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A Sabbath Poem (St. John of the Cross - 2)

IF YOU LOVE
~ by St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)
You might quiet the whole world for a second

if you pray.
And if you love, if you

really love,
our guns will

wilt.



(from the Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices
from the East and West, translation Daniel Ladinsky
- Penguin Compass, 2002)

A Mother's Day in Darfur

~ Rabbi Or N. Rose is an associate dean at the Rabbinical School at Hebrew College and the co-editor of Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice (Jewish Lights Publishing). I (Samir) have met Rabbi Or after he gave a lecture at the General Theological Seminary in Manhattan. Since then, he has become a precious source of wisdom and encouragement to us. Many of us can join hands with Rabbi Or and all who are working towards the end of crisis in Darfur.

An ongoing genocide rages in Darfur, Sudan. The violence has already claimed as many as 450,000 lives and displaced more than 2.4 million people. Mothers, in particular, are at substantial risk in Darfur. After five years of conflict, most women who survived the destruction of their villages now live in displaced persons or refugee camps, where it is difficult to find firewood to cook with.

With no other way to feed their families, thousands of courageous women make the choice every day to leave the camps and expose themselves to attack from roving militiamen so that their husbands (who are at an even greater risk of being murdered) and children may live. The strength and resilience of these women reminds me of Shifrah and Puah, the two midwives in the first chapter of Exodus, who courageously defied Pharaoh and intervened to save the lives of the Israelite male children.

This past Mother’s Day weekend, in synagogues and churches across the country religious leaders shared the story of the brave mothers of Darfur with their communities, and congregants responded by donating generously to help protect these heroic women. This initiative was organized by the Genocide Intervention Network, one of the leading anti-genocide organizations in the United States. Over the next six months, GI-Net will work to build propane-powered kitchens in the camps, thus eliminating the need for firewood collection.

Of course, the crisis in Darfur will not be solved by humanitarian efforts alone.  In addition to helping alleviate the pain and suffering of the millions of people languishing in camps along the Sudan-Chad border, we must also agitate for a just political solution. 

With the Beijing Summer Olympics on the horizon, Darfur activists are calling on the Chinese government, Sudan's largest oil customer, valued arms supplier and chief ally on the U.N. Security Council, to stop President Omar al-Bashir and his ruthless administration from continuing its genocidal campaign against the people of Darfur.

The American Jewish World Service, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), and several other social justice organizations (including GI-Net and the Save Darfur Coalition) are calling on President Bush to boycott the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games unless China takes several key steps to help end the crisis in western Sudan. The list of actions includes China ending all arms transfers to Sudan, strongly and publicly condemning the atrocities in Darfur, and demanding that the government of Sudan comply with existing U.N. Security Council resolutions and rapidly facilitate the deployment of the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force. 

President Bush could use this opportunity to recommit himself to the Darfur cause, as his record on this issue is inconsistent at best.  What better way for an outgoing president to spend his final months in office than to dedicate himself to ending the first genocide of the 21st century.

As we reflect on the meaning of Mother’s Day and on our love for our families, let us also remember the mothers, fathers, and children of Darfur who desperately need us to take action both as humanitarians and as political advocates.  Let us act with the courage of the ancient midwives of Exodus by joining GI-Net, AJWS, JCPA, and others in helping to birth a new era of justice and peace in western Sudan. 

Article in New York Times: Young Muslim Video Makers

When Ali Ardekani started fishing around on the Internet a couple of years ago for video blogs about Muslims, he did not like what he found: either the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims were depicted as bloodthirsty zealots, or they were offering defensive explanations as to why they were not.

Scenes from a variety of videos made by young Muslims. From top, “I Am a Muslim,” “Who Hijacked Islam?” and “A Land Called Paradise.”

“Arabic sounds foreign and scary — you don’t know what is going on,” Mr. Ardekani said in an interview at his small Sherman Oaks apartment, its walls decorated with Koranic verses. “Or they show a woman with the veil, who doesn’t speak, and it is assumed if she did speak she would say, ‘Help me!’ ”

So Mr. Ardekani, a 33-year-old Web designer, cast himself on his video blogs as Baba Ali, an outsize character with a serious religious message who both dissects and lampoons the lives of American Muslims.

Mr. Ardekani is among the most visible of a new wave of young American Muslim performers and filmmakers trying to change the public face of their religion. His most popular video posting — “Who Hijacked Islam?” — has garnered more than 350,000 hits on YouTube since July 2006. Of course the uphill battle such efforts face is reflected in the comments section. One viewer remarked darkly, “It’s Muslims that do the hijacking.”

These video pioneers’ arena of choice is mostly YouTube and similar Web sites, which young Muslims extol as a new way to take their arguments public. The role model is Bill Cosby, who young Muslim filmmakers believe changed the perception of African-Americans by depicting them as ordinary.

“They are deprived of any type of representation in the media which isn’t a terrorist or an extremely pious Muslim,” said Lena Khan, 23. So whenever an image to the contrary is seen “on YouTube or the Internet or on a TV show, it just spreads across the Muslim community like wildfire, because everyone wants to support it.”

Ms. Khan has placed several short videos on YouTube, among them “A Land Called Paradise,” which shows a variety of Muslims holding up signs. The sign held by a young boy says, “Broccoli is my personal jihad” — jihad meaning a personal, spiritual struggle rather than its more notorious translation as holy war.

