Jews For Jesus

This is a post that I wrote more than a month ago. As I said in my previous post, I couldn't figure out how to change my blog to suit the new format. It turns out that it was very easy, I just needed to take the time to work my way through it. So, this is one of the posts I did not post during that period. I happen to like this post. So here it is:

Well, it's 1:30 in the morning and I can't sleep... again. Last night I was up for about four hours and tonight it looks like it's going to be the same deal again; which is weird since I was so sick on Monday. I'm tired, I'm just not sleeping. Sleepless in New Jersey, it almost sounds like the title to a movie... or not.

I haven't written in a long time. I'm not sure why. I just haven't. There have been changes to Blogspot, and besides that, I seem to be going through something again. I don't meditate any longer. I'm not interested in the machinations of my meditation group anymore, all they do is obscure the quest so they don't have to do the work. I don't really want to participate in anything at my seminary. I'm over Spiritual Counseling. I'm thinking about signing up for CPE training, but the thought of all those hours is daunting.

I can't let my feelings towards my brother go. A woman that I work with has me bugged. She is a Jesus freak and she hasn't a clue... A Jew for Jesus no less. Which I don't get, if you are a Jew for Jesus why not just call yourself a Christian and be done with it? Generally, Christians don't seem to understand Jesus' message and she is worse than most. When I first met her, I actually heard her introduce herself to another person as a "Hebrew." As an Israeli, I almost choked! Then she looked at me and corrected herself in mid-sentence, but the damage was done... I knew she was a freak from that moment on. Her mother must be so proud.

I was allowed in the "Inner Sanctum" at seminary and I now see clearly that they are all co-dependent and dysfunctional. I thought they were paragons and ideals. It makes me sad, really. The people at my seminary, it turns out, are just people and not gods.

And I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

So, I am going through yet another phase. This is the "Burned Out, What's the Point?" phase, I suppose. I am burned out. Even the thought of going to New York twice a month as a Deans' Assistant is bumming me out.

But, here's the thing, all of the above is true. I am burned out. I'm tired. Living here is weighing heavily. And I am suffering from a lack of faith, maybe as well as a lack of privacy. The other day I read something that really hit home. I'm reading the book "Passionate Presence" by Catherine Ingram. It's a wonderful book, in it she says that we all have attachments (nothing new there), but even wanting to know God is an attachment. I never thought of that before. I was so busy ridding myself of all my attachments so that I might know God a little better and here I am making new attachments for myself.

I have worked hard to let go of my displeasure at living here in my childhood home with all of the unpleasant associations and even that is yet another attachment! Shit. Does this mean that everything in life is an attachment? It's a ball of rubber bands that cannot be unwound. I'm hopelessly lost.

I long to feel God's presence. I don't meditate any longer because I feel like it's a waste of time; all I do is fall asleep. I do God's work and I must admit that sometimes when I am with a patient, I feel God moving through me to help them; to be what they need in that moment. Those are the moments I long for. But, they are brief moments that are gone too soon.

Part of the reason I love my seminary so much is that while I am there I feel such an incredible connection to spirit, to other people, to God. Does the fact that they are a dysfunctional group lessen my experience? Is it a bogus sham and I am a helpless pawn? Gees, I hope not.

It seems that I am whining a lot tonight. I am casting about for answers. Answers that are no answers.

When I am sitting in the park, eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and the birds are flying and the squirrels are scavenging, the clouds are drifting by reflected in the brown water of the flowing river I feel connected to all that is. We are all doing it together. We are being together. We are God.

All the rest is shit.

Why can't I stay there? Why can't I sleep? Why does faith have to be so hard? Does this trashing about have a purpose? If so, I can't fathom it. Maybe God has a sense of humor and enjoys our chest grabbing and brow beating. Maybe that's why God invented Jews for Jesus, he needed a good laugh.

Well, I have been trying to figure out how to post to my blog for sometime now. It's really difficult... at least for me since technology is passing me by. It's frightening. I was always computer savvy and managed quite well, but in the last complete of years I find that it is becoming more and more incomprehensible to me how to maneuver around computers, websites, jargon and how they all interface.

So, here I am struggling along with my blog.

