Month: December 2015

2015: A Hell of a Year

/ howardshapiro / 6 Comments

 

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It’s been a hell of a year. Are they all like this or was this one just so intense and filled with so many shocking moments that we were reeling from what was happening both during and after. What did it all mean for our children, for our society, our future and us? We struggle with how to respond. We always do. Genesis tells us the story of Jacob wrestling with an unknown man ultimately forcing a blessing and a new name out of his protagonist. Jacob becomes Israel – the one who struggles with God and what it means to believe, to affirm goodness in a dark and fractured world, to stay true to our core values.

Different religious traditions describe this struggle differently. One of the words in the Muslim tradition for this process is Jihad. Yes, it can refer to a holy war against non-believers, but at its essence it speaks to the internal battle that wages within us between doing what is right living to our highest standards and doing what is expedient and giving in to our base fears. You can position this process in many different frames. Some scaffold it within a religious setting, speaking about the need to submit to the will of God or Allah or Jesus or HaShem (all basically synonyms for the Unknowable). Some frame it within a spiritual and ethical self-improvement venue articulating the need for balance and living in sync with the laws of nature and society. No matter where you are positioned, all of us struggle.

In Judaism we call it the tension between the “Yetzer Hatov and the Yetzer HaRa” – the Good and the Bad Inclination. (Don’t read too much into those words “good” and “bad”, it is way too complicated for 500 words.) Just know we are always weighing our options. No matter what the situation, we choose where to live internally. Shall I live with the fear of terrorism; shall I dwell in the resentment of my freedom of movement being curtailed; shall I sit with the frustration of knowing that Big Brother is listening and George Orwell’s “1984” is closer to prophecy than science fiction. And whom shall I blame and how shall I direct my anger?

As a nation we are in that moment right now. There are those who feed our fears and tell us that the solution is to label those who follow Islam our enemies. There is a tendency to want to find that scapegoat with talk of walls and religious identity cards.

All of that tells me that we need to acknowledge that as real as the problem is outside of us that there are people with guns and bombs who want to destroy our way of living, there is also a challenge inside as well. We need smart and effective ways of dealing with the external threat and we need a conscious awareness that there is a struggle going on a gut level between our fears and darker instincts to close down and circle the wagons and our higher aspirations to be welcoming and open to people in need and ideas that challenge. Islam as a spiritual tradition has much to teach. The word Jihad reflects that struggle. It is an internal process of choosing hope rather than fear, faith rather than despair, acceptance and understanding rather than rejecting and stereotyping those who call God by a different name. We need to be willing to learn from all our traditions and we need to live in that struggle. Out of it comes blessing.

My New Favorite Word

/ howardshapiro / 12 Comments

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I was at the Dermatologist last week and was told that the bite on my leg that would not go away or stop itching was not from a tick and I didn’t have lime disease. But you never know what detritus the insect that bit me left behind and how the body reacts to it. Context told me what the word, detritus, meant but truth is it is not in my everyday vocabulary. This morning it popped up again on my ipad as I was reading this Danish mystery trying to get a sweat going on the elliptical machine. The inspector seeking to interview a person of interest in a long unsolved murder noticed all the detritus on the front lawn: an old and rusty bicycle; over worn lawn furniture; scraps of life now discarded and left to decay and be transformed. Of course the novel was written in Danish, so I guess it is the translator who chose the word.

Nevertheless, detritus is my new favorite word. Webster defines the word as loose material resulting from disintegration, especially organic; miscellaneous remnants. So I can think about the detritus of my physical being – all that dry skin just flaking off and floating into nowhere. (There is a dermatology theme going on here.) Or the detritus of my relationships – all those people who have sifted through my life and now are somewhere long out of sight (but not memory). Or the things I have done both positive and negative the effects of which are out there still rippling in the spiritual cosmos.

I believe that. Everything we do has consequences, some barely perceptible in the here and now, deeds and acts that change the very space we occupy and imperceptibly but assuredly modify what the future will look like. For most of us it is a subtle and delicate process. But I think how I interacted with the server at Cheesecake last night impacts both of us. I think my decision not to have the salted caramel cheesecake was a good one even beyond the calorie/cholesterol debate happening in my head. I think that the driver of the car I let get out of his clogged lane of traffic and into mine that was somewhat clear and would probably make the light will feel differently about himself and humanity in general at least for an instant. I think, well actually hope, that what I decide to write in this blog impacts some of you (me included) and transforms even if for a moment the way we look at the world and our place in it.

I think I should save this blog until closer to New Year’s but there is always something that is left over, unfinished, or unwrapped, laying out in the yard, patiently waiting for resolution. That is part and parcel of the message of this season: picking up the pieces, keeping your spiritual footprint pointed in the right direction, trailing blessings as you move through your day. It is the lights, the candles, the music, the parties, the presents, the stories, the preparation, the food, the friends and even family, and it is hope and it is faith.   Hope that we can find a way towards healing this fractured world; faith that we can clean up the detritus of the past and move forward each of us owning what we have left behind.

 

 

A Miracle Worthy of Eight Candles

/ howardshapiro / 6 Comments

IMG_4226II lost the email and I have no idea where it went. It’s not in trash; it’s not minimized; it’s just gone, disappeared. All I did was glance at the heading and beginning of it but I loved how it began. I am totally frustrated by my ineptness but that’s a different story for a different time.

Just know: I can’t quote Amichai Lau-Lavie’s words exactly but they went something like this “I just got off the plane from Tel Aviv and am through customs, having successfully smuggled in 300 dreidels that say: ‘A Great Miracle Happened Here’.” (As opposed to all dreidels outside of Israel that say: A Great Miracle Happened There). Amichai is spiritual leader of Lab/Shul in New York and founder of Storahtelling, My take away from him: Miracles happen everywhere.   They are not confined to one time and one place; they do not rehearse the past for the sake of yesterday; they point at here, this place, this reality. Hanukkah is not about what the Maccabees did 2200 years ago in Modiin and Jerusalem. Hanukkah is now and universal.

I love it and need it. San Bernardino, and the unfolding revelations of people who think that religion gives you permission to build bombs and arsenals of automatic rifles and guns, killing innocent people in the name of God, make the days grow shorter & darker.  Hanukkah announces simply that in the midst of all this bleakness we can find light. Jewish tradition offers it in tops (dreidles) that spin and spin till they fall on one of its four sides, each side a different letter, each side a different insight into the where and how of miracles. Jewish tradition offers it in small multi-colored candles (though I miss the fat orange ones of my youth), lit one flickering candle at a time. Jewish tradition offers it in a story of heroes who would not accept the status quo and a legend of sacred oil in a lamp that shone for eight days and nights surviving against all odds burning brightly till a new supply could be made. From my friends in the Christian tradition who are observing Advent, I sense it is symbolically dark days as well. As they wait for the yearly birth of the baby who becomes for them the embodiment of light and love in the world, they too are lighting candles and counting down to hope.

But hope is not always easy to come by. I hear friends say: “I fear for the world my children and grandchildren are inheriting.” And I don’t dismiss their concern.   But a great miracle can happen here. We need heroes and heroines; we need Maccabees and Apostles; we need spinning tops and sacred legends to give inspiration. My hope is that we can wake up as a nation and choose elected officials who will stand up to the Gun Lobby and enact a sensible gun policy for this country. I know it’s complicated. But it is time to pray for the victims and their loved ones with our deeds; it is time to put an end to this culture of guns. That would be a miracle worthy of eight candles.