To continue reading this article in New York Times click HERE.

Faith House has published a post where you can view A Land Called Paradise video. Click HERE. 

Songs About All of Us: Dan Bern's God Said No

~ by Samir Selmanovic

This song has been coming back to me over and over again, ever since I first heard it on Dan Bern's 2001 album New American Language (thank you Ralf for this gift!). Dan is an indie acoustic folk/rock singer-songwriter. God Said No is a time-travel song that questions our desire to change the past (and by extension, see into the future).  Dan's vision of an encounter with God implies we cannot escape from now, where God is. This song, once it enters your system, can help free you from some illusions you might have about yourself.

I could not find Dan Bern's video performance of this song. Following are the lyrics and a video rendition from a YouTube dude with shades, named Malvasio.

Welcome to a walk to the edge of town.

God Said No

I met God On the edge of town
Where the wind meets the stillness
Where the darkness meets the light
Where the ocean meets the sky
Where the desert meets the rain
Where the earth meets the heavens
On the edge of town
I met God

I asked God
Do one thing for me
Send me back in time, send me to Seattle
Let me go find Kurt Cobain
Take away his gun, take away his bullets
Talk to him, make him wanna live
Tell him how we love him, help him see his glory
God Said No

If I sent you back
If you really found him
You would only ask him
If he could help you get a deal
If he knows a lawyer, if he can help you
God Said No

I asked God
Do one thing for me
Send me back in time, send me to Berlin
Let me find the one they call Hitler
I will stalk him, I will bring him down
I will bring along a powerful gun, loaded with bullets
Obliterate his memory

God Said No
If I sent you back
You would get caught up in theory and discussion
You would let your fears delay and distract you
You would make friends, you would take a lover
God Said No

I asked God
Do one thing for me
Send me back in time, send me to Jerusalem
Let me go, let me go find Jesus
Let me save his life as they try to kill him
Let me take him down, down from the cross
Take the iron from his body, try to heal his wounds
God Said No

If I let you go
If you really found him
Walking with the cross you would stare
Your tongue no longer working,
Eyes no longer seeing
Ears no longer hearing

God said Time
Time belongs to me
Time's my secret weapon
My final advantage
God turned away
From the edge of town
I knew I was beaten
And that now was all I had

God Said No

For more Songs About All of Us click:

Susan Werner's Heaven So Small

Sting's Fragile

Two Poems That Will Stop You In Your Religious Tracks

~ by Samir Selmanovic

April is National Poetry Month. Here are two poems of war I recently came across (thank you Robert Darken for “Revenge” and Erica Wright for “The Diameter of the Bomb”). Read them and be prepared to carry them inside of you for weeks to come.  These are about you and me, no matter what our religion, race, or nationality. We fall within the diameter of every bomb and we all find solace in suffering of our enemies. And we have a say about the wars raging close and far away. No war is ever merely their war.

THE DIAMETER OF THE BOMB

(by Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000),
translated from Hebrew by Yehuda Amichai and Ted Hughes,
Selected Poems edited by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort)

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its
effective range –
about seven meters.
And in it four dead and eleven wounded.
And around them in a greater circle
of pain and time are scattered
two hospitals and one cemetery.
But the young woman who was
buried where she came from
over a hundred kilometers away
enlarges the circle greatly.
And the lone man who weeps over her death
in a far corner of a distant country
includes the whole world in the circle.
And I won’t speak at all about the crying of orphans
that reaches to the seat of God
and from there onward, making
the circle without end and without God.

                REVENGE

                (Nazareth, April 15, 2006,
                by Taha Muhammad Ali,
                translated from Arabic by Peter Cole,
                Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel Levin)

                At times ... I wish
                I could meet in a duel
                the man who killed my father
                and razed our home,
                expelling me
                into
                a narrow country.
                And if he killed me,
                I’d rest at last,
                and if I were ready—
                I would take my revenge!

                *

                But if it came to light,
                when my rival appeared,
                that he had a mother
                waiting for him,
                or a father who’d put
                his right hand over
                the heart’s place in his chest
                whenever his son was late
                even by just a quarter-hour
                for a meeting they’d set—
                then I would not kill him,
                even if I could.

                *

                Likewise ... I
                would not murder him
                if it were soon made clear
                that he had a brother or sisters
                who loved him and constantly longed to see him.
                Or if he had a wife to greet him
                and children who
                couldn’t bear his absence
                and whom his gifts would thrill.
                Or if he had
                friends or companions,
                neighbors he knew
                or allies from prison
                or a hospital room,
                or classmates from his school …
                asking about him
                and sending him regards.

                *

                But if he turned
                out to be on his own—
                cut off like a branch from a tree—
                without a mother or father,
                with neither a brother nor sister,
                wifeless, without a child,
                and without kin or neighbors or friends,
                colleagues or companions,
                then I’d add not a thing to his pain
                within that aloneness—
                not the torment of death,
                and not the sorrow of passing away.
                Instead I’d be content
                to ignore him when I passed him by
                on the street—as I
                convinced myself
                that paying him no attention
                in itself was a kind of revenge.

Launch Date!

