Category Archives: Fourth Phase

Fourth Phase, Men, Politics, US History

A Masculinism for the 21st century?

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Spring and the 2% Wu Wei Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Shadow. Rain. Donyce. Ruth. Gabe. Tom. Pain. Talmud Torah. Mussar. Men’s group. CBE. Marilyn and Irv. Primo’s. Aspen Perks. Conifer Cafe. Dandelion. Bread Lounge. Golden Stix. My son. Seoah. The Jangs. Coming to America.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Toys for Shadow

Week Kavannah: Persistence and grit. Netzach.

One brief shining: Sat here yesterday with two good friends, Tom and Shadow, Shadow circling, coming up to Tom’s arm, then moving away, yes, I want to know you, but slowly, maybe next time a bit more, I don’t know you, not sure about you, sniff, sniff, sniff, maybe next time a bit more.

 

Shadow has wounds. Trauma. Probably inflicted by a man. Deep voice. Tall. (to her). She cowers sometimes when I put out my hand. Not always now, a big advance. Like many of us H. Sapiens she wants, needs connection, yet fears it, too. A sadness on my part. As Tom said, don’t you love belonging to the gender and race guilty of so much abuse? Oh, yeah.

Wondering again. About the material I read about boys in American schools. About the young college men my granddaughter describes as infected with toxic masculinity. Not worth giving a try. About men like the Proud Boys, the Promise Keepers, the red-hatted flush-faced American flag waving believers in replacement theory and the strange ideas of the incels.

My gut tells me its time, past time, to focus on men and boys the same energy Simone de Beauvoir and Gloria Steinem and Betty Freidan and Angela Davis and Michelle Obama gave to women and girls.

But how. Men. Stoic. Loyal. Competitive. Strong physically. Crippled emotionally. Fearful. Often cowardly. Bert Lahr lions and/or tin men.

I suppose that’s not a bad a way to think about it. American men fell asleep among the poppies on the yellow brick road. They never got a heart or a brain. Instead they use dominance and aggression where empathy and camaraderie would better serve. They pledge allegiance to false idols like conservative Christianity, MAGA, white supremacy rather than using reason leavened with compassion.

How can we wake them up? Shake them up? Not as Republicans or MAGA-men, but first as men. As fathers, brothers, sons, friends, lovers.

I have a hunch that woke men would defeat the red-hat menace all on their own. Would realize the damage being done not only to their mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters but to themselves. Let alone our suffering nation once a shining city on a hill now a landfill for the refuse of buried tenderness and thwarted love.

I know I’m complicit. Raised a white man in mid-last century Indiana, subject to all the ills available to young boys and men back then.

That is, of course, the huge issue when thinking about a masculinist movement, a masculinism for our time. We are not oppressed, rather we are repressed. We do not need empowerment, rather we need softening, gentling. No marches for men’s rights. We have more than our share.

The men’s movement, in which I have a small role, has failed to become widespread. It has failed to change the trajectory of masculinity in any appreciable way.

My granddaughter won’t date the men we’ve raised. As many young women will not. Can you blame them?

Perhaps even more than defeating our own Mussolini we need to learn how to become human. How to wake our brothers asleep among the poppies. Get them back on the yellow brick road to see the wizard.

Asia, Fourth Phase, Holidays, Judaism, Paganism, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., US History

Tao De Jew

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Shabbat. Torah. CBE. Sacred community. Where everybody knows your name. Shadow and the canoe cut marrow bone. Cold Night. A Mountain Dawn. Great Sol shines again. Being able to buy seeds and plants again. Easter. Matthew. Mark. Luke. John.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gabe at 17

Week Kavannah: Sensibility. Daat.

One brief shining: In their waning years Taoists left behind their jobs in the court bureaucracy for small dwellings in the Mountains where they practiced calligraphy, played the Qin, wrote poetry, studied the sages, and lived close to the natural world.

 

Tao De Jew. With a dash of Alinsky and street focused organizer. The Reverend Doctor Israel Harari. That would be me. With a domestic side of Gardener, Beekeeper, and Docent.

