I just came across a piece I wrote some time ago about the "American dream." I have no idea what the occasion was, but it doesn’t take a huge incentive to get me talking about this country. I’ve got a love for America that I suspect I was fed with my mother’s milk, because to both of my parents this was the Promised Land.
Given that, what I said there about the "American Dream" didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me was how intimately my thoughts about making that dream a reality in one’s life relate to another cherished part of my life. I’m talking about faith.
In the piece that fortuitously came into my hands, I wrote that the American Dream "is not something you have at night, it’s something you do, day by day." That could well serve–and serve well–as a description of how I think about faith. How I experience it.
To me, faith, like the American Dream, isn’t something you have. It’s something you do. That right, day by day. As the American Dream requires rigorous effort, so does faith. At the outset, for both, we can, if we’re inclined to be attentive to the world around us, find. . ideas. . .people...actions. Little pieces that we can work with, which may turn out to connect readily–or with sweat-producing effort–to each other. Eventually, perhaps, to shape into a way of life that is rich with possible joy It can’t happen overnight–obviously–because, as I said, it is not something that happens when you’re asleep. So it takes wakefulness, work, time.
Which is why, understandably, for almost all of us, there is a sporadic temptation to give up on the American dream–or on faith. The daily effort required turns out to be more than we think we can bear–or, certainly, feel like putting out when the outcome isn’t even guaranteed. We decide to give up on the dream, or on faith, and move on. But dreams and faith can both be stubborn. You may let go of them, but they may not let go of you. They may insist on your attention. And, eventually, that you renew your intention to make them come to life.
My folks willingly–enthusiastically–took on the hard work of making the American dream a reality in their lives. Once my father thought he came this close–and it collapsed on them. But, painfully slowly, my mother and father emerged from the rubble and tried again. And again. They never brought the whole dream to life, but neither did they give up trying. And, it seems to me, that the trying itself may have tasted to them a lot like the dream fulfilled would have. After all, it’s called the American Dream because it could only happen here. Here, the place they called, without irony, the Promised Land.
With faith, it seems to work something like this. If–when–we give up on it, faith seems to drift easily away, in no time becomes quite distant. And yet, it can return at any time, tap us on the shoulder, or kick us in the butt–announce itself as present. Let us know, in no uncertain terms, I may be small, but I’m here. And you really ought to consider letting me into your life again.
Building a life where faith is the everyday reality can be as hard as my parents’ experience of America. But–no, and–every bit as fulfilling.
Truth is, I’m counting on it.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
nobodysgod
In my last post, I said that I saw prayer as a way of keeping in touch with God. I think that phrase could use some clarifying.
You know how some people "keep in touch" by sending one another an annual holiday card? Or sending an annual family "catch-up" letter? My idea of keeping in touch is definitely not like that. To me "keeping in touch" means maintaining–sustaining–a relationship in an everyday way. Being present to the relationship in an ongoing way. Sometimes intimately, sometimes with simply an awareness that it’s there, a part of your life.
And with any other good mutual relationship, when you really need to know it’s there. . . you know it’s there. You don’t need to squander time or energy "catching up" before you bring up what’s troubling your mind or
heart or spirit. Or are facing a terrible event.
My mother’s dying night was like that for me. Our relationship was "clean"–there was nothing to bring out or up which had been shoved under the rug, so to speak. There was no need to tidy up our relationship. We had no loose ends to try to tie up. The only thing I had left to tell her was that I loved her, which I said many times that night. Words said not to inform, but in an attempt to be present to her even as she became less and less present to me. I was not saying it in hopes she would tell me she loved me too, because I knew that as surely as she knew I loved her. In that, as in every other way, it was our habit to keep in touch. Thankfully, that was our reality, because, well before morning, she was too far away to speak.
Maybe that’s when I learned the value of always keeping in touch with those who are important to you. Whom you love. I am pretty sure it’s why I do my best now to keep in touch with God–Whom I didn’t know back then. In the years since He came into my life, my wish is to be as present to Him as He is to me has only grown. So that when He needs me to be truly kind to someone, I will be ready to hear that from Him. And when I am impelled to alert Him to some emergency in my life or the life of a friend, He doesn’t dismiss my prayer with some divine version of "I know, I know," He allows me to think for the moment that He had to hear it from me. When life rebounds to normality, I can admit to both of us that I knew He knew what was going on, and was "on" it. I just had to remind myself of that.
Today, I know the Shekhinah–God’s softer, maternal half–is holding Japanese babies especially close to Her. Against Her very breast. I know She’s with them. Still, I pray for that. It reminds me that I need to keep them close to my heart, too.
You know how some people "keep in touch" by sending one another an annual holiday card? Or sending an annual family "catch-up" letter? My idea of keeping in touch is definitely not like that. To me "keeping in touch" means maintaining–sustaining–a relationship in an everyday way. Being present to the relationship in an ongoing way. Sometimes intimately, sometimes with simply an awareness that it’s there, a part of your life.
And with any other good mutual relationship, when you really need to know it’s there. . . you know it’s there. You don’t need to squander time or energy "catching up" before you bring up what’s troubling your mind or
heart or spirit. Or are facing a terrible event.
