I wrote this for my weekly Religious School newsletter and thought I would share it. Please comment on it as I would like to know what you think.
Sunday is Yom HaShoah a day to remeber the Shoah. Yom HaShoah is a powerful holiday to commemorate the tragedy of Nazis’ rise to power and their efforts to wipe our European Jewry and Hitler’s plan to do that eventually to Jews worldwide. Every year we lose more people who can give us firsthand accounts of this time period, and so this holiday takes on a new importance, especially for educators of young Jews.
Part of the story must also be about survival. I was once at a conference to discuss Righteous Gentiles, non-Jews who saved the lives of Jewish people in the occupied countries. A survivor was there to speak of the man who saved her life. As she told her story of living underground in farmers’ fields, moving at night through thick forests and tricking the not-too-bright border guard who her family ran across I noticed that her poster on the dais was not of Nazi-era horrors but of her son’s wedding, Purim at her synagogue in Florida, her granddaughter’s Bat Mitzvah. Her story was about what she lived through as a child, but it was not about the horror she faced but of the survival.
Her theme was that because a man risked his life and lives of his family to save hers, she should celebrate the life that was saved in the most powerful and to her meaningful way. She saw the importance of bringing Judaism into the next generation and beyond. As she told me this, we both at the same moment we whispered, "Am Yisrael Chai," (the Jewish people live.) It reminded me that we must all remember the the Shoah, the Holocaust, even as time moves us further from it. We must pray it never happens again. We say Kaddish for the lives lost and wonder about what the lives that never got started would be like. We must fight those who wish to hurt us because of our traditions and heritage and stand for those who are suffering the same fate today. But we must too also remember Am Yisrael Chai, for the Jewish people live and life is a blessing.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Truth is a difficult thing to see.
So this weekend I was privileged to teach the Confirmation Class in my Religious School and we started talking about God and the Bible. It was an intense conversation with some surprising and I must say really surprising comments by the students. When Rabbi Sandy came in the discussion got more intense and in the end we realized the simple truth that the Bible and our understanding of God was never meant to be a static thing, but we define our contact with God, holiness and our understanding of the Bible by who we are as individuals and as a people. We seek a truth not THE TRUTH. We can see the myth of Adam and Eve are powerful stories but do we have to believe that the earth was created in 6 24 hour days in last 6000 years for it to have power. Of course not. The truth comes through. Our perspective plays a role.
I lived with the students' words as I ventured down to the Indianapolis Repertory Theatre's production the The Gospel According to James. The play is based on the story of an August 1930s lynching in Marion Indiana. There was one survivor and he went on to spend time in jail, got out, get educated, work for civil rights, create a museum for African Americans to remember the history of lynching in the US and later get a pardon. The play centers around the dialogue of two people. Mary Ball and James Cameron. You see the story told was that James and two friends Thomas Shipp, 18, and Abe Smith, 19. were out to stick up someone for some fun money. Found Mary and her boyfriend Claude Deeter in a car. Tried to stick them up but James knew Claude and couldn't do it and ran off. The rest is unclear. But Deeter died, Abe, Thomas and James were arrested. A crowd formed and pulled the first two from the jail, murdered them and hanged them. When they went to hang James, then 16 years old, a voice from the crowd saved him. Someone, one voice, stopped the lynching. We can talk about the power of that voice some other time. However the play has Mary and James telling very different stories. Each remembers the night but remembers it differently and each has a real good reason for the difference. Their recollections are discussed 50 years after the event. Most of those present that night had all passed on. There was a sad reality that in the heart of the play was that we remember and think what we need to or want to get out of the story. James, for example, until his last day saw the voice that saved him as that of an angel. Others think it was a member of the crowd who while in the midst of horror found his humanity.
But the over riding message to me yesterday was that truth is an elusive thing to nail down, especially when strong emotions are involved. Our connection to God, the horrors of murder both require our perspective. Go and see the play and it will help you understand what I mean. Remember what we see in life is always interpreted based on who we are. So much more so of our memory. With Bible, God or a horrific event who we are constructs meaning far more than the actual events and words. With that in mind we might see everything differently.
I lived with the students' words as I ventured down to the Indianapolis Repertory Theatre's production the The Gospel According to James. The play is based on the story of an August 1930s lynching in Marion Indiana. There was one survivor and he went on to spend time in jail, got out, get educated, work for civil rights, create a museum for African Americans to remember the history of lynching in the US and later get a pardon. The play centers around the dialogue of two people. Mary Ball and James Cameron. You see the story told was that James and two friends Thomas Shipp, 18, and Abe Smith, 19. were out to stick up someone for some fun money. Found Mary and her boyfriend Claude Deeter in a car. Tried to stick them up but James knew Claude and couldn't do it and ran off. The rest is unclear. But Deeter died, Abe, Thomas and James were arrested. A crowd formed and pulled the first two from the jail, murdered them and hanged them. When they went to hang James, then 16 years old, a voice from the crowd saved him. Someone, one voice, stopped the lynching. We can talk about the power of that voice some other time. However the play has Mary and James telling very different stories. Each remembers the night but remembers it differently and each has a real good reason for the difference. Their recollections are discussed 50 years after the event. Most of those present that night had all passed on. There was a sad reality that in the heart of the play was that we remember and think what we need to or want to get out of the story. James, for example, until his last day saw the voice that saved him as that of an angel. Others think it was a member of the crowd who while in the midst of horror found his humanity.