Try to work with the flow of chi, the energetic and transformative aspect of our oneness and our sense of uniqueness. Look for the path that emerges, that asks and invites. Follow it. This ancientrail, then that one. With the ease of Water running toward the Ocean.

Find the moment when chi has found you. Act with its already organized aim. If Shadow gnaws the bed at 5:20, get up and let her out. Saves cleaning up. Makes her happy. Gives the day an hour head start.

Reconstructionist Judaism, Paganism, Taoism.  Sacred Community, Mother Earth, and a follower of the Way. When the Mule Deer comes. When the bull Elk bugles. When Fawns and Calves play. As the Mountain Lion strikes. As the Bear paws a Bee hive. Yes. When tender shoots break through the soil. When friends gather over breakfast. When Torah study opens new human insights. When the Breeze through the Lodgepoles whispers follow me. Yes.

 

Have you been following the Adventures of Trump Tarrific? I know I have. Sort of. There was the all tariffs all the time moment. Then there was the oh wait not on tech stuff moment. Now there’s, what is it again? 10% on everybody and a whole lot on China. Yeah, I don’t get it either. Lucky I’m not alone. Business leaders. Economists. Inflation wary members of the Fed. For a start.

Then there’s Trump the Depo Man. Proving his masculinity by using the military, ICE, and millions of dollars to sweep people off college campuses, out of their janitorial and dishwashing jobs, making a mistake or two along the way, but hey that’s ok, omelets and eggs, eh, and not getting many folks deported except the most vulnerable.

That what it says in the Gospels: find the poor, the stranger, put them on a plane and send them to prison in El Salvador. Oh, Jesus. Oh.

 

Just a moment: Yes. It’s Easter. Easter eggs. Chocolate and marshmallow Bunnies. Ham. Cute dresses and boys in ties. All the holiday essentials. Wonder how that whole egg business has worked this year, the year of Bird flu?

Remember Ukrainian Easter Eggs. Wonder if anybody’s on that this year? Or will Putin target little old ladies with eggs and candle wax.

 

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Paganism, Plants, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, US History, Weather +Climate, Writing

Living. Not dying.

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Shadow. Her kindness. Amy. Her understanding. Cookunity. Colorado Coop and Garden. The Greenhouse. Gardening again. Korea. Malaysia. Australasia. Wisconsin. Saudi Arabia. The Bay. First Light. 10,000 Lakes. The Rocky Mountain Front Range. Where my people live.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Greenhouse

Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

One brief shining: Nathan and I wandered in my back yard, his app that shows Great Sol’s illumination searching for a good spot to plant my greenhouse, until we neared a spot close to the shed, that was it with decent morning Sun and an hours worth of afternoon Sun more than anywhere else.

 

 

That picture is not quite what I’m getting. Mine will have an outdoor raised bed on either side and shutters that move themselves as the greenhouse heats up and cools down. It will also have an electric heater for Winter and a drip irrigation system inside and out.

This guy Nathan, a Conifer native, started his business Colorado Coop and Garden to give folks like me an opportunity to grow things up here. Working a garden at ground level is long past for me. But Nathan can build the raised beds at a height where my back is not an issue.

Guess I’m regressing here in some ways. A Dog. A small Garden. Andover in miniature. The greenhouse will have a sign: Artemis Gardens. Artemis Honey was Kate and mine’s name for our bee operation.

 

I’m loving my classes at Kabbalah Experience. Reaching deep into the purpose of religion and Judaism in particular. Reimagining the story of Adam and Eve. My life, my Jewish life and my Shadow Mountain life, have begun to resonate. Learning and living an adventure in fourth phase purpose.

No matter what the near term future holds for my health I will not succumb to despair or bleakness. As I’ve often said, I want to live until I die. This life, I’m coming to realize, is me doing just that.

If I were a bit more spry, I’d add a chicken coop and a couple of bee hives, but both require more flexibility than I can muster.

I’m at my best when I’m active outside with Mother Earth and inside with a Dog, books, and new learning. All that leavened with the sort of intimate relationships I’ve developed both here and in Minnesota and with my far flung family.

