....growing

It has outgrown the larger custard cup now, and I am wondering if I should cover it with a tumbler.  Really, it is not even more than a sprout still.  A three leafed sprout.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

It needs protection from the cold, from the chatulim, from all that threaten it.  But I wonder if placing another cover over it would help protect it, or harm it in some way?  I wish I knew the answer.

I do know one thing though, if I do not get another job, a roommate, or both; this little plant and I will both need protection from the cold.

Sometimes we fail.

...and we spend so much time, analyzing, agonizing, replaying, regretting, and generally beating ourselves up, that the failure, large or small, is compounded several times over. So he said.

Friday, November 19, 2010

So often in fact that I am beginning to recognize this pattern, more than anything else in my life defines the boundaries of my spirit.  It is this wall, that has caged me in.
 

In school, I made one mistake, curricular, or social, and I would flee.  Often missing whole tracts of time, because of course after a day or two the absences themselves become a failure, that you just cannot face answering for.

At work, the same thing happened time and time again well into my early twenties.  In fact I remember the first job I actually did not abandon, and the day I decided to “go in anyway”.  It is remembered as an achievement.  As an emotional marker that I still sometimes call upon to get me “there”.

Late car payments, flubbed diets, missed deadlines, big things, little things, nothings, and I would escape into my head.  Every time immobilized by fear, and ultimately compounding the issue a hundred fold.  

Funny thing is, I still do it.   As of right now, the manager of the therapeutic riding stable that I (used to) volunteer at, is likely wondering if I am dead.  It started out as a fear of admitting that I just couldn’t afford the gas to drive out there, and now has compounded itself into a monster of mythical proportions.  How do you call someone up, someone kind and sweet and caring, and say to them “Yes my phone works, yes, my e-mail still functions.  I just couldn’t call you to tell you I was alive...because I am a prideful coward”?  Ouch.

“Okay, we can either dwell on it and feel bad, or we can learn from it and move forward.” he said.

 I have decided:  You just do it.

What is the net...

I have been thinking a lot about “net value” of late.  For those of you who do not have a mother who is an accountant.  Ones “net” is what is left over when all the other considerations are taken away,  In business it is your profit after you minus overhead, payroll, advertising, taxes, etc.  In life it is a little different.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Ofttimes we are so focused on the appearance of the thing itself that we do not see what it is producing.  Take for example my friend.  My friend who wears the kippah.  Who meets, all “coincidentally” last erev Shabbat, a Saudi Muslim in a library.  My friend was there looking up information on Magen David Adom when he walked in.  Intrigued (I suppose) with one another they proceed to talk.  Politics, religion, who knows what else, long into the night.  At the end of it they pray, together.  You are thinking...Wow!  a Jew, a Muslim, praying together...really?  That is great!  What a feel good story!

Net:  My friend who wears the kippah, who struggles in his faith, who struggles, sometimes just getting out of bed, misses Shabbat Shacharit (morning) services, misses the special Havdalah concert, misses an opportunity to help another dear friend who needed a positive word.  All because he stayed up all night, and couldn’t get out of bed.  Plus he never did get the information he wanted on helping Haiti through the Magen David Adom.

Is this cynical?  Or is judging the person/action/religion/culture purely by its “net” the only true way to judge?  I am taking a hard look at things.  What is my “net” effect.  Is there good coming from my walk?  Is my shadow a positive or negative reflection of where I have been?  Where I am?

Bravery is foolish....

Mostly because if there were not very real, very good, reasons to fear, we would not be afraid to begin with.  Bravery is always about doing something that is in defiance of the facts.

Monday, November 15, 2010

 Facts like: My home is still a nightmare; spotted carpets, broken lino on the floors, peeling and chipping paint, stained sinks, torn furniture, smashed up window blinds, and even a couple of broken windows for luck.

But it is tidy.  Well closer to tidy than it has been in years.  Each step that has gotten me here has been in G-ds grace.  And it is “tidy enough” to receive guests. 

It is not magazine perfect, it is not even “before” photo acceptable.  But true bravery is about accepting the truths of a situation, and still proceeding.  A dinner party?  Hosting Erev Shabbat for all my dearest sisters....... AM I CRAZY?  yes.

