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Starbursts and Super Bowls

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IMG_6782I am sitting outside on this partly cloudy beautiful South Florida Sunday morning. It is February and the tree with green leaves and purple undersides is just beginning to initiate its annual firework display of flowers. I looked up its name on the Internet so that I can look intelligent to you. It is officially Clerodendrum Quadriloculare, described as dark and sultry.  For those of us who can’t quite pronounce or remember the Latin name, it is also called Shooting Star or Starburst. You can prune it so it is tree like with one trunk or let it grow like a bush and watch it spread. I let it do both. That is until my HOA decides it is intruding on their right of way cutting it back from their side of the fence. But that’s a different story.

It is also Super Bowl Sunday. I thought the skit on SNL last night was hysterical, pitting patriots (small “p”) of Boston against the Mid-Atlantic colonials of Philadelphia. It is Philly cheese steaks against New England clam chowder – tough choices for heart-healthy diet. Not that I am religious about it – I look for any excuse, any holiday, any occasion to eat a Hebrew National Pigs in Blankets.

Tonight will be no exception. I guess I am just not a purist. I guess I just don’t believe in strict and fierce absolutes. I guess I am willing to admit that I am not always right and I am not always consistent. And that’s ok. And if I don’t follow football rigorously the rest of the year but want to pretend to be a loyal Patriot’s fan today, I am entitled. Emerson said, “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

And so I will sit in front of the TV tonight and route for my “home” team. I am participating in a national phenomenon hyped by the NFL and NBC. By the time some of you read this, we will know who the stars of the evening are: the commercials, the QBs, Timberlake or just us – all of us brought together, all of us setting aside our differences and tribalism, just enjoying this modern gladiator spectacle in living color.

But I don’t want to end without coming back to my starburst tree. It is a marker for me. It indicates a fundamental truth of nature. We are destined for growth. We are born to flower. Exploding stars of red and white petals set against a blue endless sky are in our genes. It gives me hope that someone in Washington will see this too. This nation is too good for games. This nation has too much potential to be held hostage to politics. I want to be proud of those who govern and lead me. And if it all is a game: Then play it with honest referees and stick to the rules. Make me proud you are in my backyard.

bottom 3rd from the right

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I’m embarrassed. It has been months since I have written anything for this blog and I have an excuse but not a good one. I wouldn’t blame you if you have given up on me and unsubscribed from rabbiunplugged.wordpress.com (Don’t do that – just saying). But I’m back – at least I have all these good intentions to be back. It’s easy to let yourself get off track and to make up all kind of reasons why you are not doing what you should or could. Not that this blog is a requirement for graduation or even my self-esteem. I have been richly validated during this almost month long celebration of the 50th year since my Ordination as a Rabbi. And I loved every minute.

The picture of the 16 of us in our graduation gowns and hoods (the kind that go around your neck not over your head) capture us in time. We were all men; women Rabbis were to come five years later. And we were all young at least I think we look that way. I am pretty sure we were all first career Rabbis, most of us destined for what was then a typical career path in a congregation.

But life has a will of its own. Another way of saying that is to insert the word God in that sentence. Pathways open up before us and God calls us to choose which trail to take. I don’t mean that literally. But every turn and fork in the road is a choice and that includes even the unconscious decision to let inertia be the wind at your back. The challenge is to find the sacred and the holy, the meaningful and satisfying in the details and demands of each day.

And challenge is a good word here. There were stretches of time when routine took over and I just plodded away. Luckily, someone, something woke me to the moment and said: God is in this place – look at the bush, burning unconsumed. Notice it. (Yes, I have amalgamated stories and images – hey – 50 years – you get some license.)

I have tried to live with the words of Rabbi Alvin Fine’s poem as my prayer and mantra. “Birth is a beginning and death a destination but life is a journey a going, a growing made stage by stage…. victory lies not in some high place along the way, but in having made the journey (into) a sacred pilgrimage.” We choose what is high and what is low. We choose how to extrapolate the holy from the profane. We choose how to see/reflect/perceive the multitude of experiences life hands us.

Some (too many) in the picture are no longer physically with us. They are gone to what the ancient Rabbis often called the Academy on High. I miss them and don’t understand the why. But that too is a life lesson, one of the hardest to internalize. We don’t get to know it all – no matter how many degrees and accomplishment to our credit. There is a mystery at the heart of birth and death. And so I hold onto the unknown by saying Baruch – blessed. Blessed are the years; blessed are the paths; blessed are the people; blessed are the moments when I am aware of the “You” out there – patiently waiting to be embraced.

 

 

 

 

 

Irma and Jonah

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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?

Vision, Mr. President

/ howardshapiro / 12 Comments

I woke up to white fog. We have no window coverings in the bedroom so the fog was immediate and the trees were covered with a luminous mist. I like to think we were sitting in a cloud. So I did my morning stuff (including a mug of coffee) and stepped outside still in my sleep clothes and said this is what that ad on Facebook was talking about when they were trying to sell me a $99 course (in three installments) on how to take effective and creative pictures with the camera on your phone. Think of the foreground and consider the lighting – the soft light of early morning is more forgiving than a bright sunny day.

