My Favorite Bookstore

I love books. If I could afford it, I’d have a room just for a personal library here at home and I would be practically living in bookstores in order to fill it. A few years ago I discovered what has become my absolute favorite bookstore. It has a bit of everything and I take my younger son on “dates” as he loves it too. It’s called Third Place Books, its name a purposeful one that speaks of the first two places being home and work, but that we need a third place to be in community. I love their philosophy, the business model and the feel of the place isn’t store-like, but fun and inspirational.

What my son loves most is the floor chess. We have to play a full game of chess each time we go, so I make sure we aren’t rushed. The chess set is beat up from years of wear and tear from toddlers seeing them as just bigger blocks to teens no doubt hurling them around during after-school boredom, but Jonathan overlooks all this and can’t wait to challenge me to a duel. He usually wins and makes surprising moves, but this day I finally had my revenge. He reluctantly shook my hand in congratulations with just a slight rolling of the eyes.

On a different day we attended his first book signing. I have wanted to do this for a while. One of the many blessings of Homeschooling is that as indicated above with the chess, we can make up our own days and do things that others can’t do so readily. We can go places during the day that would otherwise be crowded at night.

I had taken him to the store to stock up on more reading material and the extremely knowledgeable gal there led us to where there would be books most suitable for my son. All I had to say was, “Twelve years old, boy, loves adventure, whaddyagot?” and she began pulling books off the shelf and piling them up in my arms. He has loved each and everyone.

One of them was Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney. More of a graphic book about the not-so-fun adventures of a middle school aged boy, kids love it for its relevancy to what they are facing at school and at home. Jonathan gobbled it up in one week and we found out the author would be doing a presentation a couple weeks later and then signing books.

 

We attended this gathering which included field trips from various schools and soon several hundred kids filled the small stage area. Kinney had put together an awesome presentation that was highly interactive with kids yelling out questions and him giving funny answers. After his presentation everyone careened into a very long line and my son, Jonathan, patiently waited for his turn to see this “famous person” and get his book signed. He was elated to talk with the author of a book he enjoyed so much.

When Jonathan got home and he continued reading his next book, Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli, a fictional account of a young Jewish boy caught in the sealed Warsaw Ghetto in Poland during World War II, he turned to me and said, I want to meet this author too. When is he coming?

 

 

 

 

Would You Torture?

For quite a while I’ve been inundated with both ministry and daily duties on behalf of my family to the point that even when I had a few moments to put together a coherent sentence I was too exhausted to care. Among all the news I’ve been able to glean on my way from the car to my desk and back again, I kept hearing the term “waterboarding” and knew it was a form of torture, but didn’t know exactly all that was involved. Part of me didn’t care simply because it isn’t something that is integral to my life and, certainly, any decisions about whether or not to allow it as a form of interrogation would not be laid at my doorstep. So, like most national policy and political wrangling, I let it go in one ear and out the other.

I finally Googled the term and read the entire article on wikipedia about waterboarding. My initial reaction was horror because I have sat in on speeches delivered by persecuted Christians who have been tortured because of their faith in foreign lands and for anyone who has ever read about The Shoah (the Holocaust) knows many torturous experiments were perpetrated against the Jews in the concentration camps. It seemed incomprehensible to me that I could live in a country where our government would allow this action against anyone.

But then I thought of the three thousand plus lives lost on 9/11 and it brought the entire thing down to size. What if one of my sons or my husband were about to be murdered and the perpetrator (or one of them) was captured? What if they had the information as to where my loved ones were and they were unwilling to divulge the facts simply because we asked nicely? What would I be willing to do to extricate this vital information so that I could save my son or husband? Would this extreme action even get me reliable information? What lengths would I be willing to go to, to save my family?

After all, isn’t this we’re talking about on a much larger scale? Are we so callous that we think terrorism won’t touch our family, just those out there on the news?

And then I think of my relationship with G-d. How far do we let ourselves go? What is permissible? If we are to be like Jesus, can we imagine Jesus ever performing a waterboarding technique on a person no matter how evil they are? And then the answer stares me in the face and I cannot on any level imagine supporting such a behavior knowing that G-d is looking on.

It isn’t a good set of choices. It’s not nice. It’s not lovely to look at. It’s hideous and disturbing and the temptation to rise up and “do unto others” in a negative way is enormous when our loved ones are threatened. But, what effect does torture have on the torturer? And by extrapolation, a nation that allows it?

I have trouble imagining how a human being can do this for a living. Just think, the person who tortures was hired by the government, gets up in the morning, takes a shower, put on his suit (or whatever one wears to such things), drives in to work, perhaps buys an espresso to wake up, shows up at the office and walks into a room with a human being strapped down. This employee, with full permission of his employer goes about tearing down another human being and then goes home to his wife and family and puts his head on his pillow at night for a good night’s sleep. Later, he receives a paycheck and pays his bills, maybe taking his children out for a McDonalds Happy Meal on the weekend. How insane is this?