My mother’s dying night was like that for me. Our relationship was "clean"–there was nothing to bring out or up which had been shoved under the rug, so to speak. There was no need to tidy up our relationship. We had no loose ends to try to tie up. The only thing I had left to tell her was that I loved her, which I said many times that night. Words said not to inform, but in an attempt to be present to her even as she became less and less present to me. I was not saying it in hopes she would tell me she loved me too, because I knew that as surely as she knew I loved her. In that, as in every other way, it was our habit to keep in touch. Thankfully, that was our reality, because, well before morning, she was too far away to speak.
Maybe that’s when I learned the value of always keeping in touch with those who are important to you. Whom you love. I am pretty sure it’s why I do my best now to keep in touch with God–Whom I didn’t know back then. In the years since He came into my life, my wish is to be as present to Him as He is to me has only grown. So that when He needs me to be truly kind to someone, I will be ready to hear that from Him. And when I am impelled to alert Him to some emergency in my life or the life of a friend, He doesn’t dismiss my prayer with some divine version of "I know, I know," He allows me to think for the moment that He had to hear it from me. When life rebounds to normality, I can admit to both of us that I knew He knew what was going on, and was "on" it. I just had to remind myself of that.
Today, I know the Shekhinah–God’s softer, maternal half–is holding Japanese babies especially close to Her. Against Her very breast. I know She’s with them. Still, I pray for that. It reminds me that I need to keep them close to my heart, too.
Monday, March 14, 2011
nobodysgod
I didn't write anything to post last week because, when life piles on too much too quickly, I try mightily to put first things first. The past week was one of those. And while keeping to my blogging schedule is high on my to-do list, this week nothing on that list--including the earthquake--outranked one wholly unexpected event close to home. The twenty-six year-old nephew of a very good friend had a heart attack Tuesday, a whopper of one. I watched the earthquake on television, and the tsunami, and the fires and hoped I cared enough, but was pretty sure I fell short. On Friday, my friend's nephew underwent quadruple bypass surgery. Late Friday night, I heard: he came through the surgery well--which sounds as though he passed some difficult graduate school admissions exam. But I heard through the stock medicalese that it was time to take a deep breath of relief--and let gratitude in.
Over the weekend, morning by evening, day by day, I heard that a tube had been removed, he was sitting up, yet another tube was removed, he walked a bit in the hospital corridor, he ate something. I did not give short shrift to any report, knowing that bit by bit is precisely how one reclaims a life. I have been told, and it makes sense, that from this point on in his recovery, being young will help. But wasn't he too young to need such radical intervention--to need to reclaim his life?
The television chides me: look again at the children of the earthquake, the infants whose mothers were carried off by the tsunami or fathers burned by fire--the young of Japan whose fight to reclaim a life will be far, far slower, if it happens at all.
My heart takes over chiding me. For my friend's nephew, I did what I could. All I could. I prayed and prayed and prayed. So now, while I continue to pray for his full recovery, I need to make space inside me to pray for those Japanese children. And the old there. And those in the middle. All who have survived. And those who have not.
I don't know what prayer does, other than keep me centered and relatively sane. But I believe it does more. I believe it reminds God that I know He is there. And I'm counting on Him to do what He can. Just as, I believe, He counts on me to do my part, which is to pray. To keep in touch.
Please note: Whenever I come to a place where it is appropriate to use a pronoun rather than "God," I use the male pronoun. In numerous Jewish settings, including my own synagogue, to avoid using the male pronoun, "God" is repeated. Sometimes, a descriptive phrase-name (such as "The Ineffable") is substituted for "God." I am averse to either method of avoiding the use of the male pronoun. The English language includes pronouns for a reason. They allow language to be fluid. That is not a small matter to me, both as a wirter and lover of language. But if I take a somewhat narrow view of usage, my view of God is not narrow. Both my mind and spirit know that God is not male exclusively. Both my mind and spirit know God as both male and female. I hope that my persistence in using the out-of-favor male pronoun will not prove an insuperable obstacle to your reading this blog. If you want to argue about it, I'm open--write me here or on my Facebook page.
Over the weekend, morning by evening, day by day, I heard that a tube had been removed, he was sitting up, yet another tube was removed, he walked a bit in the hospital corridor, he ate something. I did not give short shrift to any report, knowing that bit by bit is precisely how one reclaims a life. I have been told, and it makes sense, that from this point on in his recovery, being young will help. But wasn't he too young to need such radical intervention--to need to reclaim his life?
The television chides me: look again at the children of the earthquake, the infants whose mothers were carried off by the tsunami or fathers burned by fire--the young of Japan whose fight to reclaim a life will be far, far slower, if it happens at all.
My heart takes over chiding me. For my friend's nephew, I did what I could. All I could. I prayed and prayed and prayed. So now, while I continue to pray for his full recovery, I need to make space inside me to pray for those Japanese children. And the old there. And those in the middle. All who have survived. And those who have not.
I don't know what prayer does, other than keep me centered and relatively sane. But I believe it does more. I believe it reminds God that I know He is there. And I'm counting on Him to do what He can. Just as, I believe, He counts on me to do my part, which is to pray. To keep in touch.