That’s living in the face of autocracy and cruelty. I will not attenuate my life. Neither for the dark winds blowing through our country and world, nor for that dark friend of us all, death.

 

Just a moment: Did you read Thomas Friedman’s article: I’ve Never Been More Afraid for My Countries Future? His words, served up with a healthy dish of Scandinavian influenced St. Louis Park Judaism, ring more than true to me. They have the voice of prophecy.

We are in trouble. No doubt. Trouble from which extrication will require decades, I imagine. If not longer. Yet. I plan to grow heirloom vegetables year round on Shadow Mountain. To have mah Dog Shadow with me in the Greenhouse.

I also plan to write and think about the sacred, the one, the wholeness of which we are part and in which we live, die, love. I will not cheapen my life with bitterness, rather I will eat salads, read, play with Shadow and dine with friends, talk to my friends and family near and far.

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Politics, US History

Veronica. Shadow. Spine Treatments. Oh, my.

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Lao Xi. Dao De Jing. Wu wei. Alchemy. The Sage. Pu, pure simplicity. Ziran. Authenticity. Just so-ness. Lao Tse’s journey to the West. On an Ox. Stopped at the Hangu Pass to write his wisdom. The Tao. The Way. Or, the Ancientrail of Chi. Other wisdom ways. That Iroquois medicine man. The Sun dance. Christianity. Especially Eastern Orthodoxy. Mystics of all cultures.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Lifting the veil and seeing the ordinary as sacred reality

Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

One brief shining: We sat there, the two converts who shared a mikveh day, who received new names on the same day, who did Bat Mitzvah and Bar Mitzvah at the same Shavuot service, both a bit cold as a Mountain Evening’s chill settled on Murphy’s, an eatery beside Bear Creek in Evergreen, and caught up about her impending divorce, her brother’s death, her father’s injury, my back and cancer and Shadow my new puppy, upon leaving I said Jews together, she said it back, and we hugged, then just before I got to my car she turned, came to me, and we hugged again. Veronica. Harmonica. Hanukkah.

 

Dog journal: Shadow’s back to training with me now. Except for the leash. She runs when she sees it. Gotta get her leash trained. I want to take her with me places. To the vet. To a groomer. As the weather warms, she’s blowing her coat. To mussar to meet my friends, see the synagogue. Over to the Happy Camper. On grocery pickups. Wandering around. Maybe a hike if the injections work.

Shadow loves her toys. I bought her a miniature tire and she hasn’t played with anything else for a couple of days. Her playfulness makes me smile.

 

What injections you might ask. On April 22nd at 11:00 am, I’ll have needles inserted into four foramens on my lumbar spine. Steroids. Could take two weeks to start working. Typically lasts less than three months if it works at all. Partial relief at best since it will not treat the arthropathy, arthritic damage. A more modest first step. Plus, only ten minutes or so, requiring no anesthesia.

After this there are two other possible procedures: radio frequency ablation of the nerves, and peripheral nerve stimulation. Both are more involved, yet offer the potential for longer term relief. One set of needles at a time.

 

Just a moment: Veronica worked on the GOES satellites, vehicles in her parlance, and now manages Lockheed’s planning and development for the next generation weather satellites. As Trump defunds NOAA, he wants to privatize weather data, leave it to a corporate entity yet unborn. If he succeeds, Veronica may not have work. Who do you know directly affected by the blob that ate our government?

Judge scolds the Justice Department for ignoring her rulings? Scolds. Oh, we are well and truly screwed.

Anticipatory obedience. Check. Congress at heel. Check. Judiciary sidelined. Check. Government as we have known it gutted. Check. Our economy in a tailspin. Check.

Let me know when it’s over.