I know that those within the government see things I can only dimly comprehend and I’m sure I’m glad I’m not there to see the inner workings of a machine run wild, but as a citizen, I cannot endorse torture, even if it meant loss on a personal level. To use it as one more technique in one’s toolbox of interrogation techniques is sick.

I’m sure many will disagree with me, but either our faith informs every part of our lives or we are simply just picking and choosing what we desire to apply. It is when things get difficult that our faith is tested. Do we really value it or not? Do we really live what we say? And for those who believe in the Resurrection, this life isn’t all there is. As much as I want to live a long, healthy, fulfilling life and as much as I wish the same for my children, we have a life waiting for us that will never come to an end. Do we want to enter it as children of G-d who kept themselves from being spoiled by the ever-shifting values of the world, or so concerned with earthly matters that we forget where our true Kingdom lies?

Right On Time!

B”H

Within some parts of Judaism, it is customary not to announce good news for fear that it might create jealousy and invite the “evil eye”. Although I must have at least a smidgen of superstition somewhere within me, I will go ahead and give my good news (tfu! tfu! tfu!).

The day after Rosh Hashanah (September), we received word that my husband was laid off from his job. With the mortgage crisis that hit the U.S., my husband, who worked for a high-end residential construction company, was let go to improve the struggling company’s bottom line. Imagine hundreds of gorgeous million dollar homes (I call them McMansions), in rows and rows overlooking some of the most amazing panoramic vistas of the Cascade Mountain Range…all empty.

In a previous post, I explained that on his way home from being laid off, he called me and said that he was convinced G-d was “in this” and that he would now have time to remodel our ministry offices instead of being expected to work on it after work each day (which would make the project go on forever). His faith and confidence was infectious and we all settled in to our new reality with less money, but getting to see my husband and the kids getting to see their father a lot more. Here in the U.S. we were eligible for unemployment pay so that sustained us while he looked for work. The fact that my father contributes generously to the family income was a huge help as well. He lives with us so we can care for him since his massive stroke in 1998.

The ministry offices have been completed and my hubby still had a couple of weeks to then shift from that to prepare for any possible jobs. We only had a few more unemployment checks available to us, so I was beginning to wonder how tightly we’d have to live financially. Steve was so disciplined in his job hunt. He’d be up every morning at the computer applying for jobs, sending in resumes and carry extra clothes in his car so that if an interview was given, he could stop the office renovation work, clean up, throw on some good clothes and run off to meet a prospective employer. How he was able to shift like that was amazing!

Through a ridiculously circuitous series of events, my husband’s resume landed on the desk of a local and successful commercial construction company and within the last couple of weeks, interviews were had and they knew they wanted my husband right away. The pay is better, he’s salaried now and to my great relief, they even give the entire family health insurance benefits. Recently, just to cover myself (with my high cancer risk) and our children, our insurance premiums had risen in January to $470 a month. That’s just the premium. Then we each have a $1000 deductable, $25 co-pays and then after the deductible is satisfied, it only pays part of the bill. Oy. That will choke you for sure! He also will be working at their main office which is a reverse commute down an almost empty freeway and is out in the country which he loves. He can look out his window and see a horse in pasture!

We thank you L-rd for your provision!

As indicated by the fact I’ve hardly been posting, ministry has been intense and it’s all I can do to care for my family, care for the house, get the meals prepared and then run down to Seattle to lead meetings and classes. I have meetings with everyone from CPA’s to file our ministry tax papers to meeting with people who are in crisis. I think I’m getting ready to let go of the idea that my life will ever calm down or be “normal”. What’s that?

“It’s Only Money…right?”

B”H

The other day I had my hands full of catalogues, files, keys and my purse as I was trying to unlock the door to our ministry office. I looked down and there was an envelope that had been slipped under the door and I knew it had to be from our landlord, a local church that owns the property that we are leasing.

The bill inside was for the plumber who had hooked up our sink in the kitchenette. There was other work that had to be done on the property as well that had nothing to do with us directly and the maintenance person who handles all these things also knew that we had greatly improved the church’s property with our remodeling of the offices. She was determined to carry half of the cost of the plumbing and thought she had hired a good plumber since they had used their services before.

However, the plumbing company had charged us and the church at least four times what it should have cost and the bill was now in the stratosphere. The maintenance gal tried very hard to get them to reassess the bill, but no dice. The work was done, the bill was what it was and now we’d all have to pay up. When I saw our portion, it didn’t horrify me because I had had advance warning that this may happen, but it did give me pause. Just then I saw her walking down the hall and I told her that our portion would be paid immediately. We commiserated about the amount and then as she opened the door from the lobby to leave, she said with an exhale of breath, “It’s just money…right?”

It wasn’t said in a careless tone or with no thought of how important money can be in the lives of others and ourselves. She wasn’t putting my concerns down, for I knew she was just as perplexed at this highway robbery as I was. This church she works for is right in the thick of reaching out in very tangible ways to the homeless and disadvantaged. This, of course, is one big reason why our mission and theirs fit together so nicely.