~ by Lauralea Banks

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said more than forty years ago in an address to Protestant students and faculty at the Union Theological Seminary in New York,

Parochialism has become untenable... The religions of the world are no more self-sufficient, no more independent, no more isolated than individuals or nations... Energies, experiences, and ideas that come to life outside the boundaries of a particular religion or all religions continue to challenge and to affect every religion.  Horizons are wider, dangers are greater... No religion is an island.

For my generation, these words have only been growing in importance. We are in a dire need of an opportunity to learn to live interdependently and therefore more faithfully.

And that's why the news I have for you is so great! After over a year of dreaming, networking, fundraising, and sometimes wondering if we were crazy for thinking this could work, it's really going to happen! WE HAVE A LAUNCH DATE!!!!!!  After  much discussion and consultation with our Jewish and Muslim mentors we've decided that on SEPTEMBER 27, Faith House will officially leave the realm of ideas and become a physical, tangible community that will meet on a weekly basis! 

In order to prepare for the grand event, we will be holding preview gatherings once a month (June 14, July 26, and August 23). These meetings will be examples of what Faith House gatherings will look like. Leading to September 27, we will use these three sessions to assess and adjust our ministry. Stay tuned as we finalize our location, announce our three co-founders, and develop our programs.

This is a great time to send your contribution for the three co-founders and help us move into a new phase of our project and help us create an interdependent world! Why not do it right now?

Thank you for your support!

Good Atheism, Bad Atheism

~ by Samir Selmanovic

Even though there haven’t been any new arguments against the existence of God since late 18th century, atheism is hot again. The enlightenment—a powerful movement in recent centuries that helped us question superstitious stories told by our grandmother as well as theology taught by respected university professors—has triumphed. One glance at the Google News page makes this abundantly clear. Religion is not in charge of the world anymore.

However, spurred by fear of religious fundamentalism, new atheists want to go further than their forefathers. Instead of arguing about the existence of God, they are fighting against the existence of religion itself, calling humanity to brace for an apocalyptic showdown between faith and reason. 

Religion does deserve to be challenged. “Deserves” has two meanings. First, religion deserves the pain of criticism and correction because of its failures to live up to its own ideals. Second, religion deserves the blessing of criticism and correction because it has often been a precious catalyst for justice, peace and beauty in the world. Recent challenges should therefore be welcome by religious people as a chance to see, to grieve, to repent, and then with renewed wisdom act for the common good.

Atheism at its best is crucial in this process of religious renewal. With its own set of beliefs, constructive atheism—often described as humanism—sees God as a human creation and not vice versa. It therefore locates the mystery of life in this world, this matter, this humanity, as the only one we have. It insists that all religion must land on the ground where we humans actually live. Religion must learn to live on earth. If religion is not valuable on earth, it is not valuable at all.

Constructive humanism’s contribution to our life together on this planet is its insistence that every religion ought to embrace, not just its adherents, but the whole planet as their ethical community. In our newly small planet, this is not a matter of humility or virtue any more, but of survival. In this way, these atheists are like the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, calling people out of their hypocrisy toward better faith and a better world.

However, attacks that fight against all religion, instead of bad religion, are bad atheism. It reinforces the suspicion of people who cling to the status quo in religion that atheists are on a power trip of their own, on a mission to strip the world of mystery, beauty and spirit—getting rid of anything and everything that humans cannot understand, control or subjugate.

The problem with anti-religionist atheism is not that it questions the existence or character of God. It is problematic because it embodies a contempt for any faith at all—any belief or practice toward creating value and meaning for ourselves. In a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, Lee Siegel writes,

“The leap of faith is really a very ordinary operation. We take it every time we fall in love, expect kindness from someone, impulsively sacrifice some little piece of our self-interest. After all, you cannot prove the existence of truth, beauty, goodness and decency; you cannot prove the dignity of being human, or your obligation to treat people as ends and not just as means. You take a gamble on the existence of these inestimable things. For that reason, when you lay scientific, logical and empirical siege to the leap of faith at the core of the religious impulse, you are not just attacking faith in God. You are attacking the act of faith itself, faith in anything that can’t be proved. But it just so happens that the qualities that make life rich, joyful and humane cannot be proved.”

Atheistic fundamentalism is a dogmatic expression of a worldview equally capable of destroying humanity with zeal and effectiveness as any fundamentalist religion. Shutting out the spiritual, mystical, metaphorical and transcendent, atheistic fundamentalism resorts to cleaning up the world of those who disagree and creating a naked public square, devoid of any options but its own.

While philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche rightfully observed that “Every truth is a tool in the hands of those in power,” atheistic fundamentalists have come to an irrational belief that they are an exception as they are trying to sell their ideas to those to whom they so openly condescend. What can be a greater power trip than believing everyone is on a power trip except oneself? Instead of promoting a secularization that fosters religious pluralism, these atheists impose secularism—a closed worldview, devoid of the windows and doors of self-doubt and hope.

To the end of his life, Sigmund Freud was an uncompromising atheist, describing belief in God in his book The Future of an Illusion as a “collective neurosis.” But his last book was titled Moses and Monotheism, in which he suggested a surprising view about religion, recognizing the poetry and promise of religion. He argued that Judaism and other expressions of monotheism helped free humanity from bondage to the immediate, empirical world, opening up fresh and renewing possibilities for human spirit and practice. He argued that people who can worship what is presented in symbolic terms, practice the ultimate exploration of the invisible inner life. For Freud, faith in God opened a gift of inwardness and imagination.