But the over riding message to me yesterday was that truth is an elusive thing to nail down, especially when strong emotions are involved. Our connection to God, the horrors of murder both require our perspective. Go and see the play and it will help you understand what I mean. Remember what we see in life is always interpreted based on who we are. So much more so of our memory. With Bible, God or a horrific event who we are constructs meaning far more than the actual events and words. With that in mind we might see everything differently.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
The Still small voice
Again the world is reminded that the earth is not a calm solid rock but a dynamic and ever changing and sometimes violent system. Our life is a gift of the same system that allows for the earthquake to destroy so much of what we have built and cause so much devastation. We are thankful that the Japanese over the last 50 years have become expert in dealing with both earthquake and tsunami warnings and the death tolls will be far fewer that similar events in other regions. Of course those who must attribute a cause to nature will look to this as a sign of something from a supernatural force. God's punishment for some reason or a sign of the end times. Writers will connect the revolution in the Middle East with this event, the earthquake at Christ Church and perhaps even the local cold that seems to last for weeks. God does not throw storms, tsunamis nor earthquakes at people. God, in my opinion and by historical evidence, does not intervene in that way. The universe is a creation with rules, rules that I dare say bind even God. While the Bible and other Jewish texts are full of stories of God bending the laws of nature I dare say those a simply meant to illuminate the more important lesson in the story. If we look for a God that does it all then where is our place. In fact one could argue that if this is God's doing why should we be involved.
In the first book of Kings gives us a different way to think about this as we see an interaction with Elijah.
And God said: Go out and stand before ME on the mountaintop. Then the The Holy One passed by. A furious wind split mountains and shattered rocks in the presence of the Eternal, but the Eternal was not in the wind. After the wind, an earthquake -- but the Eternal was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, fire -- but the Eternal was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still, small voice.
That still small voice is the one telling us to reach out, to share what we have, and to help those in need recover. We are partners with God, and my guess is that God would be in the mix helping too, if God could. But maybe that is why humanity was created.
In the first book of Kings gives us a different way to think about this as we see an interaction with Elijah.
And God said: Go out and stand before ME on the mountaintop. Then the The Holy One passed by. A furious wind split mountains and shattered rocks in the presence of the Eternal, but the Eternal was not in the wind. After the wind, an earthquake -- but the Eternal was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, fire -- but the Eternal was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still, small voice.
That still small voice is the one telling us to reach out, to share what we have, and to help those in need recover. We are partners with God, and my guess is that God would be in the mix helping too, if God could. But maybe that is why humanity was created.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Ain't it America
The Supreme Court the other day rendered a decision that said the funeral protests of the Westboro Baptist Church are Constitutionally protected speech. This church, which is basically the family of one man, Fred Phelps, is known for their hateful rhetoric that suggests that the death of young military personnel is God's punishment because of the fact the the US tolerates homosexuality. This is the church with posters that say God Hates Fags and their website has a clock on it counting the days Matthew Shepard, the young man brutally murdered for simply being gay, has been in hell. I know a lot of Christians including those who see homosexuality as a choice, a sin, a destructive "lifestyle" who never level this kind of hate. They would never agree with Phelps and his ilk but they share a basic foundation of their faith, the Christian Bible. Hard to see them and Phelps share a meal though they share a Bible. Is it fair to lump them together?
Now we turn to Peter King, the head of the House Homeland Security Committee, has started hearings on the American Muslim Community. In part he is looking for radical infiltration. He has even suggested that the American Muslim community has not been as cooperative with police and other law enforcement. This of course is odd since nearly 1/3 of the intelligence we have gathered since 9-11 to stop Islamic terror has come from the Muslim community. So in effect King is putting all of the American Muslims on trial for the actions of a few, many of that few do not even live in the US. Is it fair to lump them together?
King is doing something that should be an outrage to people. He is questioning the loyalty of Americans who only share as devotion or love for the same text with SOME terrorists. He doesn't question whether they share the same understanding of the text. My guess, just like my most evangelical Christian friends can't find a place in the Bible that promotes Phelps' protests and hate speech, the vast majority of American Muslims are just as confused as to how certain Islamists find words in the Quaran that encourages suicide bombing. Yet while many Christians are not ask to explain Westboro Baptist nor do they get soiled by the dirt they throw it seems easy to do that to any Muslim. Especially an Arab American Muslim. We should not be making anyone who follows the faith of Islam a suspect. It is not American.
Ironically, the Supreme Court got it right with Westboro. As much as I hate their speech, it is the cost of living in a free society to have the right for them to say what they say. Too bad Peter King doesn't understand that some ideal. I wish the GOP would stop him.
Now we turn to Peter King, the head of the House Homeland Security Committee, has started hearings on the American Muslim Community. In part he is looking for radical infiltration. He has even suggested that the American Muslim community has not been as cooperative with police and other law enforcement. This of course is odd since nearly 1/3 of the intelligence we have gathered since 9-11 to stop Islamic terror has come from the Muslim community. So in effect King is putting all of the American Muslims on trial for the actions of a few, many of that few do not even live in the US. Is it fair to lump them together?
