Category Archives: Family

Circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and that shall be the mark of the covenant between you and me.

June 6, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

68 bar falls 29.22 2mph SSW dew-point 62 Beltane, cloudy and rainy

Waxing Crescent of the Flower Moon (English)

Coming back from a journey throws the traveler back into daily life, matters that have been suspended on the road. This trip is no exception. Stefan’s wife, Lonnie, has surgery today for her adenocarcinoma. Kate’s got some problems at work. The tomato plant has not fruited. E-mail to catch up on. That pesky novel still calling to me. That sort of thing.

Let’s go back to the bris for a minute.

Here is the passage from the Torah that provides the theological rationale. It comes from Genesis 17:

1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said: “I am God the Almighty. Walk in my presence and be blameless. 2 Between you and me I will establish my covenant, and I will multiply you exceedingly.” 3 When Abram prostrated himself, God continued to speak to him: 4 “My covenant with you is this: you are to become the father of a host of nations. 5 2 No longer shall you be called Abram; your name shall be Abraham, for I am making you the father of a host of nations. 6 I will render you exceedingly fertile; I will make nations of you; kings shall stem from you. 7 I will maintain my covenant with you and your descendants after you throughout the ages as an everlasting pact, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. 8 I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are now staying, the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession; and I will be their God.” 9 God also said to Abraham: “On your part, you and your descendants after you must keep my covenant throughout the ages. 10 This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you that you must keep: every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 Circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and that shall be the mark of the covenant between you and me. 12 Throughout the ages, every male among you, when he is eight days old, shall be circumcised, including houseborn slaves and those acquired with money from any foreigner who is not of your blood. 13 Yes, both the houseborn slaves and those acquired with money must be circumcised. Thus my covenant shall be in your flesh as an everlasting pact. 14 If a male is uncircumcised, that is, if the flesh of his foreskin has not been cut away, such a one shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

Verse 10 and 14 have the operative language. (no pun intended) First, circumcision is a sign of the covenant between Yahweh and the descendants of Abraham and Sara. Second, Gabe, in order to not be cut off from his people had to have his foreskin circumcised.

In the living room of Jon and Jen’s home the mohel, Jay Feder, set his instruments on a wooden table top. I asked him questions and in the process he and I bonded over our shared knowledge. Educated in several yeshiva and, for the purpose of the bris, in Jerusalem, Jay, a full time jeweler, is a bright and learned man. He’s also very funny.

His shtick included these off hand remarks, “Oh, I see Adrian (a six month old boy) is here. I hope he doesn’t remember me!” When Jon laid Gabe on the pillow (where Jay performs the circumcision), he laid him with his head toward Jay, who said, “So. Do you like his nose? You’re ok with it shorter?” Jon turned Gabe around on the pillow. He then turned to Jon and said, “All right. The father performs the bris. Are you ready?” And so on.

The chair in front of the table with the cloth on it is the Elijah chair. I asked Jay the significance of the Elijah chair. He told me the story of Elijah. You may remember Elijah. He challenged Ahab and his priest, Obadiah, to a contest of efficacy, their gods, Baal and Ahserah, against his, Yahweh. Long story short. Yahweh sends down fire and burns a sacrifical bull, and not only the bull, but the altar as well. Baal and Asherah did not. Later on, however, Elijah complains to Yahweh that the people of Israel have not been keeping the covenant. After this comment, Elijah suffers a demotion and has to anoint his student, Elisha, as his successor.

Later, Elijah leaves earth for heaven in a whirlwind, on a chariot of fire. He is the only character in the Tanakh who does not die. Rabbinic scholars have made much of the study of Elijah and they conclude that Elijah became a perpetual witness to those events in Jewish ritual life that affirm the covenant. “The rabbis say this may be a reward or it may be a punishment.” Elijah’s chair, then, gives concrete expression to Elijah’s presence at this most basic of all affirmations of the Abrahamic covenant.

This is Jon (my stepson) and Gabe with his knitted yarmulke. I wore one, too, but I don’t have a picture. Asked about the significance of the yarmulke, Jay said, “There are many answers, but one I like is that it shows where we stop and God takes over.”

After the bris itself, Gabe received his Hebrew name, Gavriel. This is Jon and Jen, Ruth and Gabe with Jay giving Gabe several sips of sweet wine.

Why wine? Glad you asked, Jay said. “The body starts deteriorating from the moment of birth until it finally gives up and dies. It is the reverse in the spiritual life. As life goes on our spiritual life becomes richer and richer until we make the transition after death. Wine is one of the things we know that follows the same path. As it gets older and older, it gets better and better.”

