Spiritual

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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I Bought a Hat

/ howardshapiro / 3 Comments

IMG_5822We were in New York last week and got tickets for Dear Evan Hansen. We were there for the matinee performance the day they won the Tony for best musical. It was an incredible experience, touching, disturbing, funny, challenging, thoughtful, entertaining. The amount of talent on the stage was intimidating. Forget the voices and the staging how did they remember all those lyrics? I can barely remember the name of the person I just met.

I bought a hat. I’m a sucker like that. I usually do the t-shirt thing but I had left my favorite hat in Iceland a few days before and if you know the topography of my head, you know I need a hat in summer. I saw it during the intermission and buying the hat was part of my internal conversation during the second half of the show.

It’s about how a high school boy who can’t find his place and lives his life trapped inside unable to open a window to the world, singing: “I’m tap tap tap tapping on the glass …. Can anybody see … is anybody waving back at me?” It’s about suicide and how the death of a classmate weaves its way into Evan’s story and turns him into a social media sensation ultimately bringing redemption, flawed, problematic, disturbing but healing never the less. It’s about love, lies and life lived imperfectly.

The audience is young for Broadway. You can see and hear it in their laughter, tears and cheers. Did I say I loved it? Did I say the lying and the moral ambiguities of the plot nagged at me? Most of the New York critics fall in love with Evan. A few zero in on the darker side. One reviewer in Slate calls our hero: “A self-serving fabulist who exploits the suicide of a high-school classmate by peddling a fake connection to the dead boy. The con man revels in the resulting internet fame, which wins him popularity and even the sexual attention of the boy’s grieving sister. What a creep…”

But that’s no creep who wins my heart and wins the Tony. That’s you and me. Reb Nachman said: Falling down is the beginning of rising up. Ok so we don’t do it with as much talent; we don’t have some one to stage our entrances and exits or hauntingly raw music to accompany the lyrics we call conversation. Everyone I know (maybe my circle is too limited) falls and slips as they climb through the waking hours of each day. Our hero is flawed. Our hero lies. Our hero grasps for broken straws to pull himself out the hole he is living in. There is a piece of our hero in all of us.

So I bought the hat and even downloaded the music. Reb Nachman let me. Every ascent begins with a descent.

Alone With Myself

/ howardshapiro / 6 Comments

Split - singersWe have no Internet and no cable tonight. A storm came through late this afternoon and somewhere down the line knocked us off our knees. It feels like that; cut off, isolated from the outside world. Lucky I still have a landline not tied to my cable provider (although no one has called – not even a cold “robo” call.) What is happening out there?

I decided I needed to fill up the void with music. I recently started to burn my music onto my computer and rediscovered this music of all male voices from Split, Croatia. Standing in a semi-circle chanting in an open-air rotunda of a fourth century palace built by the Roman Emperor Diocletian, the singers voices harmonized and blended,  The depth of their tones echoed and circulated round and round transporting listeners to another time and place. I bought a disk of these 12 men singing acapella in a language I will probably never understand. But they are perfect for tonight as I realized there is so much we don’t understand.

There is so much we really don’t have to. It is ok to be alone with yourself. For tonight I just need the voices of these unknown men from half way around the world to convince me that all is right with my world even if I can’t tune in and or connect. I guess I am having my own version of Shabbat. And it is good, very as God says contemplating creation. As long as I know that every one I love is safe and secure I can cherish this gift of presence and allow myself this artificial cocoon a consequence of failure.

I need to figure out how to allow this to happen without cold fronts colliding with warm humid air following the Gulf Stream north. ( I am not a meteorologist in case you want to tell me that it was really from the Gulf of Mexico, although I don’t know how it got over the Wall.)  I fully admit that I don’t have the discipline to shut off the outside world on a seven-day schedule. That’s on me and not on the institution we call the Sabbath. I’m not built that way.

But I do appreciate Sabbath moments. Like tonight.  As a matter of fact, I am going to light some candles, drink some wine and taste a sinful carb, maybe braided, maybe chocolate.  And when all is right with the world and I am back on line – i’m posting.