King is doing something that should be an outrage to people. He is questioning the loyalty of Americans who only share as devotion or love for the same text with SOME terrorists. He doesn't question whether they share the same understanding of the text. My guess, just like my most evangelical Christian friends can't find a place in the Bible that promotes Phelps' protests and hate speech, the vast majority of American Muslims are just as confused as to how certain Islamists find words in the Quaran that encourages suicide bombing. Yet while many Christians are not ask to explain Westboro Baptist nor do they get soiled by the dirt they throw it seems easy to do that to any Muslim. Especially an Arab American Muslim. We should not be making anyone who follows the faith of Islam a suspect. It is not American.
Ironically, the Supreme Court got it right with Westboro. As much as I hate their speech, it is the cost of living in a free society to have the right for them to say what they say. Too bad Peter King doesn't understand that some ideal. I wish the GOP would stop him.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
A Visit to the Creation Museum
So this weekend we packed up the car to finally visit the Creation Museum, a building dedicated to the position of a group called Answers in Genesis that evolutionary theory is wrong and that the Bible explains all one needs to know about the 6000 year old earth. Now I have been highly critical of the organization behind this museum. I think the hardest thing for me is that the focus of the organization and of course the museum is to take the Torah text of the Book of Bereshit (Genesis) and make it their own, decide what it means, and build a tradition around. Any questioning of their vision is met with accusations of being either brainwashed by atheist science or closed minded. Now I have no problem directly with people who want to take the Torah try to build a theology around the words, but when someone takes a sacred text from one tradition, twists it for their own, and then tell everyone they have the only answer, I tend to be upset. So I will begin my story with the full admission that I walked in with bias. I was not disappointed.
From the first display I was met with both a lie about science (saying that scientist view the world through evolution and thus discount everything else) and admitting that what they are doing is not science while calling it science. You see the theme of the museum is that both evolutionary biologists and the rest of the scientific world and they look at the same evidence, just have different starting points. The starting point of the people who run this museum is that the Bible as they read it is completely infallible, accurate and 100% true. So anything that contradicts the Bible must be wrong. Of course this is not science, as anything that is discovered in science that contradicts evolutionary theory would be studied to see if it could replace the current ideas in part or whole. Darwin's theory has been refined over time. But the simple fact that evolution exists and there is a theory that explains it is not the end of the discussion. For those who see the Bible as the end of the discussion fail to take reality into account. One example is the idea of thorns found among dinosaurs. Since Genesis 3 seems to suggest that thorns only came into existence after the fall of Adam so any dinosaurs found with thorned plants means dinosaurs existed at the same time as people. Thus no millions of years old. This is just ridiculous as a way of trying to do science. But there it is.
But what I found most disturbing is the political message that the horrors of the world are the direct result of evolution and science being taught in the schools as opposed to their brand of religion. At one point I turned a corner to come face-to-face with a poster that included a picture of a lynching of a black man and piles of dead bodies from Nazi death camps. The image was to suggest these two events would not happen if we all embraced their brand of religion. However, history clearly shows that the KKK saw itself as religiously mandated and the Holocaust (the Shoah) had its roots in European Anti-semitism that was fueled by the Church. But ignoring all the horrors of history that were clearly the result of Christian aggression made me sick.
The museum also uses some Jewish imagery to suggest that Judaism would back their position, including a video of an apparent Rabbi discussing the meaning of the word "yom" day in Genesis. Throughout Jewish tradition the Bible is seen as poetry to help explain the unexplainable. Even great sages and rabbis argued that Genesis was to be understood at a deeper level, not just the words on the page. Evolution does not truly stand at odds with the vast majority of the way the Jews have understood Judaism.
Over all it was a good trip but I think it is disturbing to me to see so many people not understand basic science and those that do are ridiculed as close minded. We will see what the future holds. I have always believed that the universe is a puzzle that we have been given to tools to unravel. The Bible is not the stopping place but the beginning place. We must now go and study.
From the first display I was met with both a lie about science (saying that scientist view the world through evolution and thus discount everything else) and admitting that what they are doing is not science while calling it science. You see the theme of the museum is that both evolutionary biologists and the rest of the scientific world and they look at the same evidence, just have different starting points. The starting point of the people who run this museum is that the Bible as they read it is completely infallible, accurate and 100% true. So anything that contradicts the Bible must be wrong. Of course this is not science, as anything that is discovered in science that contradicts evolutionary theory would be studied to see if it could replace the current ideas in part or whole. Darwin's theory has been refined over time. But the simple fact that evolution exists and there is a theory that explains it is not the end of the discussion. For those who see the Bible as the end of the discussion fail to take reality into account. One example is the idea of thorns found among dinosaurs. Since Genesis 3 seems to suggest that thorns only came into existence after the fall of Adam so any dinosaurs found with thorned plants means dinosaurs existed at the same time as people. Thus no millions of years old. This is just ridiculous as a way of trying to do science. But there it is.
But what I found most disturbing is the political message that the horrors of the world are the direct result of evolution and science being taught in the schools as opposed to their brand of religion. At one point I turned a corner to come face-to-face with a poster that included a picture of a lynching of a black man and piles of dead bodies from Nazi death camps. The image was to suggest these two events would not happen if we all embraced their brand of religion. However, history clearly shows that the KKK saw itself as religiously mandated and the Holocaust (the Shoah) had its roots in European Anti-semitism that was fueled by the Church. But ignoring all the horrors of history that were clearly the result of Christian aggression made me sick.