One of the things I admire and respect about Judaism is its emphasis on home-based worship and ritual. This event sacralized Jon and Jen’s living room. While Jay sang some of the blessings, I saw many of Jon and Jen’s neighbors pass by on the street. It was an interesting blend of cultures.

Family

Jay, the Mohel

June 3, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

Quite an afternoon and early evening.

At 3:30 Gabe had his first post hospital infusion of factor 8, the clotting factor largely absent from his blood. We drove a circuitous route through the new homes built on the site of the old Stapleton Airport.

We crossed out of that development into a poorer neighborhood, the one in which Jon and Jen both teach. It is also the location of a former Army base now occupied by the university of Colorado. It is also the site of the old Army hospital plus several new buildings that now constitute the University hospital.

In an old Army hospital building, with a wonderful Art Deco lobby, and old, undecorated halls and rooms is the hemophilia and thrombosis center. In there the women who staff it made kind noises and praised Gabe’s beauty.

We went back into a procedure room and there the nurse practitioner found a vein near Gabe’s left ear and slid in a needle attached to a line. She first drew blood to retest his factor level (occasional misdiagnosis), then inserted the hypodermic containing the factor into the line and pushed it into his bloodstream.

It works immediately and in fact aids in clotting the puncture created by the needle.

Gabe whimpered, then went quiet. In a minute Amy had a gauze patch over the puncture site and held it for about five minutes, just to be sure.

2 hours later, at Jon and Jen’s home, Rabbi and Jeweler, Jay performed a wonderful ritual. Jay and I hit it off. I held Gabe’s legs while Jay, the mohel, cut the foreskin in two practiced movements. There’s more to this, but I’m in a hotel lobby and I feel the need to move on. Later.

Family, GeekWorld, Politics

Liberalism on the Rise

June 3, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

Double tree has computers, but they come out in this really big font and I can’t figure out how to decrease the size. So, I’ll. just. shout. it. out. o. k. ?

When I left Jon and Jen’s last night, Barb was still at the ER at University Hospital. I’m headed over there now to help with housecleaning, so I’ll find out what happened.

There’s a line now at the computers. That’s what comes with socialism, when everything’s free. Or, at least when the cost is hidden. Gal just stood, drinking coffee, looking at me. Passive aggressive.

Read the newspaper this morning about the economy. Bad news. Which is good news for Democrats. Also, an interesting article by somebody named Jonathan Goldberg. He’s an editor of the National Review and author of a book, Liberal Fascism.

His perspective is that conservativism will rise again. He said over and over that Republican does not equal conservatism. The current administration spent like “a pimp with a week to live.” A colorful metaphor. I suspect the gut of his argument is correct, however, and that is that conservatism is a part of the American ethos and will only be challenged by a liberal ascendancy, not obliterated.

We can only hope that first, the ascendancy will happen, and that it will produce affects that have a long shelf life, like Social Security and Medicare. Which do need to get fixed. Amen.

OK. Out for now. See you on the flipside of the bris.

Family

In Crip’s Territory

June 2, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

At Jon and Jen’s. Held Gabe for an hour. We had guy to guy chats, his little blue eyes looking up and his mouth forming that curve babies use to indicate they know where communication comes from. He’s swaddled now and in his downstairs bed.

A crack of thunder, a lightning flash and rain. Nice cool down. A fan is on so the room has a nice cross breeze. Denver is high and the altitude thinner so sunburn and heat pound on bare human flesh. Likewise, though, in the evening, once the sun goes down, a pleasant coolness settles over the city. With few bugs summer evenings have a high human pleasure index.

Jen’s mom, Barb cut her foot on a hotel door. She went to Urgent Care where they couldn’t stop the bleeding. Ironic, eh, with little hemophiliac Gabe about to have his bris tomorrow? So, Jen has left to take Barb to the University ER.

We had plans to go to a Brazilian steak house, but we’ve decided on take-out sushi instead. Jon’s taken off to get the sushi. He’ll take Jen’s order over to the ER. So, I’m here with Gabe and Ruth, both asleep. I’ve got a bit of hummus and some goat cheese as an appetizer.

