tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80728766408707249972024-03-12T23:09:52.985-04:00Scattered RevelationsReflections on Life as I continue the journey to live an authentic life and to help others live one too.Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.comBlogger197125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-48049133037432414532018-12-31T23:30:00.000-05:002018-12-31T23:30:04.106-05:00Year End Reflection: When Traditions Change<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_ksVZ9aaa-RB7vO9zcoiYOZ-0p1XkvFamityFRNKUS4cDESiItB2KUOy4nQ2UrTRnjfY4otRb9tlL_n6z7RKyj3tVHgG7H-96xY7z9euM73rCrJheD9NZH9GpYXe2RS7zu4f81-bnI6y5/s1600/Year+End+Reflection.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="945" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_ksVZ9aaa-RB7vO9zcoiYOZ-0p1XkvFamityFRNKUS4cDESiItB2KUOy4nQ2UrTRnjfY4otRb9tlL_n6z7RKyj3tVHgG7H-96xY7z9euM73rCrJheD9NZH9GpYXe2RS7zu4f81-bnI6y5/s320/Year+End+Reflection.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2018 was a year filled with a great deal of change and that included changes in holiday traditions. The <a href="https://creativemornings.com/cities/rva" target="_blank">CreativeMornings RVA</a> talk on <a href="https://creativemornings.com/talks/tradition/1" target="_blank">Dec. 14</a> was on tradition - transforming old ones and creating new ones. It is exciting to transform and create new traditions and yet I don't want to minimize the grief that can come with letting some traditions go - even for the best of reasons.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It is nearly a year since I told my spouse that I wanted to separate and divorce. This was not an easy decision or one I took lightly. It was long a time coming and I knew I was hurting her terribly. Yet I also knew in the deepest part of my being that it was absolutely the right thing and what I had to do. It has been a year of navigating living arrangements, dating, hurt feelings, finding new ways to still be a family while not being a couple.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In addition, I completed my conversion to Judaism. My Beit Den and immersion in the Mikveh was the most life-altering and transforming experience of life, second only to becoming a mother. A friend had suggested journaling for the week leading up to my immersion on the days of Creation along with saying goodbye to my old self. I let go of my old self and truly began a new book of my life. It is said in Judaism that when you immerse in the mikveh as a convert, you receive your Jewish soul. That is exactly what happened. Reading from the Book of Ruth and hearing my Hebrew name used for the first time, brought me to tears of joy and belonging.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So what happens to all the traditions associated with the December holidays when one is separated, dating, living with someone new, and now officially Jewish. Last December, I celebrated Hanukkah with my spouse and daughter, and then Christmas with them. This year Hanukkah was early and I celebrated with the new person in my life, his child, my daughter, and her boyfriend. Then celebrated a rather low key Christmas morning with boyfriend and child, followed by an afternoon joined by my daughter of the American Jewish tradition of a movie and Chinese food. I found myself both happy and sad. It was a joy to celebrate Hanukkah and introduce people to new traditions. Yet I also found myself missing the traditions of the past.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">New traditions take time to feel like traditions. This was a year filled with new traditions - so of course, much of the time I felt like I didn't really know what I was doing. It was not yet the familiarity of long-held traditions. I definitely felt connected to Jews here and around the world also lighting candles, making latkes or other fried foods, and to generations of Jews who have done so before us.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So I found myself sad or tearing up at different times. I found myself missing the Christmases of my childhood with my parents and grandparents. I was missing the cooking, baking, and large family gatherings of my past. I felt overwhelmed by all the Christmas and feeling very much like an outsider as a Jew. I was also angry at the Christian privilege that seemed even more prominent this year.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So as 2018 comes to a close, I know that 2019 will bring its own changes and adjustments. I definitely have ideas for traditions I want to begin - starting with Shabbat dinners or brunches and a Hanukkah Party. I know that part of what I was missing and grieving was coming together around a table with friends and family to eat, laugh, share stories, light candles, prayer. I want cell phones out only for photos. I want silly and profound conversations. I want to bring people together who do not yet know each other. I want to create a home filled with the tradition of being a place where family and friends gather for occasions large and small, happy and sad, planned way in advance and the last minute take-out and movie night. One thing I have learned in 2018 is that I cannot wait for others, if this what I want, then I need to be the one to make it happen.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> Happy New Year!</span></span>Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0Richmond, VA, USA37.5407246 -77.436048137.339233099999994 -77.758771599999989 37.7422161 -77.1133246tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-42176205076830874322018-07-26T07:00:00.000-04:002018-07-26T07:00:09.740-04:00הוד (howd/hod): Majesty and Humility<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Hebrew word Hod can be translated many ways with different meanings that include splendor and humility. This has confused me tremendously as I see these terms as being the opposite. Hod is one of the <a class="" href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/sefirot/" target="_blank">sefirot</a> - the energies and attributes of God that are part of <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/kabbalah-mysticism-101/" target="_blank">Kaballah</a>. Between Passover and Shavuot is the counting of the <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/blessing-for-counting-the-omer/" target="_blank">Omer</a>, during which one reflects on these divine attributes, which and each attribute correlates with a part of God's body. Hod is the left leg or left foot and is paired with Nezah, on the right, which can be endurance, eternity. One of the reflections during Omer this year spoke to the humility of <a href="https://ritualwell.org/ritual/omer-day-26-i-am-so-blessed" target="_blank">endurance</a>. Tara Rose in her <a href="http://bcc-la.org/counting-the-omer-day-30-may-4-2015-gevurah-of-hod-might-or-discipline-within-humility/" target="_blank">reflection</a> from another year brings the humility and splendor together, "When we see Hod in our left foot, we can be reminded to move forward with humility, and at the same time, to move forward with majesty and splendor." (Rose, Tara) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Recently I had a rather sudden and unpleasant experience of failing to be self-aware, of failing to understand who I needed to be in a particular situation. One can be very authentic, authentically oneself and realize that different contexts require that we bring forward certain aspects of ourselves and others need to remain in the background. In professional spaces, we need to bring our best professional selves and realize we do not just represent ourselves but who we work for - whether that is ourselves or someone else. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">During the counting of the Omer with a friend this year, was the first time I encountered the word "hod." The first translation of hod I encountered was humility. When I was discussing this with a friend she offered this definition of hod "embodied awareness of self in relation." That is what I forgot in this recent experience, I lost this embodied sense of awareness. Truthfully, in looking back, it was a day in which I was anything but embodied and in deep need of approval and proving myself. The problem is that in my struggle for approval, acceptance, and to prove myself, I did the exact opposite. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We are embodied, social beings and yet every day we are bombarded with messages that lead us away from embodiment and away from being connected to one another. Every beauty commercial, self-help seminar, weight loss, plastic surgery and so many others have us looking outside of ourselves for what it means to be beautiful, confident, likable, and comfortable in our skin. There is money and power in leading human beings outside of an inner grounding in our bodies, our hearts and our souls - we forget who we are and therefore look outside of ourselves for meaning. It is there that we become convinced that it is the next ten pounds, the next job, the next product, the next plastic surgery, the next self-help guru will be the one to finally fix our lives, to settle the deep dissatisfaction that has taken hold of us. If we can't find it in those settings, our medical system is set up to find a treatment or pill to fix what ails us. Yet we will never find it outside of ourselves and additionally, we won't find it in a shallow self-awareness that is unwilling to face the monsters within. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hod requires that we understand and practice being authentically ourselves all the time while understanding that not every aspect of ourselves needs to be known to everyone or in every place. It also requires that we be able to read our context, who are the people we are with at a given moment, what is our relationship with them, where physically are we located. These are not always easy things to read and we all learn through a great deal of trial and error. Hod goes directly against the notion of it being all about me or letting it all hang out. I am sure each of us can call to mind a situation where someone shared something inappropriate to the setting they were in. Sharing the details of your last breakup over lunch with your best friend - appropriate; sharing those details in the break room of your office - not appropriate. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Other topics that require a great deal of hod are discussions of politics and religion. Many of us have strong, passionate opinions. Yet not everyplace is the place to share those - even if the topic comes up. I know how easy it is for me to get caught up in the excitement and passion of the conversation that I lose sight of myself and context. Afterward, I have that feeling of dread "did I say too much" or "did I speak out of turn." It is great that I realize it after the fact, it would be better if I had checked myself at the moment. Another important piece is not to assume I know I am in a place that people are in agreement with me or due to my own arrogance that takes on an attitude "how could anyone not see it this way." In this day and time, we need to practice this embodied awareness of self even more. It is a reminder to me that I don't know everything; not assume that others agree with me or that everyone who disagrees with me is bad, evil, or wrong. It is a reminder to ask if this is the time, place or person to share this information or my opinion. It is so easy to lose touch with myself in the passion of the conversation. My passion and my love of conversation, connecting with others is a strength. It becomes a weakness and a stumbling block when I fail to balance it with awareness of myself and others. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This experience had some unpleasant consequences for all involved. I did all that I could to make amends, apologized and took full responsibility. I fully acknowledged my mistakes. Now all I can do is move forward with both majesty and humility.</span>Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-69185332598493284492018-04-30T07:00:00.000-04:002018-04-30T07:00:01.350-04:00Leadership and Ethics: Lessons from StarbucksDiversity, inclusion, racism, misogyny, #metoo, #blacklivesmatter, are common news topics. Really every day a new story of white privilege and male privilege fill our newsfeeds. For all those that make the case that systemic racism and sexism is still thriving and in some ways has found new fertile ground, there are others who deny it, refuse to see it and see those who share their experiences with racism and sexism as attention seeking victims.<br />
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One of these stories was the police being called to a Starbucks and arresting two African American men who were waiting for a third person to join them. From a simple request to use the restroom while waiting for their friend to arrive and the plan to order and spend time and money at the Starbucks, escalated to the police coming and arresting the two men, just as the friend arrived. The <a href="https://youtu.be/7PEYoMdXjjg" target="_blank">video</a> has now made its way around the web, white people shocked that this happened, people of color shaking their heads at yet another example of white privilege, with both Starbucks and the police left with the question of what's next. What is different in this story, is the response of <a href="https://news.starbucks.com/" target="_blank">Starbucks</a> CEO, <a href="https://news.starbucks.com/contact/leadership/kevin-johnson" target="_blank">Kevin Johnson</a>. He owned that this was about bias, it was about racism, and his response was unequivocal - "was nothing but reprehensible."<br />
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If you have not yet seen the video of his statement and <a href="http://fortune.com/video/2018/04/16/starbucks-ceo-releases-a-video-apology-for-philadelphia-arrests/" target="_blank">apology</a>, go watch it. He demonstrates leadership, integrity, and putting his ethics into action. In addition, as you listen to his apology - notice what is in it and what is not.<br />
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In his apology, he takes full responsibility for what happened. As the CEO, he owns that in the end, responsibility begins and ends with him. He just takes responsibility. He offers no excuses or explanations. He doesn't deflect blame to the manager or to the police. He says, this is a "management problem and it is one I need to fix, making sure this doesn't happen again."<br />
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What is so remarkable is the unequivocal way he apologizes and takes responsibility. It is so rare that we hear an apology like this one. Here are a few things that make his apology so unique:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5zWoThQm0aKTegHSepIxz_4X91pJEgj85He8Y9GSEwqkkfBou62oC5A7soMk9IShFCyHx1yuwssbiL9G0oTVgo1ZfeDzKwku0cXgdg5Ln55-ze5La-2d4cfWwHCBbKad1nw7V0KId29ht/s1600/Lessons+from+Starbucks.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5zWoThQm0aKTegHSepIxz_4X91pJEgj85He8Y9GSEwqkkfBou62oC5A7soMk9IShFCyHx1yuwssbiL9G0oTVgo1ZfeDzKwku0cXgdg5Ln55-ze5La-2d4cfWwHCBbKad1nw7V0KId29ht/s320/Lessons+from+Starbucks.png" width="213" /></a>
<li>there is no "I am sorry if feelings were hurt"</li>
<li>there is no "I am sorry and yet.....there were these extenuating circumstances that let you know it isn't really my fault"</li>
<li>he does say "I am responsible"</li>
<li>he does say "I am sorry"</li>
<li>he does say "I am going to take steps to make this better"</li>
<li>he names specific actions that he is proposing and ones he has already taken and</li>
<li>within a day, released a planned anti-bias <a href="https://news.starbucks.com/press-releases/starbucks-to-close-stores-nationwide-for-racial-bias-education-may-29" target="_blank">training</a> that included closing the stories for employees to attend.</li>
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Now I want you to think about the last public figure apology you heard or saw, the last apology you gave, and/ or the last apology you received. Did the person take full responsibility without explanation or trying to excuse it away? Did the apology include an "if" as in "if I hurt you, or "if I was offensive"? Did the apology include "I want to make sure this doesn't happen again" or "how can I make amends?"<br />
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Kevin Johnson is setting an example for his company and employees as well as the rest of us. Being an ethical organization begins at the top and it is not just a nice set of statements hung on the walls and posted in every employee's cubicle. It is not just about what will keep one from being sued or going to jail. It is a culture that walks its talk. It is a culture that expresses its values, integrity, and ethics in everything they do. It is expressed in their personnel policies, the way they treat their customers, the letting nothing - even profit - come before one's values. It will cost Starbucks an <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-starbucks-said-the-last-time-it-closed-its-stores-for-an-afternoon-2018-04-17" target="_blank">estimated</a> $12 million in lost revenue to close its store for an afternoon - take that in - $12 million!<br />
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We are not accustomed to this. We are accustomed to the Well Fargo disaster where employees opened accounts without permission of the account holder in the name of profit, our public officials who lie openly and boldfaced with no shame, companies that promise to stay in the United States, maintain jobs and then do rounds of layoffs and take those jobs overseas, all the various incidents with airlines, and nearly every industry has a story of the lack of ethics, the lack of integrity, in the name of the bottom line.<br />
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That is what makes his apology and actions so important. Is he perfect? No. Will this happen again, even at a Starbucks? Probably. What is important is that he is giving all of us an example of what leadership, ethical leadership is and looks like. We need many more leaders like this and we need to start being this way in our own lives.<br />
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It is hard to say "I am sorry" and tack on nothing else. Usually, we want to do something like "I am so sorry I am late, traffic was terrible (regardless of whether it was or not); I am sorry I forgot, I was xxxx." We want to explain ourselves, we want to say "I am not a bad person." "Please don't be mad at me." It is a habit and so common we may not even notice it. So I challenge you, the next time you need to apologize, try "I am sorry I did X or didn't do X or forgot X. I should not have done that or I should have ..." Then stop, just stop - don't explain, don't add anything. This is hard - really hard. Sit in the discomfort. I can't promise you that all will be well, but do pay attention to how this feels. Pay attention to the response you get from the other person. The difference between an apology that is truly an apology, that truly takes responsibility, is different, it is genuine. We are very habituated to giving excuses with our apologies, so stop and think as you start to say "I'm sorry" and practice not tacking anything on. If you are a parent, practice with your child: replace "I'm sorry I yelled and lost my temper but you were not cooperating and we were late" with "I'm sorry, I yelled, I lost my temper, yes I was frustrated that x y or z was not happening, that is not an excuse for yelling. I am sorry." What can you add? "I am going to count to ten the next time I feel myself getting ready to yell." "Next time, I think we both may need to walk away and try again in a few minutes." In this way, we model taking responsibility, which is one of the most important lessons we can teach our children. Yep, I mess up too and I am taking responsibility for it. Is it easy? Does it always feel good? No, and it is the right thing to do.<br />
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Imagine if in our homes, schools, faith communities, public offices, companies, we put ethics first, we put integrity first. We have homes, schools, faith communities, public officials and companies that do this. How are those places different? What if we began to demand from ourselves this level of integrity and then begin demanding it from our institutions? What if we refused to accept the empty apologies, the lovely worded statement of values that in no way matches the behavior of the organization? What if we rewarded the ethical organization?<br />
