Xiu's Song

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When I was 18 and a freshman at Seattle Pacific University, one of the few things I indulged in was a subscription to the newspaper. I really couldn't afford to spend the money I made washing dishes on weekends at Gwinn Commons, but I was hooked on Spiderman.

Every morning I had to get a three caption fix of the life of Peter Parker and his adventures. It wasn't the superhero stuff that captured my imagination, rather the moody guy in the Navy pea coat with hang ups and a secret life nobody would ever believe. I had a Navy pea coat and was moody and my secret life included fantasies about going to Israel, but that was so far out that I had to keep it to myself like Peter and his Spidey alter ego.

Xiu at January Winds has been pining of late for Leroy, literally counting the days until he returns from Nepal. She wondered aloud if her readers are tiring of her blog. I don't know about the others, but for me every post she writes is another episode in an unfolding saga, the Adventures of Xiu; like those 3 captions of Spiderman every morning by my door in Ashton Hall.

But sometimes it's more than just a diversion. Sometimes she comes up with a real gem, a diamond in prose. Like this one:

"What a random thing I did that I made myself happy coincidentally." (Xiu)

It struck a chord with me, like a melody you hear on the radio and replay under your breath all day, but I didn't know why.

And then it hit me. It's poetry. Long after I dropped out at SPU to come to Israel, I returned to Academia, Jewish Studies at a branch of Bar Ilan University. I was a student of the Bible and learned the ancient poetry of Israel, the psalms. The art in verse in the Bible doesn't rhyme and isn't measured; it is a rhythm of thought, repetition of ideas wrapped like the petals of a flower around its heart.

"The Lord will protect you from all evil,
He will keep your soul.
The Lord will guard your going and coming,
from now and until forever more."
(Psalms 121:7-8)

Hebrew poetry retains its beauty even when translated because it wasn't created to please the ear, rather to speak to the spirit. Xiu's verse is poetry in the Hebrew tradition. Balanced and layered, a moment of magic unfolds like the petals of a rose.

Xiu's poem stirred up in me memories of something else from those days at Seattle Pacific. That year something random happened coincidentally over Christmas break. I went back to Seattle, so Mary flew up from Portland and we had a day that I remember from beginning to end, a day that comes to mind when I think of happiness.

Xiu captured it in simplicity, beautifully.

What a random thing did, that made me happy coincidentally.

A Shabbat With Maayan

Maayan was home for Shabbat. She lives in Jerusalem, so every time she comes is like a gift, a surprise.

I love all three of my kids, and each one is special to me in his or her own way. Maayan is my oldest. The firstborn. Our firstborn are special children because we make most of our mistakes with them and the kids that come along later on benefit from our experience. Maayan was my teacher. She was the child that taught me how to be a father.

She was an only child for the first 9 years of her life and she was our unequal partner during those first hard years when we came here and scratched a farm out of virgin wasteland. When there wasn't enough money and not enough time. When Yael and I had to hitch to work before dawn and Maayan would wake herself up, get ready and get herself out on time to catch the bus to first grade.

I don't know when she had a childhood, but I know it was short and I wish I would have been there to share it with her. When Netanel and Odelia came along Maayan became their third parent. She never got to be a sister like other girls; she never had to compete or share or fight for her place at the table, but she was the one that changed diapers and fixed their lunch when they came home from preschool. In a way, with Maayan I feel like a thief. I didn't steal her childhood from her, but nevertheless she didn't really have one. I don't feel like a thief because I took something from her as much as I stole it from myself.

So now that I'm older and wiser, I treasure a Shabbat with Maayan. Before long she will move along with her life, and I want her to. But for now, for a little while longer, I am still the man in her life. I'm smart enough now to realize what a treat that is, what a privilege, is a Shabbat with Maayan.

A Day on the Reservation

I think they founded the city of Tel Aviv for much the same reason that the Americans set up Indian Reservations. They needed to provide a place where strange and colorful people could live their lives according to their own traditions without interfering with other, normal, people.

Out here in the country we see them often; raiding parties of wild savages from Tel Aviv in convoys of shiny 4x4 all-terrain vehicles with polished hubcaps and dust free rentals adorned with hi-tech logos plunder the countryside whooping wildly and boom-boom-booming trance music, dismount to search for cell phone reception and espresso, and flee back to the city with a trail of litter and destruction in their wake.

Normally I try to steer clear of Tel Aviv, but my niece Brittany that is serving in the US Navy sent word that she would be there taking part in joint exercises with the Israeli Navy in a five star hotel, and Odelia and Netanel wanted to blow their birthday money, so we decided to make a day of it on the Reservation.