Both faith and doubt are opposites of certainty and therefore part of the same whole that refuses to see only the obvious. To end religion, would be to end imagination.

The stingy polemics of religionists who defend religion at all costs on one side and anti-religionists on the other seem like arguments fought in an attempt to justify closing one’s ears to hearing the Other and sharing the planet with others. Both of their identities depend on a divided world. Instead of leading us to generosity and great hope toward an unknown future, and instead of enlightening and inspiring us, religionists and anti-religionists are moving us into a new dark age, both using God to bring an end to imagination.

People will not stop looking into the past and mining religion for its spiritual treasures and hard-learned historical lessons. And they will not stop organizing themselves into new kinds of religious communities. For we have learned from human history that religion does not have to be the opium, but can be the poetry of the people.

(from Signs of the Times, Australia, March 2008, adapted by the author)

A Sabbath Poem (Rabia)

I HOPE GOD THINKS LIKE THAT
~ Rabia of Basra (c. 717-801)

There is a dog I sometimes take for a walk
and turn loose in a
field,

when I can’t give her that freedom
I feel in debt.

I hope God thinks like that and

is keeping track of all
the bliss He
owes
me.

Born nearly five hundred years before Rumi, Rabia was a central female Islamic figure of Sufi tradition. As a young woman, while wandering homeless, she was abducted, sold into slavery and spend decades working in a brothel, exposed to both physical and sexual abuse. Later in life, she became one of the greatest women saints and poets known to history. She once said, "What a place for trials and transformation did my lover put me, but never once did He look upon me as if I were impure." Rabia is a timely spiritual voice for women of this century, especially for any woman (or man) who had had to suffer the emotionally crippling degradation of unwanted touch. After she was given freedom, she helped people heal and was offered a bag of gold for her work, to which she responded, "Dear, if you leave that, flies with gather as if a horse just relieved himself, and I might slip in it while dancing."

(from the Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices
from the East and West, translation Daniel Ladinsky
- Penguin Compass, 2002)

Encounter the Mystics: Julian of Norwich

~ Dr. Frederick Roden is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Connecticut and lives in New York City. He has published primarily on homosexuality and Christianity. He is a lay Associate of the Episcopal Order of Julian of Norwich (see www.orderofjulian.org) and the author of a commentary companion to her text which will be published by Liturgical Press later this year. He is currently working on a book on Jewish/Christian intersections and can be reached at fsroden@aol.com.

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well…”  This familiar phrase of the 14th-century English writer Julian of Norwich inspired poet T. S. Eliot to look around his broken world—the devastation of twentieth-century war and genocide—and glimpse the power of the Unseen working in and through All Created Thing. We read these words and immediately assume that we should get what we’re asking for, that our prayers should be answered, that the outcome we crave is the outcome God will provide. In Julian’s theology, the answer is: yes and no. For her, as for all the great mystics and poets, the Divine is ever bursting through the material world. She maintains that we cannot know ourselves without knowing God; that God is nearer to us than our own souls. The depth of our human experience is firmly grounded in the Divine: the Divine is fully known in our material experience, not outside of it. Our deepest longings— our truest selves—are inseparable from God.

The problem comes with how things look on the outside versus inside. This question of separation versus inseparability defines Julian’s theology. She had prayed for a full experience of Jesus’s Passion. She wanted to feel the depth of human suffering her God knew. Her desire led to a vision that opened her awareness. Julian could not turn from the suffering human body of her God because there she found her heaven. Her God willed to know human suffering so deeply that it physically “one-ed” God with All Created Thing. Julian’s famous “all shall be well,” so often cited out of context, is God’s answer to her questioning of this eternal “one-ing.” How can all be well given the brokenness, suffering, and separation in the world? How can all be well given what she had been taught to understand as “sin”? In the theology Julian develops, “sin” is literally no-thing. It is separation: the wound that God constantly works to heal—the brokenness of our experience for which we can never be blamed. In and by our wounds (our divisions) we are healed and the world is made whole.

In Jewish terms, that opening is the space of tikkun olam, the repair of the world. In Julian’s words it is the work of “mercy” and “grace” dynamic and active in and through Creation. Julian’s God is a verb. This God’s sole purpose is healing separation. In a sense we have a choice whether to answer this call. Yet Divine Love (inseparable from Divine Reason) continuously works in and through us whether we like it or not, whether we cooperate or not! Julian’s Christianity understands this as the Incarnation, the Real Presence of the Divine acting through our material existence. This “Incarnation” isn’t limited to Jesus: there is no difference between God in Jesus the Christ and God operating throughout the material world. The degree and level of perfection (literally, as “fully realized,” “fully made”) may vary, but the Presence and call to be present is true for all of us in all incarnations.

Julian lived at a time of plague and war. Her society rigidly separated “saved” from “unsaved.” As much as she was a product of her culture, Julian challenged this view in claiming God as one: unity as the work, truth, and destiny of all Creation. She rejected a world-view that separated sheep from goats. While grounded in Christian Trinitarian theology, the singular experience of Divine Love working in and through the world defined that meaning Julian put forth as God’s message for all humanity. 