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So thank you, Kevin Johnson, We all have a great deal to learn from your example!Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-60455972579462011592018-03-17T09:00:00.000-04:002018-03-17T09:00:22.138-04:00Struggling with Beings both Human and Divine<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSHpUR2vM-vGNy0-QWMAaVeH3VoYaVBzMBIJi1PBXUTR3Y4g7nwCvyq295Uw0foEaZeC0FUgYnxPSrDJfe2c9RWBuqz7KMaE777TvVPWAKzz6R72CaI99b9zJeaR1rF7x12NFITlCwwl4_/s1600/20180316_160826-COLLAGE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="837" data-original-width="1024" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSHpUR2vM-vGNy0-QWMAaVeH3VoYaVBzMBIJi1PBXUTR3Y4g7nwCvyq295Uw0foEaZeC0FUgYnxPSrDJfe2c9RWBuqz7KMaE777TvVPWAKzz6R72CaI99b9zJeaR1rF7x12NFITlCwwl4_/s320/20180316_160826-COLLAGE.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With my hair still wet from the mikveh and my certificate</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>As part of my journey to conversion, I wrote a D'var Torah on a passage of my choosing. I chose Genesis 32: 25-33. I saw the Beit Den and immersed in the Mikveh on Tuesday. It was a profound and transforming experience, one that still feels both amazing and overwhelming. I am so incredibly grateful to the companions and teachers on this journey. I am so grateful to<a href="http://www.or-ami.com/" target="_blank"> Congregation Or Ami</a> for its welcome and embrace! Now that I am a full member of the Tribe - I share this reflection.</i></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>D’var Torah: Genesis 32:25-33</b></span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-9bdc690b-305c-1869-678d-4f8304f94026" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></b><br /><b id="docs-internal-guid-9bdc690b-305c-1869-678d-4f8304f94026" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jacob’s struggle with God/an angel resonates with me on such a deep level and has for many years. I see my own spiritual journey as one of wrestling with God. Wrestling with myself, with religious institutions, with all I have learned, and so it makes perfect sense that I would finally find my home, my people, my God among Israelites - those who struggle with God. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jacob’s encounter with the angel comes after his dream where he sees angels ascending and descending on a ladder (Genesis 28:12-13) and the night before he is to see his brother, Esau, since he stole his blessing. Jacob has learned some hard lessons since he last saw Esau. He himself has been tricked by Laban - laboring for seven years and then Laben substitutes Leah for Rachel. He has served Laban for many years, amassing his own wealth, enabling him to flee Laban. In addition, his marriages have given him eleven sons, a daughter, and Rachel, his beloved, is pregnant with his twelfth son. He is not the same man who took his brother’s birthright for a bowl of stew; or with his mother’s help stole his father’s blessing. He knows how it feels to be in Esau’s shoes and it tells us a great deal about Jacob, that he fears his brother’s anger. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So the night before this meeting that Jacob dreads, he wrestles with a man, the text tell us. They wrestled all night. In the morning, the man wrenched Jacob’s hip. Jacob stops the man from leaving and demands a blessing. This demand for a blessing is classic Jacob. He has no problem demanding what it is he wants and doing what it takes to get it. The man asks his name, which is itself is strange if the being is an angel or God, would he not already know Jacob’s name? He then tells Jacob, “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.” Yet who is this being that Jacob wrestles with all night?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.32.25?lang=bi&with=Commentary&lang2=bi" target="_blank">Sforno, Rashi, and Chizkuni </a>all affirm that the being is an angel but have different explanations about who the angel is or what the struggle represents. For Sforno, the struggle symbolic of all of Jewish history. The Jewish people would struggle, struggle all night long, yet in the end the Jewish people will prevail. Rashi tells us that the angel is Jacob’s guardian angel and yet he also struggles with Esau. Finally Chizkuni, argues that the angel is Esau’s protective power that both makes sure Jacob will show up in the morning and to assure him that Esau will not harm him. Jacob tells us that he wrestled with God and names the place Peniel - I have encountered God face to face and yet I live. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rabbi Charles Kroff in his D’var Torah, <a href="https://reformjudaism.org/learning/torah-study/vayishlach/chasing-your-demons-finding-your-friend" target="_blank">“Chasing Your Demons: Finding Your Friend”</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> tells the story of a family where the four sisters are all in conflict with each other at the funeral of their father. They refuse to sit together, look at each other or interact in any way. Rabbi Kroff contrasts this with how Jacob wrestles with himself, with Esau, with God, which then results in the embrace of Esau and Jacob the next day. Esau does not harbor bitterness or anger. Jacob can accept the embrace because he has wrestled with what he had done, with Esau, with God, with himself - he can take responsibility for what he did. Rabbi Kroff asks “Haven’t we all struggled with our fears and our vulnerabilities at some time in the dead of night?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rabbi Kroff quotes Rabbi Cohen saying that Jacob"was conscious of all the different forces in his life with which he struggled: God, Esau, the side of himself that haunted him like a shadow. He was surely confronting both the human and divine in his life... That night, all the parts of Jacob and all the parts of his life came together, and he would never be the same" Rabbi Kroff tells us that this wrestling leads to transformation, to a new name to represent that who Jacob was when he laid down the night is not who he is in the morning. Jacob asks for a blessing and is given a new name, Israel. Jacob struggled with God, himself and other humans. Israel means one who struggles and prevails with beings both human and divine. However we understand Jacob’s experience - a dream, vision, or an actual physical battles, it is only through being willing to face what we fear, face ourselves, face truth, face God, that we can transform. I would say that for Jacob, that struggle through the night is the cumulation of a lifetime of struggle, and in the morning Jacob can finally embrace his full self. Florida Scott Maxwell states </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done … you are fierce with reality.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have wrestled with myself, with life, and I don’t know whether I have yet achieved having possesed all I have been and done. I do know that in my own wrestling, my own long, sleepless nights, I too have been transformed. Nowhere is this more true, than in my spiritual journey. To come to this place, to find my spiritual home within in Judaism, is not possible without struggling with first with the religious tradition I was brought up in, my search for a spiritual home within Christianity and within Unitarian Universalism. Yet is not just with religious institutions or traditions - in some ways they are only the surface, I have also had to struggle with God, with myself, with where I belong, who am I and who am I meant to be, and certainly struggle with the demons of insecurity, doubt, fear. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I say I have found a home in Judaism, that home is not a place to get comfortable, to be quiet, or to cease from struggle. Oh it may be all that at times, and it is also loud, opinionated, with a fierce wrestling with God, with tradition, with Torah, and with how to live life fully and in service to healing the world. Not even Jacob stops struggling, soon he will lose Rachel, think he has lost his son Joseph, and will end his days not in his homeland, but in Egypt. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Part of conversion to Judaism is to choose a Hebrew name. There are many ways to go about this process but for me it was this text. This text that resonates so deeply with my own journey. I choose Yisraela (</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">יִשְׂרְאֵלָה)</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as my Hebrew name. It will serve as a reminder of the struggle to this point and that life will continue to offer challenges with beings both human and divine.</span></span></div>
Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-6339457027210580822018-02-16T16:02:00.000-05:002018-02-16T16:02:27.609-05:00Grateful for Failure?<span style="background-color: white;"></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfKasTQl2aNhTcOvRQF4JPRr-MZEM8Y9iiSh4xYfFCrNOTftoizOUHQVvFX0cSsFIgIcJh-etl5LyqDnRT3ztgo84o_Sz_-gCf4oLNAY1qFvHpnaXDI4e2u6Z8_u-oD0iopUK6CYaB68xx/s1600/Grateful+for+Failure.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfKasTQl2aNhTcOvRQF4JPRr-MZEM8Y9iiSh4xYfFCrNOTftoizOUHQVvFX0cSsFIgIcJh-etl5LyqDnRT3ztgo84o_Sz_-gCf4oLNAY1qFvHpnaXDI4e2u6Z8_u-oD0iopUK6CYaB68xx/s320/Grateful+for+Failure.png" width="213" /></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With yet another "we have decided not to move forward with you, thank you for your time" result of a job interview, I find myself reflecting on the question of whether or not to be grateful for failure. All too often, there is a rush to turn the f<span style="text-align: center;">ailure or setback around into something positive, into "the next one will be the right one" or "must not have been meant to be." It hurts to be told no; it hurts to fail, to have yet another setback. It took everything I had not to cry on the phone with the recruiter. I shed many tears that night and I am grateful for the friends and my coach who offered a listening ear, comfort, and just let me be without jumping to lessons learned and what comes next.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now that we are on the other side of the holidays and 2018 has begun, I am ready to take the next steps. I took a full break from job hunting - unsubscribed from job posting lists, did not do any networking and made the decision that I needed to thoroughly look at what I have done and what I need to do going forward. In addition, the focus on the job search which has been unrelenting for over two years, has meant things like my conversion journey were often put aside. My first priority for 2018 is to finish all the written homework I have for my conversion and then figure out what the next steps are. I am ready to be a full member of the tribe!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my study of Judaism, particularly as I explore music, I have come across this idea of failure, set-back, roadblocks as things to be grateful for; to not worry; that all this is in one's favor, and that everything that is mine will come in time. One of the places this comes up is in this beautiful version of Modeh Ani. Each morning I watch and listen and offer my thanks for another day. Here are the lines that I am referring to:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><a href="https://youtu.be/0lPK6V3Y6YQ" target="_blank">Modeh Ani</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">על כל כישלונותיי מודה אני</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Al </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">kol</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">kishlonotai</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">modeh</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> ani</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">For all my failures I give you thanks</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">על אכזבותיי פחדיי ומכשוליי</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Al aczavutai pachadai umkshulai</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">For every letdown, fear, and setback</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">הם כולם לטובתי</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Hem kulam ltovati</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">They are all in my favor</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The second song is the parody of "Despacito" by the Maccabeats.<b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><a href="https://youtu.be/6sw9DXTaH1w" target="_blank">Despacito - Maccabeats</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">דספסיטו</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Despacito</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Slowly</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-79bed050-b816-337d-07f5-044a139405db" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></span>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">קח את החיים שלך בדספסיטו</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Kach et hachayim shelcha bedespacito</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Take your life slowly</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">כל דבר בזמן שלו יבוא קרידו</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Kol davar bazman shelo yavo querido</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Everything that's yours in it's time will come, dear</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">וכל עכבה זה טוב רק תאמין בו</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Vechol ekaba ze tov rak ta’amin bo</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "roboto"; font-size: 10.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">And any obstruction is good only believe it,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">My rabbi sent me to look up </span></span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Taanit 21a and the story of </span><span style="font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rabbi </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Nachum Ish Gam-Zu, whose name means "all for the best." He was called that as it was what he said all the time. He insisted that no matter what the calamity that happened to him "it was all for the best." As I delved further and read more commentaries, it is clear that this notion that "all is for the good" is grounded in the assertion that everything that happens, comes from God and since God cannot do bad things, then everything, no matter how awful, must be "all for the best." This is grounded in the assertion that God is omnipotent, all powerful, an idea I have long rejected. I wonder if Rabbi Nachum Ish Gam-Zu would be able to assert that even the Holocaust "was for the best." It was the Holocaust, other genocides, and the way people so often treat each other as objects to be used and discarded that led to my rejection of the omnipotence of God. Now this is a classical theological question called theodicy and I am not the first to reject the omnipotence of God or that God has some master plan that is beyond our understanding so just trust that it will all work out. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what about being grateful for failure? If God is not all powerful, then suffering does not come from God. Harold Kushner's answer that creation is on-going and incomplete provides part of this answer. The assertion that we are commanded to tikkun olam - repairing the world, means it is our task to do our part in alleviating suffering. Does this mean I don't believe there is a plan or some greater purpose? No, there is a plan and yes it is beyond any single person's understanding and it is ever evolving. If creation is not a "one and done" event but never ceasing, then the plan is ever evolving as well. We each have a part and role in the plan - we each have a purpose, our part in healing this world. If that is the case, then we are going to get it wrong sometimes. We are going to mistakes, there will be setbacks, there will be suffering.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.viktorfrankl.org/e/lifeandwork.html" target="_blank">Viktor Frankl</a> asserted, quoting Nietzsche, that "a person could survive almost any how, if the person knew why." Frankl asserted that their must be meaning in suffering. This, however, was not a static meaning. Meaning evolved as our life changes and evolves. He had one purpose in the camps - to accept the suffering he and the other prisoners were experiencing without turning away or escaping into fantasy and later his meaning or his purpose was to help others find the meaning in their lives. Frankl did not sugar-coat suffering or even say it was good. In fact Frankl said "<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">But let me make it perfectly clear that in no way is suffering necessary to find meaning. I only insist that meaning is possible even in spite of suffering—provided, certainly, that the suffering is unavoidable. If it were avoidable, however, the meaningful thing to do would be to remove its cause, be it psychological, biological or political. To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic." (<i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4069.Man_s_Search_for_Meaning?ac=1&from_search=true" target="_blank">Man's Search for Meaning</a></i>, @69% in Kindle edition) So those in the concentration camps must not asked to see the suffering as good or even justified and whatever meaning people found there could never justify the evil of the camps. The suffering of the concentration camps could have been avoided and should have never happened. Much of human suffering - poverty, hunger, violence, war - these are of our own making and just as we have made it - we can end it. In fact, if we are to take tikkun olam seriously, then we are commanded to end it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">So be grateful for failure, for set-back? Yes, there is reason to give thanks even for the failures, the setbacks, the obstacles, at least in cases like not being offered a job. It hurts, absolutely, and yet in stepping back, taking a larger view, I can choose to see it as part of this process. Job searching is not for the faint of heart because one will often hear "no" far more often than "yes." Maybe it was for the best and is too soon to know. Yet in the morning, I can give thanks for failure because it is a part of life. It is how we learn. One of the greatest gifts Judaism has given me, is permission to fail, the expectation that we will fail and have setbacks. If we accept that, then we can keep going.</span></span><br />
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Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-62382416980070242902017-12-23T19:57:00.001-05:002017-12-23T19:57:32.939-05:00My Favorite Weekly Jewish Ritual: HavdalahThe deeper my journey into Judaism, the deeper my Shabbat observance and practice. It is powerful to draw on this ancient weekly holiday and make it meaningful in contemporary life. My favorite ritual of Shabbat (outside of Friday evening services) is Havdalah.<br />
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This Hanukkah my family gifted me with a beautiful Havdalah set.<br />
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I decided to make my own spice mix for the spice box. In looking up how to do this I found plenty of do-it-yourself bags and boxes and a list of possible spices. There is one spice store that actually sells a Havdalah spice <a href="http://wholespice.com/a-z/h/havdalah-mix.html" target="_blank">mix</a>. I used their ingredient list as inspiration for my own. The traditional spices are cloves and cardamom and sometimes cinnamon. In fact, my new spice box was filled with whole cloves. So I chose the following mix of spices that I found at my local <a href="https://www.penzeys.com/" target="_blank">Penzey's</a> (I love Penzey's!): Ceylon Cinnamon, Cardamon Seeds, Whole Cloves, and Orange Peel.<br />
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I started looking around the web to see if I was supposed to grind the spices or leave them whole or what. I didn't find any specific instructions and from the photos, the spices were mostly whole or in big pieces. So I mixed the spices in a small container that I could seal with a lid for storage. I took about 20 whole cloves, half of a cinnamon stick, 2-3 cardamom seeds, and a generous sprinkling of orange peel. Cardamom seeds have a very strong scent so I used the least of those. I mixed it based on how it smelled, particularly with the orange peel. It is really about personal preference. I took a plastic knife and blended them together. So here is what mine looked like:<br />
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Then I filled the spice box and put the lid on what was left.<br />
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My cats are usually my company for Havdalah and I am still working on Hebrew (this will be a lifelong learning project), I found a great version of the Havdalah prayers from <a href="https://www.theshabbosproject.org/" target="_blank">The Shabbos Project</a>. In 2014, at the end of this global observance of Shabbat many locations held large public Havdalah services. The Maccabeats and <span style="background-color: white; color: var(--ytd-video-primary-info-renderer-title-color, var(--yt-primary-text-color)); font-family: inherit;">Netanel Hershtik created a <a href="https://youtu.be/5Y9jPvnV5B8" target="_blank">video</a> with images from the 2014 Havdalah services around the globe. </span>It is fun to watch the video with pictures of Havdalah from around the world. Most useful, however, is that there is a <a href="https://youtu.be/l6_XJauK3Qc" target="_blank">version</a> that is just the lyrics in Hebrew, transliteration into English and the English translation!! So each Saturday evening, I pray along with the Maccabeats and Netanel Hershtik. It is a beautiful way to mark the end of Shabbat and to carry its sweetness into the week ahead!<br />
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Shavua Tov!<br />
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<br />Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-3118121240252599932017-12-14T07:00:00.000-05:002017-12-14T07:00:31.217-05:00Passion and Work: A Dialogue<pre style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">A couple of months ago, <a href="https://theschoolofsuccess.com/dougs-story/" target="_blank">Doug Pointer</a>, from <a href="https://theschoolofsuccess.com/" target="_blank">The School of Success</a>, posted this on his Facebook page: “He said to me “You want me to tell you what my passion is and go work in it? How am I supposed to do that? I just do what they tell me and earn the money.“ How sad is that?” In reading this, I had a very strong and visceral response, “Is it sad?” Could it be enough that this person has a job, it pays him an adequate salary, and his soul is not being crushed or devoured, is it ok to just “have a job” or does it have to be your passion for one to truly be happy and fulfilled?"