Please note: Whenever I come to a place where it is appropriate to use a pronoun rather than "God," I use the male pronoun. In numerous Jewish settings, including my own synagogue, to avoid using the male pronoun, "God" is repeated. Sometimes, a descriptive phrase-name (such as "The Ineffable") is substituted for "God." I am averse to either method of avoiding the use of the male pronoun. The English language includes pronouns for a reason. They allow language to be fluid. That is not a small matter to me, both as a wirter and lover of language. But if I take a somewhat narrow view of usage, my view of God is not narrow. Both my mind and spirit know that God is not male exclusively. Both my mind and spirit know God as both male and female. I hope that my persistence in using the out-of-favor male pronoun will not prove an insuperable obstacle to your reading this blog. If you want to argue about it, I'm open--write me here or on my Facebook page.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
All my adult life, I have been a supporter of the right to free speech. How could I not be, when my parents came here from a country where speaking freely could cost you your life? Even when the First Amendment permits hate-filled people to vent their hatred, I know that their rights are important to protect. But this week, my belief in the sanctity–in the beauty–of the First Amendment was tested. And I flunked the test.
This past Wednesday, the Supreme Court voted 8-1 that the morally hideous signs held aloft by the Phelps family outside the funeral of Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder were protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. The majority decision said that, because the Phelps family’s demonstration was "political, public and peaceable," it did not fall outside the First Amendment’s protection. Sympathy for the grieving Snyder family was noted, but irrelevant.
I have no doubt that was a correct interpretation. But to be correct is not the same thing as being right. And something about that ruling didn’t feel right to me. I wondered how it felt to God, Whom the Phelpses’ placards listed as a supporter.
Then I remembered a question that is–or ought to be–part of our national memory. During the Army-McCarthy hearings, sixty years ago–miraculously televised by ABC–Senator Joseph McCarthy went after a young lawyer named Fred Fisher. Fisher wasn’t even present, because Mr. Welch, Special Counsel to the Army, had decided not to use Fisher's services when the young man admitted that he had as a still younger man belonged to the Lawyers Guild which apparently had a Communist connection. Despite the fact that, due to Mr. Welch’s caution, Fred Fisher was not in any way involved in the hearings, Senator McCarthy, out for blood, brought up Fisher’s youthful mistake. He chewed on it and chewed on it, would not let it go. Finally, in a voice that can never be forgotten by anyone who heard it, Mr. Welch said to Senator McCarthy, "Have you no decency sir, at long last?"
Why did the Supreme Court ruling bring to my mind the increasingly heated exchange between Joseph Welch and Senator McCarthy? The connection is found in Welch’s use of the word "decency." The way Phelps and his feral family behaved may have been constitutional, but it wasn’t decent.
In this country, most of us hold dissent very high among our democracy’s virtues. I’ve read that the 8-1 decision this week may help the cause of free speech, and some say that there’s never too high a price for that. Maybe. But should not dissent be leavened with humanity? With, yes, decency? With enough simple decency to allow a fallen marine’s family to conduct his funeral service in peace?
This past Wednesday, the Supreme Court voted 8-1 that the morally hideous signs held aloft by the Phelps family outside the funeral of Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder were protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. The majority decision said that, because the Phelps family’s demonstration was "political, public and peaceable," it did not fall outside the First Amendment’s protection. Sympathy for the grieving Snyder family was noted, but irrelevant.
I have no doubt that was a correct interpretation. But to be correct is not the same thing as being right. And something about that ruling didn’t feel right to me. I wondered how it felt to God, Whom the Phelpses’ placards listed as a supporter.
Then I remembered a question that is–or ought to be–part of our national memory. During the Army-McCarthy hearings, sixty years ago–miraculously televised by ABC–Senator Joseph McCarthy went after a young lawyer named Fred Fisher. Fisher wasn’t even present, because Mr. Welch, Special Counsel to the Army, had decided not to use Fisher's services when the young man admitted that he had as a still younger man belonged to the Lawyers Guild which apparently had a Communist connection. Despite the fact that, due to Mr. Welch’s caution, Fred Fisher was not in any way involved in the hearings, Senator McCarthy, out for blood, brought up Fisher’s youthful mistake. He chewed on it and chewed on it, would not let it go. Finally, in a voice that can never be forgotten by anyone who heard it, Mr. Welch said to Senator McCarthy, "Have you no decency sir, at long last?"
Why did the Supreme Court ruling bring to my mind the increasingly heated exchange between Joseph Welch and Senator McCarthy? The connection is found in Welch’s use of the word "decency." The way Phelps and his feral family behaved may have been constitutional, but it wasn’t decent.
In this country, most of us hold dissent very high among our democracy’s virtues. I’ve read that the 8-1 decision this week may help the cause of free speech, and some say that there’s never too high a price for that. Maybe. But should not dissent be leavened with humanity? With, yes, decency? With enough simple decency to allow a fallen marine’s family to conduct his funeral service in peace?
Friday, February 25, 2011
Nobody's God
February 25, 2011.
Dear God! Sometimes I don’t even want to talk to You, let alone pray. It used to be so simple between us: I talked to You, I listened to You, I talked back, You told me off, I stalked off, cooled off, came back, and we started over. No, it was better than that. We picked up where we left off. We communicated. Truly communicated. The way my mother and I used to, so there were never any jagged leftovers lying in wait to give either of us a splinter. I did so love that woman, my complicated, difficult mother. I didn’t love her weaknesses, but I didn’t take advantage of them, either. I don’t know if You have weaknesses (I suspect one or two). Regardless, you’re God. Loving and. . . mature. Why would you take advantage of my weaknesses?
