Video: “The Monk and the Rabbi”

SOUNDS LIKE A SETUP, BUT while the speakers are lighthearted (pun intended) their topic is both serious and joyful. Brother David Steindl-Rast of http://gratefulness.org and Rabbi Lawrence Kushner (http://www.rabbikushner.org/) talk shop: specifically, mysticism and religion, but in accessible terms. (They’re also chatting over dinner.) At just under eight minutes, this video clip is the length of a cup of tea or coffee; while such things are best learned face-to-face, intimate multimedia isn’t a bad second. And since tonight begins the festival of Chanukah, a little more light isn’t bad either.

YOUTUBE: The Monk and the Rabbi

Pithyism #11

TO WRITE WITH TRUTH AND heart, one must be able to see; and sometimes, to not look away.

One Conversation

WE WERE DISCUSSING SYNAGOGUE FUNDRAISERS, and I suggested an egg toss.

E. G., who knows who he is but may not want you to, looked at me with the sad seriousness of the ex-military and first responder. “Eggs aren’t for tossing,” he said. “They’re for eating. It debases us to play with something that half the world is starving for.”

That was ten years ago. To this day, the sight of someone playing with or otherwise wasting their food still makes me itchy inside.

One conversation was all it took to change my mind about something I had never seriously thought through. What will it take to change yours?

For The Kids (A Mini Rant On NorCal “Spirituality”)

“There’s so many choices here, a man could half-starve before picking breakfast.”
Ol’ Thinkypants

THAT MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY WILL NOT long endure whose members celebrate every festival but their own(1). C’mon people — whatever your tradition is, it got Grandma and Grandpa over here, fed them through wars and afflictions, and kept them and your folks together long enough to produce you. Don’t you want to know their secret? So dust off the shelf, pick up whatever’s yours and have at. It’s yours by right of succession through love; It only lives in that way when someone qualified is at the controls — and that’s you!.

So don’t dabble — delve! and remember what Ol’ Thinkypants says: “Drink deep, or don’t even spit.”

_____
(1) Written after reading one more Sunday-papers account of a ritual-appropriating church and reflecting rather sourly on those who embrace something else due to ignorance of their own. (Informed choice I got no problem with.)

Listen Up

TODAY IS THE NATIONAL DAY of Listening, which, if you hadn’t heard — and I hadn’t until about five minutes ago, which saddens me because it’s such a neat idea and it’s in its third year — is dedicated to exactly that: listening to each other’s stories, and recording (and uploading) them for the curious and unborn.

Our memories are a non-renewable resource: once they’re gone, so is a world. National Day of Listening lets us peek into these other worlds — and maybe better understand our own.

LINK (including a do-it-yourself listening kit): http://nationaldayoflistening.org/