WALKING ON A RAINY DAY

Very thankful for the rain but very miserable because my computer is refusing to work. I think I need to get junk off here just like I am trying to declutter our living spaces.

Every time I go to give some of my books away I start reading and I am stalled. I am rereading "Healing and the Jewish Imagination" edited by Rabbi William Cutter, PhD.
Jewish Ethics
There is much to commend the narrative approach to Jewish ethics. The Torah begins, after all, with the story of Creation and continues with the stories of the patriarchs and matriarchs, of the Exodus, of the giving of the law at Sinai, and even the ultimate redemption predicted by the prophets. Torah in it's most basic sense means :instruction:. Stories that add to the giving of the law with powerful reminders of the frailty of human nature. Stories are rich and ambiguous and subject to many translations. What does the creation story of Genesis teach us? Being created "in the image of God" teaches us that life is infinitely precious. This was very real to me when we had to accept the death of our beautiful, full of life, little granddaughter only three months old. There was a process of dealing with all our emotions and recommitting to treasure each day we are given. Genesis may simple tells us to value life as a gift of God!

Most modern Jews are looking at their scriptures differently even as Christian teachers are looking at the Bible differently. I have come to the conclusion that all scripture cannot be taken literally and yet I still believe in the inspiration that has helped us find faith and healing in the words that live on in our hearts and minds.

"The traditional notion that Jews are bound to a system of divinely ordained laws has been maintained only among a relatively small group of Orthodox Jews. Many Biblical stories emphasize first and foremost God's power to intervene in nature and to control the course of human history. If we [the Jews] believed those stories and made them a framework for our ethics, we would be advising Jews to rely on God's supernatural powers to save them from adversity, and we would be advocating the Jewish right to settle the whole land of Israel as a divine mandate-positions rejected by the very liberal Jews."

"Love your neighbor as yourself" speaks to us all to have compassion for others which is more important than ritual scarifies that we think make us holy.

"The Israelite community's behavior is to be a mirror that captures and reflects God's holiness".

Generosity, forgiveness honesty and fairness are some of the virtues along with love for our family and honoring the faith community to which we belong and still act respectably of other faiths.

PHILOSOPY

No this is not the right water place. The mystery has not been solved.

I was happy this morning to let the sun get up without me. I had hoped it would rain over night which would have done the all too dry earth a lot of good. There is a haze all around us from all the fires that are burning in the forest again this summer. Very sad that several water bombing pilots were killed when their airplane crashed.

I was happy that I went visiting yesterday and found my friend Kathleen had been removed very quickly by her niece from the home. She would have been unhappy and very nervous about the move. Dad and I will drive over to Burnaby to visit her today. I will write to her and we can keep in touch that way.

It is hard for us to imagine that people believed the earth was the center of the Universe not just one of many planets revolving around the sun. I am reading a critique of the book "The Critique of Pure Reason" which was written by Kant, a small man who lived all his life in a small area in Northern Germany. He appeared to do his travelling in his mind. We all see the world from the view that we ourselves can see and believe is knowable. We project our own knowledge and our own thoughts and create our world and our God. This critique was done by an atheist who was sure he would find justification in philosophy.

Kant believes that our knowledge will always be full of questions because we are limited by language as well as our intellect. It was great fun the other day hearing how people purposed marriage, which in our case I was sure I was going to be purposed to because we were in love. Right?

I found this reading to be speaking about consciousness and higher consciousness just as John Spong had been doing in his book. Just as love between two people is a mystery the love that is revealed in the stories of religion symbolizes the joy of the discovery of the amazing unconditional love of what I call God, the greatest mystery of all. On the radio they were talking about empathy where one is able to feel what another person is feeling. Although the scriptures disturb us when we read about violence and war we know that violence is a part of human nature.

Hidden among the stories and myths and the powerful message of Jesus, the Word, is the answer to our emotional and spiritual needs.

Just because I cannot find my water place because it is hidden down a path I had not gone down before and I cannot seem to find again; with so many paths to choose from and so many trees confusing me, it is still there waiting to be discovered.

That is the beauty of the presence of God, words cannot describe what has become a real awareness of who I am and the potential in me to give and to receive love.