We started off in old Jaffa and wandered thru the narrow alleys, but the kids had money burning a hole in their pocket and we moved on to the flea market near by. I keep Yael on a short leash in places like this, holding tightly on to the purse strings until we spot a victim and then let her loose on the unsuspecting shop keeper. No one is Yael's equal when bargaining and we always leave the shop with more than we deserve and the vender with less cash than he hoped for.









































Tel Avivians are a primitive people, but it can't be said that they don't make a contribution to society. I serve with some of them in the Army. Almost every patrol has one or two, and they are usually designated to take point along with the Bedouin trackers because… well, there's no nice way to say it… they're expendable. I ran into one of my army buddies, Lior. Israel truly is a small country. He told me two things of note.

One, that he is one of the Israelis that visits my blog regularly. Two, bad news for Maayan. Lior says that Amir, the guy that only a year and a half ago solemnly swore off women (so much so that I decided on the spot that he is not son-in-law material), has decided to tie the knot. Maayan has seen snapshots of Amir and thinks he's a hunk. Sorry Maayan, another prime piece of man flesh is off the market. (In the photo, Amir, to the right, and Lior, in the middle, are setting off for a night patrol.)

Only the locals can find their way around in Tel Aviv, but Brittany has been trained by the Navy to navigate, so she gave us directions. We dropped her off at her Hotel and made it home with our treasures. Tel Aviv is interesting, but there's nothing like getting back to civilization.

I wish to express my sincere apologies to Native Americans for comparing them to the savages in Tel Aviv.

What's Up, Shalom?

I have a confession to make.

There is a man at work. His name is Shalom. We pass each other from time to time and every once in a while discuss something relating to work, but I really don't know him very well even though I've known him for years.

Shalom is a Rabbi. At work he's just a regular guy and it was totally by accident that I even found out that he's a Rabbi. He doesn't go around acting like a Rabbi, but once you know someone's a Rabbi you're a little more respectful, careful what you say. I'll tell you a little secret. Most of us Jews don't like our religious leaders. And so in spite of myself, my mind pasted every stereotype I've ever had, every prejudice I've ever heard about Rabbis on Shalom in spite of the fact that he doesn't wear his credentials on his sleeve.

Shalom is a little guy, shorter than I am and walks around stooped a bit. He always wears a suit and tie, a bit unusual in hot and informal Israel. He looks like a Rabbi. At work I'd throw him a friendly greeting and he was polite enough, but very serious and a bit distracted, as if I had interrupted some important thought about the Torah. I've never been one to bad talk people and I don't gossip, but I would think to my self, "What's up, Shalom? Why can't you pull your head out of your ass long enough to be friendly? Can't you put religion aside long enough to just be one of us regular people for a second or two?" I never said anything of the kind to him or anyone else, but I had mean thoughts, critical thoughts.

Last week was Purim and that night while everybody was partying, Shalom's daughter, a young woman my daughter's age, passed away. She had been sick for a long time. I didn't know. I didn't find out in time to make it to the funeral, but those that did said it was one of the most unusual funerals they had ever attended. The family was thankful, testifying to a life that had been as full of content as it was short of years.

I have a confession to make. Shalom is shorter than I am, but he's a lot bigger of a man than I am. Now I know why he was distracted and why he wasn't cheery and outgoing. Losing a child is no doubt the most painful thing a human being can experience, but Shalom carried his burden quietly and humbly, probably with much more dignity than I could have.

And all I had for him was nasty thoughts.

I love the sound of Odelia singing out of key, listening to Netanel trying to play guitar and the expectation in Maayan's voice when she says she's going out.


These are the chords of contentment.

Luke 24:5

"Why do you seek the Living among the dead?"

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The Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem

"They dance like grannies."

Netanel walking by the adult Purim party last night.

Who Knows?

"Who knows, perhaps you were sent for such a time as this...."

(Esther 4:14)

Yes

"Yes."
"Yes what?"
"Yes is the answer to your question."
"What question?"
"Oh, Bill, come on. The question. The question you've been asking yourself with increasing regularity, at the odd moment, panting for breath when you sit up in bed late at night. The question that is in the back of your throat, choking the blood to your brain, ringing in your ears over and over as you put it to yourself."
"Oh. The question…….."
"Yes, Bill, the question."
"Am I going to die?"
"Yes."

From "Meet Joe Black"

Only Love

The head of the English department at the school where I teach made a curious choice for the required reading for the advanced level students.

The Color of Water by the black journalist James McBride. His mother, Ruth McBride Jordan was born Rachel Shilsky (actually Ruchel Dwara Zylska). Her father was a Rabbi that brought his family to America and made his living peddling religion and cheating the impoverished blacks in a backwater Southern town. Fleeing her abusive father, she escaped to New York and would have been vanished into the cesspool of drugs and prostitution had not she been rescued by a black man that eventually became her husband and a pastor of a church in Harlem.

