IHOP Girl: My children....

Friday, January 13, 2006

My children....

Dearest Mary, as much as I love you my children are not up for adoption. Verni is still young and very impressionable, and Veronica is too cute. I may allow you to adopt any future children (Vern Jr, Vanessa, Violet, Vikki, Valerie, Vladimir), however we will cross that bridge when we come to it. I have a long history with my children, and despite what you may think, there is a man somewhere (only one) - I prefer to imagine him lost in some barren stretch of Texas - and he may have a say against the adoption...

Note: Lest you think that I am an abusive parent I would like to remind you that Verni and Veronica are figments of my parents imagination, and are included along with Vernon, Texas, penguins, and protestant Nuns. You may not be familiar with my reference, and this is fine just ignore it.

Heading back to reality; I've been mulling some ideas, but I can't quite form them into verbalized thoughts yet, so you'll have to wait for any true revelations. :-) One thought - It amazes me how you can live your life thinking that you have experienced so many things, only to find that every effort you made to open your own eyes has only led you into a kind of false realty or false perspective. You think you are looking out of a new window, when all you've done is to look out of another part of the same window. How do you live apart from personal prejudice, experience, and preference? Can you separate yourself from it to truly see from another's' view, should we separate ourselves, or is a new approach on life only found by the touch of the Holy Spirit? How often do I think I see the full picture only to find that I've been staring at my own finger? Humm, it really struck me this week, that my whole life I have approached every situation and person from my background and limited understanding without realizing that although the Lord uses our life as an element to our growth and maturity, that is just the beginning. I'm sure this sounds strange, and maybe I'm the last to understand this, but I am starting to truly see that I have been looking at the world through my eyes and the lens of Christianity, without actually experiencing a eye "replacement" to where I am looking through the Lord's eyes! What a different that would make! I'm not saying that I haven't had wonderful life experiences, I guess it is just that as much as I have heard the "new creation" concept before it has never really caused me to think like I have been. There is a time for everything, and you may not understand a thing I ramble about, but that is ok, because it is my rambling...

More later! Have a great night!! :-)

3 comments:

ViNeYaRD WoRSHiP said...: Vinne here...

Just checking in to CONFIRM that I am Not in any way a descendant or relation fo clair b's - despite the alliterative nature of my nomenclature - and its apparent nearness to those of aforementioned offspring.

As to sprouting canopies, best leave that the those, who know of gardens and vines.

Actually, on a more personal note - sfl, you're da man!

VW; 6:16 PM
Jess said...: *giggle*

;); 6:21 PM
Jess said...: Aye, aye, Your Stochasticness! Right away, sir!

*touches knuckle to forehead*

;D; 5:22 PM

Movie Night In...I love a good movie!

Mega Mind
Taking Chance (Will make you cry like a baby)
Charlotte Grey (A bit of a different take on Nazi Germany)
Series - Merlin (I LOVE BBC)
Robin Hood (Okay, a love Russell Crowe, you'll have to understand that about me...)
Kingdom of Heaven (Chuck full of acting power with an epic tale)
Miss Potter (Such a great film! Story of the creator of Peter Rabbit)
How to Train your Dragon (Possibly my favorite animated movie ever...I'm like a little kid, I watch it over and over)
Buck (Sundance winner, Biography of Horse Trainer, heart touching)
Lost in Austin (Modern day spin on Pride and Prej.)

Life as a nurse...

Great words by Reb Jeff: Vayishlach: Facing Death

"Rachel died. She was buried on the road to Ephrat — now called Bethlehem. Jacob set up a pillar above her grave. It is the pillar at Rachel’s grave to this day."–Genesis 35:19-20

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidui http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_(Judaism), and preparing the notifications to the community, feel like little fragments of the sacred. I have been entrusted with the care and tending of the most powerful, complex and difficult emotions that a person can experience in life. I have been made, in some small part, a guardian of the memory of a departed soul — a life that touches upon many other lives.After dropping off my older daughter at her high school this morning, I made a stop at Treasure Coast Hospice http://www.tchospice.org/, a remarkable organization that sets a very high standard for the loving and respectful care of the dying. There, I visited a lovely man whom I have seen a few times in his hospice room. I sat by his bedside and listened to him (in full possession of his faculties) as he told me about his worries about his family, the support of his wife after he is gone, and the future of his children and grandchildren. I was deeply moved by the way he put any concern for himself — even while facing death — in a distant backseat to his concerns for his family. When my own time comes, I can only hope to have his awareness of the way that one life can touch so many others.Also at hospice, I visited a woman I have known for the past two years — a dear soul who is a former Jewish religious school director. I sat with her, too, singing psalms to her as I listened to her heavy and labored breathing. I have no medical training, but I have come to know the sound of a person who is close to death. The body begins to fight for each breath as it slowly looses it grasp on life. As I held her hand and sang, I realized that being a rabbi is no protection against becoming one of the people caught in the web of connection. I, too, am changed by the loss of a life that has touched mine.Later in the day, I met with a couple from our congregation. She had just learned that her brother died yesterday in a car crash. Coming to terms with the loss is made more difficult for her by the fact that she and her brother had not seen each other or spoken in five years. Sometimes, people think it is easier to mourn the death of someone who has moved out of your life. In my experience, though, it's harder. Grief is magnified by wounded love and regret. I have no magic words to say to ease the pain of mourning. All I can do is listen, become a vessel in which people place their stories, and offer compassion.Actually, there is one more thing I can do. I can have faith that "all I can do" is all that I need to do. It is enough.In this week's Torah portion (Vayishlach) Jacob watched Rachel, the love of his life, die in childbirth. He was overcome by grief. Jacob had worked for his cruel uncle Laban for fourteen years to earn the right to marry Rachel. Now she was gone. Because she died while they were traveling, Jacob had to bury her by the side of the road. He built a pillar of stones on the spot to mark the place as sacred.This is what we all do, in one way or another, when death enters our lives. We grieve and our hearts break. We wish that we could continue to walk along the path of life with our loved ones forever, but the dead cannot fully join us. We have to leave something behind in order to resume our own journey. So, what do we do? We mark the moment as sacred. We erect monuments — both in cemeteries and in our hearts. The stones we place on top of stones remind us that a life may end, but its sanctity is forever.The Torah says that the monument Jacob built for his beloved continues to stand until this day. A life that touches the lives of others never ceases to send living reverberations throughout the web that binds us all.