Doug and I know each other through <a href="http://career-prospectors.com/" target="_blank">Career Prospectors</a>. He and I have had a few conversations about the role of passion in work and career, so this was my response:</span></pre>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><i>OK diving into the rapids here! Do you like what you do? Are you skilled and experienced such that you have options and choices about your career? Is the work sucking your soul out of you? If it is, then what are your options? What skills do you possess that solve employers' problems? How important is it to you that you love your job and find meaning in it? Do you want a job that demands less ie go to work and do what I am told but pays the bills, provides enough, hence leaving you with energy and time to put into other priorities? Where does work fall in the midst of your priorities? How much of your energy and time are you willing to commit to having a career, not just a job, a calling, your passion? What may have to be sacrificed in service to that career?</i></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Doug’s Response: “What are the answers to your own questions?" </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Writing the answers to these questions was a great exercise! So I am sharing my answers and I invite others to share their own. How important is passion in your work? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1. <i>Do you like what you do?</i> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yes! I love both of my part-time jobs. I do love teaching and I have the variety of teaching junior high and college students. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2) <i>Are you skilled and experienced such that you have options and choices about your career?</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yes, to a certain degree. My skills in teaching, public speaking, facilitation, event planning, community outreach along with some tech skills like website design and maintenance, social media are very transferable. The challenge is that because I gained my experience in places not expected by most employers (ie congregations) and my expertise is religion and ethics which are not as common outside the nonprofit sector where I have spent my career. This means I have to do more work to demonstrate those transferable skills to an employer and it also means I have to learn the language I need to communicate that. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3) <i>Is the work sucking your soul out of you? If it is, then what are your options?</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The work is not but the lack of consistent work and income is. The financial anxiety caused by lack of income, no credit, no savings, is the equivalent of a daily encounter with a hungry wooly mammoth. Options: secure the illusive job that pays enough with health benefits; my spouse gets granted her Social Security disability, we get the back payments and a regular monthly disability check; winning the lottery; death of a long lost relative who leaves one of us a fortune (ok the last two are highly unlikely).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4) <i>What skills do you possess that solve employers' problems?</i></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Training</b> - every organization needs training for people - whether it is skills training, diversity training, professional development. I have experience in all kinds of training/teaching from traditional higher education to a variety of software and application classes professionally and as a volunteer to leadership development with youth, young adults and adults in academia and congregations.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Public Speaking and Community Engagement</b> - while many dread the thought of public speaking I love it so I would be an excellent spokesperson, community liaison because my public speaking with my love of networking would make me an exceptional person to take the message or the organization into the larger community.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Ethics</b> - really every organization needs to be thinking and cultivating a culture of ethics that moves beyond what is legal, especially in today's world where much of our current public discourse is ultimately about ethics. Ethics are not just intuited out of the ether - to have an ethical organization, there needs to be an ethical culture at every level of an organization. I can speak both to high level ethics - ie human rights, common good - I can also speak to specifics. Ethics can be taught, an ethical imagination can be cultivated. People can be led through a process of ethical dilemmas and decision making. So even what may seem the most irrelevant to a secular organization - my Masters in Theological Studies - gives me expertise in ethics and social theory which brings knowledge of a range of topics needed by every organization.</span></li>
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5) <i>How important is it to you that you love your job and find meaning in it? </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This used to be top of my list, particularly in terms of the kinds of jobs and industries. Now ethics and integrity are important and using my skills, putting my gifts to work brings joy even if the particularly organization or topic is not my passion. I learned I love teaching Google Docs just like I love teaching ethics. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now I want to use my skills (because what else do I have to offer) in an ethical organization (ie not willing to sell my soul to a defense contractor) that will pay me enough to support myself and my family. Supporting my family, having health insurance and financial stability - and maybe if I am lucky, a chance to retire is a more urgent priority than the job/organization match my greatest passion and quest for meaning. I would rather have a well paying job in an ethical corporation then a poor paying job in a non-profit committed to multifaith engagement and dialogue.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">6) <i>Do you want a job that demands less, ie go to work and do what I am told but pays the bills, provides sufficient income and benefits, but not your passion, does not necessarily invoke “I love my job” but you the time and energy to put into other priorities? </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I would say “yes,” since I have realized that what I want is a complete life - not just a job or a career. My father used to say “you work so you can live; you don’t live so you can work.” I see more truth in this now then I did before. Time is precious and I have spent a great deal of it working for organizations, doing work that I love, being underpaid, under appreciated, and left me at the end with nothing financially. My career is one part of and critical to support a complete life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">7) <i>Where does work fall in the midst of your priorities? How much of your energy and time are you willing to commit to having a career, not just a job, a calling, your passion? What may have to be sacrificed in service to that career?</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Work for survival reasons is a top priority for me since the lack of enough work puts me and those I love in constant jeopardy. I am more willing than other times to put time into a career as my daughter is about to turn 18. I would be willing to give more to building a career as long as that did not become unbalanced with other important things like family, cooking, reading, Shabbat and Jewish practice and a Jewish home, time for myself, rest, and my cats.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I will close this with some words from a blog post I wrote as we were getting ready to move to Richmond: <a href="http://www.scatteredrevelations.net/2015/06/we-are-called-unto-life.html" target="_blank">We Are Called Unto Life</a>:
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>What I have learned is that I want a life, a full life, a complete life. I want it filled with people and community. I feel like over time I made myself smaller, shrank my world down and now I want to burst forth and explore the world. I think this year of struggle and tears helped me to see what the holy has been trying to say all along. One of my favorite quotes about vocation is from Herbert Alphonso, SJ and he writes, "Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about---quite apart from what I would like it to be about---or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions.... Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear." It is about my whole life, not my job, but my life.</i></span></blockquote>
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<i><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So what does it mean to you to have a full, complete life? </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Where does work fit into that?</span></i></div>
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Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-30931717406201162822017-10-02T08:00:00.000-04:002017-10-02T08:00:12.898-04:00Hannah's Prayer: Seeking Work<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Inspired by the sermon my Rabbi preached on Rosh Hashanah morning, I wrote this prayer. I had asked if there was a Jewish prayer for job seekers and apparently there is not and her sermon finally gave me the inspiration needed. The story of Hannah from the book of Samuel is the haftarah for the Rosh Hashanah morning service.</span><br />
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<b><span style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Hannah's Prayer: Seeking Work</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>"<span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; display: inline; float: none; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">And Hannah wept. Feelings of loneliness consumed her, and she began questioning her self-worth. “What is wrong with me?”, she asked. “Am I not good enough?”, she pondered. Struggling with infertility, Hannah fell into the deep abyss of depression. Filled with sadness, anger, and frustration, she did what no one had done before. She made an impassioned plea to God, not simply praying for a child, but praying that one day she might feel whole again." (a modern midrash)</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15px;">Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech ha'olam, Borei</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15px;">I come to you, like Hannah, filled with sorrow, rage, and despair. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15px;">For too long now, I have been out of work, not found work, not had enough work</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15px;">My hope is faltering</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15px;">I wonder "What is wrong with me?"; I wonder if I will ever work again; I wonder why and who is to blame.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15px;">I blame myself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">I come to you Adonai, as Hannah did, to pour my heart out to you, to beg you to hear my plea, to hear my pain, </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">my fear, my anger, my frustration.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15px;">I long to use my gifts, skills, and experience; I long to be able to support myself and my family</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15px;">I long for work - Hannah saw having a child, a son, her work, her unique contribution to the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15px;">I too long for work, to make my contribution to the world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15px;">God hear me, hear my plea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15px;">Who will hear me like Eli heard Hannah? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15px;">May I be able to pour out my anger, my sorrow, to free the way of obstacles. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15px;">May my cry be heard, may my life become fruitful and of service. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15px;">I promise to use my gifts, my resources to help heal this world, to be the co-creator you invite us to be. I promise, as Hannah promised her child to you, that my work will be in service to you and to the world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 15px;">Amen.</span><br />
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Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-88116904754658127742017-03-21T06:30:00.000-04:002017-03-21T06:30:11.353-04:00Sometimes Dreams Die Sometimes dreams die and when they do a part of you dies too. Maybe you remember the exact moment the dream died. You know exactly where you were. Exactly what you were doing. Maybe you felt yourself die a little that day. You will get over it, you tried to convince yourself. You will be sad, but you will move on. <br />
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Months have passed, years have passed and there has been no re-birth. You have tried to fill the dream with something else, tried to fill the large gaping hole in your soul. Maybe you have worked on a new dream, maybe you have cried, and worked to forgive yourself, forgive yourself for killing it, even if you did not mean to. Sometimes you may not even know at the time the dream died, maybe you thought there would be time for it later.<br />
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There is no funeral for dreams. No yahrzeit candle is lit or yahrzeit anniversary observed. No grave to visit because the dead part, it is still with you. It is a part of you. It is like a limb that doesn't work anymore, or cells that die. They are still there, they are still part of you and they are dead. You are walking around, you look alive, there are even moments when you feel alive. Then it hits you again, you see so clearly how part of you is just dead. <br />
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People say that "it is never too late." That is a lie. Dreams do die and it is too late. Parts of yourself can die while you still walk around. You cry out to G-d. You pray for healing; for an end to the grief. To accept what has happened and move forward.<br />
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Sometimes dreams die and sometimes when that happens, part of you dies too. Sometimes you never fully recover; you never completely move on. <br />
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What is the mourner's prayer for a dream, a part of self that has died? <br />
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If someone you know shares with you a dream that has died, a part of them has died, know they are sharing a very deep and holy place with you. Please don't try to fix it. Please just hold them. Please don't run away. Please don't tell them there will be a new dream. Just be there. Just know that all they can do is carry this. It may not make sense to you. If you love them, just stay there, just be there. Just let them know that you honor this dream, this part of you that has died. Grieve with them even if you don't understand. Know they must trust you deeply to share this with you. <br />
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It will not be easy to just be there. You will want to fix it. You will want to fill the space with false hope. You will want to fill it with words. None of that will work. The person will shrink away. Maybe you won't notice but they will. They will know that this deep, painful, holy place is not safe with you. It hurts you say, yes it does. Do not be like's Job's friends who after sitting in silence with him told him all things he should do to fix it. <br />
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Do be like Job's friends who sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights in silence and saw how deep the pain was. Cry with them. Hold them. Remind them they are loved. Remind them they are important. Remind them they are not alone. <br />
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Comfort them.Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-29498571273929661802017-03-17T07:00:00.000-04:002017-03-17T07:00:00.224-04:00When We Rise: The Stories of Some Who Paved the Way<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My wife and I just finished watching the four night series <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5292622/" target="_blank"><i>When We Rise</i> </a>based on the book by <a href="http://clevejones.com/" target="_blank">Cleve Jones</a>. Cleve Jones moved to San Francisco in the early 1970's. He worked to help elect <a href="http://milkfoundation.org/about/harvey-milk-biography/" target="_blank">Harvey Milk</a> to the San Francisco City Council. Watching this series, particularly the first two episodes, was to watch events that I witnessed only through television. I was eleven when Harvey Milk and George Moscone were assassinated. Here I share my memories and my story and the ways the work and lives of people such as Cleve Jones and Roma Guy shaped my life. The stories portrayed in this series were among the many that have and continue to pave the way, to show us and inspire us to make our world more just, more inclusive, more whole.<br />
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I was recently asked by my niece for a class she is taking when I first became aware of homosexuality and my memory is driving through the Castro with my grandparents and seeing two men with their arms around each other, their hands in each other's back pockets. In the series, <i>When We Rise</i>, as they show the assassination of Harvey Milk and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Moscone" target="_blank">Mayor George Moscone</a>, I remember exactly where I was that day. I was visiting my grandparents who lived in the Forest Hill District of San Francisco. I remember standing in front of the television and seeing <a href="http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/biography" target="_blank">Diann Feinstein</a> announce the death of the two men and the arrest of Dan White. I remember seeing her barely containing the tears as she announced the death of the two men. I also had no idea until much later, how unique my experience has been. For me, certainly raised with strong moral prohibitions on homosexuality from my family, from the Roman Catholic church, it was coupled with a strong "live and let live." I lived on the Peninsula in Belmont, CA and San Francisco was "The City." My father was raised in San Francisco, third generation, the grandson of a Portuguese immigrant married to an Irish woman. <br />
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At the time, this kind of shooting was not yet a regular part of our news cycle. It was shocking that Dan White could just walk into City Hall and shoot the Mayor and a City Council member and walk back out. I remember Dan White's trial and the Twinkie defense. Even my Republican, Roman Catholic father was outraged. <br />
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My high school years were in the midst of the AIDS crisis. Every night there was a report - from the days when they had no idea what it was, how it was transmitted, to finally understanding what it was and that it was not just about gay men or HIV drug users but about all of us. I remember the decision to close the bath houses. I remember my father's disgust at promiscuous and anonymous sex that many gay men engaged in. I saw gay pride on television. Years before I would come out or even know someone personally who was LGBTQ, I thought well why do they have to have a parade and tell everyone, after all I don't shout about my heterosexuality (yes you can all chuckle here).<br />
