Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II
Friday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv. Alan. The Cheesecake factory. Shadow, the night Hawk. Pope Leo XIV. A Chicago boy. Exhaustion. Ritalin. 12″ of heavy Snow. Melted. The Solar Snow shovel. That long nap yesterday. Cookunity.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: An American Pope
Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut.
One brief shining: After a late night from MVP, Shadow kept me up even later, past midnight, then licked my head and whined at her usual 5 am time leaving me more than exhausted yesterday and napping through the morning missing Diane and my class at Kabbalah experience.
Also failed to pick up my ritalin, I realized. No wonder I crashed on Thursday. Gotta switch those meds to Safeway. Can’t get ritalin or tramadol through the mail. Controlled substances. Walgreen’s made sense when my doc was in Evergreen, but the clinic is moving here to Conifer.
Anyhow Thursday was a washout, rest and relax day. Unintentional since Thursday tends to be my busiest day of the week with Diane, Kabbalah class, and Thursday mussar.
How bout that Leo XIV? Chi town. A south sider. A naturalized Peruvian. Another Pope from Latin America. One with a bias toward the poor, the left out. The marginalized.
An adroit move if the consideration went: Trump is a big problem for the world. For the poor. Look at USAID. Francis sensitized us to the needs of the marginalized as a world church. How about an American pope with strong ties to the Third World? Multi-lingual. And familiar with the Vatican and its ways. Prevost was that guy.
He headed the Vatican department that vetted bishop candidates. A gatekeeper role for future church leadership. He also spent decades among the poor in Peru. While there he twice became leader of his order, the Augustinians.
I’m heartened by his selection. We need more voices for the poor, for justice. No, I won’t agree with all of his views, nor he with mine; but, we share core values, too.
Meanwhile on Shadow Mountain. Shadow of Shadow Mountain has regressed in her coming in and going out. Unpredictable. I may have to open the door for her several times before she feels comfortable coming in the house. Why? I have no idea. If I did, I might be able to figure out a solution.
Too, the twelve inches of heavy, wet Snow that fell on Tuesday and Wednesday has melted off roads and driveways. Still some patches in my north facing backyard. Enough to move Smoky’s hand from high fire risk to low.
Just a moment: I’ve been pondering a view of the human from the stand point of mussar and Jewish thought.
Here’s some preliminary work. The neshama, the pristine soul, our link to the whole, still must engage the world. That’s what the nefesh does. Spurred by the pristine connected neshama, the nefesh moves me out into the world through desire. Desire for food, for safety, for love, for education. Desire without valence.
Our yetzer hatov, our good inclination, and our yetzer hara, our selfish inclination, try to influence how we live our desires. Our will recognizes both the desires and the yetzer’s attempt to direct our action. That is the bechira point, the moment when we actively choose to satisfy a desire following a healthy, just path, or a selfish, self involved path.