I think one day I would like to write a blog about The Color of Water and about how unexpected was the choice of a Jewish woman's faith in Jesus as a message to Jewish students in an Israeli high school. But Ruth McBride came to my mind today for another reason.

A friend told me about how she came to know God only after meeting His people. At first she was drawn by their love, and then slowly and in the little things in life she began to feel God's love as well. If you hear her today, God is a real person in her life; her father. She talks to Him, pours her heart out to Him and sometimes gets mad at Him. There's real love there, and it started with the love of the people that are today her brothers and sisters.

I read not long ago this:
"I've also learned that nobody - ever - not ever one time - was argued into faith. Faith isn't ever a matter of argument. It's a matter of choice and obedience and will - stuff much sturdier in the end than mere "reasons" or just being "right" about things. Humans can't live on reasons alone.It's charity first. Take your limited understanding, feeble strength, and puny needs for validation off of it, and just be nice. That's really what it more often boils down to." (Stephanie)

It's charity, love. We can't know God through religion, we know Him through love. And we we'll never be able to explain the God we know to others with words, only with love. I think that was what I was trying to say to my daughter Maayan in "Sons or Servants"; that it's not the things we do, the religion, but the relationship itself, love, that God wants with us.

Ruth McBride grew up in a house full of religion. It was rules and laws, but also a house of abuse and selfishness. She ran away to people dissimilar in every way to herself and those she left behind, and found a home, a place where God dwells. And she found that place through love.

You Name It

I recently learned from Xiu that Chinese names have meaning. Her full name Yi Xiu means "happy" and "pretty" in Chinese, and if you visit her January Winds you will see that her name is worthy of the girl, or rather the girl is more than worthy of her name.

English speakers may find the idea of names having meaning strange. I think most Anglos get their names because they sound nice or dignified. Lately a lot of Americans name their kids with surnames as first names, like little boys being named "Bailey" and little girls being named "Linsey" and somewhere there is a poor little boy being picked on during recess called "Sassasportshvilli". (That's the longest and strangest name I've ever run into.) But really, English names don't mean anything.

All Hebrew names have meaning. When I came to Israel, one of the first things I did was to change my name. I chose Ami, "my people" (hence the name of this blog), because I wanted to express my identification with my new nation.

My wife is Yael. That is a kind of mountain goat, which at first may seem not very complimentary, but if you have ever seen one of the gentle and graceful creatures that inhabit the Judean desert you will see that the name fits her.

I chose my oldest daughter's name like an American. The name sounded nice. Maayan means a water spring or fountain. She volunteered for a year in a home for abandoned children after high school and even in the army her job was to care for other soldiers with personal problems. Now she is studying to be a social worker in
Jerusalem. She is like a mountain spring; bubbling with life, sustaining others without depleting herself. I guess I named her well after all.

After Maayan was born, there was a long barren period in our family. Eventually Yael and I believed that we wouldn't be having any more children. But just then we were blessed with the first of our miracle children. I told Yael that we have to show our gratitude to the Giver of such a gift, and we named our son Netanel (Nathaniel), which is "God gave" in Hebrew. Our second miracle was equally unexpected three years later. We called her Odelia, "I will thank the Lord". Every time we say their names it is praise, thanks to the giver of all blessings.


I've heard of families with a sick baby that changed the name to Rafael, which means "God will heal", and their son revived. (I don't know what you could call a girl.) Sometimes they add "Chai" (life) to a name. The name Tom (which means innocence and is pronounced "Tome") has the same letters as the word for death, so people change the spelling to ward off the grim reaper.

The ancient Romans had a saying, "nomen es omen" – the name is a sign. Maybe it's true. I have to admit that the names of people I know fit them.

But you can't take it too far. Once people believed that if a name that was too good it would invite bad luck. They would name their kids with negative meanings to ward off the evil eye. I wouldn't worry too much if you have a name like that, but if any of you go by the name Caleb, just so you know, the name means "dog".

You'll See

Dear Maayan,

Don't worry.
I'll take care of it.
You can trust me.
You'll see.

I am,
I am here.
I am here for you,
And have been all along.

I love you.
I know you, I created you.
I know you're hurting right now,
but you'll be okay.

Wait just a little longer.
I didn't forget.
I'll take care of you.
You'll see.

Love,
God

SHMILY

"And when it is done,
appreciate, smile, and understand
it is the person's way of 'SHMILY'-
See How Much I Love You.

When I grow old,
I want to share this house with my husband,
and bake little cakes/ cookies for him,
and put a post-it on the items saying,
'SHMILY'.

And God probably pasted
a million over post-it of
'SHMILY'
everywhere everyday for me."

From "Small Things That Count" by Xiu

For a breath of fresh air, open a window and check out 'January Winds'.