I have been writing, but not posting because of the change in format last May. I decided to try again to figure out how to save my blog and continue to post... this is my effort. Will it work? Let's try. I am going to post this now and see. It appears that I cannot write remotely and then cut and paste my writing into the box provided. I must write directly... I think.

Here goes.... Good luck.

Life Starts Clapping

It seems that all of my posts lately start with, “life has been very busy and I have neglected my blog….” This post is no different. I really have neglected my blog. And I am really busy. And I am really lazy, too!

In addition to those things, all of which are true, I have been feeling like I’m on the verge of something and it’s just beyond my grasp. I don’t have words for what is fermented inside. It’s completely non-verbal, which is a little disconcerting.

I have written about our breath, at least I think I have… I feel that our breath is the connection to all that is. Every creature, human, tree, fish, plant, and yes, rock is breathing… now. All of life is breathing now. It forms one breath. One life. One spirit. One.

I say this every time I lead a meditation. I believe that to be true, our breath is part of one larger breath. We are breathing God. Or is God breathing us? Who is breathing whom here? I don’t know.

There is a Hafiz poem that talks about “all of the creatures grab their instruments and join the song.” We are breathing our instruments creating God’s song.

But, there is more.

What if it is the witnessing that is the most important function of life. I witness you and you witness me. I feel your pain, your sorrow, your joy and you feel mine. And as we feel each others pain, joy and sorrow, God is feeling it too. We are His sense organ.

See I told you it was still non-verbal.

The other day, I rode by and animal that had been run over by a car. My inclination was to look away at the horror of this creature’s pain so clearly etched upon his face. But, instead, I looked at his pain, I took it in, I witnessed it and I felt compassion and sorrow for this animal, I felt his pain, and in that moment I connected to God. God felt the sorrow and the compassion too. Does that make sense?

I must leave this thought for another day when I have more clearly grasped it. However, I know this to be true, beyond anything else that I know to be true; being closed off from life is shutting out God. We need to be vulnerable and open to life to feel God’s presence. Our suit of armor that all of us don to protect ourselves from wounds and barbs of others, is the primary reason we are cut off from God. By the way, wearing this suit of armor, also, cuts us off from joy, love, peace, and happiness too. Living open and vulnerable is scary for sure, but it is the only way to really live.

I was in class last week and it was a day of prayer. The pain that people voiced was incredible. Normally, my judgmental side will kick in and I will slings arrows at people to keep from feeling their pain. I didn’t this time, I let it come. It washed over me, it took me and I sobbed along with everyone else, and it was then that I felt God completely with me; so along with the tears there was an immense joy that welled up in me at the same time and I was overwhelmed by it all. I was fully alive… in that moment.

LIFE STARTS CLAPPING

Wherever
God lays His glance
Life starts
Clapping.

The
Myriad
Creatures grab their instruments
And join the
Song.

Whenever love makes itself known
Against another
Body

The
Jewel in the eye starts
To

Dance.

~Hafiz


I will all this to marinate a little longer, but I feel so close. It appears to be right in front of me, I can almost reach out and touch it. Please, help me to open more fully to your presence, I want to know you.

Amen.

Life is Good And So Is Israel

I have neglected writing my blog lately. Life has bee very full lately and for this am glad. I am still serving as a Deans’ Assistant at my seminary; this is such a blessing for me. I cannot convey the joy that serving in this capacity has given me over the last eight months. I am sure that I have received far more than I have been able to give. I am still in my InterSpiritual Counseling course… this I don’t love so much. I am sticking it out for the duration, but I just cannot warm up to the teacher. I’m sure it’s my stuff that is getting in the way and not her. I know that she is trying very hard to create this course from just the ashes of the old course and I give her a lot of credit for her efforts. We just come from different points on the map. So, I agree to disagree and I am letting it go.

My work at hospice is consuming me. If I wanted to work full time, I could, without a problem. It’s just that I am happy with it being three days a week… at least for the moment. I have been offered the job of helping to coordinate the end of the year retreats for both the first and second year students and to coordinate the graduation celebration at Riverside Church. I am so thrilled that Diane and Susan feel that I have the capacity to handle such a huge responsibility, but at the same time I am terrified of all of this responsibility. Scared to death, is a pretty accurate description.

I am absolutely thrilled that I get to be one of the staff at the retreat center for the entire week. That is like a dream come true. To be considered an equal is amazing. I am so blessed and grateful.

