God

That Was The Plan

/ howardshapiro / 15 Comments

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I sat in the rain next to the sign that says “lake” fixed to the tree whose trunk split into three.  I had come down to feel the late afternoon sun and the breeze that sometimes gently caresses and rocks me to sleep. That was the plan. The skies had been blue all day, no threatening clouds, just the ones that puff and fluff and blow this way and that. The lake was a mirror, that which was up was also down.

It’s ok I said to no one in earshot.  I love to hear the wind pick itself up and carry the raindrops through the trees and across the now rippling waters.  It is good this sound that brings you back to self. It is good this rumbling of thunder that rolls across the mountains and dares you to guess where it’s coming and going.

 
I’m in a golf cart – dry and feeling how blessed, how beautiful, how filled with awe this place, this moment. Struck with the discordance of the act, I write this on my phone as an email to myself. No pen, no yellow pad, no Ipad – just this cell phone with no service – just the patter of water dripping from leaf to leaf, just nature doing its thing with none of us to manage or control her with our expectations.  No Trump. No CNN. No news real or fake. Birds chirping add to the music of the moment. The thunder is closer over my head to be exact. Its beginning to weigh heavy now, disturbing the peace. The base vibrating through my body breaks through to that part of my brain that whispers it would be wise to go back up to the house, or at least the porch. Hard to move from this place sheltered by the trees, this place of tenderness, this place where water bounces off water creating circles that bump into each other disappearing as they become one body dancing in the muted light.

As I reluctantly listen, it is gone that fast. This place that is neither latitude or longitude is over at least for now. I am sure I can find it again. I call that certainty faith or trust or believing that the world outside of me mirrors the world inside. It takes settling in secure that you are meant to be here affirming all the while that the trees, the leaves, the water, the heavens and the skies all speak, not once, not only in a thunderstorm, not only by the lake but anywhere we are open, anywhere we can be deeply quiet, anywhere we can look and listen.

If I were a TV preacher or an ancient storyteller destined to wind up in the Bible, I would look back and tell you God was in this place. I would echo ancient sages and write that the word we use to describe both the mystery and the infinite is everywhere persistently patiently perennially waiting to be discovered.
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Passover Falling

/ howardshapiro / 4 Comments

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt’s April. I almost forgot even though last night on Jimmy Kimmel they were doing April Fool’s pranks. I guess it didn’t stick because it was my second choice, having changed the channel from Colbert when he put his face behind the grill and began his “midnight confessions”. All these late night talented comedians and commentators are part of my bedtime ritual like the evening “Shema”. Some of the time I put the TV on a 30 minute automatic shut off mode; on good nights, I just trust I can fall asleep without their white noise.

I remembered it was April this morning when into my inbox Knopf flew the first in a month long poem of the day for National Poetry Month. I love the anticipation of these emails, knowing full well that they are a challenge and an opportunity to see the world differently, to feel the world obliquely, to be present uniquely inside the heart, mind, “kishkes” of the author. Like my late night television personalities, with whom I am not always in sync, I often don’t succeed in understanding the poets and their motivations. But that’s Ok because for me it’s all about reaching, stretching, wrestling.

Passover or part of it almost always falls during poetry month. Passover actually doesn’t fall. A fall is almost always accidental and there is nothing accidental about Passover. Not if you know the holiday and all the preparation it demands depending on your comfort level with leaven. I take my own advice about leading a Seder purposefully seriously. So yesterday I was tinkering with using the website Haggadot.com that gives you the tools to create your own personal Haggadah with clips, resources and templates from traditional to contemporary to humanist to atheist – you name it. This morning I counted up how many copies of the same Haggadah we own to see if the number matched with a how many people we’ve invited to the Seder. (What’s wrong with sharing?)

For me, Passover is an intricate and complex poem. The words, questions, songs, symbols, rituals all point somewhere other that where we are. The story we tell is ever old, ever new.   The bitter herbs we dip grow in gardens near and far. The wine we lick off our fingers numbering ten suffers ancient and contemporary deaths. The open door brings a breeze of fear mingled with hope. The questions we ask ultimately lead me to faith. The God we invoke, praise, entreat a God of yearning, freedom, aspiration.

This puzzle we call Passover is much like the mystery we call life. It is a journey from unknowing to knowing and back again. It is free men and women becoming slaves, wresting a journey to a promised land of liberty only to be stuck in a desert of fear. It is trusting we can get out of the narrow places and into the wide starry darkness of eternity. It is believing nothing is accidental.

Passover doesn’t just fall.

That’s How The Light Gets In

/ howardshapiro / 8 Comments

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I am not a music critic; I am not a poet. I feel totally inadequate to the task but I also feel compelled, obligated. I owe it to Leonard Cohen. His music has touched me so deeply and so often. So this will be from the heart but if you want a really complete and savvy commentary on Leonard Cohen try the professionals at Rolling Stone or your favorite source.

His words and music found a way into a deep part of me, even when I didn’t understand all the lyrics. But I could feel the pain; I could touch the sadness even the occasional despair. Lots of people describe his music as dark; I won’t argue. But I find an honesty there that resonates with me. It is an honesty that speaks about the limits we all struggle with: time that is finite; joy that is always incomplete no matter how satisfying and filling; longing, yearning never fully realized.

And yet I believe he lived his life abundantly and copiously, never afraid to search for more, for spiritual truth, for the physicality of love in Chelsea hotels and famous blue raincoats. I envy the courage to walk, run, crawl, climb whatever path opens before you. Conventions be dammed. Expectations be trashed. Bring it on.