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase

I see myself

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Veronica. Saigon Landing. Tonight. Pain doc. SPRINT PNS. Steroid injections soon. Pain. Weariness. Good mornings. Fatigued afternoons. Waning evenings. Shadow bouncing and running. AI 2027. AI. A world beyond our imagining not far away. A world so far away we cannot imagine. The early universe.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Pain relief

Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

One brief shining: Hobbled by back pain I moved slowly toward the steps, up and in to the Mountain Pain Center building, doors an obstacle, walking an obstacle, fuck this, I thought, damned back, afterward over to nearby Tony’s Market for an Italian Sub and then home, my day finished around 11 am.

 

When the Ancients gathered on Sunday, I had asked for each person to tell us how they see themselves. Speaking for myself I said I was weary. Back pain limiting my mobility, my stamina. Causing inertia to set in earlier and earlier. Wrassling with prostate cancer, now for eleven years. Also, the week of Kate’s death four years ago.

Not depressed. Tired of it all. Just tired.

I see myself as a small town boy who has gone through many transformations. Student. Protester. Draft resister. Husband. Husband. Husband. Alcoholic. Rag cutter. Seminary student. Worker with the developmentally challenged. Manager. Organizer. Dad. Gardener. Bee Keeper. Dog lover. Writer. Grandpa. Friend. Docent. Actor. Woolly Mammoth. Doctoral student. Mountain dweller. Caregiver. Jew. Old man. Shadowed. Cancer patient. World traveler. Brother. And others I’m not remembering right now.

I see myself as confident, secure in who and what I am. A good friend, a devoted husband, companion to Shadow. An intelligent man, seeking always the hidden, the obscured, the sacred. Creative. Curious. A family man to the bone.

I also see the dark places within me. The man who is afraid of pain. The man who is shy, reticent in social situations. The man who would rather stay home, read, watch TV than interact with the world. The angry man who, though modified a lot over the years, remains. Impatient with stupidity, cupidity, rudeness, injustice. The man who wishes for something, some sort of recognition, yet also does not care about it. The man who judges too quickly and often not on the side of merit.

There is also the man of whimsy, of folderol. The man who laughs easily and often. Who sees the irony of life and smiles at it. The man who looks deep into the eyes of the Mule Deer, the Elk, Shadow and sees fellow travelers on this ancientrail of life.

I see myself, too, as accomplished. That my life has had, has, purpose and meaning. That I have made a difference, small differences in the large sweep of history, yes, but differences none the less.

I see myself now as a man in the fourth phase of his life. Beyond retirement. With an illness that could be terminal. Death as the next big event. There is a liberation in this phase, a freedom from worry, a sense of wrapping it up.

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Holidays, Judaism, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Passing on Passover? The Jangs.

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Second day of Passover. Kate, always Kate. Shadow the toy mover. Her zooming in the back yard. Liberation. Freedom to choose. Egypt. The many Egypts we are heir to. Tara. Arjan. Robbie and Deb. Sandy and Mark. Eleanor. Kilimanjaro. Jungfrau. Black Mountain. Shadow Mountain. A Mountain night.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Liberation

Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

One brief shining: The Haggadah had wine stains; the seder plate had a kiwi because we can; we dipped the parsley into salt water, tears for the suffering of the slaves, of all oppressed people, spread dots of wine or in my case grape juice for each plague, retelling each part of the passover story as if we were there, as our story.

 

Talmud Torah in the morning. (Torah study) A focus on the maggid, the telling of the passover story in the Haggadah. Complete with midrash, interpretation and expansion.

Later, around 4, over to Kilimanjaro Drive. Tara’s house. Steep driveway with cars parked at various spots along the way. All the way up to the top where I found a spot in front of a Tesla.

Thirty minutes before I had almost chosen not to go. Coming home in the dark. General inertia. A long standing aversion to parties. But this was Passover. At Tara’s. I’d be happy once I got there.

So I went to the liquor store, picked up a bottle of mid-range red wine and drove past Evergreen Meadows and past Evergreen Funeral Home where both Jon and Kate lay after death, down curvy N. Turkey Creek Road to the Mountains and roads leading to her house.

And I was happy to be there. Until we sat down to the table. Then the noise level, the angle of the voices, the general clash and clamor of a meal with eighteen other people. I began to recede. Off in my own quiet room of acoustical challenge. Nodding and smiling. Trying to keep up. Too often failing.

