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?
The Unexamined Light Is Not Worth Seeing By
WHY DO WE ASSUME THAT “God” is the one who wants or needs worship?
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/
Pithyism #11/25/10
WITHOUT GRATITUDE, NONE OF THIS would matter.
New Superhero!
DELIGHTEDMAN! HIS SUPERPOWERS ARE HIS 100% Infectious Enthusiasm! the Smile of Impenetrability! and the deadly Triple Exclamation Point!!!