The Darkness that Must be Overcome just to Begin....

Why is it that beginning something is so very hard? In the morning, even with the beautiful sun streaming through the windows...the overwhelming inclination is towards screwing my eyes back shut, rolling over and staying put.  Why must I get up?  Is not life better, safer, warmer, kinder, easier here?

Thursday, November 11, 201

When I look at my life as a whole...I am struck immobile with crushing fear.  Even taken in the individual pieces, one feels as if the slightest movement forward takes the courage of one hundred lives.  This is why I can confidently say that it is G-d who put me up to going through all that paperwork today (yes there were things going back over three years), and G-d who moved me to clean off and organize my computer desk (that had grown to a shameful three feet in height).  I know any “normal” person would look on these “accomplishments” with scorn.  But to me they feel like Everest climbed.  Like Goliath conquered.  Like a step into the light.

G-d is reality and His Word is Truth

...and His miracles take my breath away.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

 Even when we have scientific evidence to back up our positions. Valid reasons why we “just can’t.” He comes in sweeps away our doubt and fear, takes our hand, asks us to take a step, (one terrifying, impossible step) and makes everything bright and clear.

Some days are so beautiful that there is a real and physical ache that comes with the terrible indescribable blessings.

Your surroundings matter.

This is what I tried to explain to him last night.  Every time you take in something negative, it hurts you.  Whether it happens by design; choosing to read, or watch, or participate in discouraging things, or if it comes in passively due to the people, or conditions, that surround you.  Of course, I have an ulterior motive for wanting him to live next door....of course,  but that doesn’t change the simple truth: That moving out of that building, and into a healthy environment would must be a powerful positive change for his life.  This I must leave to G-d, it is in His hands.

Sunday, November 7, 2010 The stem is a bit bent because it outgrew it’s little 6oz custard cup dome. I replaced it wit a larger one because I still do not trust the chatulim to not make a single bite meal of it.

On my end I try to do one positive thing to change my environment each day.  I wash dishes, or vacuum, or clean out one box.  I often feel incapable, inadequate, and overwhelmed.  Especially in this neat and tidy, functioning world.  But I do one small thing.  I am hoping this too will grow.

How fragile and strong...

Moving it into the sunny spots in the morning, and deciding where I will place it over night, for soon the nights will become cold.  Not cold by anyone else's standards, but a tiny leaf, on a tendril of stem...seems like it would wither at 50 degrees.  

Friday, November 5, 2010

It lives on the windowsill, at present, covered by a clear Pyrex custard cup, and has already survived being knocked down by curious feline paws once.  What a gory disaster I walked in on that night.  Soil strewn all over the kitchen floor, sprouts nowhere to be seen, cats sulking under beds, and behind couches.  Knowing they had made a mistake.  When I found the tiny green things amongst the  wreckage I was disproportionately overjoyed.  Although I do worry still, it seems the guilty ones have learned their lesson,  I don’t know if I can do this.  I know I cannot. 

G-d will have to protect this small thing, else it will not live.  
   

I have tried to rationalize my actions...

But what it comes down to is simply this:  The last 10 years of my life I did what I did because at the time and junctures that I was give the opportunity to do something different, I chose the easier looking of the two paths.  This is the first thing that I believe needs to be rectified.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

On this day I chose again to do something really hard.

I walked up to the beast, and found her claws blunt and her voice soft.  In walking up I was very afraid, in walking away I was relieved.  Perhaps he is right, "everyone is afraid in battle, it is only those who master that fear who are victorious leaders."

I have heard this before, but have I never truly integrated it into my life. 

The Ethereous Nature of Beginnings

So this all started on 09/15/2010, appropriate.
and then it began on the last day of Sukkot. 09/29/2010

But I didn't really get the seeds in my hands until a week later, and many of them had been sliced...and, I didn't put them into soil until a week after that, when I saw that two of the seeds in the baggie had sprouts, and I only began to hope that perhaps it might actually happen last week.  So technically none of this really commenced until: Monday, November 1, 2010.

But of course the true beginnings, like a sleeping seed, go back much further.