The museum also uses some Jewish imagery to suggest that Judaism would back their position, including a video of an apparent Rabbi discussing the meaning of the word "yom" day in Genesis. Throughout Jewish tradition the Bible is seen as poetry to help explain the unexplainable. Even great sages and rabbis argued that Genesis was to be understood at a deeper level, not just the words on the page. Evolution does not truly stand at odds with the vast majority of the way the Jews have understood Judaism.
Over all it was a good trip but I think it is disturbing to me to see so many people not understand basic science and those that do are ridiculed as close minded. We will see what the future holds. I have always believed that the universe is a puzzle that we have been given to tools to unravel. The Bible is not the stopping place but the beginning place. We must now go and study.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
When a Man loves a Man
The General Assembly in Indiana wants to pass a Constitutional Amendment that would outlaw same sex marriage. Now this is already illegal in Indiana by law but the push for an amendment to the Constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman is fear that the law might be struck down by a court. I find that to an interesting argument as if the law is so bad that it might not hold up in court truly questions whether the law should exist in the first place. But more so I am struck by the lack of good arguments for defining marriage as such. I mean there is the religious argument but that shouldn't enter into the civil discussion. Basically what this law and amendment will do is have the government decide what kind of contract two consenting adults can enter into. Beyond religion, I see no rationale reason for denying the right of marriage to the person of their choice to anyone who happens to love someone with the same physical appearance.
Now the religious argument is powerful, but not always fully formed. Too often the argument relies on "The Bible says so". When talking about the passage in Leviticus that is a hollow answer. Jewish Biblical tradition would, in almost all cases, look for deeper meaning than the literal words on the page. In fact the deeper meaning is often the more prominent view of the text and this is clearly seen in a Jewish understanding of the famous "eye for an eye" text and the not quite so famous "do not place a stumbling block before the blind". For many centuries Jews view the text of the Torah as a lesson, not to be merely read as a document of fact, but as a poem giving one a deeper understanding of live we live. To think the Torah text is simply to be examine on one level is to assume William Carlos Williams had a remarkable wheelbarrow and so...
In a society that understands that love is not about morphology but about emotion, that we can't simply rely on the 3000 year old text to define all of morality, and that even if we could our country was founded on liberty from any kind of specific set of understanding of a creator or that creator's vision for us, we must all stand together and say outlawing same sex marriage and writing it in our Constitution is not who we are as Americans. Someone said the other day that in 50 years students will look at today as the time we debated the silliness of same-sex marriage. Let's not let history laugh at us to harshly.
Now the religious argument is powerful, but not always fully formed. Too often the argument relies on "The Bible says so". When talking about the passage in Leviticus that is a hollow answer. Jewish Biblical tradition would, in almost all cases, look for deeper meaning than the literal words on the page. In fact the deeper meaning is often the more prominent view of the text and this is clearly seen in a Jewish understanding of the famous "eye for an eye" text and the not quite so famous "do not place a stumbling block before the blind". For many centuries Jews view the text of the Torah as a lesson, not to be merely read as a document of fact, but as a poem giving one a deeper understanding of live we live. To think the Torah text is simply to be examine on one level is to assume William Carlos Williams had a remarkable wheelbarrow and so...
In a society that understands that love is not about morphology but about emotion, that we can't simply rely on the 3000 year old text to define all of morality, and that even if we could our country was founded on liberty from any kind of specific set of understanding of a creator or that creator's vision for us, we must all stand together and say outlawing same sex marriage and writing it in our Constitution is not who we are as Americans. Someone said the other day that in 50 years students will look at today as the time we debated the silliness of same-sex marriage. Let's not let history laugh at us to harshly.
Friday, January 28, 2011
On Death and Hope
I went to the funeral of my ex-wife's grandmother today. I went because I liked Libby, the woman who died, I like my former in-laws, and mostly I went for Noah. Noah has gotten to know his great-gram over the course of the last several years and he wanted to be part of the mourning process. As I arrived I found him sitting with his mom, detached, and sad. Apparently someone in the receiving line told him that he should be strong, this is the first of many. I am not certain that I would have allowed this man to simply smile and walk away. I think I know who it was, a stranger so no one I could regularly encounter, but on the off chance I do, I will, in my way, address the issue. That had me in a sour mood. A mood that was brewing since earlier today. Little things had cause to annoy me this morning. A person who couldn't seem to pick a lane on Michigan road, the fact that my special order I have been waiting all week for has been in at the local grocer and no one called, my computer gave me a hiccup this am and didn't download all my email right away, then I got a deluge, a drink exploded in my lunch as I was going to eat on the fly before the funeral and the nagging concern that I have forgotten something important. But that changed.
At the funeral I watched Noah, receive people again with poise at times, I watched the Rabbis speak of the "kiss of God", Libby slipping into death as she slept, a preferred way of the Talmudists, and I watched my ex speak of being grateful for the opportunity she received doing a simple task for her mom. Bringing her grandmother to services one Friday night and watching the joy in her grandmothers eyes as she sang the Hebrew melodies, followed along in the prayerbook and shook the Rabbi's hand. It was a touching moment too when she shared a story of Noah as a three-year old hellion running around her apartment. Libby first asked if he could calm down and then realized that this spunk was inherited from her.