No, it came out of knowing how much this world depends on money and how it must be stewarded so carefully. It came out of knowing that in order to provide care to others, that money must be received and used. It came with all the knowledge of the history of running churches and organizations and how hard money is to come by in a world where people would rather buy their daily latte than give to those less fortunate.

With knowing all this, it was also knowing that as important as money is, there is One who is infinitely more important than money and He can accomplish His will despite unscrupulous plumbers and selfish individuals. These bits of paper and numbers in computers are no match for what G-d can do…and will do…when He decides a thing must be done.

We smiled at each other in chagrin that we both knew we were being “taken”, but at the same time, in the final analysis, it didn’t matter, for G-d and His calling are far bigger and the plumber who gets his coin will “become thirsty again”, but G-d, if He wills it, will continue to provide for what He wants to accomplish through us.

What freedom!

We did not have to enter into bitterness or resentment. We did not have to entertain fear of the future. We could both write the check and move on to the next thing, the more important thing. For some reason, I was able to do this at this time. It seemed almost easy. At other times I struggle and fight within myself and then finally see through the haze and receive peace. I wonder why this time it was effortless. I am hoping that this becomes second nature into the future.

There are times when it is as if a veil parts and I can “see” from G-d’s perspective. It is at these moments that I see clearly what is true and truly important and can separate it from all the busyness of life down here on earth. My plans verses His plans. Oh to be able to live with that all the time, but I so easily get distracted and overwhelmed by the details of life and the ink on my day planner.

I am thinking of the grace after meals that is prayed after every Shabbat dinner.

O L-rd, You are our Shepherd, and we shall not want.
You open Your hand and satisfy the needs of every living being.
We thank You for the gifts of Your bounty
which we have enjoyed at this table.
As You have provided for us in the past,
so may You sustain us throughout our lives.
Your kindness endures forever,
and we put our trust in You.
While we enjoy Your gifts, may we never forget the needy,
nor allow those who want, to be forsaken.
May our table be an altar of lovingkindness,
and our home a temple in which Your Spirit of goodness dwells.

Praised be Thou, O G-d, who sustainest all living things. Amen
Baruch atah Adonai hazen et hakol.

DVD Review: A Mighty Heart

B”H

A Mighty Heart, the movie based on the book of the same title written by Mariane Pearl about her husband, Daniel Pearl; an American journalist, who is also Jewish, kidnapped and beheaded in Pakistan in 2002, is a work that stays with you for days after viewing it.

I remembered well, the news reports of Daniel and the subsequent horror as the video of his hideous beheading swept the internet. Like many people, it was too terrible to think about for long and years went by without me giving it much attention. So, when A Mighty Heart was released on DVD, it took me awhile to even want to see it. I wasn’t sure what the movie would cover or how it would be treated.

Primarily focusing on Mariane Pearl, Daniel’s wife, the movie begins with Daniel (Dan Futterman) making the fateful contact with certain individuals to meet with a religious leader. He expects to be home with his wife at nine o’clock, however, the meeting was a ruse and he is kidnapped and never seen again except through photos. Later, supporters of Omar Sheikh claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and death of Daniel and were captured and convicted.

A very pregnant Mariane (Angelina Jolie) pulls herself together and begins contacting everyone she can that could possibly help her find her husband. Soon, her home is filled with Pakistani Police, a U.S. Department of Justice agent, as well as Diplomatic Security Service special agents, all working to put the puzzle pieces together to locate Daniel.

The viewer only sees Mariane’s relationship with Daniel in spurts of flashbacks during happier times. The movie focuses on the search, the coming together of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and Jews to find the journalist. What the terrorists had hoped to do actually caused the opposite in that people of all faiths and nationalities come together to find Daniel and save him.

A criticism that could be lodged against the film is that even at the end of the film we still know so little about Daniel or his work. We have learned how strong Mariane is and the lengths to which everyone is willing to go to find Daniel. Perhaps this could only be properly conveyed through the book.

The beheading was not shown on film. It was enough to look at the characters’ faces when they told Mariane and to watch her devastating reaction to the news.

It is devastating to witness, even the reenactment, of such brutality in the world. On the one hand it could serve to harden us against certain people groups or lump certain people of particular faiths together. However, the film goes to great lengths to show, both through the storyline and Mariane’s attitude, that these terrorists do not represent every Pakistani or Muslim person in general, but represent something entirely different. In addition, the Daniel Pearl Foundation was established by his family to promote understanding across all national and religious boundaries.

While this movie is not necessarily “satisfying”, it does take the viewer out of his or her daily existence and open the mind to what is happening in other places in the world. For those of us in the West, who find ourselves largely removed from terrorism (except for those, of course, who suffered terribly on 9/11) this movie shows us what other countries are faced with as terrorists attempt to hijack entire cultures subjecting them to confusion, mayhem and violence.