I love how he fused his Judaism with his world and his work. No pandering or pampering, you had to work to get it. So many of his songs a midrash on Biblical themes, heroes and villains. I think of him as a true “cohen” – a descendant of ancient priests, a grandson of Rabbis. He stands on the generations that went before him: outstretched hands, fingers formed in blessing, shrouded by a prayer shawl of Hallelujah choruses, too powerful to look at, too holy to touch. I think life was like that for him.

For one of my birthdays, Eileen took me to his concert in Vegas and arranged for him to send me an autographed copy of his newest collection of poetry, “Book of Longing”.   It gives you a good sense of who he was and is (for me). Try this on

“Anyone who says

I’m not a Jew

Is not a Jew

I’m very sorry

But this decision

Is final.”

So filled with contradictions, so flawed, so stretching for perfection, so inventing and reinventing himself, his art, his music, his words, he lived profusely. That brings comfort and allows me to image him now in the light, for in his words: Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.

 

 

We Went to Africa

/ howardshapiro / 12 Comments

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“We went to Africa.” Is that my sentence or is that an echo of Meryl Streep reciting some variation of those words at the beginning of the movie “Out of Africa”. It was as beautiful as the movie, at least the parts and parks we went to. People said to us it was a life changing experience. That’s a little too hyped for me. But it was amazing; it was unique; it was unlike almost any other travel experiences I have had. I keep going back to the pictures and reliving the moments again and again.

We actually went to South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana. Technically we were also in Zambia but that was only at the airport and the most compelling memory about that was the $50 per person fee to get a Visa and have the privilege of walking across its border. We were there at the end of their winter; they were waiting for the rains; so out in the game parks and national preserves, the predominant colors were different hues of brown. That is until dusk and the setting sun transformed the browns into shades of orange, yellow and gold.   The beige was now cream and the dust kicked up by the tires of the range rover became warm specks of a fading day that was filled with awe.

That is awe like in splendor; not awe like in fear. But there were a few times, when we asked our ranger: Just how close to those lions do you think we should we be? “Keep your hands inside the vehicle; speak softly; don’t stand; don’t move quickly,” he answered, “You will be fine.” That is awe like in Jacob waking from his dream and realizing: “How filled with God is this place and I, I did not know it.”

Yea, it’s religious. These animals in their natural habitat, where they are the residents and we are the visitors, are inspiring. I mean that word as in take your breath away. Whether it is a lone bull elephant standing next to a water hole in an almost dry river bed throwing dust on his back to keep from getting sunburned or a giraffe’s head just peeking out of the trees, its spotted body fading in and out of the canopy, perfect camouflage. A leopard climbing down from its perch and sliding through the tall grass of the Delta, appearing and disappearing at will, with not a sound except the rustling blades.

They teach us humility. Not how small we are; but our place. We are not alone in this world. It does not begin and end with us. We are part of something bigger, greater, more complex and more splendid than we ever imagined. We have been given an amazing gift; how awesome our responsibility.

God Thoughts

/ howardshapiro / 11 Comments

flower windI just read three stunning sentences. They made me stop and reflect on how they are calling to me. They are from a book that my friend and co-teacher Tom O’Brien recommended. We were preparing for our class (God, Politics and Culture) at Florida Atlantic University’s Life Long Learning Society and we were talking about “The Problem of God”.

We were asking, what does the word, God, mean? The problem is when people proudly say; ‘I don’t believe in God”, something inside me wants to respond and sometimes does: “Which God do you not believe in?” More often than not, I don’t believe in that God either.

The book is called, “A God That Could Be Real” by Nancy Ellen Abrams. Here are the sentences: “Has something terrible ever happened to you or to someone you love? God had nothing to do with it; God doesn’t control events. God influences how we see the events and interpret them.”

Maybe out of context they are not as stunning as I thought they were. But this is what they said to me. This world is hanging on by a thread. There is so much violence, anger and terror. Perfectly innocent people get killed at a moment’s notice as they fly home from snorkeling in the Red Sea, as they walk near a mall in Beirut, as they wait for AAA by the side of their car in Florida, as they sit in a classroom in their University, as they attend a concert in Paris, because they are black, because they are white, because they are women, because their gender identification calls them to dress differently, or for no good or bad reason at all. And it is not God’s fault. “God has nothing to do with it.”

So what does God do if God doesn’t hang out there in the universe moving people, clouds and planets? And why is it important anyway? Because people are getting killed in God’s name (again); because people are using what they call religion to justify evil behavior (again); because people and politicians find that the God word is a convenient excuse to bully people into believing that there is only one path forward for America, one way to make America great (again).

I recently heard Rabbi Donniel Hartman speak about his new book, “Putting God Second”. I love the title. It is a great metaphor almost like theological poetry. I hope this isn’t blasphemy but for me, that’s where God “resides” – behind us motivating and inspiring us to put people front and first. The image in my head is from Genesis when the “wind” of God is hovering over the surface of the waters. I see the water rippling and God is pushing it so the dry land may appear. I feel God separating light from darkness so there can be daylight.

God is behind the scenes inspiring me to be the best I can be so that the world around me is more compassionate, kind and caring. And one more thing: God can only work through us. Our actions, our love, the way we walk through this world and navigate with the people around us, all of the above, allow God to “be”.

It is early morning; the house is quiet; the traffic hasn’t hit its peak; I can hear the birds singing outside. I wonder if they feel the wind of God lifting their wings, pushing at their backs also.