Saturday, January 2, 2016

Closer to Normal Today

Feeling closer to normal today. I woke up at 6:30 am, with a great line on my tongue that I should have written down. Instead I went back to sleep and forgot it.

I'm not supposed to do any physical work. So I sit in a chair and ask Linda to do this or that. I kidded her last night that she doesn't have a 24/7 smile. I guess she's human!

Will, no fever today. Looks like a couple of people who were praying for me were successful. Or, more successful than those praying for the pneumonia.

Get to go to Torah study now... and then the hardware store for six screws. I have recently organized all my screws and nuts so I wouldn't have to keep going to the hardware store. Yet, I always come up not having the ones I need. Is there a lesson there? Preparation doesn't work?

And I continually mess up by not reading instructions. It seems I'm wired to think that is cheating. Maybe after I'm 70, soon, I'll start reading instructions. But I'd rather make mistakes.

There are actually a couple of ideas I wanted to write about.

One is from Torah class today, where Moses is told by God to take off his shoes because the ground is holy. One thing I've learned in the last year is that saying x is y (this ground is holy) says nothing about z being y or not. But, the odds are a little greater, if x is y, then z is y. Just a little greater. You reach into a bag and grab a M&M. Generally, if you hear objects clanking around in the bag, they will be M&Ms too.

If Jews are chosen by God, and given “the promised land” that sways the chances that others are chosen as well, and given their “promised land.”

The second is from when I used the phrase with Michael today that one has to step outside of their shell. As I said it, I could see a shell of a body opening up, and the inside becoming the outside. It made me think of Flint's blog post (http://flintsparks.org/2015/12/the-space-between/),

“Many of you have heard me say, over and over, that awakening does not happen “in” a person. It happens “between.” If our lives are woven as a single fabric and linked as one inconceivable network of relationship, then to “attain individual enlightenment” has no meaning. However, the realization of liberating intimacy through profound meeting is the great gift of all contemplative practice and spiritual inquiry. But opening the space between us requires courage — the courage to see and to be seen. This capacity is grounded in the practice of loving presence which is the embodiment of wisdom and compassion.”

Perhaps when Socrates said that the "unexamined life is not worth living" he meant “life” not to mean my individual trials and tribulations, but rather “life” meaning interactions and intersections with others. In Torah study we read from a book called the Aura of the Torah (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0827609485/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=43209081026&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10674722123649549816&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_7ueyorf35u_b). Aura is something we often miss as we get caught up with the trials and tribulations of our lives. As Wordsworth wrote, ”...Little we see in Nature that is ours;....”

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Who's in the world?

Xiushan said, "What can you do about the world?" Dizang said, "What do you call the world?"