Keys

/ howardshapiro / 10 Comments

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The conditions seem to be right for me to try and write again. I am sitting in a quiet spot of the airport and someone just offered me a mint julep to celebrate the upcoming Kentucky Derby. Even though it is missing the bunch of mint leaves, it is a definite boost to my creative juices. And I have the time – 2 hours till my flight even boards and that’s assuming it is on time. But enough of this – although you should also know that they are offering free hot dogs to celebrate the coming of summer.

But that’s not the point – none of it. Yesterday was garbage day at my house. In the process of clearing the “stuff” off the kitchen counter that was to be discarded, I threw away a collection of keys. And of course I realized it after Waste Management had already collected curbside and the truck was long gone. The good news, we are not locked out of anything we know of. These were not keys to the car or keys to the house, they were a pile of keys tangled together, unsure of whose they were or what they opened. Maybe a key to a neighbor; maybe a key to a residence before this one; maybe a key to a locker in a gym we no longer belong to. Even a key to the Temple’s sound system cabinet – all of which gone and replaced, I’m sure.

All day long it bugged me. What is open and what is locked and what is a key anyway? It is more than that metal silver, bronze, multi-toothed instrument which when inserted right side up into a receptacle causes gears to tumble and worlds to open and expand. (I never realized how potentially sexy that is.). It’s like this bourbon that is lubricating my mind. I was kind of “down” when I realized these keys were gone. The stupidity of it all; the gnawing feeling of not knowing what it meant that these doors were closed now; had I limited access to whatever tomorrow might bring. Had I closed openings and opportunities? I want to know I can peek behind the opening and see what prize is behind Door #3 or whatever is the opposite. Or not.

No one knows the future. And the key you hold or the key you threw away won’t open that lock. You can only open tomorrow by living today, by going to sleep tired and waking up to a new dawn, a new opportunity. It is a blessing every moment offers though not a promise of eternal sunshine. It is the very sacred and challenging reality of choosing and choices. What will I do with this new dimension? How will I make it work for me? Not why; not woe; not paralysis of will, but forward, slowly forward, towards wherever Life may take me. Today is the key to tomorrow.

My quiet is gone. There’s this guy sitting opposite me, incessantly making love to his cell phone in Spanish (maybe Italian). I am such a mono-linguist American. I can’t hear anything but him. My inner voice is locked. Where are the keys?

 

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.

Chrismukkah

/ howardshapiro / 7 Comments

candy-cane-menorahOne source says that this is the first time in over fifty years that the first day of Hanukkah and Christmas coincide. The Jews are excited. Maybe even more excited than when Hanukkah and Thanksgiving came together in 2013. That’s when two women from the Boston area coined the phrase “Thanksgivikah.” Of course “Chrismukkah” is even older than that. It comes from the once popular TV show “OC” when Seth Cohen coined the phrase to reflect his interfaith upbringing. In 2004, the phrase “Chrismukkah” was one of Time Magazine’s words of the year! That same year the New York Catholic League and the New York Board of Rabbis issued a joint statement condemning the union of both holidays.

So is this good for the Jews or bad for the Jews? Of course, you probably already know the answer. It depends on where you are coming from on the spectrum of particularism vs. universalism or where you find your comfort level when it comes to symbols and rituals that morph over time and sometimes actually reverse the course of their original meaning. This much is clear to me: Unless you live in a walled city with no Internet or TV access this syncretism is inevitable. What we can do is try to keep faith with the essence of our message and make it as relevant as possible.

We are not the first to struggle and question this holiday that begins on the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev. The codifiers of the Talmud record a fascinating rabbinic discussion that begins with the words: “What is Hanukkah?” As if they didn’t know; as if they weren’t already teaching about how you light the lights associated with the holiday; as if they hadn’t read the Book of Maccabees. The discussion takes place somewhere in the second century. Roman rule is repressive; military options against the oppressors have been exhausted; the Temple is in ruins; two revolts have been quelled. Enter the miracle of oil. Enter a new narrative for the military victory. Enter the words from Zechariah, “Not by might and not by power but by My spirit says the Lord of Hosts.” Enter a redefinition of Hanukkah.

Personally, I am not a fan of miracles.   So the oil doesn’t do it for me. I like the light. I love adding a new light every evening. I love seeing the candles increase in power. I feel their warmth building night after night till they fill up all the holes in the Menorah and it is complete or so we think and so we say. But it is never complete. There is always a darkness out there that needs our light. I believe the miracle of Hanukkah is that we are the ones who fill the void, chase away the shadows, shower stars on the year’s longest nights.