Julian never stopped asking questions of her God. Although professed as a hermit, her hermitage was attached to a church in a busy market town. Hers was no escape from the world but a way of living deeply in it, fully present to the experience of All Created Thing. With a literal window open to her society (who viewed her as a spiritual director) Julian conveyed her God’s ultimate message: one she spent over twenty years contemplating—the final answer to her question.  At the end of her visionary text (written in a time and place where few men and fewer women read, let alone wrote), she concluded that “Love was His meaning.”  In the end, all shall be Love. Julian did not intend that we await the end of time for realization of this Love. Rather, we are called to awaken to it in our lives as we glimpse the Divine—our truest self—in the face of The Other.

Blessed Julian of Norwich (1343-1423)

THE DAY OF

my spiritual awakening

    was the day I saw

    and knew I saw

       God in all things

       and all things in God.

"I don't know"

~ by Nathan Brown, author, Editor (Signs of the Times, Australia / New Zealand)

“One of my main efforts as a teacher has been to train people to say those (apparently difficult) words ‘we don’t know,’” commented Christian writer and long-time tutor at Oxford University, C S Lewis. Those “apparently difficult” words don’t come easily to any of us—and perhaps they are even more difficult in the mouths of people of conviction, whether religious or not.

But to admit “I don’t know” is an important spiritual discipline that we need to practice, precisely because it does not come easily. “You think that everyone should agree with your perfect knowledge,” wrote the Apostle Paul in the Bible. “While knowledge may make us feel important, it is love that really builds up … Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much” (1 Cor 8:1, 2).

To some, this might seem a denial of certainty or hope. But confessing “I don’t know” does not mean we know nothing. Admitting our imperfect knowledge, our fuzzy understanding and our stuttering explanations means we do not have to force our limited knowledge and understandings to answer questions much larger than those for which they are fitted. It is an expression of intellectual, faith-filled honesty and humility that opens us to fresh possibilities.

As Paul suggests, the more we learn, the more we discover we don’t know. But this should not be grounds for either a loss of faith, or discouragement and despair. The vastness and wonder of the world and ways of God are our greatest evidence of who we believe God to be. A God merely like us, understandable by us, managed by us, is ultimately of little use to us. Instead of roadblocks to faith, the challenges of explaining God are the starting points for contemplation.

Drawing on the Jewish tradition of exploring God by intense study of the Scriptures, Rob Bell points out that “the rabbis even say a specific blessing when they don’t understand a portion of the text. When it eludes them, when it makes no sense, they say a word of thanks to God because of the blessing that will be theirs someday. ‘Thank you, God, that at some point in the future, the lights are going to come on for me.'" By doing so, they assume that what they do not know or understand is better than they could guess at or imagine and so are content—for the time being—to trust the goodness of the God they seek.

Of course, such an attitude also has practical significance.  One of the greatest challenges of reaching out to those who are hurting and sorrowing around us is our assumption that we need to be able to answer their inevitable questions. That frightens us—we might be exposed as something less than the confident person of faith we wish we were. But when we are comfortable to say “I don’t know,” we can be simply human together, sharing their pain and grief—becoming agents of hope and healing to them by our presence and openness.

When we recognize that we are able to live by faith, even amid the questions we might try to suppress within ourselves, we realize that others can also live with, learn from and even appreciate our uncertainties. Freed from our assumptions that we have to have it all “nailed down” and “together” as a complete package of faith products to market to those around us, we can be more healthily comfortable in our faith and our faithful interactions with others.

Sometimes, “I don’t know” is the best, most satisfying and honest answer to many of our questions. Indeed, this might be the secret to sustainable faith in a God we will always struggle to comprehend.

A Sabbath Poem (St. Teresa)

THE SKY’S SHEETS
~ St. Teresa of Avila

When God touches me I clutch the sky’s
sheets,
the way other
lovers
do
the earth’s weave
of clay.
Any real ecstasy is a sign
you are moving
in the right
direction,
don’t let any prude tell
you otherwise.


(from the Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices
from the East and West, translation Daniel Ladinsky
- Penguin Compass, 2002)

River of Maybe

~ by Rabbi David Ingber

INTRODUCTION (by Samir Selmanovic)

Last Friday night I visited a wonderful Jewish congregation on the Upper West Side, Kehilat Romemu. In the spectrum of Judaism from classical to experimental, this congregation firmly holds on to both, reassuring and challenging at the same time. Rabbi David Ingber and I had met a week earlier in David’s apartment, where we passionately conversed about our dreams. No words can convey to you the warmth and depth of this community. I can only offer you a slice of my experience in hope that those of you who live in New York area will visit and see for yourself.

The service took place in a rented gym, Romemu’s new regular gathering place, with one wall of windows, many of them open, all the sounds of the street coming in. During the time of the service when we all turned towards Jerusalem (which happened to be turning our back to the windows), and when we were quietly vocalizing a Hebrew melody full of longing and hope, we were all interrupted by a woman’s voice singing on the street. 