Take my weakness to edit everything in sight. Here’s an example and, for the record, it’s not a small one to me.
It has to do with a prayer–and a particular pray-er. A dear friend who prays for me every day. I am someone who’s grateful to be prayed for. I am especially grateful to be in the prayers of people who are convinced that God is a good listener. While I am inclined to think that the main–and certainly salutary–result of prayer is to center the person praying, I do believe that our prayers can, may, and do occasionally move God to act.
So I watch what I pray for.
That, it turns out, is the easy part for me. What I find hard is to remember that I have no business even daydreaming about editing someone else’s prayers. Talk about chutzpah! Yet it sometimes takes every bit of my spiritual energy to push that desire down and keep it there.
I do believe that, as "Nobody’s God" belongs to no faith group, He must be adamant about the right of people to pray not only how but also for what they want to. That’s the open-minded God I pray to, right? Believe in. Check. And I know there’s no point in believing in God if you don’t trust Him. Yet whenever I think of this one prayer by my friend, I repeatedly yank back my trust. I don’t want to have to trust that God will not–to teach me a lesson, or on a divine whim–grant her prayer, I want to be sure. Because if. . . that would destroy my faith in God’s open-mindedness. Which is no lower than point three of my personal creed.
The devil is in the details? Here goes. This is not just any friend, but a friend whom I have grown to love, who prays for me on a daily basis. When another friend of mine is mired in a particular difficulty, I do not hesitate to enlist this dear friend’s prayers to accompany mine. When I find myself in a smooth-walled hole, she is the friend I ask to help hoist me up by adding her prayers to my own. I ask her because I know she really prays.
The problem is, my friend prays every day for me to be saved. To be redeemed by Jesus. She knows that I was for a time a Catholic, and maybe that feeds her hope, but I doubt it. You see, my friend definitely does not believe in "nobody’s God"–only hers. Her Jesus belongs to my friend’s "Bible-Centered Baptist church." The church is evangelical, and so is she. When we’re running an errand, she speaks of how, specifically, he is helping our day along. She’s not displaying her intimate relationship with Jesus for my benefit. He is her constant companion–in both senses. The immediacy of her faith is wonderful to witness–but also discomforting.
My friend and I do not argue theology, we don’t discuss theology. She knows by heart all she feels she needs to know about God. Including that, unless I accept Jesus as my Lord, I am doomed.
And so she prays for that, my surrender to Jesus. Every day. My head knows that I cannot revise her prayer, edit it so that she prays instead that God will guide me along my own path. Mind you, I do not ever say–even think–"been there, done that." I cannot imagine being that disrespectful of either her faith or our friendship.
Once, as we sat on my couch, for a brief visit away from my work, hers, or an errand, she said, I think your view of God is wider than mine, mine is narrower than yours. I waited, hovering on the cusp of joy. But she stopped there. She is happy with her narrower view. She loves her church. Her Bible-study guide. Her Jesus. And because she loves me, she prays for me to surrender to them all. Because, she tells me, the prospect of missing me in Heaven makes her sad.
I do not tell her that I believe Heaven is bigger than she thinks, or that God is. Let Nobody’s God fend for Himself. I am learning. Learning there is nothing I can say to my friend. Learning that what I can do is pray that my love of God will lead me to Heaven. And that when my friend and I come face to face there, we will embrace wordlessly, as loving friends do when they meet up.
Dear God! Sometimes I don’t even want to talk to You, let alone pray. It used to be so simple between us: I talked to You, I listened to You, I talked back, You told me off, I stalked off, cooled off, came back, and we started over. No, it was better than that. We picked up where we left off. We communicated. Truly communicated. The way my mother and I used to, so there were never any jagged leftovers lying in wait to give either of us a splinter. I did so love that woman, my complicated, difficult mother. I didn’t love her weaknesses, but I didn’t take advantage of them, either. I don’t know if You have weaknesses (I suspect one or two). Regardless, you’re God. Loving and. . . mature. Why would you take advantage of my weaknesses?
Take my weakness to edit everything in sight. Here’s an example and, for the record, it’s not a small one to me.
It has to do with a prayer–and a particular pray-er. A dear friend who prays for me every day. I am someone who’s grateful to be prayed for. I am especially grateful to be in the prayers of people who are convinced that God is a good listener. While I am inclined to think that the main–and certainly salutary–result of prayer is to center the person praying, I do believe that our prayers can, may, and do occasionally move God to act.
So I watch what I pray for.
That, it turns out, is the easy part for me. What I find hard is to remember that I have no business even daydreaming about editing someone else’s prayers. Talk about chutzpah! Yet it sometimes takes every bit of my spiritual energy to push that desire down and keep it there.
I do believe that, as "Nobody’s God" belongs to no faith group, He must be adamant about the right of people to pray not only how but also for what they want to. That’s the open-minded God I pray to, right? Believe in. Check. And I know there’s no point in believing in God if you don’t trust Him. Yet whenever I think of this one prayer by my friend, I repeatedly yank back my trust. I don’t want to have to trust that God will not–to teach me a lesson, or on a divine whim–grant her prayer, I want to be sure. Because if. . . that would destroy my faith in God’s open-mindedness. Which is no lower than point three of my personal creed.
