Doubt and Faith

Doubt and faith are exact opposites. Too much of either is lunacy.

Praise for Sudden Gifts

In the sadness and strangeness of loss my heart is warmed by unexpected thoughtfulness that more than replaces the emptiness I have felt. Why grieve over something so shallow? Is it the grief that comes from wishing for something that never was and never could be? Is that the tragedy that I feel?
Dearest Meira, you warmed my heart with a mezusah that I can wear on a chain around my neck! Lynne, you worked under stress to save me $140 which I could not come up with for my Bat Mitzvah party! What blessings! Shall I go on crying and wishing when those loving arms of my beloved friends do so much to fill the emptiness and show that I mean something to them? I think of David grieving for Absalom and the rebuke of Joab who told him that his whole country stood by him while he had gone to peices weeping for his wicked son who stole his wives and had set out to kill his own father.
What is my loss in comparison to the good things that always come my way? I will never know what could have been. I will never know what a little more time may have merited me, but I do know that what I have done is done and the consequences of that action will in the long run, be better for my health and happiness than if I had remained in a stupid state of indecision. What's done is done, now let me rejoice and get on with my life!

To Hell and Back--May I Help you Please?

Hurt can fracture your life if you let it. But life will goon if you refuse to die. I know! I spent time this afternoon with someone whose heart had been shredded by someone she had trusted. Someone whom she loved but who would not commit to loving her. She wanted to die last Friday. Today she is still in pain, but her face is more relaxed and I sense that she is healing. She now speaks of her past lover as someone who is indeed past. Good sign. What shall I say about myself? I could say the same things and I could say them several times.The question I ask myself is this: Why do I keep doing it? Do I have such a low value of my own worth that I continually feed myself to the sharks? Are we (people who do this) somehow attracted to dangerous flirtation with frivolous non-commitment? It is almost as if we need to become our own psychotherapists! Maybe we ought to team together and hold each other accountable. Would it even help? I ask this question because I just unloaded a truckload of advice that I myself should have taken seriously months ago. But now my friend got the truckload and I hope it helped. Will it? I doubt it. You gotta go through hell sometimes to know what to stay away from. Some of us are just not all that street smart! Change is hard but the hard part is not so much the pain from making mistakes as the willingness to do something differently...Will we EVER learn?

Raindrops are Real

Dripping drops, some call it rain. I call it drizzle.  Some say it has finished. I say, who knows...? Gray and glum, some would be grouchy but me? I am glad--no, maybe more like content. The morning expresses somber reality. Here in the Coastal Northwest we see it and feel it and know it only too well. We play anyway. We work in spite of it. I find joy walking in the rain. Did you ever walk in the rain? Did you ever perceive something in the rain that you never saw when the sun shone?

Waiting for the Tide

What if I waited for the tide to turn? What if there was no preset program, no established plan for a better world, what then? Why was life bestowed on many who do nothing more than chase rabbit trails trying to make sense of senseless chaos?
The cantor of Ecclesiastes states the basic premise that all that can really be established about the life we live in this sphere is to make the most of opportunities that present themselves. In brief, he instructs us to taste and enjoy--Fully experience the things provided by our Creator. Can any of us truly make a different mark upon this world? Some seem to have done great and impressive things...still, there is nothing new under the sun and what has been before will be seen again hereafter.
Some go through life, enjoying what is handed their way, gliding, so to speak, and comfortable. ... Nothing ventured, nothing gained? or do they gain?
I ask again, which is better, a life of comparative comfort without risk and without anxiety, or the full blown risk taking face to the wind, relentless pilgrimage of one who invests all, often disappointed time and again? and this with the possibility of perhaps never reaching higher than one's compatriot who sits and glides and enjoys? Which is better? to fight and fail or to wait for the handouts that seem everywhere available to those who risk nothing? Is it better to collect the tidbits that fall from the hands of those who run wildly into the wind, hoping to make a better world?