After the funeral I drove to Target, I really needed a Fix-A-Flat. There I wandered around the store and checked my phone for news of Egypt. I am torn, violent protest is never a good thing. But the people want to get rid of a dictator and maybe, just maybe bring about democratic rule. My fear is that democracy in the land of the Muslim Brotherhood might be much like what democratic elections brought to Gaza. But I have hope that the players will find a compromise and seeing Noah try so hard to be grown up and hearing Tracy's words and dear love and sadness over her loss I knew the world had great things. Then it was reinforced. As I walked to my car, fix-a-flat in hand, I walked behind the vehicle next to mine as the women with two kids was pulling her van out. We did the dance of you go, no you go. I walk around her and opened the back of the car. She pulled out and stopped behind me. Rolling down her window I was ready for anything. Perhaps she noticed my kippah and had a Jewish question, or worse a slur to hurl. Both have happened in this town. Perhaps she was going to tell me that I should be more careful walking to my car and that she might have hit me, or maybe she just was lost looking for directions. None were true. She had noticed my soft tire and on a cold day, in a Target parking lot, with two children in the car, she stopped to write me a note to tell me my tire was low, and now she stopped once again to point that fact out so I would not miss it. On a day that I would have much rather been home doing anything else but standing in a Target parking lot this women took a few minutes to write me a note and a few more to draw my attention to it. I know my response was not adequate to her kindness. I hope she knows I did appreciate it and more so the fact that it made me realize the every day kindness we miss out if we don't watch.
Tonight the people of Egypt sleep uncertain of the future of their nation and people I still think of as family and my own son mourn the loss of a matriarch. But I will rejoice this Shabbat because I know, every day, every where, gemilut hasadim (acts of loving kindness) are being done by everyday people, people like you.
At the funeral I watched Noah, receive people again with poise at times, I watched the Rabbis speak of the "kiss of God", Libby slipping into death as she slept, a preferred way of the Talmudists, and I watched my ex speak of being grateful for the opportunity she received doing a simple task for her mom. Bringing her grandmother to services one Friday night and watching the joy in her grandmothers eyes as she sang the Hebrew melodies, followed along in the prayerbook and shook the Rabbi's hand. It was a touching moment too when she shared a story of Noah as a three-year old hellion running around her apartment. Libby first asked if he could calm down and then realized that this spunk was inherited from her.
After the funeral I drove to Target, I really needed a Fix-A-Flat. There I wandered around the store and checked my phone for news of Egypt. I am torn, violent protest is never a good thing. But the people want to get rid of a dictator and maybe, just maybe bring about democratic rule. My fear is that democracy in the land of the Muslim Brotherhood might be much like what democratic elections brought to Gaza. But I have hope that the players will find a compromise and seeing Noah try so hard to be grown up and hearing Tracy's words and dear love and sadness over her loss I knew the world had great things. Then it was reinforced. As I walked to my car, fix-a-flat in hand, I walked behind the vehicle next to mine as the women with two kids was pulling her van out. We did the dance of you go, no you go. I walk around her and opened the back of the car. She pulled out and stopped behind me. Rolling down her window I was ready for anything. Perhaps she noticed my kippah and had a Jewish question, or worse a slur to hurl. Both have happened in this town. Perhaps she was going to tell me that I should be more careful walking to my car and that she might have hit me, or maybe she just was lost looking for directions. None were true. She had noticed my soft tire and on a cold day, in a Target parking lot, with two children in the car, she stopped to write me a note to tell me my tire was low, and now she stopped once again to point that fact out so I would not miss it. On a day that I would have much rather been home doing anything else but standing in a Target parking lot this women took a few minutes to write me a note and a few more to draw my attention to it. I know my response was not adequate to her kindness. I hope she knows I did appreciate it and more so the fact that it made me realize the every day kindness we miss out if we don't watch.
Tonight the people of Egypt sleep uncertain of the future of their nation and people I still think of as family and my own son mourn the loss of a matriarch. But I will rejoice this Shabbat because I know, every day, every where, gemilut hasadim (acts of loving kindness) are being done by everyday people, people like you.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
The death of a child is not about me
This is one of the many things two high girls told us they learned on a 4 month trip to Kenya. I heard this on Friday night at a celebration of the connection between Indianapolis and regions of western Kenya. The girls, took part of their senior year, to live apart from family and friends and see how they can help in an area of the world devastated by HIV/AIDS and poverty. Hunger, disease, and lack of opportunity permeate the community. So these two teens went there to help and to learn.
The line about the death of a child came as one related the story of her preparation to go. Knowing the statistics there was a good chance that they would see the death of a child. She fretted over how she would react, how she would feel, how would she get over it. Then the girls met Wellington.
She told the story of meeting Wellington at a Children's home they stayed at and worked with the children. Wellington arrived because of severe malnutrition and a father that couldn't take care of him. The girls played with him and gave him a sticker that said WOW. While Wellington didn't speak much he did learn to say WOW. A few minutes of connection brought joys and smiles.
However, Wellington could not be saved. His body was unable to recover from the effects of lack of food. He died. It was that moment that a young woman who fretted about her potential reaction learned that this death had a face. The face of a small boy. It wasn't about her reaction, it wasn't about how she would recover, it wasn't about how she would feel. It was about the young boy who learned the word WOW who will never again be able to use it. She was able to share that story with us and teach us to keep that in mind.