The devil is in the details? Here goes. This is not just any friend, but a friend whom I have grown to love, who prays for me on a daily basis. When another friend of mine is mired in a particular difficulty, I do not hesitate to enlist this dear friend’s prayers to accompany mine. When I find myself in a smooth-walled hole, she is the friend I ask to help hoist me up by adding her prayers to my own. I ask her because I know she really prays.
The problem is, my friend prays every day for me to be saved. To be redeemed by Jesus. She knows that I was for a time a Catholic, and maybe that feeds her hope, but I doubt it. You see, my friend definitely does not believe in "nobody’s God"–only hers. Her Jesus belongs to my friend’s "Bible-Centered Baptist church." The church is evangelical, and so is she. When we’re running an errand, she speaks of how, specifically, he is helping our day along. She’s not displaying her intimate relationship with Jesus for my benefit. He is her constant companion–in both senses. The immediacy of her faith is wonderful to witness–but also discomforting.
My friend and I do not argue theology, we don’t discuss theology. She knows by heart all she feels she needs to know about God. Including that, unless I accept Jesus as my Lord, I am doomed.
And so she prays for that, my surrender to Jesus. Every day. My head knows that I cannot revise her prayer, edit it so that she prays instead that God will guide me along my own path. Mind you, I do not ever say–even think–"been there, done that." I cannot imagine being that disrespectful of either her faith or our friendship.
Once, as we sat on my couch, for a brief visit away from my work, hers, or an errand, she said, I think your view of God is wider than mine, mine is narrower than yours. I waited, hovering on the cusp of joy. But she stopped there. She is happy with her narrower view. She loves her church. Her Bible-study guide. Her Jesus. And because she loves me, she prays for me to surrender to them all. Because, she tells me, the prospect of missing me in Heaven makes her sad.
I do not tell her that I believe Heaven is bigger than she thinks, or that God is. Let Nobody’s God fend for Himself. I am learning. Learning there is nothing I can say to my friend. Learning that what I can do is pray that my love of God will lead me to Heaven. And that when my friend and I come face to face there, we will embrace wordlessly, as loving friends do when they meet up.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Nobody's God
February 18, 2011.
One part of writing I especially like is the process of shaping words and phrases into accessible, clear sentences. Sentences a reader can enter without being scratched by verbal brambles. Sentences a reader can feel free to respond to, confident that he understands what I meant to say. When I work as an editor with other writers, I talk about clarity and accessability more than any other topics. But I see that, in this blog I have been less diligent about its shape than the shape of its individual parts. So it’s time to "shape up." Every other week, I will discuss how I see my belief that God "belongs" to no one group of believers playing out in real life. Alternate weeks, I will share an experience or person or book that became part of the path which led me to the conviction that God is "nobody’s God."
I’m going to start with the second kind of post, and ask you to return with me to my experience, in childhood, of Yiddishkeit. When, long before I came to believe that God is nobody’s God, I was part of a family where He was indeed nobody’s God.
Had anyone asked my parents whether they were more Jewish than American–or the reverse–my father would doubtless have shaken his head and smiled indulgently, while my mother would have pointed out, fairly politely, that it was a foolish question. Like asking someone if he valued one leg more than the other, she might have added. To my parents, being Jewish was why they came to America. My father came first, AWOL from the czar’s army; my mother arrived a few years later, leaving behind a job as supervisor of secondary evening school in the Ukraine. Louis Stein never finished fifth grade; Zelda Zam had completed the work for a doctorate at the University of Kiev. She was tall, quite stunning, and too serious; he was short, closer to homely than plain–and a champion charmer. In Chicago, the two of them met, fell in love, and married. Only in America.
With both arms, my mother wrapped her Bronx-born daughter warmly–in love and Yiddish lullabies, Yiddish songs, and Yiddish stories. They put me in a Jewish pre-school, where Yiddish was the lingua franca. My vocabulary was entirely Yiddish, and not short on words; but at two and a half, I stubbornly refused to combine words into a sentence. Until the afternoon, desperate for a push on the swings which the pre-school director calmly refused to give me until I asked in a complete sentence, I grudgingly emitted: "Zeit azoi gut und gib mich a shtup"–which may belong in Ripley as the longest first sentence ever, at least in Yiddish.
When I graduated to an Arbiter Ring shule, we studied the teacher’s own version of our formation as a people, a version from which God was somehow entirely absent. Who knew? It was a good story, anyway. I even went for a year of weekends to a Jewish High School–but God wasn’t part of the curriculum there either.
Only one element was lacking from my intensely Jewish upbringing: God. Mind you, neither of my parents ever said a word against God. God was–simply?–never mentioned. Instead, Truth was raised to the level of The Ultimate. To tell the Truth always took the top spot in my family’s creed. Not once did it occur to me that either of my parents might lie. They lied. My father lied continually about the health of our family’s finances–especially their prognosis. My mother, as proud as she was smart but determined that we’d eat, lied about taking a job scrubbing the floors of the common rooms in the Amalgamated, the housing project in which we lived. My father lived his life entirely encapsulated in fantastical thinking. My mother The Realist created fantasies to keep my childhood happy. Once, when Con Ed had had it with us, and turned off the electricity, my mother lit candles on the kitchen table, declaring it a holiday. Our holiday meal was smelts. Smelts by candlelight? It worked. Proof: the first time I ever went to the 21 Club, I saw smelts on the menu, and ordered them–my forever idea of celebratory fare.