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It was not until I went off to college, choosing to leave California first for Milwaukee, WI and then for Washington, DC, to find out that my experience of live and let live was not universal. My roommate freshman year was from St. Louis, MO, when we talked on the phone, she asked me "Are there really all those gays out there?" The question surprised me. Well yes there are gay people in San Francisco, but certainly not in my safe middle/upper middle class neighborhood on the Peninsula. In my second semester at Marquette I was taking an education class and part of the class was tutoring a student in reading. If I remember correctly she was in seventh grade but her reading level was somewhere around 3rd or 4th grade. Part of the assignment was to go and observe our students in the classroom. So I went to her public school to observe her in math class and I believe an English class. While I was waiting, I sat in the Faculty room at the school. The night before the movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089069/" target="_blank">An Early Frost</a> had been on television. The movie is about a young man who has never come out to his family and now needs to come out because he is dying due to complications of AIDS. Two of the teachers in the room were talking about the show. One of them said they could never accept their son if he was gay. She would reject him. Now here I am, sitting in the room, not knowing these people, 18 years old and I am thinking "how could you think that?" How could you reject your child, your son, the child you carried for nine months in your body, you nurtured and loved and cared about and then reject him because he was gay?" This went against everything I believed. Truly I was not in San Francisco any more.<br />
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It was not until I went to Georgetown in 1986 that I actually came to know gay and lesbian people personally. I lived on the same floor and became friends with the man who was President of the Gay and Lesbian group at Georgetown. I had a close friend whose coming out journey I accompanied who later would point out to me, that he did not think I would have a relationship with a man until I explored how female identified I was/am. It sort of took me aback. A close female friend came out as bi and introduced me to the brand new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bi-Any-Other-Name-Bisexual/dp/1555831745" target="_blank">Bi Any Other Name</a> by Lorraine Hutchins and Lani Kaahumanu. I finally came out in the early 1990's as bi. I didn't tell my family. I did tell my friends. I was out in some ways and not out in many others. Bi people were not, and too often are still not, very welcome in the LGBTQ community. For some, bi was a step on the way to finally accepting that one was lesbian or gay. People who identified as bi were seen as too afraid to come out all the way. When Donna and I started dating in 1994, she received a great deal of grief from lesbian friends with "Been there, done that" being the most common response. Now that I was dating a woman, coming out was more important. I joined a coming out support group at <a href="https://www.whitman-walker.org/" target="_blank">Whitman Walker Clinic</a>. It helped to have a place to talk about coming out, about what dreams I felt I was losing, and learning to really accept this new piece of my identity. <br />
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I always knew I would not be rejected by my parents - I didn't think they would meet the news with excitement and joy but I had the privilege (and it is still a privilege) to know that I would not be rejected. I have to say I went through my own version of being a radically out person, wearing buttons and t-shirts that proudly proclaimed to the world that I was part of the LGB community (T was not yet part of the alphabet). I was working at the <a href="https://cathedral.org/" target="_blank">Washington National Cathedral</a> in the worship department when we held a service in celebration of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_on_Washington_for_Lesbian,_Gay_and_Bi_Equal_Rights_and_Liberation" target="_blank">1993 March on Washington</a>. I saw the final full display of the The <a href="http://www.aidsquilt.org/" target="_blank">Names</a> Project Quilt on the Mall. Walking among those panels, each one roughly the size of a coffin (a detail not mentioned in the miniseries) is a holy and sobering experience. These were young people that died, some were children, some were in their young adult years. The love poured into each quilt is evident. <br />
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In 1996, Donna and I had our commitment service. At the time, there was no state that we could get legally married, a couple where we might get a domestic partnership and it was the year that President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act" target="_blank">DOMA</a>). At our service, <a href="http://www.waterwomensalliance.org/mary-e-hunt/" target="_blank">Dr. Mary Hunt</a>, preached that "the President did not believe in marriage for women such as us." I thought I would see marriage equality in my lifetime although I thought it would take a lot longer.<br />
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As the mini-series unfolded it reminded me of where I was and what I was doing. Donna and I decided not to join the throngs at San Francisco City Hall when Mayor Gavin <a href="http://www.ltg.ca.gov/" target="_blank">Newsom </a>issued marriage licenses. We wanted to be legally married on the same date as our commitment service. The state would not dictate to us our anniversary. We did finally legally marry on June 22, 2008. We were among the 10,000 or so couples who got married between the time that the CA Supreme Court knocked down the proposition banning gay marriage and the passage of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008)" target="_blank">Prop. 8</a> which amended the California Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Marriage equality opponents wanted to stop the weddings taking place during that window in 2008 - they failed. They wanted the marriages nullified when Prop. 8 passed - they failed again. Of course the day after we got legally married we moved to Williamsburg, VA where our marriage and our relationship had absolutely no legal status except that we had carefully protected our relationship with our daughter. Our only legal relationship was as Mollie's parents. We celebrated with joy when DOMA was finally defeated and California couples could marry and then again when finally in every single state and territory in the United States our marriage was equal to all others.<br />
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I am so grateful to the many people who made all of this possible. I did not put my life on the line, I did not get beaten up or stabbed, I did not lose my family. I do know that their kicking that closet door off its hinges made it possible for me and so many others to come out. I know their example helped me be willing to be publicly out, and publicly out as a queer person of faith. I do not believe that I would have the family that I have today if it were not for these people who believed that they were here to do great work, important work. So thank you Cleve Jones, Roma Guy, Diane Jones, Ken Jones, Cecilia Chung. With the exception of Cleve Jones, I did not know your <a href="http://www.biography.com/news/gay-rights-movement-leaders-abc-when-we-rise" target="_blank">names </a>and your work until this series. Thank you for your work that made my life as a queer person, as a woman, as a mother, much better. Thank you for reminding us that there are not separate fights but only one fight for justice and inclusivity. One fight to ensure that every single human being truly has those <a href="http://www.ushistory.org/DECLARATION/document/" target="_blank">inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness</a>. Thank you for reminding us that what unites the fights for the lives of men, women, trans, queer, gay, lesbian, poor, black, hispanic, asian, is really one fight for the worth and dignity of every single human being - without exception.<br />
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Most of all I thank you on behalf of my amazing daughter Mollie who grew up secure that our legal rights as parents were protected with both of our names on her birth certificate. She was able to witness our legal marriage in 2008. She has marched in San Francisco Pride, she has friends who are queer. This past summer as Mollie participated in the wedding of her godfather, the man who had been the President of the Gay and Lesbian group at Georgetown so many years ago, to an equally amazing man; our daughter was surrounded by a queer family of adults who took such great joy in who she was becoming and she, in turn, was reminded of her own belonging in and to that community by birth regardless of who she chooses to love or how she identifies. So, Cleve Jones (and all those activist role models), thank you for reminding her that the work is not done, that her "...<a href="http://www.advocate.com/television/2017/2/27/when-we-rise-shows-how-we-are-stronger-together" target="_blank">generation has its own epic confrontations it must face."</a><br />
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<br />Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-8039138761880397142017-01-09T07:00:00.000-05:002017-01-09T07:00:05.851-05:00New Years: 5777 and 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Like many people in the Western world I grew up only following the Gregorian calendar with its start date of Jan. 1. As I have been exploring Judaism, however, I have begun to follow its calendar and its New Year began in October. I did some web searching and there are approximately 40 different <br />
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calendars in use in the world today - many are tied to religions like Judaism and Islam. Each calendar uses either solar, lunar or a combination of the two to measure time.<br />
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Before the Hanukkah and Christmas holidays I was talking about the fact that while 2016 had been pretty hard and awful, not really sad about seeing it go, 5777, the current year in the Jewish calendar, on a personal level was going much better. <br />
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The past years of 2015 and 2016 have been very challenging for me and my family. In 2015 I lost my Dad, I did not have full time employment, we lacked medical care for about half the year, we moved, and overall the year was just filled with challenge, heart break, anxiety and frustration. My Facebook post from Dec. 31, 2015 <span style="font-family: inherit;">"<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;">Spending New Year's Eve in our traditional way, watching New Year's Rockin Eve, hanging out at home, just being a family. I am so very ready to say goodbye to 2015. It was a very long and very difficult year. I am holding onto to a tentative hope that 2016 will be better. After all I have hoped for financial stability, a full time job and the ability to provide for my family for the last 3 years and each year in many ways has been worse than the last - so 2016 please break the trend and help my family and I find the stability we need to thrive. Here is hoping that 2016 brings abundance, love and blessing to all of us!" I would love to say that 2016 manifested a full time job and financial security but alas it did not. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">5777 began on a much better note. By Rosh Hashanah, I had two new part-time jobs, that I love, as an Adjunct Instructor at Bryant & Stratton and teaching the 8th grade at Or Ami. I was able to leave Food Lion. In addition, I had two job phone interviews and one of them is turning into an in-person interview in January. As I look at this threshold of 2017, about a little over a quarter of the way through 5777, I have the possibility of a full time job and bringing financial stability to my family. It was during the start of 5777 that I realized that I wanted to make Or Ami and Judaism my spiritual home. This has meant closing some chapters of my life and it also means I stop sitting in liminal space between Unitarian </span>Universalism<span style="font-family: inherit;"> and Judaism. There is peace and joy that comes with that. In just making public my decision to convert I feel a freedom and excitement that has been long in coming. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;">Taking joy in my work with all its challenge and opportunity has meant that I smiled each time someone asked me how I liked teaching. Each time I entered the classroom to teach, there was absolutely a feeling that I knew what I was doing and what I didn't know I wanted to learn and I did. I am excited about starting a new semester in just another ten days or so. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;">So here is to hoping that the rest of 5777 grows in sweetness and that 2017 manifests some long awaited dreams. It is comforting to know that with following two calendars, there are two opportunities to reflect on a year just passed and a year about to begin. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i>Happy Gregorian New Year and may there be blessings for all of us, </i></span></span></h3>
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<span style="color: purple;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i>whatever calendars we follow!</i></span></span></h3>
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Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-25999023517872515282016-12-29T08:00:00.000-05:002016-12-29T08:00:21.118-05:00The Light Endured: A Hanukkah ReflectionHanukkah celebrates the rededication of the Temple after the Maccabees defeat of the Greek army. After they cleaned up the mess, tossed out the idols, they found one cask of oil, enough for one day but it would take many more days to make more oil. They went ahead and lit the Menorah with the single cask and miraculously the Menorah was still burning the next day and would burn such for 8 days. It was enough time to gather and bless more oil. <br />
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The story is about faith - lighting the candle not knowing if they could keep it lit, and it is about trust - somehow knowing that things would work out. As I think about this story, I think about a triumphant, tired, mourning people, because even when there is "victory" in war there is also loss, bloodshed, injury and death. It must have been hard to realize that there was only one day of oil. They lit the candle anyway. They would have left expecting to come back to the light out and days before more would be available.<br />
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This is not the first story of the Israelites endurance and waiting in the dark. There was slavery in Egypt and exile in Babylon; thousands of years of religiously encouraged persecution by Christians of all kinds; and the Holocaust, an attempt to wipe all Jews and Judaism away. The Hanukkah story is a story of endurance and the Jewish people are all too familiar with endurance.<br />
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Each night the Israelites expected the Menorah lights to be out and yet they were still lit the next day. I imagine that each day there was deep gratitude that the oil lasted and the Menorah stayed lit. Did they breathe a little easier? Were they in wonder about how it could happen? <br />
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Did they then become anxious about what to do if the light went out? What would happen then? This feeling is familiar to so many of us. A parent worried about a sick child or a child about an ill parent; those with depression, anxiety, chronic pain, invisible illness; the people in Aleppo, Yemen, and too many other places to list, who live not knowing when the next bomb will fall, when and where the next drone strike will happen. What will happen to me, to my family, to those I love? Can I hold on until there is more? More questions than answers - how long, why, must I? Questions asked into the darkness and answered with silence.<br />
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Hanukkah reminds us that yes endurance is possible. It is possible that there is more in the jar than we know, there is more strength than we knew we had. Lighting the candles, singing the blessings, knowing that you do so with Jews around the world, and as Jews have done for generations, as we remember together that the oil and light endured. The lights reminds all us to hold on to hope, to endure, to remember. <br />
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I believe that individually and collectively we need this reminder more than ever. For those of us who live here in the United States, many of us are fearful of what a Trump presidency means for us, for immigrants, Muslims, people of color, women, and LGBTQ people to name just a few. Hate is already rising, been given permission to run amok. <br />
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Maybe what we need most is to stop worrying about whether or not we will have strength, light, love tomorrow and just sit with the knowledge that we made it through today. We had enough for today and that will have to be good enough. Tomorrow we may have more, we may have less, we may even have nothing, we don't know, no one knows. So the Hanukkah lights remind us to take one day at a time, to add one candle each night, to see how many days we have already made it, and to keep hope and faith that somehow a way will be found for tomorrow.<br />
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<br />Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-37914823233612976372016-12-26T08:00:00.000-05:002016-12-26T08:00:14.146-05:00A Jewish Family Story: Joseph, Mary and JesusI preached this sermon on Sunday Dec. 25, 2016, at the <a href="http://www.uufrappahannock.org/index.asp" target="_blank">Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Rappahannock.</a><br />
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<span style="color: purple;">Reading: <a href="https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2011/12/13/professor-brings-first-century-context-to-christmas-story/" target="_blank">Vanderbilt Professor bring first century context to Christmas Story </a></span></h3>
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While the Christmas season provides increased opportunities to hear the story of Jesus’ birth, few contemporary versions consider how first-century Gospel readers would have understood the message, according to a Vanderbilt University New Testament scholar. <br />
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“I believe that the more we know about the New Testament in its historical period, the more profound the text becomes,” said <a href="http://divinity.vanderbilt.edu/people/bio/amy-jill-levine" target="_blank">Amy-Jill Levine</a>, co-editor of <i>The Jewish Annotated New Testament</i> (Oxford University Press, 2011). “Today’s readers often hear a personal message from the Scriptures, and those personal messages can be enhanced by hearing what the Gospels’ first audiences would have heard: political messages, laugh-out-loud stories and strong connections to the Jewish Scriptures.”<br />
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Jesus’ birth and the writing of the Gospels both occurred in the Roman Empire. Levine said that the New Testament writers ask their readers a political question: will they worship the Roman Emperor, who was regarded as divine but who ruled by military force and economic exploitation, or will they be loyal to a Jewish messiah who proclaims that the one who wants to be first must be a servant of all?<br />
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Levine said that the Star of Bethlehem, which in the Christmas story leads the Magi to Jesus, is one aspect of the nativity story that has been misunderstood through the years. “The first-century view of astronomy is quite different from ours,” she said. “People back then had no idea of how large or how hot stars are. A star perched directly over a house would incinerate the house, and the entire continent around it. Instead, stars were thought both to be relatively small and to be living beings, like angels.”<br />