The strong voice seemed to sing in Spanish, a melody that could be from South America or the Middle East. One could not tell. As her voiced entered the gym and overpowered ours, Rabbi David said, “let’s sing with her.”  So, we did. We all started improvising as one voice and wove our Hebrew melody into her song. Someone from the congregation shouted, “everyone, come to the window.”  We all turned around and came.  Soon, there were a hundred or so heads, all men wearing yarmulkes, looking out the windows.  Right in front of us was a Christian Easter procession, with eleven large black and white art pieces depicting the traditional stations of the cross and twelve young men dressed in white robes following a priest who was carrying a cross in the front.  They all stood in front of the building absorbed in their song. Apparently this part of Spanish Harlem was one of the stations.  The Jews started waving their hands above their heads, a motion of blessing, and many who saw us at the windows waved back.  We all got blessed!  What an awkward and sweet moment!

Then Rabbi David talked about Purim, and to illustrate his message he mentioned a video, “Stroke of Insight.”  His teaching about Purim was fitting and fascinating, so I asked him to send me his comments as well as the link for the video. Here they are:

ABOUT THE VIDEO “STROKE OF INSIGHT”:
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story of recovery and awareness -- of how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another (Recorded February 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 18:44.). To watch this powerful testimony to the spiritual aspect of our lives, click HERE.

COMMENTS BY RABBI DAVID INGBER:
It was an interesting Friday night, without a doubt. So many surprises, so much that spontaneously arose from the collective heart of all those present. Purim lends itself to non-normative or even anti-nomian practices, and what transpired Friday evening certainly qualifies as that. So many memorable moments from that prayer service, but without a doubt standing by the window, waving and blessing our fellow worshipers on the street, sticks out in my mind as special. Samir, may the day soon arrive where all that unites us as children of G-d outshines all divisions. 

Here is a brief rendition of my comments Friday evening:

The story of Purim takes place in a city called Shushan. Interestingly enough, we find two Shushans mentioned in the Bible. One is called "Shushan Habirah" or Capital Shushan and the other is called just "Shushan."  Apparently, according to many commentators, there was an inner city the capital—and an outer city, the area known as Shushan. Elsewhere in the Bible, in the book of Daniel, we find an interesting remark.  We are told that in order to enter the inner city of Shushan, Shushan Habirah, one had to cross a river. The river was called "Ulay". In Hebrew, "Ulay" means “perhaps” or “maybe.” The symbolic significance of this is profound. What emerges is the assertion that in order to enter the inner city of Shushan, the location of the King, where "liberation" and "transformation" can occur, one must cross over or enter into the great not-knowing, the mysterious realm of uncertainty where all things dissolve and all edges are rounded. This to some degree is hardwired into our very biology as you will see in the video. The video clip is a prayer, a plea for us to choose that part of our brain (right hemisphere) that blurs divisions, that allows for a melting of tensions that arise in the mind that divides. This is the mystery of the statement of the Rabbis that one is obligated on Purim to "imbibe until one cannot distinguish between ‘cursed is Haman’ and ‘blessed is Mordechai’". One day a year we allow ourselves to commit fully to the notion that all the lines we draw are functional, not ontological, instrumental means to essential ends.

Rabbi David Ingber studied Philosophy and Psychology at NYU, and has learned at a wide range of yeshivot in Jerusalem and New York, from the ultra-orthodox Yeshivat Chaim Berlin, through to modern orthodox institutions such as Beit Midrash leTorah and Yeshivat Chovovei Torah. Major influences include Rav Moshe Weinberger, David Goshen, and Rav DovBer Pinson. David received his smicha from Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.  He promotes a renewed Jewish emphasis on meditative practices and is working for the integration of sacred body practices into mainstream Judaism. For more about Rabbi David click HERE.  To read New York Times article about him click HERE.  For learning more about congregation Kehilat Romemu and for the schedule of their services click HERE.

A Sabbath Poem (Amichai)

THE PLACE WHERE WE ARE RIGHT
~ by Yehuda Amichai

From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring.

The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.

But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plow.

And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.

(You Don't Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right,
by Brad Hirschfield, Harmony Books, 2007)

Our Holy Days: Easter

~ by Samir Selmanovic    

Soon, we will embark on a journey of searching through the rich treasures of our holy days, festivals, observances, both through our upcoming Faith House gatherings and this website. As an early start, here is a quote by Rose Marie Berger describing an aspect of Easter, Holy Saturday, a time when death is the only reality and resurrection does not look like even a faint possibility.

"As a child, I was terrified of Good Friday and Holy Saturday. I dreaded those hours of "time out of time" that stretched between 3 p.m. on Friday when Jesus officially died on the cross and Jesus' resurrection, with a clap of alleluias, on Easter morning. It was in those in-between hours that God was dead---and we were alone in the world.

Suddenly, there was no spiritual safety net. Chaos ruled the world and we were defenseless against it. The isolation was nearly unbearable. As an adult, I learned theological mind-tricks to protect me from this fear of God's ultimate abandonment. But I confess, sometimes when I wake at 3 a.m., all I hear in the universe is emptiness..."

~ Rose Marie Berger

About God (part 3): The Problem of Joy

~ by Nathan Brown, author, Editor (Signs of the Times, Australia / New Zealand)

One of the most common objections to faith in God is what people often refer to as the problem of pain. The question is how could pain exist–and particularly how can apparently good people suffer it–in a world ruled by a supposedly good, loving, and all-powerful God. Because pain obviously exists, therefore it is impossible to believe in the God asserted by Christians, Jews, or Muslims. It is a vexing question, and many writers have sought to defend religion by meeting the question head on--with varying degrees of success.