My favorite of the lies my mother told me was repeated whenever she managed to purchase theater tickets. As she led me upstairs to the $1.80 seats, she would, step after step, say "best seats in the house, best seats in the house." Once we were in our sky-high seats, and she had caught her breath, she would–each time–explain that these were the best seats because the people who sat there loved the theater. When I was twenty-four and she dead for six years, I sat in house seats for the first time. When the curtain came down on the first act, I cried out "My mother lied to me!" And then I laughed. Laughed with pride at my mother’s brilliance. What a wonderful lie to tell a child–a lie thickly laden with truth. Lack of money alone would not supply stamina enough to hike all the way up to the second balcony. It would take love.
I got a lot of that. My Yiddishkeit childhood was happy. In the snapshots of me, my one dimple is unmistakable.
One part of writing I especially like is the process of shaping words and phrases into accessible, clear sentences. Sentences a reader can enter without being scratched by verbal brambles. Sentences a reader can feel free to respond to, confident that he understands what I meant to say. When I work as an editor with other writers, I talk about clarity and accessability more than any other topics. But I see that, in this blog I have been less diligent about its shape than the shape of its individual parts. So it’s time to "shape up." Every other week, I will discuss how I see my belief that God "belongs" to no one group of believers playing out in real life. Alternate weeks, I will share an experience or person or book that became part of the path which led me to the conviction that God is "nobody’s God."
I’m going to start with the second kind of post, and ask you to return with me to my experience, in childhood, of Yiddishkeit. When, long before I came to believe that God is nobody’s God, I was part of a family where He was indeed nobody’s God.
Had anyone asked my parents whether they were more Jewish than American–or the reverse–my father would doubtless have shaken his head and smiled indulgently, while my mother would have pointed out, fairly politely, that it was a foolish question. Like asking someone if he valued one leg more than the other, she might have added. To my parents, being Jewish was why they came to America. My father came first, AWOL from the czar’s army; my mother arrived a few years later, leaving behind a job as supervisor of secondary evening school in the Ukraine. Louis Stein never finished fifth grade; Zelda Zam had completed the work for a doctorate at the University of Kiev. She was tall, quite stunning, and too serious; he was short, closer to homely than plain–and a champion charmer. In Chicago, the two of them met, fell in love, and married. Only in America.
With both arms, my mother wrapped her Bronx-born daughter warmly–in love and Yiddish lullabies, Yiddish songs, and Yiddish stories. They put me in a Jewish pre-school, where Yiddish was the lingua franca. My vocabulary was entirely Yiddish, and not short on words; but at two and a half, I stubbornly refused to combine words into a sentence. Until the afternoon, desperate for a push on the swings which the pre-school director calmly refused to give me until I asked in a complete sentence, I grudgingly emitted: "Zeit azoi gut und gib mich a shtup"–which may belong in Ripley as the longest first sentence ever, at least in Yiddish.
When I graduated to an Arbiter Ring shule, we studied the teacher’s own version of our formation as a people, a version from which God was somehow entirely absent. Who knew? It was a good story, anyway. I even went for a year of weekends to a Jewish High School–but God wasn’t part of the curriculum there either.
Only one element was lacking from my intensely Jewish upbringing: God. Mind you, neither of my parents ever said a word against God. God was–simply?–never mentioned. Instead, Truth was raised to the level of The Ultimate. To tell the Truth always took the top spot in my family’s creed. Not once did it occur to me that either of my parents might lie. They lied. My father lied continually about the health of our family’s finances–especially their prognosis. My mother, as proud as she was smart but determined that we’d eat, lied about taking a job scrubbing the floors of the common rooms in the Amalgamated, the housing project in which we lived. My father lived his life entirely encapsulated in fantastical thinking. My mother The Realist created fantasies to keep my childhood happy. Once, when Con Ed had had it with us, and turned off the electricity, my mother lit candles on the kitchen table, declaring it a holiday. Our holiday meal was smelts. Smelts by candlelight? It worked. Proof: the first time I ever went to the 21 Club, I saw smelts on the menu, and ordered them–my forever idea of celebratory fare.
My favorite of the lies my mother told me was repeated whenever she managed to purchase theater tickets. As she led me upstairs to the $1.80 seats, she would, step after step, say "best seats in the house, best seats in the house." Once we were in our sky-high seats, and she had caught her breath, she would–each time–explain that these were the best seats because the people who sat there loved the theater. When I was twenty-four and she dead for six years, I sat in house seats for the first time. When the curtain came down on the first act, I cried out "My mother lied to me!" And then I laughed. Laughed with pride at my mother’s brilliance. What a wonderful lie to tell a child–a lie thickly laden with truth. Lack of money alone would not supply stamina enough to hike all the way up to the second balcony. It would take love.
I got a lot of that. My Yiddishkeit childhood was happy. In the snapshots of me, my one dimple is unmistakable.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
nobodysgod
February 11, 2011.
As I wrote my last post, I was pleased to be able to recall readily the details of my confirmation by Cardinal Bea. But after the blog was posted, my brain fastened on the fact that while red-letter events of my years as a Catholic are vivid to me even now, I remember little about, specifically, what I believed–and thought–then. I remember how ardently I believed in God, but all that says to me now is how passionately I believed in my belief itself. But what about when I thought about God, Jesus, being Jewish, chastity, the "meaning of life"–what was I thinking? (Please note that the emphasis is not on the last word, as in "What was I thinking?)
