing behind Black Mountain, lights up a few narrow cumulus clouds while light leaves the land around our home.
My energy has begun to return to normal. It has taken this long, 8 weeks; but, I’m finally back to writing Superior Wolf and plan to get to the Latin soon. Those two plus writing this blog are my work right now.
The Beth Evergreen community has begun to feel like home, more so for Kate, I think, but somewhat for me, too. I imagine that feeling will deepen over time.
Tomorrow night I’m going to the Conifer Community Church for a meeting of Organizing for Action-Conifer. This will be my first meeting, perhaps their fourth or fifth. I’m looking forward to meeting like minded folk, allies in what will be a long pull.
Groups have begun to emerge. Right here in Conifer there’s a good start, one I intend to join. A couple who make kites has organized it and the general thrust sounds good. Will also be a chance to meet fellow progressives who live here. Beth Evergreen has not, yet, gotten anything started though I believe that will happen.
The Wall of Meat must be checking their bikes right now, making sure their pipes are loud because loud pipes save lives, or so say the bumper stickers. The Rockettes. Wonder what they’re thinking about? All those women. I hope it turns out massive and raucous. Those bibles, Trump’s family bible and Lincoln’s. My question. Will they burst into flame when he puts his hand on them? Just sayin’.
I will spend the day with good friend Tom Crane who’s flying in today. We’ll have dinner here tonight, a fire and conversation. Tomorrow, inauguration day, we’ll motor over to The Happy Camper, where Kate and I buy our maryjane. Not sure, of course, but dispensaries all across the U.S. might see an uptick in sales after tomorrow. Gonna watch cabinet secretary appearances before the Senate? Don’t bogart that joint, my friend. Take it down and pass it over to me.
As to the knee. Which now comes near the end of my thoughts as I write. Little pain, mostly gain. My physical therapist said I was healing “incredibly well.” Good to hear. The big deal now is restrengthening muscles that have weakened over the years of arthritis caused bad biomechanics and lack of exercise post surgery. My right hip muscles are especially weak. Kat and Katie, p.t.’s at Select Physical Therapy, have me putting a small red rubber band around my ankles and walking sideways for two minutes at a time. May not sound like much, but ouch!
Jon and Jen have a good offer on their house. They accepted it and now await inspections, then closing. Provided all goes well this will relieve the last major impediment to moving on after the divorce. Jon will use the money to buy a new house in Aurora, the large Denver suburb where he works as an art teacher. He will be glad to give up the commute from Conifer, returning to riding his bike to work.
2017 will have some upsides, then. Never underestimate the power of unintended consequences, even with the Trump. Could be some positive things there, too.