This quote has stayed with me all weekend. I want to be profound but I can't, I have nothing. All I know is that a boy I will never meet, who had a brief interaction with two girls from Indianapolis, will always live in my awareness as go through my life. Problems will become smaller, working to help others will feel more real, and hunger will never seem the same. At least I hope this is true. Beyond that when I think about these girls and what they taught me all I can say is WOW.
The line about the death of a child came as one related the story of her preparation to go. Knowing the statistics there was a good chance that they would see the death of a child. She fretted over how she would react, how she would feel, how would she get over it. Then the girls met Wellington.
She told the story of meeting Wellington at a Children's home they stayed at and worked with the children. Wellington arrived because of severe malnutrition and a father that couldn't take care of him. The girls played with him and gave him a sticker that said WOW. While Wellington didn't speak much he did learn to say WOW. A few minutes of connection brought joys and smiles.
However, Wellington could not be saved. His body was unable to recover from the effects of lack of food. He died. It was that moment that a young woman who fretted about her potential reaction learned that this death had a face. The face of a small boy. It wasn't about her reaction, it wasn't about how she would recover, it wasn't about how she would feel. It was about the young boy who learned the word WOW who will never again be able to use it. She was able to share that story with us and teach us to keep that in mind.
This quote has stayed with me all weekend. I want to be profound but I can't, I have nothing. All I know is that a boy I will never meet, who had a brief interaction with two girls from Indianapolis, will always live in my awareness as go through my life. Problems will become smaller, working to help others will feel more real, and hunger will never seem the same. At least I hope this is true. Beyond that when I think about these girls and what they taught me all I can say is WOW.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
I need to write when there isn't a hot issue.
I have neglected this blog but I think I will go ahead and write on what is the hot topic of the week. My hope is to write more if I know people are reading.
When I first heard of the attack in Arizona I was stunned but not completely surprised. But my first thoughts were not of who's rhetoric might be behind this tragedy but about the people I knew in Tucson and the family of the then unknown victims. I knew a Congresswoman was hit, some initially and falsely said dead, but I didn't want to try to start making this about politics. I was struck by the scrambling of 24 hours news trying to one up each other and the failure of some so-called reporters to realize that reporting is not just repeating what the guy in the crowd was saying. That said I was not prepared for the tidal wave of blame, counter blame and idiocy that followed. As the parents of a 9 year old girl were struggling with the new gaping whole in their life bloggers and pundits started talking. At first we heard a few ramblings about tea party rhetoric. There were veiled threats in the movement's leadership and rank and file. A Senate candidate looking for 2nd amendment solutions and the now famous "Ballots or bullets" sign calling apparently for armed insurrection if polls don't go their way. But it escalated to someone or many someones attacking the most visible person on the planet to represent the tea party. She is not at all innocent so let me be clear and I think she is the greatest example of what is wrong with our current political state, but it seemed like there was an army of people trying to find anything to link her to something that might have pushed this young man to shoot a Democrat. Oh and people found things. Targets on the districts she wanted to challenge candidates using what looked like the image of a sniper scope. Her silly "don't retreat, reload" comment that made her sound vacuous to me but folksy to the minions that follow her. What we had was the start of the pissing contest. Right wing nuts including prominent members of the club like the radio gurus we all know started looking for quotes of Democrats with "violent rhetoric", others tried to link this kid to left wing ideology including interviewing and quoting anyone who even said they knew him. An old girl friend said he was a lefty but she hadn't seen him in 5 years, another high school classmate said he was a pot smoker and what ever the fuck. The young man had some mental disturbance and a stressor that caused him to feel the need to shoot someone and chose a Congresswoman.
But it doesn't stop there. While some on the left continued, long after it was clear that he wasn't a tea party robot, to beat the drum. The right took a new tactic. Attack everyone and everything good coming from this. The Speaker of the House would not go to Arizona with the President (opting to attend a fundraiser instead). Immediately following the ceremony of commemoration of the dead, hope for the injured and celebration of the living and heroes, some on the right looked to criticize everything from where people were sitting to the opening benediction. How big do your balls have to be to be critical of a faith tradition that is meant to inspire healing at a memorial service? I truly am speechless on that. I want to make a joke..but it is easier to just say the people who did this are bigots and hateful or remarkably dumb.
It is time to heal. Finding a way to do that will be easy for many of us. The new news cycle starts and the GOP in the House will tackle the Health Care Reform Act and the Senate will do whatever it is they do lately. The President will continue to learn how to balance politics with leadership and each of us will still have our daily struggles. It will be harder for the members of Congress who may look over their shoulders a little more often, for the people of Tucson who have to add their name to the list of places that Democracy was attacked and especially the families of those who will help families members struggle with recovery from injuries and those who will wake up every day for the rest of their lives with a piece of them missing. Stolen by a man who made a decision that still puzzles me today.
I have tried to avoid using names in this post. I think I have been successful. The reason is while some will try to use this to further their own careers and others will use the fallout as a way of claiming the mantle of victimhood or even calling out what was said a 'blood libel" (I may address that later) the names we should all know are the names of the victims. Those who on a Sunday day were participating in what makes this country great. Direct contact with those that Represent US. For those that died may their memories always bring a blessing and for those that are injured may the Holy One bring them a recovery of both body and spirit.