However, those who want to disprove, discount, or discard God themselves face a problem possibly even more difficult to explain. It involves the good things in life--the joy and the beauty. Rather than asking “Why do bad things happen to good people?” (by which we probably mean us), we can just as legitimately ponder “Why do good things happen to bad people?” (which can also refer to us). Countless instances of inexplicable joy, beauty, and variety surround us. The world would be much simpler and would conceivably operate just as well without all of them.

For example, rather than the 850 species of birds in Australia (as listed in the Field Guide to Australian Birds), a half dozen generic species of birds would surely suffice. Similarly, the variety of colors, aromas, and tastes found in a selection of fruit or vegetables might seem unnecessary in practical terms. If we only pause to observe, we will find an astounding range of trees, fish, insects, rocks, and almost any other category we might choose. Or the world could easily be black and white, and we–not knowing any better–would get along quite satisfactorily. After all, some animals such as cats do not see color at all, and they do fine. There often seem no functional or practical reasons for so much of the beauty and sources of joy surrounding us in our everyday lives. And if we try to explain the world without God, then we also have to account for the abundance and even inefficiency of beauty.

Yes, both the philosophical and experiential problems of pain continue to persist—as well as the issue of why we find beauty even in a world filled with so much suffering.  Speaking of the natural world, C. S. Lewis, a Christian writer, asks: “How can it be so beautiful and also so cruel, wasteful and futile?” However, even the apparent futility of so much of the natural world itself raises the question of the temporary beauty. For example, why does an insect living for less than 24 hours have such delicate and finely detailed wings?

The difference is how we see it. As poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning puts it:

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
and every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
the rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.

Creator of the hidden colors in coral reefs, the fragile wings of butterflies, and the spectacular glory of the sunset, He is a God of both endless repetition and endless variety, but above all a God of endless beauty and joy.

Maybe the universe is not as silent and solemn as we often imagine:

“We are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of merciful comedy: because the frantic energy of divine things would knock us down like a drunken farce. We can take our own tears more lightly than we could take the tremendous levities of the angels. So we sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence, while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear” (G. K. Chesterton).

(adapted from 7 Reasons Life Is Better with God by Nathan Brown, 2007)

Live Words: Defending God

There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, "Business as usual." But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. They faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.

These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defence, not God's, that the self-righteous should rush.

                                                                        ~by Yann Martel

A Sabbath Poem (Piercy)

TO BE OF USE
~ by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

(from Good Poems, selected by Garrison Keillor)

Meet Our Advisory Council!

From the beginning of our journey, we have been convinced we could only succeed with the wisdom of people who are on a similar journey, who have a reservoir of experience and an extensive web of connections. After hundreds of emails, phone calls, and passionate conversations in coffee shops, Manhattan delis, offices, and places of worship, we have developed a network of more than thirty such people. We are ready to report that six months of hard work has paid off!

We chose our eight best candidates to form our first Advisory Council, sent them a letter, and sat tight, praying. We imagined their answers, "I believe in what you are doing, but I have to live a balanced life. I am learning to say No. I really support you, but I am overcommitted, too involved to do anything more. I hope you understand." At times we wondered why anyone with such influence would get involved with grassroots dreamers like us. Each of these individuals has already been working on their own mission to make a difference in the world. 

This past week we received answers from all eight with words like these. Yes, this is an idea whose time has come. Yes, I am impressed by how well thought through this project is. Yes, I would be honored to be a part of this. Yes, I am ready!

We are elated!  Hallelujah!

For the definition and the introductions click HERE.

Each of these wonderful people in their own way will help build our house! Can you help us too? Encourage us. Critique us. Pray for us. Support us.

Lots of love from New York!

For New Yorkers: 92nd St. Y Event

TO REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT, CLICK HERE

TO REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT, CLICK HERE

A Sabbath Poem (Ibn 'Arabi)

FIRE
~ by Muhammad
Ibn 'Arabi (Sufi Poet)

O Marvel! A garden amidst the flames of Love.
My heart has become capable of every form:
it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
a temple for the Hindu God's and the pilgrim's Ka'bah,
the tablets of the Torah and the book of the Qur'an.
I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love's camel takes me,
that is my religion and my faith.
(Thank you Rabia Gentile for sending us this poem!)

From a Novel "Life of Pi"

~ by Samir Selmanovic

I have been reading Life of Pi, a novel by Yann Martel that deserves all the praise it has been getting since it came out in 2001. I could not resist sharing this passage with you, even at the risk of doing so without checking whether I need a permission from the publisher. 