At the same time, however, I worry that my job at hospice will suffer. I can’t let my patients down, or Margarita, or Chris or anyone else at my job. I love my work and I want nothing to jeopardize it or the quality of my work. I feel trapped between to the two. So, I am praying that I have the stamina and the energy to perform both functions well.

Life is so good. I feel truly blessed and loved by God these days. Everywhere I look, I see beauty, I see love, I see gentle breezes in my sail. Please, dear God, stay with me.

I just read that if we turn to God, God will respond by filling our lives with love and well-being. This has truly, and deeply, been my experience. I took a few steps towards God and God reached out and jumped leaps and bounds to meet me and take my hand. Who knew it could be so? I’ve heard said before and never quite believed, but this has been my experience. God met me more than half way after I reached out to Him/Her/It.

This past week, I have reconnected with a South African friend from Israel. We have not seen each other since they left Israel in 1989. But, through the power of FaceBook we have found each other again. We were emailing each other back and forth because her daughter is discovering Israel pretty much in the same way that we did all those years ago. I was writing to Sharon, telling her some of the lessons I learned about making Aliyah. I was telling a couple of funny stories that I remember and I just roared. I read them to my husband and he laughed heartily too. It then occurred to me that some of our travels through Israel would make a wonderful story. There were so many strange tales, so many funny stories, so many poignant ones and so many lessons learned about my husband, the human condition, and myself that this is a story that should be told. I was inspired to write it. I believe I am going to do just that. I think it will have to wait until this summer after the graduation celebration is over, my course is done and my obligations as a Deans’ Assistant are no more, but I am going to write it.

I started to write this once before, but I was in a different place before, I was still angry about some of the things that happened and I was grieving some of the things we lost, but that is behind me now. Now, I see the humor, the farcical nature of some the events and people we met. I believe that I could write it now. God be willing, I will try.

Here’s a sample:

We lived in a tiny settlement in the Galilee called Har Halutz. At the time there were about 17 families living there. Today there are 90. We were a pretty close knit bunch and everybody knew everybody’s business. The men of the settlement, called a yishuv, would walk shmirrah or guard duty, taking turns. Of course the men were armed. Well, our friend, Richard, who was very cowardly, was out walking his turn on guard duty, he heard a noise and opened fired… at nothing. The head of security came running out of his house in his pajamas and ran up to Richard, taking stock of the situation, he then ripped the rifle out of Richard’s hand and took all his bullets. Orin, the head of our security, told Richard that he can walk guard duty like everyone else, he just couldn’t have any bullets. Well, Richard was indignant and said to Orin, “What if something happens? How will I defend the yishuv?” Oren said, “If something really does happen, yell at the top of your lungs and some with bullets will come out and help you.”

Every time I think of that story, I laugh aloud. Perhaps, you have to know Richard, perhaps not, but I think it is funny. There are so many stories like that.

Then there was the mitapel (or babysitter) in one of the children’s houses. In this particular house the children’s ages went up to about 13 or so. One Friday afternoon, I was getting the dining room ready for Friday night Shabbat dinner, it is the biggest meal of the week. It was my job at that time to get the dining room ready. I was minding my own business, when I group of boys from this children’s house came in. We had large windows that looked over the Sea of Galilee, it was a beautiful view, but the windows were fogged up because it was that time of year. The boys came in and began writing the “F” bomb all over the windows. All Israeli boys learn that one English word at an early age. So, they were writing all over the windows, I was angry, because I was going to have to clean the windows before dinner. So, I called their mitapel and told him what was going on. He came right over and told the boys to wipe the windows down. All but one complied. The wayward son said, “I don’t have to clean anything. Ask my mother.” It just happened that this one child’s parents were Americans. They were the type that felt this is Israel speak Hebrew. I agree, but only to a point. They were a little fanatical about speaking only Hebrew.