As Shabbat comes again let us remember the victims of shooting in Tucson:
Names of 13 victims shot, injured and wounded in the Arizona shooting massacre
1. Susan Hileman, 58
2. Mavanell Stoddard, 75
3. Pamela Simon, 63
4. Ronald Barber, 65
5. Gabrielle Giffords, 40
6. James Tucker, 58
7. Kenneth Veeder, 75
8. George Morris, 76
9. James Fuller, 63
10. Randy Gardner, 60
11. Mary Reed, 52
12. Kenneth Dorushka, 63
13. Bill Badger, 74
Names of the six fatalities killed in the Arizona shooting tragedy
There were six fatalities in the deadly Arizona shooting. They are as follows:
1. Christina Green
2. John Roll, 63
3. Gabriel ‘Gabe’ Zimmerman, 30
4. Dorwan Stoddard, 76
5. Dorothy Morris, 76
6. Phyllis Schneck, 79
When I first heard of the attack in Arizona I was stunned but not completely surprised. But my first thoughts were not of who's rhetoric might be behind this tragedy but about the people I knew in Tucson and the family of the then unknown victims. I knew a Congresswoman was hit, some initially and falsely said dead, but I didn't want to try to start making this about politics. I was struck by the scrambling of 24 hours news trying to one up each other and the failure of some so-called reporters to realize that reporting is not just repeating what the guy in the crowd was saying. That said I was not prepared for the tidal wave of blame, counter blame and idiocy that followed. As the parents of a 9 year old girl were struggling with the new gaping whole in their life bloggers and pundits started talking. At first we heard a few ramblings about tea party rhetoric. There were veiled threats in the movement's leadership and rank and file. A Senate candidate looking for 2nd amendment solutions and the now famous "Ballots or bullets" sign calling apparently for armed insurrection if polls don't go their way. But it escalated to someone or many someones attacking the most visible person on the planet to represent the tea party. She is not at all innocent so let me be clear and I think she is the greatest example of what is wrong with our current political state, but it seemed like there was an army of people trying to find anything to link her to something that might have pushed this young man to shoot a Democrat. Oh and people found things. Targets on the districts she wanted to challenge candidates using what looked like the image of a sniper scope. Her silly "don't retreat, reload" comment that made her sound vacuous to me but folksy to the minions that follow her. What we had was the start of the pissing contest. Right wing nuts including prominent members of the club like the radio gurus we all know started looking for quotes of Democrats with "violent rhetoric", others tried to link this kid to left wing ideology including interviewing and quoting anyone who even said they knew him. An old girl friend said he was a lefty but she hadn't seen him in 5 years, another high school classmate said he was a pot smoker and what ever the fuck. The young man had some mental disturbance and a stressor that caused him to feel the need to shoot someone and chose a Congresswoman.
But it doesn't stop there. While some on the left continued, long after it was clear that he wasn't a tea party robot, to beat the drum. The right took a new tactic. Attack everyone and everything good coming from this. The Speaker of the House would not go to Arizona with the President (opting to attend a fundraiser instead). Immediately following the ceremony of commemoration of the dead, hope for the injured and celebration of the living and heroes, some on the right looked to criticize everything from where people were sitting to the opening benediction. How big do your balls have to be to be critical of a faith tradition that is meant to inspire healing at a memorial service? I truly am speechless on that. I want to make a joke..but it is easier to just say the people who did this are bigots and hateful or remarkably dumb.
It is time to heal. Finding a way to do that will be easy for many of us. The new news cycle starts and the GOP in the House will tackle the Health Care Reform Act and the Senate will do whatever it is they do lately. The President will continue to learn how to balance politics with leadership and each of us will still have our daily struggles. It will be harder for the members of Congress who may look over their shoulders a little more often, for the people of Tucson who have to add their name to the list of places that Democracy was attacked and especially the families of those who will help families members struggle with recovery from injuries and those who will wake up every day for the rest of their lives with a piece of them missing. Stolen by a man who made a decision that still puzzles me today.
I have tried to avoid using names in this post. I think I have been successful. The reason is while some will try to use this to further their own careers and others will use the fallout as a way of claiming the mantle of victimhood or even calling out what was said a 'blood libel" (I may address that later) the names we should all know are the names of the victims. Those who on a Sunday day were participating in what makes this country great. Direct contact with those that Represent US. For those that died may their memories always bring a blessing and for those that are injured may the Holy One bring them a recovery of both body and spirit.
