What a day this has been...
I'm still spending too much time on the computer reading about impending disaster and taking whatever actions are possible. But this day also had brighter spots: like the time spent with my friend Naomi and a small group of elders at a retirement community. Getting them to actually begin telling some of their stories was a bit like puling teeth at first; then it got better.
On the way home I stopped at a favorite art store for supplies in preparation for a class I will begin to teach soon---an updated reprise of a class I gave the first year we were in Boulder:
"Not In Shul: Jewish Spiritual Home Practices".
I anticipate it with pleasure---and I know it will be different from the first time I taught it, twenty-one years ago.
I have had to come to terms with the kind of Jew I am, which is not the typical veryverymental Ashkenazi model. Much of what nourishes me I learned from my beloved; but it fits best into the kind of day-to-day graceful practices nested in the Sepharadi tradition of my teacher Mme. Colette Aboulker-Muscat.
Soon I turn out the lights and go upstairs and write and examine the day and pray for healing for a long list of people...and for our country. The bad news of the day was the serious vandalizing of a Jewish cemetery. The good news was that the funds for repair were raised by the Muslim community.
On that good note: sweet dreams.