Curiosity nagged at me. Not being able to remember, that nagged at me even more. By concentrating hard, I could recall a feeling–and then the thought–that nothing around me looked the same once God was in my life. Nothing was "everyday" any more. But while I was determined to become a person whose life reflected her faith, I was equally determined not to change. To remain my parents’ daughter. Beyond those tissue-thin recollections, I could remember only extraordinary joy, which was barely tempered by a sporadic sense of anxiety about going all the way, so to speak, and being baptized.
Coincidences are not part of my belief system. Checking for possible clues in the bookcase where I keep old drafts, I noticed a bulky brown envelope. At once, I knew that manila envelope held poems from the time immediately before my baptism. I am no poet–but even as I held the unopened envelope in my hands, the reason I wrote those poems blithely bounced back into my head.
I laughed. I had written these poems because there was a gap in my days I needed to fill–not among the top ten reasons a poet writes poetry, I’m pretty sure. But it was mine–because seven months before my rescheduled baptism, I lost my job. With no movie-going or meeting-a friend-for-lunch money, I had to find some way to occupy myself that didn’t cost anything. Chastity was writ large for this catechumen, so any "filler" activity had to take place sitting up. That was why, every day when I returned home from noon Mass at St. Paul the Apostle, I would–I remember now!–read a little of some confident convert’s autobiography. The rest of the afternoon hours, I filled by writing a poem. Then, or more likely, later, I stuck the lot of them in the manila envelope I now held.
I opened it. Dozens of pages came tumbling out. On each was a poem, typed on unemployment-thin paper. I gathered them up from the floor and braved them.
My first observation was that the poems confirmed that any gift I have for poetry is scrawny indeed. Far more importantly, reading them did reveal some of what was on my
mind back then. They offer evidence of how serious was my determination to remain myself. One promise kept. Another find:: once an asker of questions, always an asker of questions. The poems are stiff with questions. Chronically curious, I wasn’t cured of that happy ailment. Moreover, even when I was in the early-days-heat of my love affair with God, I made jokes. Making jokes is something I do a lot now–but was surprised to find poems that are funny. Well, I was did have to amuse myself. Nonetheless, the poems, both decent and pretty dreadful, reveal how quickly I understood that having a relationship with God wasn’t a joke. Or easy.
That I knew that is evident in this very short poem, titled "On the Nature of Faith:
Have faith.
Have half of this peach.
Have fun at the beach.
Have faith.
Here’s a short one on "The Eucharist":
Bland blessedness,
Muted and dim:
Five real wounds less
Than wholly Him.
I was not a believer long before I understood how deceptive religious language can be. As you read the next poem, called "Sweet Jesus," picture a mother in the park, whose child has fallen and cut open his knees. See in her outstretched arms the sweetness of her love?
Impaled upon the cost,
Your coaxing arms uncrossed,
That welcome is not lost
Upon us, Sweet Jesus.
Heart-long toward that grace
We race, to take our place
With You–and find spared space
Up there. Thus.
Sweet Jesus.
The next poem was written after making the Stations of the Cross. It’s about the tenth station, which shows Jesus being stripped..
Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the barest one of all?
In any Catholic church, the Virgin Mary is always in sight. My curiosity, disinclined to pause for breath anywhere, had "A question for our Lady":
Mary, ever virgin, in life before in name,
Didn’t it hurt you, girl, to miss that dazzling pain?
Here’s one called "An Old Tree,"which hints to me that I might have given some thought to the risk-laden tree in the Garden of Eden:
The rings around the trunk, they say,
Are the way to gauge an aged
Tree’s longevity. But how, pray,
Calculate when the tree’s engaged
In backing up a dying God?
Yet see that tree on Calvary,
Those are no soft twigs, those die-hard
Planks nailed tight to Sanctity.
But the heart of an bold old tree
Which would have chosen otherwise
Than thus revive cold memory
Of when it stood in Paradise.
I’ve said that I was in need of "free" amusement during those money-tight months before my baptism. "Conversion: One Version" was obviously written for that purpose:
Becoming a Roman,
When a full-grown woman,
Holds lots of surprises.
But I think first prize is
Snatched from the myriad
By a late period.
Quelle temptation to pander
To delusions of grandeur.
And last, another serious poem, written from my lifelong desire to understand more than I can.
Calvary
It is hard as nails
To grieve a God. First-born
Price God set impales
Himself. Unadorned, worn
Thin by slim hope held tight,
A prophecy comes true
To death: accounts set right
By a diligent Jew.
In squinting toward the kill,
Our eyes blink smarts enough
To salt that wounded hill.
But tears strike blindman’s buff
At truth, for all faith knows
Of how God comes, or goes.
Enough. Indeed, probably more than enough of my "brown envelope" poems. Though I had packed these poems away with small if any intention of ever looking at them again, what I discovered in reading them now was that, even in the early days of my belief, I hadn’t packed my mind away. That’s the main reason I’ve shared them. But also because putting them out in the blogosphere makes me feel gutsy.