WATER?

I wore dad out looking for water in the Water Shed Park. I could not find the place where the water came shooting up and there was a lovely little pool. I know it is there so I will find it.

I must be getting old having to take my teeth [tooth] out at night and put it in when I go out for the day. I find I am adjusting to having it out at night put I still panic every time I pull it out. I am praying I will not die in my sleep without my tooth in.

I had a wonderful time at our barbecue last night and was very loved and sent home with scones and strawberry jam and fruit salad. Lots of laughs during the catching up on the news of what everyone has been doing over the summer. I am reminded of the impact that our ordinary friends and neighbors have on our lives. We can get caught up in reality T.V. or the lives of the rich and famous but when it comes to my ordinary everyday life I try to be a help to those I can by listening or visiting or walking with them.

"A life well lived defines greatness" which to be means loving our family and enjoying being with them. Had a short talk with Mary before I left for the barbecue and she said she had been thinking of having a nice long bath when my relaxing bath salts came in the mail. Such a simple thing can bring happiness.

I have just noticed this year that the small barking dog next door is not barking every time I go out the back door. Actually I had gotten use to it and it did not bother me. I think he was just saying Hi.

So I will put my experience with the miserable dentist behind me and try the one that dad suggested. I just have to catch my breath. I would like to get my x-rays because they will not do him any good.

"A person is a person, no matter how small" Dr. Seus

Jesus redefined the meaning of greatness by his words that made the ordinary significant and saying "just you wait" the first will be last and those who serve our greater than those who think themselves high and mighty.

I hope that my life will leave some mark on the lives of my family and that they can remember and laugh about!

EXISTENCE

Do I really exist? Do I really know who I am? A butterfly gently appearing from no-where captures my attention and my heart. The wind blows and the tiny breeze feels good and as I breath in the warm air I feel alive and the discouragement of the day starts of lift.

I was treated like a no-body at the dentist today. After waiting nearly an hour and instead of getting a check-up and getting appointments to get my one tooth fixed securely I was quickly looked at and harshly told I had to take the tooth out and leave it out for a week because I had an infection. I felt like a stupid very old woman. Maybe if I had told him Hey I am willing to pay what ever it costs and I know I made a mistake I would have received better treatment.

I was starving by the time we got home and tried to eat some soft potato and broke off another piece of tooth. Yes, I felt miserable. I tell myself there are so many people worse off but I am too consumed with self-pity. This week was so full of plans I had planned to start visiting again after taking July off. We have a barbecue to go to to-night and I cannot go with a gaping hole in the front of my mouth. I promised my neighbor, Rosanna, I would ride the bus with her to see her New Westminster apartment. She is a lonely widow whose children are too busy to visit even though they have moved her closer to them. She has a lot of pain in her hips and her knees and like me does not feel like cooking and entertaining like she use to. She has no friends around her so she needs a friend.

It was good that Chris came for a visit and had some lunch with us. I wish his life was happier and that he could meet a nice girl.

This morning I was able to eat some french-toast and I am getting use to this huge hole in my mouth but I would just as soon keep my mouth closed. I just have to find a good dentist and find the courage to believe in myself.

THE MESSAGE

A day may begin with clouds yet the sun chases them away. I have been seeing the messages in some of the Old Tales like "The Ugly Duckling", The Thousand and One Nights", "De Profondis", Eichman and the Holocaust and even Dracula. Humanity seems to continually struggle and war with the darkness within and around us all. We want to blossom like the ugly duckling and find that inner beauty within our soul. We want life to be more than survival but to have meaning and purpose. Dracula shows us the risk of the loss of our humanity and Eichman could not face reality but believed he would find sympathy as he saw himself as a victim "everything was under an evil spell and fate prevented his good efforts". In "Lady Chatterly" we see the beauty of love and affection and the power of the earth to redeem a life and give us hope.

I have failed to see the inspiration of some of these tales, especially when the extreme despair of abandonment and rejection seem to reach out and grip my soul.
It is like reading the Bible where we see the worst possible evil often done by so called good people in the name of God. Yes, we are called to fight evil and deceit as we find our own path through life. We cannot change the past but we must face the future with courage and the awareness of the good in the world.