So, this child refused to clean the windows. A scene ensued between the boy and his mitapel. Someone must have called the boy’s parents, I never knew who called them. Just as the mitapel took the boy by his head and began cleaning the windows with his face, his mother walked in. I was laughing because it was such a scene, the kid was a major brat and that his mitapel cleaning the window with the boy’s face was priceless. When his mother walked in a saw this, remember, she believes in only speaking Hebrew to Israelis, she began to scream in English! “What the fuck are you doing?” “Are you out of your fucking mind?” You get the idea. The mitapel knew no English (except the word “fuck” because he too learned it at an early age.) I had to leave the scene because I was laughing so hard and I didn’t want to offend anyone or make it worse. But, I can tell you, I laughed for days after that and I never saw that kid again without a huge grin on my face.

This book is going to write itself.

The Soaring Eagle

I have been having difficulty sleeping since we got the cat and since I have had this cold which keeps my hacking all night. I am exhausted. I have been working hard with my patients, teaching meditation, all the reading for my classes, my father and it has been wearing me down. Sleep has been a refuge for me, but now it has eluded me and I am pooped… stressed… and dragging through my days.

Last night, I decided to take Tylenol PM. That was a hard decision for me. I don’t like Tylenol in the first place, it frightens me. Secondly, I didn’t want to disturb my dream life. I worry that if I am in a drugged state, I will not receive any messages or that it will interrupt my spiritual connection. But, I was desperate for a night without interruption, so I took the Tylenol PM and I slept.

I also had a dream that I think may have deep significance. Here it is:

Jon and I went to the movies to see a film called “The Soaring Eagle” or something to that effect. We found our seats in the crowded auditorium. The theatre was packed and we got one of the last available seats, they were high up, but not bad. We were getting comfortable and the movie was starting. I saw and eagle leap off his perch on the top of the cliff and start to soar. Then something happened and I told Jon that I needed to see the manager of the theatre about something, it was a complaint of some sort and I left Jon watching the movie.

I walked through the theatre to find the manager; I asked several people where I could find them. Everyone had a differing idea. Finally, I found him on my own behind the popcorn counter. He was a very strange, funny little man with enormous glasses. He almost looked like a cartoon. I told him my complaint and he seemed to brush it off and gave me some condescending lip service. I just shrugged my shoulders and realized that I needed to handle it myself.

So, I just wandered around the theatre, I don’t know why I just didn’t go back and watch the movie with my husband. Instead, I wandered outside knowing that I wouldn’t be able to go back in. The sky was blue and beautiful with puffy clouds and brilliant sunshine. It felt good on my skin. I walked. I came to the edge of a cliff. The vista was beautiful. Suddenly, I saw an eagle on the edge of the cliff- he took off and he soared! I watched him fly. I was him. The wind was in my face. I was the eagle and yet I wasn’t fully the eagle either. I felt so alive!

Then I knew the movie must be over, I didn’t want to leave the cliff, but I knew Jon would be worried and I went back to the theatre. I met Jon in the lobby and he asked me where I had been. He told me he loved the movie. I told him where I had been and what had happened, but I didn’t tell him how much better reality is than the movie. I allowed him to have his illusion. I allowed all of the people in the auditorium to have their illusion because it was theirs to discover for themselves.

As Jon and I were walking away, we stopped and bought popcorn from the funny little manager. He smiled at me and I smiled back.

When I woke up, I laughed. I’m not sure I understand the depth of the dream. That will have to come with time I think. However, I feel that I may be poised to fly. I will shed my illusions soon and I will take that leap off of the cliff and soar. But, I think this dream is telling me that I am not quite ready. Or perhaps it is telling me that my illusions are holding me back. I don’t really know… yet. That will come, I’m certain of it. As I move through my day, the dream will marinate in my psyche and more meaning will be revealed, but for now, this was the dream and my initial response to it.

I love dreams like this. I feel so connected and more fully alive than when I am awake and that’s the point isn’t it? We are more fully alive when we shed these bodies. The real life is when we are asleep; the truth is available to us when we are not confined in our flesh.

As a very small child, I was about four or five I think, I was playing in my backyard with some kids- they might have been my cousins, I don’t’ know for sure. Suddenly, I had the sensation of looking out through my eyes. I felt trapped in my body. It was weird. I was in my body and yet separate; I was the ghost in the machine. It was as if I were looking through a keyhole at the world inside. This feeling stayed with me for several days. Even today, if I think about it, I can reproduce the feeling of looking out through my eyes, somehow separate from it.