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Levine, University Professor of New Testament Studies and professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt, noted that Matthew injects humor into the story by describing the Magi. “Although people today think of the Magi as wise men, Matthew’s readers may not have thought this,” she said. “To ask about the one born ‘king of the Jews’ in Jerusalem, where King Herod is on the throne, is not a politically astute question. One first-century source, Philo of Alexandria, describes a figure from the Book of Numbers, Balaam, as a Magus (singular of Magi), and Balaam has a donkey who is smarter than he.”<br />
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Levine believes that part of the problem with the Christmas story is that it tends to get abstracted from the rest of the New Testament.<br />
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“It is read at Christmas and then put away with the holiday decorations until next year,” she said. “People in the first century didn’t read the Gospels in snippets. They sat through an entire reading just as we sit through a movie, and they would remember earlier scenes. For example, when Jesus says, at the Last Supper, ‘This is my body, which is given for you,’ listeners would remember that the baby was placed in a manger, that is, a feeding trough. The symbolism of Jesus as food for his followers would be clear to them.”<br />
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Levine encourages people to read all sacred scripture with respect. “We study it with respect, not only for those who believe the words are divinely inspired, but also with respect for the authors and the audiences who first heard them.” She said that the Bible is meant to be read, to evoke strong emotions and to speak to readers today.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>More insights into the first-century context of the Christmas story can be found in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, which covers all the books of the New Testament. The book’s co-editor is Marc Zvi Brettler of Brandeis University.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Media Inquiries: </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Ann Marie Deer Owens, (615) 322-NEWS </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>annmarie.owens@vanderbilt.edu</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;">A Jewish Family Story: Joseph, Mary and Jesus</span></h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>from http://www.okclipart.com/religious-christmas-clipart30jhcvlyqf/</i></td></tr>
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Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah! This year Christmas and Hanukkah overlap with the first night of Hanukkah last night so I thought it would only be right to talk today on Jesus and his family as Israelites, as Jewish people.</div>
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Biblical scholarship from the Jesus Seminar that includes Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, books such as <i>The Jewish Jesus</i> by Peter Schafer and <i>Paul the Jew</i>, an edited collection of essays, has focused on understanding Christian Scriptures with a focus on their Jewish origins. All too often in the history of Christianity and our own UU history, Christian Scriptures have been viewed either as a fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures or that the Christian texts supersede the Jewish ones. Unitarian minister and theologian, Theodore Parker, was noted for his anti-Semitism and his negative view of the Hebrew Scriptures. </div>
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On a personal level, I have been attending Congregation Or Ami, a Reform Jewish congregation in Richmond for the last year and a half. I have taken an Introduction to Judaism Class and an Introduction to Hebrew. In addition, one of my teaching jobs is the 8th grade class at Or Ami.</div>
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As I have been exploring Judaism, a desire I have had for awhile, I have come to some important decisions. The first is that I have withdrawn as a candidate for UU Ministry and the second is that I have decided to convert to Judaism and will formally begin the process in the new year. So for this talk it is only appropriate to look at the Christmas stories through the eyes of Judaism.</div>
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On the last class of Religious School before Winter Break, I gave the 8th grade a quick summary of the two Nativity stories from Matthew and Luke. Far too often the two stories get meshed together so we have angels, shepherds and wise men all in one story but in reality, just like Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 with the two stories of Creation, the Nativity stories are each unique written by and for particular communities. The communities of Matthew and Luke were very different and hence we have stories reflecting the perspectives of the community.</div>
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We also have to consider the historical time and context. The gospels were written after the fall of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The Pharisees, one of the sects within Judaism, is ascending and creating the Rabbinic Judaism we know today. There is a quest to redefine Judaism in the wake of the oppression of the Roman Empire, the Destruction of the Temple and the Diaspora of the Jewish people. When we talk about the communities of the Gospels, they are not yet Christian, they are Jesus followers. So these early communities were diverse and they were in the midst of a fight between the more Israelite communities around Jerusalem and the more Gentile, Greek and Roman communities that were further out.</div>
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These differences come to light in the two Nativity stories. Matthew’s community is Jewish, so in the story, the connections to Jewish history are key. Matthew begins by tracing Jesus’ genealogy back to Abraham and most importantly, to King David. First, the listeners would have been familiar with genealogies as they appear throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, which were less concerned about the actual family relations but rather in making important theological points such as King David is the seventh son of Jesse, seven in Hebrew means “sanctified or one set apart.” Matthew too is making a theological point, that Jesus is in fact the promised Messiah, that he fulfills what the prophets had said. Matthew in the story, constantly quotes the prophets, such as this quote from Chapter 1 verses 22-23: “All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us.’” (Matthew 1:22-23)</div>
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In Matthew’s story there are no shepherds, no angels singing. Joseph is important in Matthew’s story as a receiver of dreams, just like Jacob’s favorite son Joseph (and the story of Joseph was the Torah portion for this week). Matthew has Joseph receive the dream that his family is in danger and to flee to Egypt and when it is safe to return (remembering that Joseph also goes to Egypt where he saves his family from starvation). Over and over throughout the text, the listener or reader is reminded of earlier stories, of important Israelite leaders and historical moments. </div>
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Now let us turn to the Nativity story in Luke, Luke’s community is a Gentile community, steeped in Hellenistic thought and culture (the very culture that the Maccabees revolted against). Luke’s story begins with the announcement by an angel to Zechariah, a priest, and his wife of Elizabeth, who is barren, will have a son, John the Baptist, even though both are advanced in age. Again to the listeners of the story, they would remember Abraham and Sarah and how Sarah also bore a son in her advanced years. This is also where Mary is visited by an angel. Here the Nativity narrative is filled with many more details. There is announcement both to Zechariah and Elizabeth, to Mary, the birth of John before Jesus, a census, the travel to Nazareth, the shepherds, no wise people and Angels singing. For Luke’s community the story begins with many recognizing the importance Jesus has already, years before his public ministry. Joseph plays a greatly reduced role in this narrative, he receives no dreams, he does not rescue his family from Herod. He is simply Mary’s husband and Jesus’ earthly father. From the beginning we are told in Luke that Jesus is God’s son. Mary is the key parent in Luke’s narrative. Luke gives her the beautiful prayer of the Magnificat beginning with “My soul magnifies the Lord.” It is Mary who ponders the events of Jesus’ birth and childhood in her heart. In contrast, Matthew puts Joseph as the central parent, we hear nothing from Mary. It is Joseph, not Mary who receives the prophesies. In the story of the actual birth there is no census or travel or being turned away at the inn, Matthew ends the birth story with “When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.” (Matthew 1:24-25) After this Matthew moves right onto the Magis and the flight to Egypt. For Luke the birth is announced to shepherds by angels who come to see the child in the manger. Luke then goes into presenting Jesus at the temple on the eighth day for circumcision, where again two prophets praise God upon seeing the baby. Luke does not give his genealogy until after Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist. Luke prioritizes the uniqueness and newness of Jesus, the universality of Jesus, the baptism of Jesus, which would have been something the full members would be familiar with from their own Baptism. For Matthew, Jesus is the fulfillment, the answer to the hopes for deliverance, for the fulfillment of the prophecies where once again Israel would be independent and free from oppressive foreign forces.</div>
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Both stories stress important elements of Jewish history and practice: the importance of names - Jesus’ name is known before his birth and commanded by G-d; Jesus is the descendent of David, there is listening and obedience to God’s commands whether in dreams or in visitations by angels. Throughout both narratives, despite making different choices about what to include both Matthew and Luke are communicating to their communities by referencing the stories that would have been so familiar to the community.</div>
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In our modern age, it is difficult for us to imagine the memorization of text that was so common in the ancient world. While few could read, many could recite texts from memory and tell the stories. As Amy-Jill Levine tells us in our reading, the listeners would not just hear part of this story, or a selected reading, edited and divided into a three year lectionary. The stories of Torah and the Prophets would be familiar, so much so that Matthew and Luke do not have to make the connections explicit. Matthew does not have to say in the text, hey look Jesus’ father is Joseph and just like Jacob’s favorite son, Joseph, who was a great dreamer, Joseph listens and heeds his dreams. No for the listeners that connection was obvious.</div>
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One of my favorite Biblical scholars is John Dominic Crossan. Crossan tells us in <i>Who Is Jesus? Answers to Your Questions About the Historical Jesus</i>, “My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.” Too often in our modern world there is a division into camps, the stories must be literally true or inerrant, without error, or the stories are not factually true so therefore they are not important at all. If I were to offer one critique of my experience of Unitarian Universalism is that all too often the stories of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures are read and interpreted as literally true, or that their purpose is to convey facts or history as we understand them today. This “literal” reading of the text then meets the UU emphasis on reason and rationality, which is a good thing, but then the text is dismissed, seen of being without value, or that it is a nice story, good to pull out a couple of times a year and then for the rest of the year it is put away, much like Amy-Jill Levine states in our reading today. Much like Evangelical Christians who insist on the literal reading of the text, who will not engage in the possibility that the stories can be filled with Truth, with a capital T, without being literally true, much is missed. When we focus on did it happen, how did it happen, can we even know if it happened that way; we end up missing one, the message of the story which has nothing to do with what may or may not have occurred and two, the beautiful complexity which the authors used to weave their story.</div>
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The story of the birth of Jesus, is the story of the birth of a Jewish child, to Jewish parents, who was raised and steeped within both the culture and practices of Judaism. When time is not taken to hear the stories under the story, we miss so much of what the writers were saying. So this year, this Christmas, this Hanukkah, let us listen for the stories beneath the story. Let us look at Scripture, yes with reason, but also with creativity and imagination and seek to understand what these stories have to tell us today, what light they can shed in the darkness of our time, what hope they offer. Let us make them living texts, ones who are both unchanging in the telling and whose meaning changes as the times and world changes. </div>
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The stories of this Jewish family were written to give hope to a people struggling under an oppressive Roman Empire. They were to give hope to a people who had lost so much. They gave a way to understand their situation and to hold on to hope even in the darkest of days. Matthew’s story in particular, reminds us how even children are not spared the cruelty that we humans are capable of inflicting on one another. As we look in the faces of the families fleeing from Syria, from Yemen and from so many other places filled with war and killing, let us see this Jewish family, on only the words of a dream, fleeing danger and death. We can imagine Joseph maybe wondering if he was just a little crazy to uproot and move his wife and young son to take a long journey to Egypt, how scared Mary must have been and the trust she had in Joseph to protect her and their child, and for a young child, leaving all the familiar things behind but held safely in the arms of his parents as they ran.</div>
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So I invite us in this celebration of Christmas and the celebration of Hanukkah, to look at these texts anew. I invite us to worry less about whether a lamp of oil burned eight nights instead of one or if Jesus was really conceived by the Holy Spirit, or if Matthew’s version is more accurate than Luke’s version, and reflect instead on what these stories may tell us about today, about our world, about our own lives. I invite us to peel back what we have been told, or what we think we know of these stories, and hear them anew.</div>
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I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah and a Joyous and Hope-filled New Year!</div>
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Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-41409894484097313842016-11-25T07:00:00.000-05:002016-11-25T07:00:33.141-05:00A New Chapter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I was finishing my Masters Degree, I had a theme song for my synthesis paper - <a href="https://youtu.be/b7k0a5hYnSI" target="_blank">Unwritten</a> by Natasha Bedingfield. It wasn't just that it was ironic, but as I was writing my paper the line "Staring at the blank page before you; Open up the dirty window; Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find" I saw my paper as putting down the words and thoughts that I could not find somewhere else.<br />
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Today, a different line calls out to me: "Today is where your book begins. The rest is still unwritten." Well maybe not a whole new book begins but certainly a new chapter is starting and for it to begin, I must close the door on the previous one. I have been slowly, a piece at a time, been writing the last words of this chapter. Sometimes with eagerness, sometimes with anger, and sadness and certainly some trepidation as the next chapter opens with a blank page waiting to be filled.<br />
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As I was getting ready to leave the Outer Banks, I wrote a blog post called "<a href="http://www.scatteredrevelations.net/2015/06/we-are-called-unto-life.html" target="_blank">We are Called Unto Life</a>" and in it I wrote, "What I have learned is that I want a life, a full life, a complete life. I want it filled with people and community. I feel like over time I made myself smaller, shrank my world down and now I want to burst forth and explore the world." The title of the blog comes from the evening prayer in the Reform Siddur, <a href="https://www.ccarnet.org/ccar-press/all-books/mishkan-tfilah-reform-siddur/" style="background-color: white; color: #3778cd; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Mishkan T'filah</a>, <br />
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Over the last year and half, I have struggled to shed the image of myself as minister. This was not about not valuing that work, it is about needing to be seen as more than that, that my skills and experience were transferable to other professions. In addition to what I have needed professionally, I was finally free to explore Judaism. I was no longer serving a congregation, there was no one to question me about my "loyalty." When I left the Outer Banks I said that there were three things I wanted to do: explore Judaism, start a Georgetown alumni club and join a book group. So I have been working on the first two but have yet to find a book group that speaks to me. <br />
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Over this year and a half I have been attending <a href="http://www.or-ami.com/" target="_blank">Congregation Or Ami</a>, one of the two reform synagogues here in Richmond. I have taken two classes Introduction to Judaism and Introduction to Hebrew. I have attended the High Holy Days services for the last two years and Shabbat on a fairly regular basis. This year I also accepted a position teaching the 8th grade in the religious school. During this same time I have I had a foot in both worlds - remaining in the fellowship process within Unitarian Universalism and attending and participating at Or Ami. It is time to stop having my feet in two places. For many years now, I lived my life in the betwixt and between - not fully a minister, not solely a religious educator, identifying as a UU and attending a Reform Synagogue. There is a value to letting yourself living in the liminal spaces and at some point one steps out of it, placing oneself in one place and hence a new chapter is beginning.<br />
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I have finally chosen where I want to be. This past week I officially withdrew as a candidate for ministry within Unitarian Universalism. I had already removed myself from various UU groups and pages on Facebook. Secondly, I met with Rabbi Ahuva from Or Ami and I have asked to formally join and to start the conversion process. One of the hard things I am giving up is guest preaching for UU Congregations. I will preach one last time at UU Congregation of the Rappahannock on Christmas Day. The title for the sermon is "A Jewish Family: Joseph, Mary and Jesus." I have to say realizing that I would have to give up preaching has been hard to swallow. I know when Rabbi Ahuva said that to me I felt a bit punched in the gut. <br />