Main character, boy named Piscine Patel, grew up with his non-religious and pragmatic parents in India. Without their knowledge he developed a relationship with the local spiritual leaders and became a Christian, a Muslim, and a Hindu. The problem was that the priest, the imam, and the pandit did not know about the other two. Until Piscine's father invited all three of them for a meeting in Patel home (p. 66):

    My parents, the priest and the pandit looked incredulous.
    The pandit spoke. “You’re both wrong. He’s a good Hindu boy. I see him all the time at the temple coming for darshan and performing puja.”
    My parents, the imam and the priest looked astounded.
    “There is no mistake,” said the priest. “I know this boy. He is Piscine Molitor Patel and he’s a Christian.”
    “I know him too, and I tell you he’s a Muslim,” asserted the imam.
    “Nonsense!” cried the pandit. “Piscine was born  a Hindu, lives a Hindu and will die a Hindu!”
    The three wise men stared at each other, breathless and disbelieving.
    Lord, avert their eyes from me, I whispered in my soul.
    All eyes fell upon me.
    “Piscine, can this be true?” asked the imam earnestly. “Hindus and Christians are idolaters. They have many gods.”
    “And Muslims have many wives,” responded the pandit.
    The priest looked askance at both of them. “Piscine,” he nearly whispered, “there is salvation only in Jesus.”
    “Balderdash! Christians know nothing about religion,” said the pandit.
    “They strayed long ago from God’s path,” said the imam.
    “Where’s God in your religion?” snapped the priest. “You don’t have a single miracle to show for it. What kind of religion is that, without miracles?”
    “It isn’t a circus with dead people jumping out of tombs all the time, that’s what! We Muslims stick to the essential miracle of existence. Birds flying, rain falling, crops growing—these are miracles enough for us.”
    “Feathers and rain are all very nice, but we like to know that God is truly with us.”

A Sabbath Poem (Rumi - 4))

PRAYER IS AN EGG
~ by Jalaludin Rumi (1207-1273)

Don't do daily prayers like a bird
pecking, moving its head
up and down. Prayer is an egg.

Hatch out the total helplessness inside.

(translated by Coleman Barks)

The Community of More

~ Bill Ashlock is a seasoned business executive, writer, and want to be wood turner with a passion and calling to tend God’s trees.  Bill works out from Singapore, lives in California, and is often found in New York. His tools include innovation, excellence, and compassion with an unending view of community.

It was in India, the land of my birth, that I first found the desire to be in relationship with the Divine. I cannot recall a particular moment or event, when I came to accept the “truths” that influenced me in my early years. Looking back, one of these truths became particularly important to me: spirituality was not singular. My God-connection was more than my personal relationship with the Divine, for God always exists in community. My being is to be found in belonging to both God and humanity. 

I watched men publicly demonstrate their devotion to God. I saw some whip themselves as they walked to a temple, their lashed induced blood dripping with each stride. Others embraced extended periods of silence and withdrew from the world. Leaders of different religions, including the Christian religion of my upbringing, highlighted acts of dedication, fasting, and penitence, reminding their followers that they should do likewise. As I matured I found myself looking for something more.

A Sabbath Poem (Markova)

I WILL NOT DIE AN UNLIVED LIFE
~ by Dawna Markova

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

(from I Will Not Die an Unlived Life,
by Dawna Markova, Conari Press, 2000)

Religion and Violence

~ by Samir Selmanovic

January 21-21 Lauralea and I attended 38th Trinity Institute on "Religion and Violence: Untangling the Roots of Conflict" held at Trinity Wall Street episcopal church in New York. It was a powerful and thought-provoking event with satellite linked sites around the world. Speakers Katharine Jefferts Schori James Cone, Susannah Heschel, James Carroll, and Tariq Ramadan dug deep into the issues and provided us with opportunity to discuss, gain insight, and find hope.

I even had a chance for a conversation with Susannah Heschel whose father Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel is one of my top five all time favorite teachers, and with James Caroll whose book Constantine's Sword rocked everything I thought I knew about history of Christianity and Judaism when it came out in 2001. I was particularly interested in hearing Tariq Ramadan who did not get visa to come to the United States (for a no good reason!) and has joined us over a satellite connection. I was encouraged and inspired with his fresh interpretation of what Islam is about and his efforts in integrating its treasures with Western society. Although committed to different traditions, we felt spiritual kinship, hope pulling us like a river to the future.

Good news for all of you is that their presentations are now available on the Trinity Institute website. Just click HERE. If you don't have enough time to see everything, I would recommend these three presentations: James Carroll, Susannah Heschel, and Closing Panel.

For many of us the best part of the experience was participating in a small theological reflection group after each speaker. Seven of us from around the country that comprised our group bonded immediately as we wrestled with the issues and questions raised at the main sessions and shared our journeys, dreams, and hopes. I wholeheartedly recommend Trinity Institute conference in Manhattan. Come next year! The topic for 2009: Religion and Sustainability.

Live Words: Work of Human Beings

In the beginning, the Creator of the Universe, deciding to make a world, drew in the divine breath in order to make room for the creation coming into being. In this enlarged space, the Creator then set vessels, and into the vessels poured the brilliance of divine light. The light was too brilliant for the vessels, however, and unable to contain it, they shattered all over the universe. Since that time, the work of human beings has been to go about the universe, picking up the shards of creation and trying to mend and transform the vessels by refashioning them in a work called 'the repair of the world.'

                                    ~ Isaac Luria, 17th Century mystical Jewish theologian

A Sabbath Poem (Machado)

WAKE UP
~ by Antonio Machado

I love Jesus who told us
heaven and earth will pass.
When heaven and earth have passed,
my word will still remain.
O Jesus, what was your word?
Love? Forgiveness? Charity?
All your words were
one word: Awake!

(quoted in The Music of Time by John S. Dunne,
source: www.spiritualityandpractice.org)

Less Anti-theism, More Humanism

~ Greg Epstein serves as the Humanist Chaplain of Harvard