This is where Hanukkah and Christmas find common ground for me. The baby born on the 25th brings hope. The lights that celebrate his birth remind me of the dedication of the Maccabees that the tomorrow we hope and pray for will not happen by itself. It takes grit and striking a match to kindle candles of caring. All these presents we wrap in red and green or blue and white are beautiful extensions of our reaching out to each other.

Jimmy Kimmel said the difference between Hanukkah and Christmas is that Christmas kids get all their presents on one glorious morning. Hanukkah kids get them spread out over eight nights. I’m not entering the debate as to which is better. This is what I know.   The best gift we can give each other is the present of knowing it is up to us to make the world brighter. It is up to us to elevate holiness and joy. It is up to us to care, give, love. And faith? I have faith that someday we will get it: We are in it together – that’s the miracle.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

Red Seeds of Anger

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We played bridge the other night and one of the times when I was dummy, I found myself at the kitchen sink opening a pomegranate and wondering if that is the right verb. You cut an apple; you peel a banana; you slice a peach or a pear. At any rate; I was knee deep in pomegranate juice hoping I wouldn’t stain my shirt as I was pulling and pushing out the succulent seeds hidden and tucked into the off white membrane. There were so many seeds; Jewish tradition counts six hundred and thirteen, each one corresponding to a Mitzvah, each one urging us to bring harmony and goodness into this world.

The juice was ruby red like the map of the United States on election night. By the way, you deseed a pomegranate; I just googled the instructions. It says to do it in a non-reactive bowl under water, minimizing the chance for permanent damage. That of course is my fear: that the seeds of anger and hatred that have been sown by the bitterness of the political campaign ending with a November surprise will stain our country. That the sweetness of the juice that surrounds these seeds will never realize their potential to do good and cleanse us with their anti-oxidant powers.

Am I being irrational; am I being an alarmist?  I feel I am allowing my disappointment to cloud my thinking but then again it is not all up to me. It is up to our President-Elect. Donald Trump will be our 45th. We have been in this business of electing presidents for over two hundred years. Some have been builders; some have been healers; some have inspired us; some have changed our very direction; some have been place holders; some have taught us to dream; some have shepherded us through times of terror and danger; some have disappointed; some have surprised. Time will tell.

You may call me naïve but until proven otherwise, I am choosing to have faith that the office will make the man. I apologize if that sounds a little condescending. He certainly understood the mood of so many in our country who were “done” with Washington. He certainly tapped into their disappointment, their anger and fear. He saw the unhappiness and unrest that the rest of us dismissed and ignored. So he is smart and savvy. He has proven that he has the ability to galvanize people in ways we never imagined. He has demonstrated that he understands America better than we do. Shame on us!

I am also choosing to hope that he will find a way to unite us. There is no place for triumphalism here. (OK – you can have your five minutes.) But what the election showed us is a fractured country. What the election showed us is a deep-seated anger. We need to heal. We need to come together. We need to mend. We need a government that governs and is of the people, for the people and by the people. That is our task and that is my prayer.

 

 

We Went to Africa

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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.

Babka Is Back

/ howardshapiro / 13 Comments

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I don’t usually do this but to “get” this blog you might like to go back a few months to the blog of January 17th titled, “Is It Good Enough?” It was about these blue cards I found that date back to the 70’s – sermons – typed – like on a typewriter – and filed away, forgotten till now.

I was reluctant to read them, not knowing what I would find: Were they good; have I grown; did I bring insight and meaning to my listeners? They are my “chameitz” – the yeast that causes the dough to rise. Passover is over but all that attention to labels and order freed me from the power of the past to bubble up and control me. Passover worked for me; it gave me the ability to start again knowing the doubts and sense of inadequacy would be back, but that’s why we play this Seder game year after year.

So the genie is out of the box. I’ve opened the files and on a beautiful Florida day, I schlepped them outside and sat in the sun reading my past. It helped that our granddaughter, Sammy, was sitting next to me. So here are a few reflections.