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As I have thought about it though it makes sense, not just because of my desire to convert but because it is time to fully close this chapter and guest preaching is part of it. I am also re-thinking about what I have here on my blog about what I do and I have taken down my wedding officiant Facebook page. All of this is about deciding where I want to be, what I want to be and to do that I can't hang on to pieces of the past that no longer fit. Yes I love preaching and the reason I love it is because for me it is about teaching. The identity that I want to shine out even brighter is that of teacher.<br />
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Professionally working as an Adjunct and an instructor at Or Ami, has put new life into my working life. Maybe, just maybe I will finally find that full time job outside of a congregation that I have been searching for. Maybe I will now be seen as an educator, a person passionate about the power of education capable of teaching, coaching, directing and creating programs. That is my hope. When I first got to Richmond I remember a conversation I had with a staffing agency that I just looked like a minister and that I would want to go back there. I bristled and I have to say I have revised my resume, my cover letters, my LinkedIn profile to enhance my profile as an educator, trainer and outreach manager. It has been hard to change my brand, as they say, to be seen in new ways. In the process of this re-branding, I have come to see myself differently.<br />
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I will always be a religion geek - loving ethics and theology along with the why and how of faith. I am not renouncing any part of what I have done or been, rather I am choosing to start a new chapter or maybe even it is a new book. Most profoundly I have found in Judaism the religious home I have been seeking. Here, like Jacob I can "struggle with God," whose new name Israel means "one who struggles with God." I am not asked to believe impossible things. One hallmark of Reform Judaism is the idea of informed choice. It is expected that I will learn and know the variety of ways people practice Judaism, including things like the dietary laws, and determine what practices resonate and work to deepen my life, particularly my spiritual life.<br />
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I do not make this choice lightly or with haste. It has taken me a year and a half of prayer, reflection and participation at Or Ami to come to the point of joining and deciding to start the conversion process. I told Rabbi Ahuva that I plan to take a full year before completing the ritual of conversion. This year for me will begin after I preach my final sermon on Christmas Day which also corresponds to the first full day of Hanukkah. <br />
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One unique part of my journey is that while I am choosing to be Jewish, my family is not. So a part of this year will be figuring out how to observe the holidays and Shabbat in the context of a family that is not. We have agreed as a family that there are things we will do together like celebrate <a href="http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/hanukkah/" target="_blank">Hanukkah </a>by lighting the candles and enjoying latkes and hopefully make sufganiyah (fried jelly filled donuts) and Donna loves the festival of <a href="http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/shavuot/" target="_blank">Shavuot </a>because it means I will make cheesecake. <br />
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While I do not know all that this next year will hold, I do know I am both at peace and excited about the journey. Unwritten says it well:<br />
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Reaching for something in the distance<br />So close you can almost taste it<br />Release your inhibitions<br />Feel the rain on your skin<br />No one else can feel it for you<br />Only you can let it in<br />No one else, no one else<br />Can speak the words on your lips<br />Drench yourself in words unspoken<br />Live your life with arms wide open<br />Today is where your book begins<br />The rest is still unwritten</blockquote>
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Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-23430168218197717782016-11-24T13:19:00.000-05:002016-11-24T13:19:16.610-05:00Celebrating Giving Thanks - Revisited<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: purple;"><i>As I am striving to get back into my routine of Throwback Thursday posts and new posts, I offer this sermon from November 2014. I know this Thanksgiving is complicated one for many and that families have been torn apart due to the recent election. It can be hard to feel grateful when so much, to so many of us, seems to be wrong. Also let us remember the Water Protectors at Standing Rock. Once again, in the interest of "progress" and outright greed the land of Native Americans is being taken. The pipeline threatens clean water and sacred burial grounds. Once again violence is being used to suppress the voices of those who only desire is to have their land left undisturbed, their water clean, and the burial ground left in peace. </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">This sermon was preached Sunday, November 23, 2014 at the </span><a href="http://www.uucob.org/" style="background-color: white; color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Outer Banks</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Readings:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Story for All Ages: </span><a href="http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/content/kids/en_US/explore/history/first-thanksgiving/" style="background-color: white; color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The First Thanksgiving</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">, adapted and drawn from this piece from National Geographic.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Reading: Abraham Lincoln's </span><a href="http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/thanks.htm" style="background-color: white; color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Thanksgiving Day Proclamation</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">, Oct. 3, 1865</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Celebrating Giving Thanks</span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Thanksgiving is a complicated holiday. As a child I believed with my whole heart the image of Native Americans and Pilgrims sitting down to a wonderful feast, celebrating cooperation and friendship. I was taught little about the settlements at Roanoke and Jamestown. It seemed to me that American history began with the Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims. My understanding of the relationship between the colonists and Native Americans was also rather simplistic that did not encompass the genocide inflicted on the Native people of this land by the Colonists.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Now my understanding is much more complex. Yes there was a Fall Feast with Pilgrims and Native Americans. There was cooperation for many years until the Colonists decided they did not want to cooperate any longer and wanted full scale control of the land. In our reading for today we learn that the agreement between Wampanoag and the English settlers for mutual support and defense, lasted only for one generation. Many Native Americans in New England and other places refuse to celebrate Thanksgiving and instead gather together to remember and grieve the broken promises and those who lives were lost. A powerful reminder that Thanksgiving is complicated filled with both celebration and grieving.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">It was for this sermon that I first read Abraham’s Lincoln Thanksgiving Day Proclamation. Funny how that while I knew well the story of Pilgrims and Native Americans, I knew little or nothing about Lincoln and Thanksgiving. So Lincoln offers this Thanksgiving Proclamation in the midst of the Civil War which will not end for another two years. It was a woman, Sarah Joespha Hale, who began advocating for a national day of Thanksgiving after discovering the 1621 fall festival labeled as the first Thanksgiving back in 1846. Lincoln actually declared two Thanksgivings, one in August of 1863 following the battle Gettysburg and the second for General Blessings in November of 1863.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Here in the midst of much suffering on both sides of the Civil War – with young people dying, with families pitted against each other and the unity of the country at stake, Lincoln calls us on to stop and give thanks. He acknowledges all that there is to be grateful for – bountiful fields, riches from the land such as coal and precious gems and a growing population despite the loss of life on the battlefield. He makes clear that resources that could be used to further peaceful industry are going to war. He calls upon people not just to remember that is not ultimately themselves that created this bounty but rather to remember that these gifts come from God. He called for Americans to be humble and thankful. Secondly he called for people to remember those suffering the most during the war – widows, orphans, mourners and suffers due to the war. It was not just to be a day of thanks but also a day of penitence, a day to remember what injury we had inflicted on others. He wrote “And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">This afternoon I will be preaching at the Ecumenical Thanksgiving service and the Hebrew Scripture reading is from Deuteronomy. The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth and final book of the Jewish Torah. It is a record Moses’ final instructions to the people of Israel as he won’t be leading the people into their entry into the Promised Land. In this particular reading from Chapter 8, Moses instructs the people that the purpose of their wandering in the desert for forty years was a test of their faith and faithfulness. It was to humble them and prepare them for the abundance that awaited them in this new land. They had known hunger and eaten Manna – a new food to them. Moses tells us that their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. In short God had provided for them during the wilderness and now finally long promised and long awaited here was the Promised Land.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">One cannot help but draw parallels between the Israelites and all the various peoples who ventured forth to find a “new to them” land. The English, French, Dutch and Spanish all found their way to this North American continent. They wrote letters home describing the riches. See if any of these descriptions sound familiar as I read the description from Deuteronomy of the land the Israelites are about to enter “For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper.” Who would not want to enter such a land? Who after a long journey of searching would not want all of this? Does this not resonate with the letters the colonists wrote back to England, France and Spain about the abundance of the land on this new to them continent?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Lincoln, like Moses, warns the people to not become arrogant, to not forget that they are not self-forming and self-creating, to remain humble, to remember that all of this bounty is a gift. Moses reminds the Israelites to remember where they came from – for the Israelites, they had been freed from slavery in Egypt. Lincoln reminds the people to give thanks to God for all their blessings.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Like the story of Pilgrims and Native Americans, the story of the Israelites and the Promised Land is a complicated one. A story that continues today in both lands as Native Americans continue to suffer in this land of plenty and war continues in Israel as well. All of us would do well to be humble and penitent as well as grateful.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">So as we go into this week let us give thanks for the many blessings in our lives, in our families and in our community. May we enjoy time with friends and family. May the food, storytelling and laughter be abundant. May we stop and take a moment to give thanks. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #444444;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Let us also remember those who are suffering – those who will be working to serve the ever growing hunger of consumerism rather than being with their families, those who are working to continue to keep us safe, to put out the fires, to care for the ill and the dying. Let us remember those who are hungry in body and hungry in spirit, those who are alone, those alienated from family, those who are without homes, those who are grieving, suffering in body and spirit. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">Do not let suffering diminish our own gratitude but rather deepen and fire our commitment to do our part to heal </span><span style="color: #444444;">this hurting world. Let us hold the paradox – hold the complexity. Even within our own lives let us hold the paradox of abundance and want. Some of us may be celebrating a first holiday without a beloved friend or family member, others may be far away from children or parents and yet may their love and memory fill our hearts. Let us commit ourselves to doing our part to heal this world. May we work for a community where there is a little less suffering, fewer people alone, fewer people hungry in body and spirit. Let us give thanks for the ability to make a difference so that this land becomes a bountiful and abundant place for all of life – human, plant and animal. </span></span><br />
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Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-70965511050818525572016-11-10T07:00:00.000-05:002016-11-10T07:00:09.753-05:00So What Comes Next<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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November 9, 2016</div>
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It has been a long, sad night and morning here in my household. We proudly voted yesterday to elect the first woman President and that didn't happen. While Virginia went blue (maybe those phone calls paid off) and she won the popular vote, she will not be our President. My Facebook newsfeed is filled with grief. There are many of us who are afraid of what this means for ourselves, our families and for so many others who have been mocked, scapegoated and vilified throughout this election by the man who will be our President.<br />
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I was not an immediate Hillary supporter. I supported Obama in 2008, Bernie in the primary and I was disappointed with the primary results. Yet then I started reading and listening, I watched all the debates, I heard her story, and then I got excited. I was not just voting for the lesser of two evils, I was voting for an intelligent, prepared, and qualified person, who would also be our first woman President. I made phone calls to get out the vote (I had never done that before), and we gave a tiny bit of money. I read articles, shared them, argued with people on the internet (ok that may have been less than productive), I voted and I prayed.<br />
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I have been grieving and crying. I am so impressed again with Kaine, Clinton and Obama and the way they are graciously stepping up and working for a smooth and peaceful transfer of power. I can't even imagine what they are feeling. If I am this sad what is it like for all of them and their families? I have never grieved like this over an election. I have been disappointed, I have been angry but never have I feared so much for myself and for so many others.<br />
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In terms of the most outrageous of Trump's policies, I do trust that our system of checks and balances will prevail. I know that this is the time, to organize and work together for the country that we do want - one of inclusion, diversity, and prosperity for all. It is going to be a challenging and difficult time. We will need to organize and those of us who have been a little more on the sidelines, will need to step up and out of our comfort zones. I had never made phone calls before, and from this first experience I know that I will do it again. Today I am figuring out what I can start doing right now to work for a more inclusive, diverse community. <br />
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Even more so than Trump, I fear those who attend his rallies, who believe his message, who are looking to "get their America back." I think they too are in for profound disappointment as walls are not built, Muslims are not barred from entry and deportation forces do not remove millions of people and then in other moments, I fear that the deportations could happen. I fear their anger and their fear that somehow while women, people of color, LGBT people have pushed their way to the table they have somehow lost something. I fear the violence they have threatened. I fear for the example Trump has set for our children, making bullying acceptable since our President has engaged in it. I fear a rise in sexual harassment and assault and women feeling even less safe. I fear what happens when there are no jobs coming back or trickling down and those who supported him finding themselves paying more taxes. I fear what happens when his supporters start realizing they are losing insurance with employers less likely to pick it up again or they find that 'private' insurance does not cover existing conditions. And most importantly I fear the creation of a more entrenched us vs them.<br />
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See this election was not just about Trump or even Clinton - as Hillary said it was about the kind of country we want to be. And the pain from many of us comes from knowing now that our beloved country harbors such deep seated racism, sexism, xenophobia, anti-semitism, heterosexism, transphobia, etc. because given his rhetoric how can we not feel that those who voted for him believe these things. I do find comfort in the fact that he did not win the popular vote - most of us who voted did not want him. I have hope that we still really want a diverse, inclusive and just country.<br />
<br />
So today there are tears and some anger and yes there is some hopelessness. Yet I take strength and comfort from the overwhelming number of people including the amazing Pantsuit Nation, that we will in fact stand up and work with everything we have to stop Trump and the the agenda he has for this country. It is not just Trump, it is every lawmaker who actively works against women, people of color, immigrants, the working class, the poor, the LGBTQ community. The work for justice, inclusion, a prosperous and just place for ALL will continue and new people, groups and organizations will arise to push it forward. <br />
<br />
So today I will not let grief stop me from doing my work as a teacher, preparing for class, grading papers. I will reach out to get involved with an organization to further diversity and inclusion. The full time job search will continue. Education may be even more important now than ever.<br />
<br />
So if you are grieving today, know you are not alone. If you are angry, you are not alone. If you are scared, you are not alone. To the people outside the United States who read my blog - first thank you and I am sorry you are seeing such a dark side of our country. It seems that just like we are seeing in many places around the globe the fear of the other, the fear of difference, it has taken power here too. It is not new, just like it is not new around the globe. I don't know what will happen over the next four years. Just know that he does not represent or speak for the majority of us, who value our global connections and allies.<br />