Now having to rethink even Passover, at least in people’s homes. Where it means the most. Where my friends want me. Where I want to be. The congregational Passover has round tables, more distance among the guests. Kate and I usually attended. I may need to go to it just so I can hear.

 

Talked to my son and Seoah on Friday night. Murdoch’s getting crate training. Seoah’s running, happy. We talked about Kate, her death, her wonderful life.

My son and I discussed details for the Jang family visit this summer. Money is, as you can imagine, an issue. 5 adults and two children. Seoah’s Mom and Dad, her brother, her sister and her two kids. Airfare, lodging, transportation. Food. That’s what we’re working out now. Need to make some decisions soon because Air BnB’s begin to fill up for the summer in this time frame.

Will be the trip of a lifetime for the Jang’s. The U.S. The Rocky Mountains. Deepening connections with my son’s side of the family. Myself, Ruth, Gabe.

Stay tuned.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase

Four Years

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Kate, always Kate. Her yahrzeit. Passover. Talmud Torah. Tara. Arjan. Eleanor. Leo. Findlay. Gracie. Annie and Luna. A Mountain Morning. Pagans. Planting festivals. Beltane. Greenhouse. The Night Sky. Shadow. A perfect night. Paul’s procedure. Dad’s birthday.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Passover

Week Kavannah: Wu Wei

One brief shining: Kate had the b-pap on, negative pressure to get air in the lungs, hated it; not long after she asked me if I would rather have her dead or disabled, not long after that she decided to die.

Kate in Lima, Peru. Pissaro’s place. 2011

Of course I told her I wanted her alive between those two choices. When she decided to die, she asked what I thought of her decision. I hate it, because I’ll lose you; but, I think it’s the right decision for you.

She had a clarity of thought, an unflinching nature in the face of trouble. If there was ever an emergency at work, she got called to go with the crash cart. We both knew the struggle had gotten near the end.

We cried. I asked her about some of her last wishes. Jewelry to Jeremiah, the painter and brother-in-law. Expand the Iris bed on Shadow Mountain. Plant lilacs. Then to me: Zip up. And trust your doctors.

Her doctor came in and said she understood Kate wished to “transition.” Die is not in the vocabulary of the physician. Kate said yes. Her life supports, including the b-pap machine were removed. Morphine sufficient to stave off the fear generated by air hunger dripped from her IV.

I left. The doctors said it would take a day or two for her to die. I had Rigel and Kepler to take care of back home. After driving me home, Rich asked me if I wanted to go back. No, I said.

At that point I had to feed and get water for Rigel and Kepler. The last ten days had been constant travel between Shadow Mountain and Swedish Hospital down the hill in Englewood. Emotional and physical exhaustion had taken a toll on me, too.

She died that night. I regret not being there. I also regret that when I saw her corpse it frightened me so I could not go to her. Over the years since I’ve made my peace with those regrets. I can’t change them and Kate, I know, would have understood.

This is the first time I’ve written about these last things. The regrets. I do it now because we make such a fetish of hiding the reality of death. I don’t want to be part of that. It was hard, painful for her and for me. For many others, too.

Later on, a couple of years following her death, I took her remains, housed in a Richard Bresnahan clay jar, and spread them out on a small, unnamed Mountain Stream that feeds into Maxwell Creek, then Bear Creek, then the South Platter River, carrying her down to the Gulf of Mexico and the World Ocean.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Holidays, Judaism

Shadow. Yet again. Passover.

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Friday grateful: So. It has come to this. The Supreme Court, remember how big it used to loom over our culture, has to say no, you cannot leave an immigrant you deported by mistake in an El Salvadoran prison because you claim you have no authority to undo it, to the President’s lawyers arguing against bringing him home. The Supreme Court. Involved in fixing a bureaucratic travesty any decent person would have scrambled to fix on their own.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Puppy energy. Even at 5:30 am.

