Month: September 2017

Irma and Jonah

/ howardshapiro / 7 Comments

Irma

Friday Morning, 9.8.17  Pre Irma

We sit and we sit and we sit. And personally I can’t sleep (not for long anyways) even though the hurricane shutters have cut off the light that normally seeps in through the blinds. I want to write that it is the hardest part, this waiting, this watching, this constant listening to the weather experts trying to figure out where will Irma turn, what is its path, how strong the winds, and how much more should we be doing to prepare. But as of today, I don’t know and I’m not in control, not of much anyway. Tomorrow and the day after will tell the story and looking back we will know more than we know now.

Saturday Morning 9.9.17

We know more. We know that Irma’s projected track has shifted. Good news for us on the Southeast Coast of Florida, bad news for the Keys and Fort Myers. There is a sense of relief but the 24 hour TV coverage keeps pushing the point: Don’t let your guard down. You may be out of the cone for now but just as it turned once it can turn again and the associated winds and rain are not to be taken lightly. The quote that resonates with me today is from the Kabbalah. (Full disclosure I saw it in a thank you note from the URJ.) “This world is a raging ocean and you should imagine yourself always in a ship at sea.” As someone with a phobia about getting sea sick, the imagery speaks to me. The deck is constantly shifting beneath our feet. We don’t feel it every day; we can’t; we wouldn’t be able to put one foot in front of another. That’s where trust and faith come in. Trust that we have made wise decisions and done what we can do to contain the chaos; faith that it will be “ok”; we will be “ok” and we will weather whatever comes.

Tuesday … Damage Assessment

We were very lucky. Our house seems to be on a grid that rarely loses power. So we were able to come back and have lights, air conditioning and the ability to recharge our devices. (Not everyone is so fortunate.)  Lost some screen panels around our pool; lost Cable and Internet, which turns out to be a surprisingly annoying piece of the puzzle. But on the good side, our grandson Jacob talked me through making my phone a hot spot both for my ability to connect to the outside world  and to watch some mindless shows using Apple TV. Who knew I was so dependent on filling time with such gratuitous entertainment? (That is kind of embarrassing to admit.)

Back to “lucky”. Or were we very blessed? It is hard for me to use that term in this context because does that mean that those who were in the more direct path of Irma were “cursed”? There is an implicit theology here that doesn’t sit well with me, although the biblical prophets would have bought into it. The God I believe in doesn’t direct storms, earthquakes, floods or any other natural disaster to chastise or instruct the people of Houston, Mexico, or Florida. The God I believe in is found in our ability to ask, what does this teach us. Does it instruct us to find love of neighbor and caring for the stranger in our responses? To reflect on our relationship with this planet that lives and breathes and twirls and swirls and reacts in a variety of ways to how we use or abuse our relationship with it. To act responsibly for the future and not ignore what our best scientific minds our telling us about Global Warming. To build our buildings to withstand the winds of the new reality and create an infrastructure that is less vulnerable to what nature can bring.

Come to think about it – storms can teach. Ask Jonah what he learned in the midst of the storm. Well actually ask Jonah what God was trying to teach him about acceptance and forgiveness, love and our common humanity. It is doubtful Jonah ever really learned – how sad for tomorrow if we are Jonah sitting under a gourd and caring only for ourselves.

 

 

 

 

 

A Piece of Honesty

/ howardshapiro / 13 Comments

downward dog abstractI dabbled in Yoga this summer, making it my project, hoping I would be comfortable enough to continue some kind of Yoga practice when I returned to what I call normalcy and the South Florida heat and humidity. Today I made it happen.

I went to a Yoga class alone; I didn’t have a mat (I left mine in NC but you could rent one – interesting dichotomy between a small town where they were free for the borrowing and suburban sprawl Palm Beach County. I’m not judging just observing.)   I was the only man and probably one of the few over 60 in the group. I was also the tallest, the heaviest and the worst dressed – do they have Lulu Lemon for men?

We began on our backs learning how to inhale and exhale and find our breath as the instructor talked about vulnerability. My monkey mind said, “don’t talk to me about being vulnerable; here I am exposing to the world what a fraud I am. You think you know “downward dog”, you don’t know ________.” It was hard and it was good and I am surprised how heavily I perspired. I was grateful when the 75 minutes were up and we returned to our backs in what I remember being called “corpse pose” but had a different name this morning.

Besides some muscles speaking to me about what I have just done to them, I took away an appreciation of how hard you can work in slow motion. This was called a slow flow class and that’s what we did (I did more of the slow and less of the flow, but there is always next time.) Everything doesn’t have to be fast or pumped up. You can strengthen yourself both physically and spiritually gradually and incrementally.

But I really took away a willingness to reflect introspectively on my disposition to be vulnerable and I mean by that my sense of comfort in being open about my weaknesses, my doubts, my faults and failings. It is that time of year in the Jewish calendar. The Hebrew month of Elul leading up to the New Year is our prep time for new beginnings, clean slates, forgiveness and forgiving others and ourselves.

So here’s a piece of honesty. I’m not good at not being good at what I do. I need a lot of acceptance. I need validation from outside sources. I need to be praised and affirmed probably a little too much. I know this because at the end of the class, when the instructor and I were alone, I asked her: How’d I do? I asked it in the guise of what classes do you think would be beneficial to me, but I knew I needed her approval and being told: you’re good enough.

I wonder who or what did this to me? I wonder if this feeling of not being worthy is just built in to the human psyche. I know what my Elul work is this time around. It is finding the good; affirming the competent; believing in myself and loving the pieces that are still to be polished and refined knowing they are all good and isn’t it great I am not done?