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So today we grieve, then we will pick each other up - because we cannot do this alone. We join together and we get to work.<br />
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Blessings,<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBIJ38KO_EDysFQ6mCm14Uu6AF-NW5SFeeZKRYlKQ2-Sf5nWXoxz_2mkg6PSxtmNgV64iI8pZBW13a-slisll__AMp4G06XgYnYB4n0Av-lXEuQ19tX8I-bnCqZwjIF64qzh1OsXqYrfz/s1600/Voting.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBIJ38KO_EDysFQ6mCm14Uu6AF-NW5SFeeZKRYlKQ2-Sf5nWXoxz_2mkg6PSxtmNgV64iI8pZBW13a-slisll__AMp4G06XgYnYB4n0Av-lXEuQ19tX8I-bnCqZwjIF64qzh1OsXqYrfz/s400/Voting.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>At the polling place after casting our votes!</i></td></tr>
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<br />Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-91240929848638197062016-11-01T07:00:00.000-04:002016-11-01T09:16:59.946-04:00Drowning - A Poem<div dir="ltr">
Now I do not think of myself as one who does creative writing - poems, stories, etc. - that I am more of a creative prose writer who likes to reflect in long paragraphs on life. However, not too long ago, this poem came to me. I have edited it, tweaked it, changed the formatting. I have sat with it, wondered if I should share it. Is it too personal? Would it make me too vulnerable? On the other hand, there is another part of me that wants to share it, thinking that it needs to be heard. Maybe there are others who have felt this way and have been searching for words to express what is in their hearts. So the need to share it has surpassed my fear. What is the saying - "the magic happens outside your comfort zone?" So here is me, stepping outside my comfort zone.</div>
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<br /></div>
<h3>
<span style="color: blue;">Drowning</span></h3>
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<br /></div>
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I am drowning...</div>
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it seems like it has been for all time<br />
I am hanging on with the two others who are counting on me, </div>
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on a thin ladder<br />
This ladder keeps us from going under...but it is missing rungs </div>
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and the waves keep battering us<br />
We can't yet reach a place above the water</div>
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There are those that have life preservers</div>
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they throw them to us</div>
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we hang on a little longer.....until they break <br />
Some have no life preservers but they hear our cries,<br />
They send love and prayers<br />
Some have given us life preservers </div>
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but they no longer have any to share<br />
Others have life preservers </div>
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but tell us that if they were to provide them it isn't a solution; </div>
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just giving you life preservers doesn't work</div>
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<br /></div>
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Meanwhile the storm rages, the waves get higher and a few more rungs get knocked down<br />
Once again we are slipping off the ladder, </div>
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once again we need life preservers to keep us going<br />
Others don't know us, they believe we can just haul ourselves back in<br />
That if life preservers are provided </div>
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we will just want to get life preservers instead of working our way to dry land<br />
They tell us this is our fault, my fault<br />
They call me lazy, </div>
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they don't really believe me that I am doing all the things I could do</div>
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to get us to dry land</div>
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Trying every solution we know and trying ones others suggest </div>
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yet still we can't reach dry land, </div>
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getting out of the raging water </div>
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remains out of reach</div>
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<br /></div>
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I am drowning....there are two others counting on me<br />
I am screaming and struggling<br />
some just stand to the side and tell me to keep up the good work<br />
They don't know how tired I am<br />
They don't know that I don't know </div>
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how much longer I can tread water or<br />
if I will come up the next time the waves push me under</div>
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<br /></div>
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Dear G-d I am drowning<br />
Do you hear my cries? <br />
Are you listening? <br />
Can anyone hear me? <br />
I am drowning...can you help? </div>
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<br /></div>
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We are not the only ones. <br />
Some have just fallen in, shocked, </div>
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unknowing of what to do<br />
We can see them and remember how that felt<br />
Others have been in here longer, they are more tired, </div>
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more despairing<br />
Some this is all they have ever known. </div>
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Firm land under their feet is no more than a fairy tale. <br />
I don't know if they still pray for relief, for help, </div>
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for something different</div>
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Maybe they just pray to make it this day, </div>
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this hour, </div>
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this minute</div>
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<br /></div>
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Most do not want to see any of us<br />
We remind them that the firm ground under their feet may not be so firm<br />
Our cries for help are heard as a demand that they give something up, </div>
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something they "worked for" something "they earned"<br />
That we wouldn't be drowning if we had just<br />
"worked hard" and "played by the rules"<br />
instead we just want "a hand out"</div>
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<br /></div>
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I am drowning<br />
We are drowning<br />
Is anybody listening? <br />
Is anybody seeing? <br />
Can anybody help? </div>
Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-43975623097488593572016-10-27T10:57:00.001-04:002016-10-27T10:57:24.157-04:00It is What It Is and It Ain't What it Ain't - RevisitedOne of the mantras Donna and I have had for this last year is the phrase from Donna's cousin Alice "It is what it is and it ain't what in ain't." When I originally wrote this post in June 2015 I could never have imagined what the next year would hold. I could not imagine my father suddenly dying. I could not imagine that it is over a year and I still don't have a full time job but I do have two part-time ones that I love. I could not imagine I would be back at Food Lion for over a year.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRWXFspfPrGMW-hEJnGDcRCGNVpjPVB5w6TEs4pSbit3B8V0m4ivy4M9yD9LkgNAYfmi36zor-r4gRxV8PH2YEIiNlo1C3MPZ4_4-C90f9eSCqFG0ZBQvay3lf0RNMUOP-oQG0eqiZ3HQI/s1600/Maymont+Turtle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRWXFspfPrGMW-hEJnGDcRCGNVpjPVB5w6TEs4pSbit3B8V0m4ivy4M9yD9LkgNAYfmi36zor-r4gRxV8PH2YEIiNlo1C3MPZ4_4-C90f9eSCqFG0ZBQvay3lf0RNMUOP-oQG0eqiZ3HQI/s320/Maymont+Turtle.jpg" width="176" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Turtle sunning itself on a rock <br />in the Japanese garden at Maymont, <br />one of my favorite places here in Richmond</td></tr>
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I also could not have imagined how much I love living in Richmond; how at home I feel here. I could not have imagined the number of people I have had the pleasure to meet over the past year. That I learned that I love teaching Google Docs and Logic as much as I love teaching theology. I also could not imagine teaching Philosophy at Bryant & Stratton and Diversity of Judaism and World Religions for a Reform Jewish Congregation, Or Ami. Last night a friend asked me how I like teaching and my immediate response was "I love it!" I do, I do not have enough words to express how privileged I feel to get to do this work and to be paid to do something I love.<br />
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It is not always easy to accept that things are the way they are and that sometimes we can't change them. Most of all it is so hard to remember that no amount of wishing will let us go back in time and make different choices. I couldn't change my father dying or even that my job search was going to take so long. Learning to accept that I am not in control of many many things, and despite all the messages that everything is in our lives for a reason of our own making, I know that is false. All too often both blessings and sorrows come into our lives uninvited, all that we control is how well we will accept them and what we are going to do now. Have I done this perfectly? Am I model of grace, acceptance and peace of all things in my life? Oh no, not by a long shot. I still find myself wishing and wanting things to be different. On my best days, I remind myself "It is what it is and it ain't what it ain't" and get on with the work of the day. So I offer this post again to reflect on how we accept the events and circumstances of our lives and move forward because of those events and also in spite of them. It reminds me of this quote from Florida Scott Maxwell, <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">"You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly posses all </span><span style="background-color: white;">you have been and done..you are fierce with reality." </span></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: purple;"><i>How are you questing to become "fierce with reality?"</i></span></div>
<h4>
June, 2015</h4>
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<blockquote>
This expression comes from Donna's cousin Alice Gormus who frequently posts it to her Facebook page. I always chuckle when I see it. Yet the other day I realized how much profound truth it contains. Things are what they are and no amount of wishing or dreaming will make it different. That doesn't mean we can't act or that we should be passive recipients of whatever happens to us. It is however about seeing things as they are and dealing with them as they are rather than hoping they were different or denying what is in front of us. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
It really hit me this week as I have been battling an intense war within myself that are all about the "could have" "should have" etc. Yes I do struggle with procrastination or as I like to say it "I need the fire of the deadline." It is how I work and no amount of shaming and no amount of "if you had just started this earlier" has changed it (shocking I know). It finally hit me that saying to someone who is faced with a situation that maybe you fully believe they should have worked on sooner the single worst thing you can say is "Well if you had just started sooner" or "Why didn't you do that earlier?" I say that is the worst thing one can say because there is nothing that can be done with that. Do you have a time machine or time turner like in Harry Potter? I can't go back in time and change it, all I can do is move forward from now. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Yet I cannot tell you how many times I have heard the words "Well why didn't you do that sooner or start that sooner or if you had just started sooner..." It is not helpful - trust me if it was then I would be the poster child for those words. All it feels like is that someone is taking salt and rubbing it into already sore spots. Maybe I should have, maybe I could have but I will tell you what I know right now, I can't change that now. I also can't tell you how much time I waste doing battle with the "I should have, could have," voices in my head. It also has a corollary "well if you had only...." and the "well why didn't you ...." and the "you should have..." - none of them helpful. I waste a ton of time second and third guessing my decisions and actions. This can lead to an endless downward cycle that does lead to paralysis and sometimes passivity in response to a situation that requires decision making and action. It is certainly not motivating or inspiring. It is adding shame and discouragement in a moment that may already be stressful. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
There may be a time to reflect back and think about what could have been done differently but the time for that is not in the midst of the situation. In the midst of the situation what is needed is what is going on right now and the helpful questions and statements are "What do you need" and "Can I help." We live in the present - we can neither change the past and we can't predict for certain the future. All we have is now.<br />So thank you Alice for the reminder that it is what it is and it ain't what it ain't. Now to keep putting one foot in front of the other making the best decisions I can staying in the present moment. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
So speaking of that I am in the midst of moving to Richmond, VA. The blog may quiet down for a little bit as we are working on finding and settling into a place to live and I am looking for a job. All thoughts and prayers welcome! </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Blessings!</blockquote>
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Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-53937978512394051902016-10-24T16:09:00.000-04:002016-10-24T16:11:37.991-04:00Life Goals<div dir="ltr">
I know it has been a long time since I have posted. Writing has not been easy this past year and I am hoping to ease back into it. I would also encourage you to check out my About and Consulting pages as I have made some updates. My plan is to do more regular posting!</div>
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<br /></div>
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The photo below appeared on a friend's Facebook page. I liked it but thought it could use a little refining. One thing I have learned, particularly over the last year, is that life rules are complicated and paradoxical. No money alone cannot buy happiness but the lack of it, the scarcity of it, can be destructive. A long term relationship is not everything and a good one is a very good thing. All of these needed a bit more, more nuance.</div>
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So here is my version and I am sure it may change again. My re-writing comes from some very hard lessons and some incredibly beautiful and joyful ones. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE0dZXa6v-Vz1XQj3Ekj-eE29gX5BzabLWnjMx7LyugzLuA8gWTp_1OcRFiXa9qbn4g53SDgn0ViU0TgsuQATscFbrXWwJnKz5DoqzWw6P5qhQJaShpuGhhXXR9mjVTb7JN9H-YnkUaTps/s1600/13669063_10154081021328961_5986857600390659994_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE0dZXa6v-Vz1XQj3Ekj-eE29gX5BzabLWnjMx7LyugzLuA8gWTp_1OcRFiXa9qbn4g53SDgn0ViU0TgsuQATscFbrXWwJnKz5DoqzWw6P5qhQJaShpuGhhXXR9mjVTb7JN9H-YnkUaTps/s1600/13669063_10154081021328961_5986857600390659994_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE0dZXa6v-Vz1XQj3Ekj-eE29gX5BzabLWnjMx7LyugzLuA8gWTp_1OcRFiXa9qbn4g53SDgn0ViU0TgsuQATscFbrXWwJnKz5DoqzWw6P5qhQJaShpuGhhXXR9mjVTb7JN9H-YnkUaTps/s320/13669063_10154081021328961_5986857600390659994_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
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1) Make enough money that you can thrive.<br />
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2) If you choose to have a partner, know yourself, make sure that partner is your best friend and your lover. Make sure they love you for who you are that you can love them that way in return. Finally find a person who will stick by you year after year and keep laughing. If you do not find this person, that is ok because you are enough. Never settle - it will only make both of you miserable.</div>
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3) Collect wonderful memories and some painful ones. The painful ones will remind you of the hard lessons you have learned along the way.</div>
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4) Respect yourself and embrace the recognition that comes from colleagues, friends, family and strangers. Be the best you that you can be.</div>
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5) Make your parents proud of who you are by being your best self, and as Richard Bach says "sharing respect and joy in one another's lives." If your family of origin cannot do that, then create a family of choice that puts respect and joy at the center. Forgive your parents knowing that most likely they did the best they could.</div>
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6) Get as much learning, knowledge and wisdom as you can - there is always more to know.</div>
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7) Pursue a career that utilizes your best skills, never accept work that compromises your ethics and integrity, get out of toxic work environments even if they share your commitment to social justice (justice begins at home); never accept being paid less than you are worth (volunteer your time to those organizations - jobs are meant to pay you so you can accomplish #1), Know that you are called unto life not just a job.</div>
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<span style="color: purple;"><b><i>So what would be your Life Goals?</i></b></span></div>
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Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-44875686285491222672015-12-28T06:30:00.000-05:002017-11-24T17:31:39.158-05:00Waiting in the Dark<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTqlN5x9vmsmLWdV4LqZYKgNUaRU119vhmG1w7ogUYHTrYpvGw26FFObx6TbEo6IV7BHPRE0mz8yu9YVdji5kiRLxOShSfd8yqiuq8awg5VGM4QenF0ELHUWLB31B9bJny-2rsazP13bpP/s1600/UUFR+Waiting+in+the+Dark.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTqlN5x9vmsmLWdV4LqZYKgNUaRU119vhmG1w7ogUYHTrYpvGw26FFObx6TbEo6IV7BHPRE0mz8yu9YVdji5kiRLxOShSfd8yqiuq8awg5VGM4QenF0ELHUWLB31B9bJny-2rsazP13bpP/s320/UUFR+Waiting+in+the+Dark.png" width="213" /></a>I preached this sermon on Sunday December 27, 2015 at the <a href="http://www.uufrappahannock.org/" target="_blank">Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Rappahannock.</a><br />
<br />
<b>Texts:</b><br />
Story for All Ages: <a href="http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-journal-archive/49461-if-youre-afraid-dark-remember-night-rainbow.html" target="_blank">If You Are Afraid of the Dark, Remember the Night Rainbow</a> by Cooper Edens<br />
Reading: excerpt from Henri Nouwen's <i><a href="http://www.henrinouwen.org/Books/Top_10_Books/Books/Book_10.aspx" target="_blank">Bread for the Journey</a></i>, Jan. 8 reflection<br />
"Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say, "How will next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?" There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Let's rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away."<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: purple;">Waiting in the Dark</span></h3>