Week Kavannah: Wu Wei

One brief shining: No more night time excursions for Shadow, for whatever reason darkness transforms her from Shadow into Nightshade the ornery, unwilling to come in, happy to wander in the dark well beyond my bedtime.

 

Dr. Shadow is in the house

 

Dog journal: She’s nose deep in a new toy for aggressive chewers. Sharp teeth and not afraid to use them. By turns amusing and frustrating.

She’s house-trained. Loving. Self entertaining. Willing to train. Sometimes. Her eyes contain the lives of Dogs around the campfires in the Veldt. Domesticated, but not quite.

Part Dingo. Part Kelpie. Part Dalmatian. All Australian muster Dog. Alert and ready to herd.

No, Shadow. It’s not yet time for breakfast. She’s looking right at me, putting in her order.

 

Got back to mussar yesterday. First time in a month or so. Maybe a bit more. Though I’ve been on zoom. Still working on anavah: humility.

Odd moment. I wore my new round Raybans, my trademark plaid flannel, and my Grateful Dead dancing bears hat. One of the women said, after class finished, that I was the sexiest man in the room. Only three of us: Rabbi Jamie, Luke, and me, so there’s that…

Still. It surprised me. Made me think of days long past. BP. Before prostatectomy. 2015. Yet the affirmation made me feel good. Even at 78.

We all need the occasional validation of others. No matter the reason. When validation comes unexpectedly and in a manner that delights us, all the better.

Here’s the big takeaway. You can be the source of that kind of validation for another. Elevating others is a kindness always available to us. Worth doing.

 

Dawn has come to Shadow Mountain. An hour plus after Shadow gnawed me awake. Another Mountain Morning. Grateful for that.

Going to Evergreen this morning. The Dandelion. Breakfast with Alan.

 

Just a moment: Yesterday was anniversary #9 for my son and Seoah. Today’s my brother’s 66th birthday. Tomorrow’s Passover and the fourth anniversary of Kate’s death and my father’s birthday: #112 had he lived.

A lot of big moments for a three day period.

I’ll be heading over to Tara Saltzman’s for her seder tomorrow afternoon at 4 pm. My contribution is red wine.

We’ll sit around the table and celebrate the origin story for our people. Remember that time back in Egypt, so long ago. That night when we spread the blood of lambs on our doorposts and lintels. When the angel of death passed by our first born sons. Remember?

Remember the Reed Sea. How it made way for us?

This festival of liberation. Of the freeing of slaves. This is now my story, too. And a wonderful story it is. To have at its root the struggle against an oppressor, one who would diminish slaves through harsh labor. Of a people who listened to the sacred inner voice calling out for freedom and, most important of all, acted on it. Gained their release. An ancient story, yes, but one that needs reliving in every decade, every century, every millennia.

 

Commentary on Religion, Dogs, Fourth Phase, Judaism

The Shadow Knows

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Shadow, the Night Dog. Cool night. Being a doggie Dad. Tarrific Trump, the unpredictable. China. My son, near to China. Seoah and Murdoch. Leo. Annie and Luna. The Jangs come to America. Ruth. Gabe. My &#$! back.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Religion

Week Kavannah: Wu Wei

One brief shining: She ran from the door into the night, once again inside shy after dark, staying mysterious, a Shadow on my late evening, coming in suddenly, behind my back, there under the bed in the morning though I thought she was outside.

 

Dog journal: My Shadow. A conundrum. Loving, playful. Dr. Shadow. Timid, threshold shy traumatized Shadow. Exuberant. Fearful. Difficult to train. Happy to train. A deeper wound than I thought. As Kate would say, tincture of time.

We spent time, Amy and me, with Shadow on the leash outside. Shadow led; then, I led a bit. Amy noticed, I did not, that Shadow panted part of the time. A sign of stress she said. Means we need to go slow with training, with the leash.

I trust Amy. She’s Dog-centric, concerned about Shadow’s mental health as well as training. The two have an intimate relation in Shadow’s case.

In the daylight and with me Shadow is a puppy. Throwing her toys in the air, chewing on bones, running outside with her tail held high.