So I took some pictures, trying to remember and execute what the guy in the video said. I’m posting two. (I’ve never posted two in my blog before). They are kind of self explanatory – but a word or two. sunflowers fogThat’s a wildflower garden, well actually it’s where the vegetable garden was until this year when for a variety of reasons, we (the gardener and I) agreed to throw some seeds out there and let the zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, squash and blue potatoes rest.) We added sunflowers cause they are Eileen’s favorite. It’s kind of wild looking and unkempt but every morning there are new colors and something else has taken center stage. The other is my favorite birdhouse that we bought at the Pickens Flea Market one summer. I love it hanging in that trio of trees, a silent sanctuary of sorts. I like to think it’s safe haven for those who need it.birdhouse

Peace, Fog, Clarity, Vision, Beauty, Haven, Heaven. What a weekend we had in our country; the torch lit marches on Friday night in Charlottesville by white supremacists carrying poison flags of hate; the Saturday demonstration ending in violence and death; the sad sad aftermath of a police helicopter crashing, burning, killing two officers charged with keeping peace and order; the racist chants; the anti-Semitic slogans; the failure of our President to speak with moral clarity or authority. It took three days for him to name this evil. The sun burned off my fog faster than his reaction. By the way, I’m not living in a cloud anymore.

I see him for who he is and if my perception is wrong and he is not a racist than stop pandering to those who are and be the voice of America that we can be proud of. Leaders lead – lead us to healing; remind us of the beauty of this land and its people of so many stripes, stars and colors. Lift our spirits and give us a vision of what a softer tomorrow can look like, one where the morning fog glistens in the rising sun, gently watering the ever changing beauty of this garden we all share. Be our sanctuary of reason and teach us to hope and not despair. Yes, be strong when strength is called for, but not mean, vindictive, venomous.

The morning mist and fog is good for a garden, not for my President:  Vision, Mr. President; Clarity, Mr. President; Honesty, Mr. President. Hope and Direction, Mr. President.

 

 

 

That Was The Plan

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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.
Sent from my iPhone

 

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

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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.

The Hidden Haman

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first-they-came-forMaybe it is time to reread Nathan Englander’s, book of short stories: “What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank.”   Not that the book is a formula for what you do when Jewish Community Centers and Day Schools receive bomb threats. But given the events of recent weeks, I am beginning to think about the Anne Frank conversation.

In Englander’s story, the Anne Frank conversation is a four-person exchange. It comes after a lot of drama and a little bit of pot. What would you do if they came again? Who would you trust to hide you? Is there a righteous gentile in your neighborhood? (Sorry Mr. Rogers).   It is mind boggling to me that the news brings this story back to life. And when I say ‘news’ I mean real hard facts, not fake news or alternative facts.

This is how the internal conversation begins for me: Is this all an isolated phenomenon, although the answer is in the first paragraph of the Wall Street Journal article. “This is the fifth wave of such incidents this year.” I need someone to speak up; I need someone to tell me that my government cares about this; I need to know I can trust that law enforcement is putting appropriate resources into this. I need to feel protected or it is time to take action in a different kind of way and turn the ADL into the JDL.

There I said it. To everything, turn, turn, turn. There is a season, turn, turn turn. Is it our turn here in America? Is Anti-Semitism a new fact of life and this is the beginning of a different reality or this is the same reality that was always underground and now has been given permission to surface?  And what is it with Jewish cemeteries. The Jews in there are dead already. Is that the ultimate in hatred – they can’t be left to rest in peace?

Some of us saw this coming when they started attacking and burning Mosques. Some of us heard the thunder when in the last Presidential campaign words were used as swords. Some didn’t want to believe it could happen here. When Harry Golden said: Only in America, we heard: Never in America. I want my congressman to go to my local JCC and affirm there is no place for bigotry against any minority of religion, color, language, or culture in this America. I want my President to demand an investigation. I want the Jews in his inner circle to tell him: These are my people; this is my pain; find the hidden Haman wherever he may be.

I always thought the Book of Esther was fiction like Englander’s Anne Frank story. I’m afraid not.

Confession

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if-now-nowHere’s my problem. I can’t think about anything else to write about except what is happening to our country.  How scary it is to live not knowing if you are at the beginning of a “new and improved” era of fear and repression. I had a meeting the other night at my house of a group of people looking for effective ways to make their voices heard and make a difference in the political climate of confrontation and name calling we seem to be inhabiting. The people in power right now believe that they can bully us into silence and by the sheer weight of their tweets paralyze us from acting. They disparage everything I was taught as pivotal to the great American experiment of democracy.

I think the game plan is to set up a series of scapegoats whom we can blame and undermine our faith and trust in the very institutions that make this country work. With all their pious posturing at prayer breakfasts with heads bowed, they are chipping away at what is the secular sacred system set into place by our founders. I know I am venting and you really don’t need this from me; it is on the news all day long.

I actually think we all need something different.

At the meeting, I made a confession. I made it in the singular but I am betting it could easily be communal and plural. I have lots of political positions and plenty of partisan opinions but it has been years since I have carried a sign and physically joined a rally. I’ve made donations to political causes; I’ve voted in every election; I’ve signed petitions (I can feel myself getting defensive). But rarely did I call my representative in Washington; I have never gone to a town hall meeting of my senator or congressman. And I am not alone; I know it. Lots of us are caught in the daily rounds of our living and it is hard to get us to move off our own personal dime. Newton taught us: “An object at rest tends to stay at rest”. It needs a push.

This political climate has been my push. I have called congress; I have a sticky note on the bottom of my computer with their telephone numbers. I have emailed; I have gone to one rally so far. It’s not hard; it just takes doing. And if you don’t know where to start, try this article from the New York Times: “A Low Tech Guide To Becoming More Politically Active”. Here’s one of their suggestions: http://phonecongress.com/ Click on it – it will guide you through finding your representatives and what to say about specific issues.

It is time. It is up to you and me. No more waiting, watching. To paraphrase Rabbi Tarfon: You don’t have to do it all, but if now now – when? And if not me, who?