DC Across the River
I've lived and worked in our nations capital--but I live across the river and very close to the home of George Washington. So I like to think about what it means to be a part of this great city... and what the heck is a half-smoke, anyway?
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
What interfaith High Holiday services look like
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Sabbaths on the Moon
I'm sure when Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth, and Armstrong was the first human being to walk on the moon, that they did have to remind themselves to breathe. But on at least two of the moon missions--Apollo 8, which orbited the moon at Christmas 1968, and Apollo 11, which first landed on the moon a little more than six months later, the astronauts actually created sacred spaces within their spacecraft.
The Apollo 8 crew read the Creation story from Genesis while in lunar orbit... |
Madalyn Murray O'Hair, a well-known atheist activist at the time, had brought a lawsuit following the Genesis reading. So when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, Buzz Aldrin gave himself communion aboard the lunar module after offering following suggestion to those listening on the ground:
...and Buzz Aldrin took communion on the lunar surface during the Apollo 11 mission. |
I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours, and to give thanks in his or her own way.
In these days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when we think about, among other things, how to keep the sacred in our lives, I'm touched by these explorer's simple efforts to create spaces for the sacred-- that could accomodate faiths in addition to their own. I also can't help but be affected by the way that they were moved to do so when their experiences simply defied words.
L'Shanah Tovah. And may we be inspired by these otherworldly Sabbaths.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
L'Shanah Tovah!
Apples and honey: the traditional treat eaten on Rosh Hashanah to express the hope that the new year will be sweet. |
Forces beyond my control again conspired to keep me away from Rosh Hashanah services again tonight. Which is a shame. The Interfaith Families Project is putting on its own Rosh Hashanah service for the first time tonight. They have brought so much to my family's life and I am thrilled to be involved with them. (Check out the article in today's Washington Post about some other families like mine that are worship with IFFP.) But I celebrated with my family with the traditional apples and honey, spent some time with the kids as they painted. All in all, it was a good way to mark the beginning of the Jewish year.
Being in an interfaith family, I think often about Rosh Hashanah and its meaning. I like the idea of a "birthday" or literally "head of the year," as the Hebrew name for the holiday means. I've never really marked years on January 1st, or on my birthday. Rosh Hashanah has been much more of a signpost of the beginning of things for me. It's when the school year started, and when the jobs I had been in still felt fresh and new. The idea of taking stock was always very appealing to me. And, as Joseph Campbell tells us, the theme of rebirth and renewal at the beginning of the year is a most ancient one.
Traditionally, the Jewish New Year marks the number of years since the Creation. So I hope that the year 5771 brings greater understanding among people of different faiths (Jewish, Christian and Muslim); that our society nurses itself closer to economic and social health; and that we all stay safe, happy and healthy. That's my hope. May it be a year as sweet as the apples and honey that we shared tonight.
Friday, September 3, 2010
My Review of Custom Eula
Rockin' bag!
Pros: Rugged, Lightweight, Comfortable, Adjustable, Lots of Storage, Stylish
Cons: No key cord
Best Uses: Not Just Biking
Describe Yourself: Office Professional, Busy Dad with Much Stuff
Primary use: Personal
Was this a gift?: No
I bought this bag for use on the weekend to carry keys, camera, shades, journal, etc. I already have a basic black Timbuk2 messenger that I use for work. My new custom Eula is ab fab. The only thing "missing" is the key cord that's in the big messenger but I'm otherwise thrilled. My stuff is out of my pockets. I don't have to be searching through them to find my keys any more.
(legalese)
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Princesses are from Mars, Glenn Beck is from...
The lovely Dejah Thoris, courtesy of Rob Ullman. Can amity between red and green Martians, and Earthlings, be a model for ourselves? |
Earlier this summer, Rob Ullman, a cartoonist and artist whose oevre includes sports, comic books, science fiction and culture drew a portrait of Dejah Thoris, Princess of Mars from Edgar Rice Burroughs’s book of the same name. I’ve never been a huge sci fi fan myself. (OK, I went to one Star Trek convention years ago, but that’s a separate story.) Still, having read Burrough’s Tarzan when I was a kid, I picked up a copy.
A Princess of Mars came out nearly a century ago, and it’s far from a Nobel- or Booker-worthy read. (After all, there are fifteen-foot tall, six-appendaged green monsters and the aforementioned Ms. Thoris wears no clothing apart from her jewels.) But the scenes between John Carter, the novel’s hero who is mysteriously transported from Arizona to the plains of Mars (which the inhabitants call Barsoom), and Dejah Thoris are wonderful to read because of the civility and formality with which they address each other—like when Dejah Thoris tells John Carter that she has been engaged to another man:
“It is too late, John Carter, my promise is given, and on Barsoom that is final. The ceremonies which follow later are meaningless formalities. They make the fact of marriage no more certain than does the funeral cortege of a jeddak again place the seal of death upon him. I am good as married, John Carter. No longer may you call me your princess. No longer are you my chieftain.”
They speak to each other reverently. Now distinguish this from our political discourse. As it’s all too easy to tell from watching the campaigns, and the reaction to recent debates about healthcare reform, economic stimulus and so on, we live in a poisonous political environment. Leslie Marshall, who hosts a talk radio show out of Los Angeles, asked the other night what was missing from politics. I said a sense of civility, particularly since Glenn Beck’s rally at the Lincoln Memorial had just happened. A little to my surprise, the event turned out to be more church revival than Nuremburg rally. (Never mind that neither he nor most media addressed the double standard between vilifying a Muslim community center proposed for “hallowed ground” in lower Manhattan and holding a right-wing rally on the steps of Lincoln Memorial, on the anniversary of the “I Have a Dream” speech.)
As I thought more about Leslie’s question, though, and contemplated the root causes of the lack of civility, I dare say that I thought Beck may be on to something. Far from me to think that injecting Christian revivalism into politics is a good thing. But I think what’s missing from politics is a sense that we are all created in God’s image. Even those of us who worship a different God—or no God at all. I’m now preparing for my second year of teaching interfaith fifth graders about the life and times of Jesus. Being in an interfaith marriage, I can say that I’ve had so much joy brought into my life by being open to more than one form of belief. I only wish that our politicians (and us, as a culture) could be more interested in living our motto: “out of many, one.”
Watch! This! Space!
A posting to follow--very possibly tonight! |
What have we learned?
- American politics are even nastier than we thought they were.
- It takes just about a hundred days to plug a hole in the ocean.
- The benefit provided to a baseball team by a rookie pitching phenom (during his rookie year) is inversely proportional to the size of the contract signed by said rookie.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
What Part of "Happy Interfaith Marriage" Do Some People Not Understand?
You can read the article for itself, but what I find most grating about it is that pretty much all she cites are studies that retread all the arguments I've heard about interfaith couples, right up to "the family that prays together, stays together." Well, my family prays together. We say grace at dinnertime and we go to faith gatherings together. When I have some concern about someone's health, job, or life, I pray. Does this always happen at a synagogue, or a church? No. Is it exclusively Jewish or exclusively Catholic? No. But we have a shared experience in faith. And after a year of teaching a Sunday school class on the historical Jesus, I can say that I know more about Judaism and Jesus--and what my wife's and my own faiths have in common--than I ever did before.
Well, this has left me far too upset than I should be on a Sunday night. It's off to the grocery store and then to prepare a nice Sunday dinner. In an interfaith household in which we thank God every day that He led us to each other.