The redevelopment of Stapleton Airport, just blocks from Jon and Jen’s house, is a major urban infill project. Lots of new housing and lots of new upscale shops. This, too, is ironic since Jon’s neighborhood has the reputation in Denver as the ghetto. It is a mixed income area with the poor and the middle class sharing property lines. On the whole it seems a pretty calm place, though Jon says it is Crips territory. He also says the occasional crackhead will break into houses looking for loot.

Barb’s injury on the eve of Gabe’s bris is family. The connected web makes her injury now a part of family lore. Had an odd thought while holding Gabe yesterday. I am now in the generation that will be remembered, no longer am I part of the generation that remembers. This underlines the long and ancient trail of generational succession, reaching back to those brave folks who walked out of Africa and stretching forward to where we do not know.

Family, GeekWorld

No Computer? Bad.

June 2, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

In Denver: temp. Hot sky blue no clouds

Traveling without a computer is harder than I thought. My fingers now write with the keyboard, without it I have a different stream of thought. Not worse, just different.

So, I found this computer and decided to log in. Outside at Jon and Jen’s scratching the soil to plant grass seed.

Ruth and Gabe are, as are all grandchildren, wonderful. Ruth has complete sentences, if you can follow her language. I drank it all. Where my pink sunglasses? Where my grandma? She’s also two. Everything, even the moose, Merton, that I brought for Gabe was immediately hers.

Gabe’s a delight. I held him right after I got here. gotta go. back to the grass

Family

Years of Change

May 29, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

58 bar falls 30.01 0mph SW dew-point 52 Beltane, cloudy and cool

Last Quarter of the Hare Moon

RJ Devick has his offices at 169 and 394, a tall building, 20 stories, for the burbs. It has a glass curtain wall and looks like the generic office building. We go out to see RJ once a year. At those meetings we examine our portfolio and its performance–fine–any changes in our financial situation, all positive. More money in savings. Kate’s income stayed up rather than decline as we had imagined when she made the shift to managed care. Kate is within 2 years of retirement. 2 years.

These are years of change, not so much in the purpose of our lives, as in the external actions related to it. Kate will stop working at Allina, but will keep her license up and volunteer more. Her change is my change, of course, as the stay at home spouse. She will enter the homeworld full time and we will have to adjust to that. I don’t anticipate any major issues.

I leave tomorrow morning for Denver and since Kate uses the laptop for her work, I will not be posting for the next week. Look for a trip summary next Thursday or Friday.

Cinema and Television, Family, Literature, Writing

Sensuality Awakened in a Hindu Temple

May 26, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

47 bar steep rise 30.04 6mph N dew-point 38 Beltane

Waning Gibbous Hare Moon

There are frost warnings not 75 miles north of us. Frost. On Memorial Day. OMG.

Kate came home after a busy holiday clinic, today and yesterday were both very busy. I cooked walleye, pasta with morels I found in our woods with a sauce Kate made earlier and asparagus. We ate it while watching Passage to India. This is an old movie, so you probably saw it long before I did, but it’s a stunner visually. David Lean and Merchant Ivory, goes without saying. The plot worked well in exposing the basic contradictions in the colonial exploitation of India by the British Raj. The major plot point, however, an incident in the caves of Marabara still eludes me.

It seems that Adela, played by Judy Davis, awakened to her sensuality while visiting a Hindu temple in ruins. It seems further that her on again/off again marriage to the City Magistrate created a level of cognitive dissonance with this awakened sensuality. It all came to a head when she fled a wonderful day organized by a Muslim doctor. She made an accusation of attempted rape, or, was manipulated into making one. Then she recanted. Puzzling.

Kate’s off to bed. I plan to finish Lush Life by Richard Price tonight. A wonderful novel in many ways, though it is so thick in its content that I become weary of it and need a rest. It is a tour de force of urban conflict, parsed out on the shockwaves of a brutal murder on the lower east side. If you want to read a genuine American voice on a quintessential American topic, I recommend it.

No writing by me yesterday or today on Superior Wolf. In a bit of a general funk, the dream surfacing some of it. Not sure where it’s going, doesn’t seem so oppressive tonight.

Family, Garden, Politics, Writing

Why Did They Get The Boat With Holes?

May 24, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

66 bar falls 30.06 6mph NE dew-point 38 Beltane, cloudy

Waning Gibbous Hare Moon

The grocery store on Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend, quiet. I suppose all those up norther’s have abandoned the first home for the second. Made for an easy trip through the check out lane. Though not purchasing much, I thought, I still rang up $155. Surprised me.