We are faced with the question of how much sorrow and grief has been created by man's ideas of God. The Beatles sang "there will be an answer, let it be" and somewhere and at sometime the answer comes to each one of us. Keeping love in my heart sometimes calls for me to reach out to the unlovable and find hope in a new day.

I have found the book "Inspiration" difficult in some ways to read even as i have found the Bible offensive. The message comes in the many stories we hear and we read in our lifetime.

Today I am off to face the dentist and will be faced with some decisions. I feel a sense of guilt because I have lost so many teeth and even now it will be so costly to replace even one. In the past the dentist just pulled your teeth and their was not the emphasis on saving them as there is today.

Maybe a message of salvation is good news!

RESTLESS

This is the view of where we enter the Water-shed Park which is full of many paths that wander through acres of land of forest, ferns. rocks and small streams. It is a delightful place to walk; and get lost in, away from the noisy road where cars continually drive to and fro.

No, I would not go in there alone because we live in a world where we have to be aware that there are dangerous people out there. So I am now so thankful that dad can now do some walking with me and also that Kenny and Hobey and Kim among others like my neighbor Cathy have walked with me.

There are times in my life when I do not know quite what to do with myself and the best thing is to go for a walk early in the morning when I have the most energy. I often feel restless on a Sunday afternoon because I do not feel like starting anything so then I read a bit and have a little rest and we drive to the hospital to visit our friend Shirley. We had gone out for lunch with a group of friends and had great fun telling how we were proposed to and their stories were hilarious. Shirley then shared how she had been proposed to when she was entering a grocery store. Well now a days these romantic moments are caught by camera and love is expressed in every pose and picture. Young or old love is amazing as we keep growing in learning how to express love and to live it out daily!

I have heard of the study Asking The Questions but have been involved in a group outside our church which is studying the New Theology which I believe is similar.
I think that we all want our lives to be meaningful but at times just feel a restless spirit that challenges us with the nagging thoughts that there must be more to life. Yesterday I left church with the desire to move deeper into my relationship with Jesus by inviting the spirit to breath new life into me.

I am reading Bishop Spong and as usual he stirs up some restlessness in me. I know that this is good and I appreciate the new honesty that is being expressed in the church and in the writings of many. The funny thing is we do not know what to call God, Creator? Rock and Deliverer? Source? Holy One? Spirit? Father/Mother? Healer? or friend? Words cannot take us into the mystery that is deeper and higher than any of our knowledge and yet in moments of silence there is a peace that floods the soul that does not need words but can be experienced.

EMOTIONS

There is an emotional longing; that I believed even as a child I felt, that I experience in the awareness of the sacred and the spiritual. As I read John Spong's words about the reason for the creation of religion. I find that I can become drawn into his words and ideas and I feel sadness because something is missing. All religions began when there was a need to understand the nature of the world and to find the security of knowing that the powerful force that appears to be controlling nature also has the power to meet our needs emotionally. Worship can seem to be a form of flattery as we sing "How Great Thou Art" or it can be praising our creator for all of creation.

Jesus said that we are to become childlike; believing with our hearts, to have a simple faith in the goodness of life. Yes, religions all have their rules the purpose of which can appear to be to win the divine favour and to find peace from our anxiety about this life and the life to come.

Yes, there is an emotional part of me that finds meaning in the words and life of Jesus; that cannot be explained or understood. Because I believe with an openness and an awareness; that like the day begins in the fog and slowly the sun shines through, there is a light that can penetrate our darkness and slowly the truth will be revealed. I believe that the ancient peoples wanted to express their gratefulness in building alters to remind themselves and others of their experiences.

Yes, they may have believed that their survival depended on having divine approval.
Yes, we have allowed others to translate and to impose rules that we are to believe have been revealed to those who seek to have authority over others.

The only words that Jesus wrote were blown away by the wind and it is the spirit that blows upon the soul that is free.

I have taken time to go for more walks in the woods and have had a rest from visiting, praying and even attending church. Now, I feel ready to start fresh.