As Shabbat comes again let us remember the victims of shooting in Tucson:
Names of 13 victims shot, injured and wounded in the Arizona shooting massacre
1. Susan Hileman, 58
2. Mavanell Stoddard, 75
3. Pamela Simon, 63
4. Ronald Barber, 65
5. Gabrielle Giffords, 40
6. James Tucker, 58
7. Kenneth Veeder, 75
8. George Morris, 76
9. James Fuller, 63
10. Randy Gardner, 60
11. Mary Reed, 52
12. Kenneth Dorushka, 63
13. Bill Badger, 74
Names of the six fatalities killed in the Arizona shooting tragedy
There were six fatalities in the deadly Arizona shooting. They are as follows:
1. Christina Green
2. John Roll, 63
3. Gabriel ‘Gabe’ Zimmerman, 30
4. Dorwan Stoddard, 76
5. Dorothy Morris, 76
6. Phyllis Schneck, 79
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Mosques in the United States
I revive this blog because we have once again lost our way. We are suffering in many ways in this country from ignorance based fear and a serious need for revenge. Almost 10 years ago a horror was visited upon our land by a group of individuals who took the Religion of Islam and turned it into a weapon to attack innocence. But we weren't attacked by Islam and while it seemed immediately after the attacks we learned more about Islam now I fear we have forgotten. People are looking at the building of a mosque in lower Manhattan as some kind of attempt to build a trophy on the site of the destruction of the towers. I have read about horrors around the world attributed to Islam and people feeling this mosque is like giving more power to that expression of Islam. I even read one blogger that suggested that during prayer she felt that the people praying would peer out over the hole in the ground at ground zero and have an ecstatic moment she likened to orgasm. (Now let's for a minute remember that prayer rooms tend not to have windows to the outside and to face ground zero would mean almost turning their backs toward Mecca).
What I can't understand is that the fact that if we allow the mosque to be built, if it becomes a center for understanding in lower Manhattan, if we can all stand together in solidarity against fundamentalism in every flavor we would be defeating the hopes of the terrorists. They want us to give up our values, they want us to not give a stronghold to a form of Islam that is not theirs and they want us to be so afraid of Islam we are willing to give away that which is at the heart of our country, freedom. What we need is more bridges to understand Islam. I think Cordoba House could be one. Someone asked me if I can say with 100% certainty that no terrorists will worship there. I can't. But then I can't say that about Christian Church nor some synagogues I know of.
Religious freedom is what we are founded on, it sits there as the first of our Bill of Rights. Let's not give that away through fear or ignorance. We need to find a way to be the light of the world.
What I can't understand is that the fact that if we allow the mosque to be built, if it becomes a center for understanding in lower Manhattan, if we can all stand together in solidarity against fundamentalism in every flavor we would be defeating the hopes of the terrorists. They want us to give up our values, they want us to not give a stronghold to a form of Islam that is not theirs and they want us to be so afraid of Islam we are willing to give away that which is at the heart of our country, freedom. What we need is more bridges to understand Islam. I think Cordoba House could be one. Someone asked me if I can say with 100% certainty that no terrorists will worship there. I can't. But then I can't say that about Christian Church nor some synagogues I know of.
Religious freedom is what we are founded on, it sits there as the first of our Bill of Rights. Let's not give that away through fear or ignorance. We need to find a way to be the light of the world.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Evolution and Creation
Knowledge of our natural world seems to expand every day. As scientists discover new things about ourselves and the universe there are some who argue the relevance of religion. They say that the stories we tell of our origins have less meaning. I want to look back at what our tradition says.
As far back as the 11th century, Rashi, the great Torah commentator, spoke of creation not as a story of six defined days but rather that God created all the potential on the first day. What came later grew out of that primordial soup. Rashi was writing 700 years before Darwin; he wasn’t responding to a scientific attack on religion. Instead, he was presenting an interpretation of the story in Bereshit, a story that teaches many things including the interconnectiveness of us and the environment in which we live. Rashi seemed to know on some level that the story did not lend itself to the observations of how the laws of nature truly work. Instead of rejecting the story he looked for deeper meaning. It is not the six twenty-four hour days that are important; it is the fact that the earth and all it contains can be made sacred by how we manage it.
February marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Many religious institutions around the country took time to acknowledge that evolution is not a threat to religion with Evolution Weekend, an opportunity for serious discussion and reflection on the relationship between religion and science. One important goal is to elevate the quality of the discussion on this critical topic - to move beyond sound bites. A second critical goal is to demonstrate that religious people from many faiths and locations understand that evolution is sound science and poses no problems for their faith. The founder of Evolution Weekend is Michael Zimmerman, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University, The Torah is a story of the Jewish people with many things to teach us; however, it was never meant to prevent us from asking questions about our universe. The two go hand in hand.
As far back as the 11th century, Rashi, the great Torah commentator, spoke of creation not as a story of six defined days but rather that God created all the potential on the first day. What came later grew out of that primordial soup. Rashi was writing 700 years before Darwin; he wasn’t responding to a scientific attack on religion. Instead, he was presenting an interpretation of the story in Bereshit, a story that teaches many things including the interconnectiveness of us and the environment in which we live. Rashi seemed to know on some level that the story did not lend itself to the observations of how the laws of nature truly work. Instead of rejecting the story he looked for deeper meaning. It is not the six twenty-four hour days that are important; it is the fact that the earth and all it contains can be made sacred by how we manage it.
February marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Many religious institutions around the country took time to acknowledge that evolution is not a threat to religion with Evolution Weekend, an opportunity for serious discussion and reflection on the relationship between religion and science. One important goal is to elevate the quality of the discussion on this critical topic - to move beyond sound bites. A second critical goal is to demonstrate that religious people from many faiths and locations understand that evolution is sound science and poses no problems for their faith. The founder of Evolution Weekend is Michael Zimmerman, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University, The Torah is a story of the Jewish people with many things to teach us; however, it was never meant to prevent us from asking questions about our universe. The two go hand in hand.
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