As I wrote my last post, I was pleased to be able to recall readily the details of my confirmation by Cardinal Bea. But after the blog was posted, my brain fastened on the fact that while red-letter events of my years as a Catholic are vivid to me even now, I remember little about, specifically, what I believed–and thought–then. I remember how ardently I believed in God, but all that says to me now is how passionately I believed in my belief itself. But what about when I thought about God, Jesus, being Jewish, chastity, the "meaning of life"–what was I thinking? (Please note that the emphasis is not on the last word, as in "What was I thinking?)
Curiosity nagged at me. Not being able to remember, that nagged at me even more. By concentrating hard, I could recall a feeling–and then the thought–that nothing around me looked the same once God was in my life. Nothing was "everyday" any more. But while I was determined to become a person whose life reflected her faith, I was equally determined not to change. To remain my parents’ daughter. Beyond those tissue-thin recollections, I could remember only extraordinary joy, which was barely tempered by a sporadic sense of anxiety about going all the way, so to speak, and being baptized.
Coincidences are not part of my belief system. Checking for possible clues in the bookcase where I keep old drafts, I noticed a bulky brown envelope. At once, I knew that manila envelope held poems from the time immediately before my baptism. I am no poet–but even as I held the unopened envelope in my hands, the reason I wrote those poems blithely bounced back into my head.
I laughed. I had written these poems because there was a gap in my days I needed to fill–not among the top ten reasons a poet writes poetry, I’m pretty sure. But it was mine–because seven months before my rescheduled baptism, I lost my job. With no movie-going or meeting-a friend-for-lunch money, I had to find some way to occupy myself that didn’t cost anything. Chastity was writ large for this catechumen, so any "filler" activity had to take place sitting up. That was why, every day when I returned home from noon Mass at St. Paul the Apostle, I would–I remember now!–read a little of some confident convert’s autobiography. The rest of the afternoon hours, I filled by writing a poem. Then, or more likely, later, I stuck the lot of them in the manila envelope I now held.
I opened it. Dozens of pages came tumbling out. On each was a poem, typed on unemployment-thin paper. I gathered them up from the floor and braved them.
My first observation was that the poems confirmed that any gift I have for poetry is scrawny indeed. Far more importantly, reading them did reveal some of what was on my
mind back then. They offer evidence of how serious was my determination to remain myself. One promise kept. Another find:: once an asker of questions, always an asker of questions. The poems are stiff with questions. Chronically curious, I wasn’t cured of that happy ailment. Moreover, even when I was in the early-days-heat of my love affair with God, I made jokes. Making jokes is something I do a lot now–but was surprised to find poems that are funny. Well, I was did have to amuse myself. Nonetheless, the poems, both decent and pretty dreadful, reveal how quickly I understood that having a relationship with God wasn’t a joke. Or easy.
That I knew that is evident in this very short poem, titled "On the Nature of Faith:
Have faith.
Have half of this peach.
Have fun at the beach.
Have faith.
Here’s a short one on "The Eucharist":
Bland blessedness,
Muted and dim:
Five real wounds less
Than wholly Him.
I was not a believer long before I understood how deceptive religious language can be. As you read the next poem, called "Sweet Jesus," picture a mother in the park, whose child has fallen and cut open his knees. See in her outstretched arms the sweetness of her love?
Impaled upon the cost,
Your coaxing arms uncrossed,
That welcome is not lost
Upon us, Sweet Jesus.
Heart-long toward that grace
We race, to take our place
With You–and find spared space
Up there. Thus.
Sweet Jesus.
The next poem was written after making the Stations of the Cross. It’s about the tenth station, which shows Jesus being stripped..
Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the barest one of all?
In any Catholic church, the Virgin Mary is always in sight. My curiosity, disinclined to pause for breath anywhere, had "A question for our Lady":
Mary, ever virgin, in life before in name,
Didn’t it hurt you, girl, to miss that dazzling pain?
Here’s one called "An Old Tree,"which hints to me that I might have given some thought to the risk-laden tree in the Garden of Eden:
The rings around the trunk, they say,
Are the way to gauge an aged
Tree’s longevity. But how, pray,
Calculate when the tree’s engaged
In backing up a dying God?
Yet see that tree on Calvary,
Those are no soft twigs, those die-hard
Planks nailed tight to Sanctity.
But the heart of an bold old tree
Which would have chosen otherwise
Than thus revive cold memory
Of when it stood in Paradise.
I’ve said that I was in need of "free" amusement during those money-tight months before my baptism. "Conversion: One Version" was obviously written for that purpose:
Becoming a Roman,
When a full-grown woman,
Holds lots of surprises.
But I think first prize is
Snatched from the myriad
By a late period.
Quelle temptation to pander
To delusions of grandeur.
And last, another serious poem, written from my lifelong desire to understand more than I can.
Calvary
It is hard as nails
To grieve a God. First-born
Price God set impales
Himself. Unadorned, worn
Thin by slim hope held tight,
A prophecy comes true
To death: accounts set right
By a diligent Jew.
In squinting toward the kill,
Our eyes blink smarts enough
To salt that wounded hill.
But tears strike blindman’s buff
At truth, for all faith knows
Of how God comes, or goes.
Enough. Indeed, probably more than enough of my "brown envelope" poems. Though I had packed these poems away with small if any intention of ever looking at them again, what I discovered in reading them now was that, even in the early days of my belief, I hadn’t packed my mind away. That’s the main reason I’ve shared them. But also because putting them out in the blogosphere makes me feel gutsy.
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