Is this the truth of who I am? Am I really an eagle on the cliff, poised to fly and then soar? Is that the true reality and not the movie? I am beginning to think so.

Who Is This Christ Jesus?

Why do the really big questions only arise in the middle of the night? I woke up at 4:00 this morning and began to ponder exactly who was Jesus Christ and where did his message go wrong? Is the message wrong or did the messengers screw it ip?

My conclusion? Well, I don’t think his message was flawed. I think those that knew him didn’t have sufficient consciousness to interpret his message correctly and the true meaning of what he was saying was lost and convoluted into something completely different. This distortion has created more suffering than any of us can really fathom.

Let’s start with his name- his name wasn’t Jesus Christ. Christ is tacked on at the end like it is his last name. His name was Jesus and if you want to get it correctly, his name was probably Yeshua or something similar. Since folks didn’t have family names back then his name might have been, Yeshua Ben Yosef (Yeshua son of Yosef), however people could have known him just as Jesus of Nazareth.

He is Jesus The Christ. The term Christ means savior, or messiah. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the term Christ:

“Christ is the English term for the Greek Χριστός (Khristós) meaning "the anointed one".[1] It is a translation of the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (Māšîaḥ), usually transliterated into English as Messiah.

The word is often misunderstood to be the surname of Jesus due to the numerous mentions of Jesus Christ in the Christian Bible. The word is in fact used as a title, hence its common reciprocal use Christ Jesus, meaning The Anointed One, Jesus. Followers of Jesus became known as Christians because they believed that Jesus was the Christ, or Messiah, prophesied about in the Tanakh (which Christians term the Old Testament). The majority of Jews reject this claim and are still waiting for Christ to come (see Jewish Messiah). Most Christians now wait for the Second Coming of Christ when they believe he will fulfill the rest of the Messianic prophecy.”

I have been reading the Acts of the Apostles, and in my mind, Paul has done all of humanity a grave disservice with his teachings. In Galatians, he berates the people of Galatia for falling back and living once more within The Laws of Judaism, calling them idiots at one point. They had begun to practice circumcision again and they were not eating with the Gentiles. Paul wanted them to give up their laws and embrace the spirit of Christ. According to Paul the way you do that is to throw out all of the previous laws and live only from the spirit from within.

Except he then laid down all of these new laws that would lead a person to get to that spirit within and the Catholic church was born. These new laws became over time more dogmatic and complicated than the original Jewish laws handed down from Abraham and Moses. Then the most damaging of all was the insertion of a mediator between a human being and God. No longer were we able to commune directly with our creator, but we needed to have someone speak for us. No longer were we directly connected to the God within, but God was removed completely from us and placed in this hard to attain and far away place called Heaven. God was up there looking down on us and judging us favorably or unfavorably.

Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven within us. Jesus told of God’s love for us. He told us not to worry about where our next meal was coming from, or what clothes we wear. God wants us to love each other; not to strive against our neighbors, but to live in peace. Paul pitted the Gentiles against the Jews. He berated people because they clung to their customs.
Jesus didn’t die to save us, or to become our personal savior. He didn’t die for our sins, he died because of our sin. If we had listened to his message he wouldn’t have been crucified; he would have died an old man. But, each side was pitted against the other. Each side believed that their side was the righteous side. Jesus taught tolerance, love, peace, surrender, and to honor God.
Paul had a mystical experience and then inserted his ego directly into it. Instead of gently leading the people toward the message of Jesus the Christ, he ranted and raved against them. He single-handedly set up adversarial polar opposites.

Jesus was a fully enlightened being. He really did sit at the proverbial right hand of God because he understood it all. God flows through all of us, every minute of every day. We miss this presence because we are so caught up in our striving and our personas that we miss this spark within us. Each of us can be as Jesus was. We need to let go of this insistence of dogma, ritual and spiritual practice. Live our lives. Be in the moment, feel the delight of God moving through.

The Kingdom of God is at hand. It is in your hand right now, but don’t reach for it. There is nothing to reach for. It is all present, right here and right now. Sink into God, be still and know. That’s all Jesus was teaching, it is all just within your grasp.

All Things Must Pass

Looking at the snow this morning, I am reminded how all things come and go. We struggle with the snow today, but eventually it will only be a memory. Just as the gentle breezes and green leaves of last summer are now tucked snuggly away in our memories. This too shall pass.

