Last night I was elected president of my temple. The most common reaction I get when I share this news is, “Are you crazy? Why are you doing that? It’s so much work.
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I was surprised to find a quote from Jon Bon Jovi in the book Imagining Abundance. Fundraising, Philanthropy and a Spiritual Call to Service, by Kerry Alys Robinson, but the content made sense:
Miracles happen every day, change your perception of what a miracle is and you’ll see them all around you.
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A few years ago I posted a letter my grandfather had written to my father on VE Day. My father was in Germany when the war ended.
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At the beginning of a lecture I saw yesterday, Congressman Jamie Raskin, whose most recent book is Unthinkable. Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy, said that by the end of his talk he hoped to offer a more apt version of a quote from Mother Jones:
Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.
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I am not a gardener. I find weeding as unsatisfying as housework. Everything looks good for the moment, and then you have to start all over again.
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The Board of Trustees of my temple met last week. As I looked around the table, I realized there was approximately a 60-year age difference between the eldest member and the youngest!
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Spring drew on…and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, 1847
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As certain as weather coming from the west, the things people know for sure will change. There is no knowing for a fact. The only dependable things are humility and looking.
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I had not intended to write more about questions, but then I attended a talk featuring Tina Packer and Mark Farrell, the co-directors of The Approach, a forthcoming production at Shakespeare and Company.
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Last week I wrote that the most important thing college graduates should have learned is how to ask questions of themselves and others. I was thinking too, of my own life. Since retiring I find myself asking new, existential questions.
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The Spring 2022 issue of “Moment Magazine” is devoted to education. One of the articles is “What Is the One Thing Students Should Leave College Knowing?”
During my 40 year career in higher education the question of what students should know and be able to do was one my colleagues and I considered often.
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The latest episode of Call the Midwife opened with this meditation from Sister Monica Joan:
Everyone knows that birds migrate, but not which country they believe to be their home. The hard, hot cloudless climate of the south or the fragile gray-white warmth of our own climes. But perhaps the birds are simply lucky. They have the best of both worlds.
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All news interests me. I read the NY Times and my local newspaper, The Berkshire Eagle, daily. I follow NPR. But right now, I wish I could block it all out. The war in Ukraine, climate change, racism, antisemitism, misogyny, conspiracy theories, partisan politics. COVID...
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Today is the vernal equinox; day and night are almost exactly equal. Here in the northern hemisphere, it’s the first day of spring. The good news is that days will get longer and warmer.
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A friend of mine just sent me copy of a book, What Falls Away, Writers over 60 on Writing and Death. The title of the book comes from a poem by Theodore Roethke, “The Waking,” the last line of which is “I learn by going where I have to go.”
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When I was a little girl, I was afraid of “the bomb.” I didn’t exactly know what “the bomb” was, other than it was certain to destroy me, my family and everything I cared about.
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My friend and haiku exchange partner recently sent me an article from Poetry Soup about the nonet, a nine line poem that starts with a nine syllable line and decreases one syllable each line until the last line of one syllable (9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1).
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On January 27, I read the obituary of Rabbi Israel Dresner in the New York Times. A “Civil Rights Champion and King Ally,” he was 92 when he died. His son had this to say about him:
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In part due to the pandemic, there has been lot of talk lately about work-life balance. People working remotely, often from suburban or rural areas, spared lengthy commutes, have discovered a new quality of life
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Since the attack on a synagogue in Texas three weeks ago, synagogues around the country have been reexamining their security measures and providing “situational awareness” training
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