Some shrimp, a walleye fillet, milk, bread, snacks, some fruit (that $10 bag of cherries maybe not such a wise purchase), butter, turkey for the dogs. That’s about it. Combine that with the $42 it took me to fill up the Celica, around 11 gallons, and you can feel the pincers of rising commodity prices clamp down.

Kate and I can afford it, don’t get me wrong, but I’m thinking about the person who checked me out at Festival, who put the items in the bags, theWalmart employee, the person who works in the convenience store, janitors and other back of the shop employees we rarely see. Or, the unemployed. Or, the person whose income each month comes fixed by an annuity, social security, a meager pension. Consider a person making 30-40,000 dollars a year. With two or three kids. A mortgage and a commute. Thank you free market capitalism. Why did they get the boat with holes?

Planted a couple of ferns in the shade garden underneath the river birch, then went over to the second tier, where I began a shade garden 3 years ago. Gophers have eaten much of the hosta and the daylillies, survivors from my attempt to clear them out back then have overgrown a lot of the rest. I’ve decided to treat daylilies in this half moon shaped garden as weeds. I’m moving them to other places, places where their wonderfully dogged lifestyle will help us rather than get in the way. Any that grow from tubers left behind, though. Out they go.

Spent 45 or minutes or so writing on Superior Wolf, too. Keeps on coming.

Cinema and Television, Family

It Will End as a Novel Ends

May 17, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

55 bar steep rise 0mph E dew-point 39 Beltane

Waxing Gibbous Hare Moon

Kate cleared a bunch of dogwood canes, pulled up weeds, pruned out a juniper (yesterday), deadheaded the daffodils and generally worked herself into a stupor. (In Norwegian, this is a good thing.) She’s been on vacation this week and has enjoyed herself immensely planting, pruning, carrying. (Again, in Norwegian, this constitutes a vacation.) I admire and appreciate her doggedness, but it doesn’t count as a vacation attitude in my Celtic/Germanic perspective. Whatever turns your crank.

Battlestar Galactica is the most nuanced and unpredictable show on television, bar none. It is a good science fiction novel brought to the screen and that is so rare as to be a marvel, a marvel that continues week after week. There no good guys and bad guys, no bad robots and good robots. No, there are humans and robots who, in some situations, act for the common good and, in other situations, act out of selfish or malicious motives.

The Science Fiction channel will finish the Battlestar Galactica series this season, but it will not tail off into the land of unfinished television shows. It will end as a novel ends, with an ending that ties together various plotlines and provides a final surprise and aha. How do I know? Because that’s how good writing works, and this is good writing. I would like to see this as a precedent for TV shows where the story has a trajectory, a climax and a denouement, not the eternal extension of the storyline in a cynical attempt to exploit viewer interest for every last drop of advertiser revenue. Viewers will return if the fiction has characters with complex lives, difficult hurdles to overcome and a convincing fate.

More work outside tomorrow. This may be the last big push for a while since Kate goes back to work on Tuesday and I have MIA and a docent class luncheon on Monday with Woolly’s in the evening.

Art and Culture, Family

Sayonara, Weber Collection

May 16, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

79! bar steep fall 29.62 5mph WSW dewpoint 35 Beltane, sunny

Waxing Gibbous Hare Moon

The final Weber tours. A Japanese language class from Kennedy HS in Bloomington and a small group of stunned ladies of a certain age. Neither tour was a flop, neither an engaging and vital time. The Kennedy group had a few kids that were present the whole way, interest. One young lady took out a notebook and started writing. The second seemed timid, afraid to respond to inquiry, interested but reticent.

At the end a woman told me she’d seen a Bhutan exhibit in Honolulu. “The objects came with five Buddhist monks. They came to bless the statues with water each morning. Since in Buhtan, they received this sprinkling directly, but were in cases like this,” she indicated the Nara Buddha at the beginning of the show, “they had, oh, I don’t know, a tupperware container,” she spread her hands out and formed a large sloppy rectangle, “It had water. Then they had a mirror. They got the objects reflection in the mirror and sprinkled that.”

Sayonara, Weber collection and bon voyage.

I have a long stretch of days with little planned. No docent classes, no tours, no preaching, no social engagements. The right time to garden and to write.

Jon called while I was writing this. They want to have the bris on June 2nd or 3rd. Could I come? I’m there. I’m excited to see Gabe and Ruth, to see Jon’s garden and Jen with her new brood.

On to the treadmill. I try not to remember this, but apparently in Victorian jails, prisoner powered treadmills were a form of human as donkey labor. I’m not sure but that may be where the term comes from in the first place.