They are mostly High Holy Day Sermons and they are mostly too long. I think I love my words too  much and find it hard to hit the delete button. But they are interesting in ways that surprise me. Themes reoccur: I talk a lot about my self and what I am struggling with (as a parent, a teacher, a believer, a skeptic). I talk a lot about Israel; it is fascinating to see  how that conversation has changed over the years.

There are some good stories that I have forgotten and can probably use again. Like: “When a Yeshiva student came to his Rebbe and boasted that he had gone through the Talmud five times, the Rebbe turned and asked: ‘And how many times has the Talmud gone through you?’” It leads me to ask: How much have these words gone through me?

My eyes were better then. I can’t believe the size of the typewriter font. But was my vision? I’m impressed that even then when Israel’s survival was sometimes in doubt, I thought out loud “survival can not be enough. We cannot be dependent on our enemies to define us.” Why be Jewish is not a rhetorical question; it touches the heart and the soul of each of us.

Forty years ago, in 5736, (I dated my files by the Jewish year), I announced, “Babka is back” and in 5776 its back again. According to the Today show it is here to replace the cronut as the latest pastry obsession. Everything is cyclical or as we use to say in New Jersey: “What goes around comes around”. But that has a somewhat different connotation and usually involved a little bit of self-satisfying glee. It is good to be right. Which brings me to an ending. I wasn’t always good. I wasn’t always smart. But I tried and sweated out every word. I tried to reach beyond the lectern. I laughed when I read one of my sermon openings: “Relax – let down your defenses – I am not here to yell at you. I am here to search with you.”  Yes – for leaven, for yeast, for anything that can help us rise above ourselves.

And by the way or to the point:  where is there good Babka in South Florida (chocolate – the deep dark rich kind that doesn’t crumble when you cut it, that can be toasted and spread with butter.)?  OMG, I’m in trouble.

 

 

Yellow Blossoms & Matzah Crumbs

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Image 4-7-16 at 11.20 AMI like April. It is Purim behind, Passover in front and Easter floating somewhere in between, tied to the first full moon after light and darkness halve the day. Esther averts her people from pending destruction; Moses leads the Israelite slaves on a journey to a promised land; Jesus becomes more than anyone thought he could be: salvation, deliverance, redemption.

I like April. It is National Poetry Month and every day I receive a new poem in my mailbox. They humble me these poems like todays by Robin Coste Lewis. The author restricts her words to fragments of book titles, catalog and exhibit entries in which a Black female figure is represented. She brings us a meditation on race and a record of a different kind of journey through time and place, also one of promise but like almost all, still unfulfilled.

I like daffodils fighting to break through winters hard and unforgiving crust demanding we will be born again; dogwood trees blossoming stark white against the deep dark bark. And for those of you who are Florida averse and complain you miss the seasons, driving home yesterday, I caught this Tabebuia trumpeting hints of grace and salvation just next to the curb. They like to drop their leaves in March and early April, replacing them with these brilliant yellow flowers. We had one once but for all its splendor ours blew over in a storm, either the roots too shallow or the wood too brittle. There is a price to pay for almost everything, including beauty.

I like this holiday of spring that calls on me to renew myself. I like searching for the parts of me I think could be better. I like the questions that spiritual work engenders. There are at least four. It brings me to Passover and all its symbolism and rituals; it brings me to Passover and all its rules about which way I lean and what I can eat. This year it is really late – I know the lunar calendar verses the solar and the need to add an extra month to the Hebrew calendar so that holidays hang in there on time and Passover doesn’t migrate across the years to mid summer. But this year I appreciate the extra time it is giving me. It feels like there is breathing room to prepare for the Seder with all its directions and instructions.

“Break the middle Matzah in half.” How did they know that’s impossible?  There is always inequity. And they take that reality and make it work – save the larger piece for the Afikomen, a sacred game of hide and seek. That broken piece of Matzah is well over half the world who are still waiting for us to find them and help them become whole. That ridged, perforated, flat excuse for bread commands us not only to remember that we were slaves but also to act, to care, to reach out in compassion for those whose lives are still embittered

The yellow tree is poetry; it is Passover; it is a promise of potential. The winter is gone; new life is blossoming. Indifference to the myriad of plagues that flood our inbox need not be a permanent affliction. We have power; we can change tomorrow; we can do it one matzah crumb at a time; just picking up the pieces and remembering – this year we are slaves; next year may we all be free.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.