May Palmyra Syria NOT Be Destroyed

The world is raging with war, killings, destroyed lives....still.  We've barely left the most horrible century for human murder, the twentieth, and there is no sign that it will let up.
It is end of May 2015 and there are more refugees and displaced persons now than at the end of World War II.
Boat loads of people escaping turmoil, failed states, chaos, murder, hunger, running to find a better life.  As Thomas Friedman of the N.Y. Times put it, they're escaping dis-order, seeking order.  Most likely it will only get worse, as climate change and income inequality become more prevalent.  In California and large swaths of the western U.S., drought is taking its toll on the lives of the poorest.  Large industrial orchards suck groundwater deeply leaving poorer more shallow wells to run dry.  Towns in central California have had no running water for months now.

But I continue to Trust.  Continue to Accept that the arc of human destiny can only improve.  Continue to Understand that this movement for the better is a slow, almost imperceptible process.  I am hopeful...still.

So I share a long quote from Amos Oz, the Israeli author, taken from an interview in the Jewish Journal (http://www.jewishjournal.com/) May 15 - 21, 2015.  Oz is interviewed by Rob Eshman, Editor-in-Chief for the Jewish Journal and they're discussing the prospect of peace in the middle east and the necessity for wearing the uniform of armies:

Oz states: "Look, you have to live in this complicated world.  You have to be clearing the sewage from time to time, clean a blockage in the sewage.  And you do that, and you do that as well as you can do.  But there is not much pride in coming out of the sewage, stinking all over - you take a quick shower, you don't walk in the street claiming, "I just cleaned the sewage."  No, I don't feel any pride in wearing uniforms.  I find necessity.  I don't find...any beauty in bars on the windows and locks on the doors.  But they are a necessity."

I don't have a solution for this tangled, complicated, messy dis-ordered world we live in.
I don't know how to stop ISIS and other fanatics from killing, destroying, leaving terror and horror.

But I wanted to share Amos Oz' words because they echo how I feel.

May there be Peace, Shalom in this Dear World .......soon.

Hanukkah 2014

Seventh night of flaming light in our home.

Watching the women dance in the flame,
playing their instruments, background to the light.
Gratitude, always Gratitude.

Marsha and I have been through a mighty test.
She diagnosed with cancer, survived the brute
chemo radiation hell.
"If one survives this burning, cell killing poison
they must be meant to live,"
I commented to one of her doctors.
He just smiled.

Me losing my oldest and last sister.
We used to be three.
Issue of same mother and father.
Womb blood, blood of childhood fights, blood
of Mine.

There at her death.  Holding squeezing her hand
to let her know my presence.
She did.
She squeezed back even as she gasped for air
in her last days.
Every last bit of her strength was given up to breathe.
Every last bit of her strength squeezed out of her
each hour each minute
she fought
for air.
She fought for hours
till finally
the rattle
the tell tale sounds of the end.
I held onto her hand to the end.
Until it was over.

I've been Blessed with
Being Present at the death of
both of my sisters.
Blessed with holding them
long after their last
breath.

What a year we've had.
I am grateful that we can give light to Women Playing
silent tunes
with these miracle flames.

Prayer Written for my B'Nai Mitzvah Class

Marsha & I are taking a B'Nai Mitzvah class, with our Bat Mitzvahs scheduled to take place Saturday, July 26th (2014).
Our Temple, Beth Chayim Chadashim (http://www.bcc-la.org) happens to be the very first, yes folks, the world's FIRST gay and lesbian (and bi and transgender) Temple in the world.
Rabbi Heather Miller who is leading our class has asked us to create a prayer.  Easy for me because I pray to G-d daily, several times a day.  
If you've read some or all of this blog, you'll find several prayers which I've written over the years. Here is a new one:

My Dearest G-d
Barauch Ha'Shem
My Dearest G-d
Yod Hai Vov Hai
Adonai
Shekhinah
El Shadai
Ha Shem
Help me to love You with all my heart and soul.
Help me to realize that loving You is the MOST important thing in my life.
Thank You for my life, for my wife - the woman who completes me -
for my health, home, family, and friends.
Thank You for the Creation of this Dear World.
Thank You for making me a Jew, for creating me in Your image, and for sustaining me in all that I do.
Amen

Flying to the End of the Earth One Day

I am still moving in with Marsha.
Post wedding, I have time to go through old files and...
lo and behold, came across a ditty from years and years ago.
A quarter page of Frances Stern Nutrition Center letterhead cut neatly to make scrap paper.
(more about Frances Stern
Nutrition Center in a future post)
On the back of the scrap letterhead, I'd written the following:

Flying to the end of the earth one day
      I beheld Golden Irises...
Diving to the floor of the deepest sea
      somersault seahorses dance with me...
Listening to the stars as they fade away
      I can hear angels laughing.

I'm sure that I did NOT write this.....but for the life of me, I can't recall where these lines came from.

Does anyone know?
I think it's beautiful.

Our Wedding Cake created by Joanie & Leigh's Cakes

     Our Wedding Cake

Needless to say, I have been quite occupied in the past year!
I met Marsha Epstein on J-Date (Jewish Dating) back in January, 2013.  We met face to face on February 22, 2013 and my life hasn't been the same.
We wed just one month ago on March 16, 2014.

I can honestly say, that I have never been happier in my entire life.

Now that the wedding planning is over, I will have time to write and continue to share my heart and thoughts with whomever happens upon this blog.

Poem written by Lucille Clifton

"i am accused of tending to the past"
       by  Lucille Clifton

i am accused of tending to the past
as if i made it,
as if i sculpted it
with my own hands.  i did not.
this past was waiting for me
when i came,
a monstrous unnamed baby,
and i with my mother's itch took it to breast
and named it
History.
she is more human now,
learning languages everyday,
remembering faces, names an dates.
when she is strong enough to travel
on her own, beware, she will.

[Lucille Clifton b. 1936 d. 2010, was a phenomenal poet who wrote about feminist and African American themes.]

Waking Confusion

I awake in my bed this morning, not yours.
My legs search for the luxury of your warmth in vain.
Back and forth your house mine.
Were it not for precise schedules long discussed
written down
schedules not remembered
without a book
we could not track whose bed we sleep in.

One, two nights at the most we sleep alone
else the hunger for your touch
slay me.