When we lived in Cudjoe Key, we had a small, but very powerful hurricane move through. It only really affected our key and two others, but it wiped us out. I really can’t describe what it looked like, there was a forty foot sail boat on top of one of my neighbor’s house. There was seaweed everywhere. Our next-door neighbor’s roof was on our house and in our yard. A huge dock box was in the middle of our yard. Destroyed homes. Downed palm trees. Nothing looked right even if it wasn’t destroyed. And no words can describe the smell.

As a result of this storm, we had no electricity for seven weeks. For the first two weeks we had no water and no toilets. We were lugging water and after two days we had port-a-potties. The Salvation Army provided ice, sandwiches and some good cheer; they were great and they stayed with us throughout- unlike the Red Cross that left the same day the TV cameras did. It was hot, humid; the mosquitoes were on a feeding rampage. We lived outside, peed outside, washed clothes outside, and got re-acquainted with each other. We bought a large boat cooler and that was our refrigeration. We cooked on our gas grill and ate outside in what was left of the garden, listening to the ocean lapping against the seawall. We had torches for light and they helped keep the mosquitoes at bay along with a few citronella candles. The Milky Way was our companion. It was breathtakingly beautiful. I was amazed at how much light starlight can give.

Our jobs were not affected; Key West did not suffer any lasting damage. The power was out just long enough for the shrimp and ribs in the freezers at Margaritaville to begin to thaw and the owner decided to throw it all out. I found it impossible to just throw out two hundred pounds of shrimp, so I made the executive decision to split it up amongst all of my cooks. We each took home about twenty pounds of shrimp. If my boss had found out it would have cost me my job, but it was criminal to waste food like this. We also split up about a hundred pounds of baby back ribs. (We were eating meat still at this time.)

I cooked up all the shrimp when we got home. I gave away more than half of it to the neighbors that were still there with us- there were only a few of us remaining. We ate the remainder for the next few days. What a feast! The ribs were not thawed out and lasted a few more days on the ice, before we had to cook them.

Here we are in the middle of destruction, sitting in our garden enjoying a veritable feast of shrimp and ribs by candle light sipping cold wine. It was an odd contrast.

We had light from the torches in our immediate area; lighting our table, but much beyond the perimeter of the table was total darkness, made darker from the light of our torches. On one of the first nights after the storm, we were at our table, eating and a car pulled up to our yard. I couldn’t see the car and was unusual because the streets were not really cleared yet, it was still difficult to drive in our neighborhood. And yet, here comes a car and stops! The owner gets out of the car, comes to just beyond our lighted perimeter, and asks if we would like some homemade blueberry wine. Of course, we said yes and he handed us a small jug. We asked him to join us and have some shrimp, he said, “No, no thank you. I should be getting back,” and with that he was gone. Who was that man? We never knew… but the wine was delicious.

And that was the way of this adventure. There was some awful hardships, sleeping indoors at night was difficult, it was so hot. We would stay up playing cards until very late to avoid going to bed. People lost their homes. It was ugly for a year after this storm, perhaps longer. But, today, I don’t think of the difficulties, the ugliness or the smells. What I remember is that jug of homemade blueberry wine, playing cards with my husband, the torches, getting up in the middle of the night, and going outside with my dog and peeing together. I remember the look of happiness on my neighbors’ faces when I gave them a ton of cooked shrimp for their dinner. And when the lights finally did come back on, I felt a deep sense of loss. We never ate in the garden again and it wouldn’t have been the same anyway. It was the total darkness that created the sense of being wrapped in a cocoon, the light form the neighbors’ would have altered the experience. Sometimes it is best to remember it as it was and not try to recreate that which can’t be recreated. Which is why we never go back to a restaurant where we had a fabulous meal, it is never as good the second time.

All things pass. Everything changes and nothing ever stays the same. It is the grasping after our pleasures and pain that cause suffering. It is better to experience it, acknowledge it and bless it for its arrival and then to just let it go.

So, this morning as I looked out on all this snow and the hardships that it brought, what I will remember is snuggling in bed until late, the hot chocolate after being out in the cold shoveling, the Irish oatmeal and homemade biscuits for breakfast. And that is how it should be.

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." -Albert Camus