At night she becomes fearful of the threshold to the inside. When I try to train her, she becomes cautious, tentative, suspicious. Amy’s better with her, but she gets some of the same behaviors, too.

A difficult journey for both of us. Worth it. Why? Because it’s a matter of love, of learning each other, of coming to know each other in our mutual woundedness.

 

Started my class on Religion’s Radical Roots yesterday. Rabbi Jamie through Kabbalah Experience. He’s such a good teacher. The best I’ve ever had. A very smart guy, empathetic, too.

We gave religion as a whole a letter grade, then offered what religion meant-the word and the social institution. I gave a B to a B- admitting I might be guilty of grade inflation.

Here’s my three minute definition of religion’s purpose:

I see religion as an antidote to hyper-rationalism, as a poetry of the inner world, as an attempt to order the chaos of public life, (which is when it usually gets in trouble), as a source for ideas about justice that can challenge existing political paradigms.

Fun to be in class with Rabbi Jamie. Thursday mussar, Bagel Table, and now this class. My happy place. Makes me wonder, again, why I haven’t taught.

My current conclusion. My understanding has a built in trap door. The minute something begins to feel solid for me the acid of questions opens holes in it. If I taught, I would say: Here is this idea. But, don’t trust it. It has this flaw and that one. We’d never get anywhere.

I’ve become ok with this over my lifetime, even see it as a feature, not a bug. Yet it has definite complications.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Sport

April

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Shadow, eater of bones. Fatigue. Ritalin. Breakfast out. CookUnity, above adequate. Passover this Saturday. Liberation. Easter, April 20. Resurrection. Jihad. Greater and lesser. Mark’s students, boys becoming men. Dire Wolves live. Colossal Bioscience. De-extinction. Science wonders. The Night Sky. Orion, my old friend. Andover. A time of abundance.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dire Wolves alive

Week Kavannah: Wu Wei

One brief shining: Shadow comes over, puts her paws on the arm of my chair, stares up at me with her soulful dark eyes, and says, in crystal clear Dog, I want my breakfast!

 

April. Brother Mark and Dad’s birthdays. Ruth and Gabe’s. Kate’s yahrzeit on April l2th, celebrated on April 28th of the Hebrew calendar this year. My son and Seoah’s wedding anniversary. #9 this year. Passover and Easter.

An emotion filled month recognized by T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland. April is the cruelest month. Has some of that flavor for me.

How do we ever make sense of death and the awful emptiness it brings to the living? Especially when it comes as Mother Earth makes a seasonal turn toward new life. Plants shooting up from Winter’s sleep. Mule Deer Fawns and Elk Calves and Mountain Lion Kits. Bear Cubs. Baby Mark, baby Curtis, baby Ruth, baby Gabe. And Kate’s death. All together. Death and life. The Great Wheel turning, grinding as it goes.

I like the cohesion of Passover and Easter. Their twin messages confront April with powerful reassurance. Slavery of any kind diminishes, weakens the human experiment. Liberation from  the slaveries we are heir to lifts us all.

Death ends a life but it does not end life. Resurrection can heal a whole fallow season, the human heart as it emerges from mourning, the soul killing atrophy of numbness to existence.

These two ministers to the inner and outer realms complement each other. Live in tension perhaps as key representatives of different religions, but can be embraced by both and by those with none.

Religion holds these non-rational ideas, lays them alongside the daily human existence. Reminds us that bondage is not our fate; that death and rebirth are fellow travelers. Always.

 

Sports stop: Do not count your championships until they’re hatched. Or something like that. Ask Duke. Ask Houston. Both lost games they thought were theirs. Duke losing its long predicted Cooper Flag coronation as king of the teen basketball prom. Houston losing its championship in the final seconds of the final game of March Madness.

The new look of college basketball? Uncertain, but likely. Build a team of one and dones. Go for it. A coaches nightmare, I would think. Every year trying to get the one or two best players coming out of high school. Transferring others to compliment them. Play the season. Get into the playoffs. Hopefully. Rinse and repeat.