<br />
It is so good to be back here with you all again! It is always so good to see familiar faces.<br />
<br />
When I was a child I was afraid of the dark. I always slept with a night light and I remember being nervous the night of my first confession because the box was dark and I was worried about being in the dark. Confession boxes when I was young were small dark rooms with a kneeler in front of screen. When it was your turn, you went into the room and knelt down, waited for the screen to open. I realized there was about an inch between the floor and the door and I would be ok. I was ok. About a year or two later, the confession boxes were renovated. They installed lights and gave an option to sit down face to face with priest. How many of us go through times of being afraid of the dark? How many of us go through times of our lives that are dark and often scary?<br />
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The dark can be a scary place. Things do not look the same in the dark. It is hard to walk because we can’t see all the things we could run into. If it is both dark and quiet, we hear all the sounds that are normally drowned out. The shadows and the sounds, can make the dark a very scary place indeed.<br />
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Yet it is in the dark that each of us begins. Life begins in the dark – whether the seeds of plants or an egg. All life begins by waiting, growing and changing in the dark until it is ready to come into the light. Life requires both darkness and light – it cannot flourish just in the light.<br />
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We also have times in our life when we need the darkness, we need that time of rest, renewal and to experience re-birth. One of my favorite poems is “Sweet Darkness” by David Whyte. It begins, “When your eyes are tired the world is tired also. When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you. Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own.” In the poem the darkness is a place of healing, of renewal.<br />
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In our reading from Henry Nowen, he also cautions us against rejecting the darkness. We are cautioned against planning too far ahead, of being so busy planning our lives that we cease to live them. Nowen reminds us that we only need enough light to take the next step, to trust that there will be enough to take the next one, and that we will continue to get just the light we need to move forward. In this he says we will be free to live in joy and surprise with less anxiety about what is coming next. For Nowen when we let go of our fear of the dark and our anxiety about what we don’t know or can’t see then we are free to live fully in the present.<br />
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I confess that I do not do this very well. I want to know where I am going. I want there to be a plan. I want to make a choice and stick with it. For those of you who are Myers-Briggs knowledgeable I am a J meaning I like plans and closure. I like structure. All of this is in stark contrast to being at peace with the dark and letting myself just live fully into the present. Yet I know there is great truth in Nowen’s words. We can’t have a five or ten year plan for our lives because we, as frightening as this is, do not have control of all the events. The last few months have brought this home to me in new and frankly very frightening ways. I have been in the midst of a time of deep uncertainty and barely knowing where my next step will take me. Many of the events have been outside of my control and the plans I had made did not work out in the ways I expected leaving me in the proverbial dark most of the time, looking for the light in all the wrong places it seems.<br />
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We are not single entities, we are connected beings to one another, to other life, to the planet. So much of our current politics and culture try to convince us that we just need the perfect plan, or the perfect item, or course, or book or workshop and then we will be in control, able to live the life of our dreams. Our culture tries to convince us that we can make it on our own, that actually to need others or assistance makes one weak. With everything uncertain and with a very real experience of scarcity, I have had to learn to ask for what my family and I need. I have had to accept that we could not make it on our own and to accept the help of others. <br />
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I have been battling the demons of darkness and worry. While the dark can be a place of healing and renewal, it it is also place where our private demons come to dwell. They eat away at us with messages of: What if it never gets better? What if this is your life forever? Or that You will never be able to make this any different. I am sure many of you can relate to the critical voices that can rise up and become even louder as we walk through these periods of darkness, waiting for the light. While in the light of speech and acknowledgement, often these messages are exposed for the lies that they are, but in the dark, they seem so true and so very real.<br />
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In a culture that stresses individualism, in a political culture feeding on the very worst of our fears, we often believe the lies of isolation. That the only way to survive is to circle the wagons and trust no one - certainly no one different, no outsiders. Yet what if the answer actually lies in making the circle wider? What if it lies in welcoming the stranger? What if the light lives in our coming together? What if the answer to our fears is becoming vulnerable? Certainly that is one message of the Christmas story. God humbles God’s self to become a vulnerable defenseless baby born to a poor family, far from home and on the run from those who would do harm. What if this story tells us that it is in becoming vulnerable that we find light and hope? What if in sharing our vulnerabilities, in opening ourselves to one another that greater dreams are born? What if there is so much more than we can imagine? What if the real truth is that we are stronger and can do so much more when we work together, help each other out and recognize the ways we are connected?<br />
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That is where sitting in the dark, being still may bring forth a bigger dream than we could do with all our planning. Sitting in the dark may allow us to leave room for Spirit, for inspiration, for our authentic selves to come out of hiding and show us something that the light could not. Parker Palmer when talking about the authentic self, the soul, describes it as shy. Our authentic self after having been pushed aside for so long, cannot be chased out. One must wait, one must prove oneself trustworthy, and then the authentic self, which has so long waited, will show itself. Darkness allows for that. It slows us down. There is a natural silence and quiet that comes with the dark. It invites forth what has been hidden.<br />
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Yet too often we run. We run from our authentic selves, from our dreams, from being quiet or still for too long. It can be a frightening thing. What might we find there, in the dark, in the quiet? As I said earlier, the darkness contains healing and renewal and yet it is often where our demons live as well.<br />
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Our story today offers fanciful remedies to our fears of the dark. If you are afraid of the dark, remember the night rainbow. A night rainbow – what a wonderful image – just sit with that for a moment. What does a night rainbow look like? If night falls, use stars for streetlights. The writer invites us to imagine new possibilities if our worst fears were to happen. If you lose the keys throw away the house. If the moon gets stuck in a tree, fill the hole in the sky with a strawberry. If there is no happy ending, make one out of cookie dough.<br />
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Is the dark calling to you? Is it calling to all of us? Is it time to spend some time in the dark, listening to the silence, watching the shadows? Are we needing a time of rest, lying fallow until what is next is ready? What is waiting to born in you? What is waiting to be born in us? What seeds are you planting? What seeds can we plant together? Are the seeds just beginning their long journey to becoming a plant or a flower or a wonderful fruit or vegetable? Are the seeds you planted almost ready to burst the surface and into the light? What is it you are waiting for in this season of darkness? What are we waiting for? What might our sharing our vulnerability, our story, opening up authentically, bring forth in us this year?<br />
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I invite each of us as 2015 comes to an end, as the season of winter and darkness is just beginning, to take the time to sit in the darkness. I invite us to wait in the dark and discover what is there waiting for us. I invite us to sit in this darkness together and see what light emerges. Maybe it is a dream long delayed or one that we could have never imagined. Maybe it will be a time of rest and renewal; a time to simply step back from the busyness and brightness of the days, to discover the quiet and rest of the dark. And remember you do not have to sit alone, being vulnerable and scared is easier when we hold the hands of others and just think how much better finding the light will be when it can be shared with those who have witnessed your journey in the darkness.<br />
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May we stop our planning for some day and plan just for today. May we look to what is needed today, right now, and may we trust that we will have enough light to take the next step. <br />
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Blessed Be!<br />
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<br />Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-28964548908658892142015-12-14T06:30:00.000-05:002017-11-24T17:32:38.098-05:00Lights in the DarknessI preached this sermon on Sunday, Dec. 13, 2015 at the <a href="http://www.uulynchburg.org/" target="_blank">Unitarian Church of Lynchburg</a>.<br />
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Texts:<br />
<b>Story:</b> adapted from <a href="https://www.niot.org/blog/christmasmenorahs" target="_blank">The Christmas Menorahs</a><br />
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Good morning, I am so glad to be with all of you this morning! <br />
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Our story this morning is about true events that happened in Billings Montana.<br />
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A number of people affiliated with hate groups moved into Billings. They started harassing people of color, Jewish people, anyone who was different than them. They sent hateful mail. Some of the people in the town felt that the groups should just be ignored, that giving them attention was what they wanted. Others felt it was important to speak up and stop the incidents that were occurring. Those who wanted to respond and stop the mail and the harassment started doing community teach ins where they educated people about what was going on and how to respond.<br />
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One night during Hanukkah, some of these people started throwing rocks at the synagogue and into a home with a Menorah in the window. The rock went through the window of a little boy and landed on his bed. Fortunately he was not in it. No one was harmed but the little boy was very scared.<br />
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His family, the police chief and a lay woman from one of the Christian congregations all rallied around. The woman, Margaret MacDonald, remembering a story of a Danish town during World War II, encouraged everyone to put menorahs and pictures of menorahs in their windows. And the people did. Shops, homes, all put pictures of menorahs in their windows. The local newspaper ran a full page picture of a menorah that people could cut out and put in their window.<br />
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Now the little boy was still scared but he put his menorah back in his window too. On the night of the Hanukkah service at the synagogue all sorts of people turned out, so many that they could not all fit in the building. Many people stood outside the synagogue ready to protect it and the people inside should it be necessary.<br />
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Eventually the hate groups went away, the hate mail and harassment stopped. All because a town came together and said “Not in Our Town.”<br />
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<b>Reading</b>: Isaiah 40:1-5<br />
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40 Comfort, O comfort my people,<br />
says your God.<br />
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,<br />
and cry to her<br />
that she has served her term,<br />
that her penalty is paid,<br />
that she has received from the Lord’s hand<br />
double for all her sins.<br />
3 A voice cries out:<br />
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,<br />
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.<br />
4 Every valley shall be lifted up,<br />
and every mountain and hill be made low;<br />
the uneven ground shall become level,<br />
and the rough places a plain.<br />
5 Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,<br />
and all people shall see it together,<br />
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”<br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><b>Lights in the Darkness</b></span></h3>
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Thank you so much for inviting me to be with you this morning!</div>
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At this time of shortening days and long nights, we are blessed with an abundance of celebrations of light – Advent, Hanukkah, Solstice. All of them put at the center the lighting of candles – to remember, to acknowledge and to celebrate both the darkness and the light.</div>
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Right now Advent and Hanukkah overlap, as we begin the third week of Advent and the eighth day of Hanukkah. Both of these holidays have rich stories that have much to say to us in our current context. Hanukkah celebrates the Maccabees victory over the Greeks who had forced the Jewish people to denounce their religion, to worship the Greek Gods and banned all Jewish festivals including Shabbat. The Greeks had turned the Jewish temple into a temple for Zeus. The Maccabees refused to follow the Greek laws and waged a rebellion. The first miracle of Hanukkah is that the small group of Maccabees were successful in their revolt against the Greek. The second miracle is the one we are more familiar with – the oil used for the eternal light – a symbol still in use in Jewish congregations today, lasted for 8 days rather than just the 1 day it should have. The celebration for Hanukkah is found not in the Torah, psalms or other portions of the Hebrew Bible but rather in the Talmud. It is also associated, as many Jewish holidays are, with specific foods – namely fried food. Latkes or fried potatoes and fried, jelly filled donuts. Playing the dreidel for chocolate gelt is another fun Hanukkah tradition along with gifts for children.</div>
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The Hanukkah story is a celebration of freedom after overcoming one’s oppressors. It is refusing to sacrifice one’s faith and identity to the will of the majority. It is a reminder that the freedom to worship and believe as one chooses for many has been challenging and a hard won fight. Even here in a country where we affirm the basic right to worship or not as one chooses we know that we as Americans have not always lived up to assuring that fundamental freedom. All too often some want freedom of religion to mean only their religion.</div>
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Advent does not so much mark the actual event of Jesus’ birth but rather is a season of hopeful anticipation leading to Christmas. Christmas is actually a 12 day holiday in the Christian calendar that begins on Dec. 25 marking Jesus’ birth. Advent is a joyful, hope-filled season. This reading from Isaiah, which in Christianity is interpreted as foretelling the coming of Jesus as the Messiah, in which the people are longing for a Messiah to deliver them, to save them. The stories of Advent are the foretelling of the coming of the Messiah. A savior that will usher in peace for the Jewish people and the world. The questions for advent are about what are you waiting and hoping for; for what does your soul yearn. This season of preparation in the Christian tradition is not about shopping for presents or putting up the tree, rather it is a preparation of the spirit, a time of joyful meditation and reflection of hope; of the light shining in the darkness. Our reading is a crying out of a people in exile and the prophet pleading for comfort for his people. Many people around the world and in our country are crying out for comfort, for mercy, for relief. Advent asks how will we respond to their cries.</div>
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All of these celebrations are dated around the winter solstice. It may be easy now with our electric lights to forget how dark winter was and how frightening. There were no crops to harvest, one had to hope that enough had been stored away to last through the cold, long winter. In fact, in Latin … ‘Solstice means the sun standing still.’ As the days got shorter and there was less and less light, it makes sense that people would want to find ways to remember, to entice and to welcome back the light. After all the solstice marks the turning of the year, after the solstice, once again the days grow longer and while many months of winter remain, the days will be brighter and longer reminding us that spring and summer will once again return. Solstice celebrations use fire and candles to welcome back the light, huge bonfires were lit in some places.</div>
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So what are we yearning for in this season of light and darkness? What seeds are planted deep within in the darkness waiting to take root and burst forth? What is crying out in our lives and in our world for comfort, for relief, for a light to shine in the darkness?</div>
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Recent events, the regular reports of mass shootings, the crisis of Syrian refugees and raging debate about whether or not we welcome them to the United States, the words of a presidential candidate who would create a registry of Muslims with id cards and not allow any Muslims to enter the country. Much like in our story this morning, we are faced with choices about how to respond to the fear and hate being demonstrated in our public discourse. The number of acts of harassment and violence against Muslims are escalated all over the country. The current rhetoric has tapped into the fear of the other, provided a scapegoat and even if the policies of targeting Muslims and others never come to pass, they give permission to people to incite violence on their own.</div>
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James Luther Adams, Unitarian Universalist minister and theologian, would say that the free liberal church is where we learn to resist oppression. JLA wanted a faith that would be strong enough to resist the horrors of Nazism and the Holocaust. For Adams, this begins within ourselves and spreads out. Adams writes, “We need conversion within ourselves. Only by some such revolution can we be seized by a prophetic power that will enable us to proclaim both the judgment and the love of God. Only by some such conversion can we be possessed by a love that will not let us go.”<br />
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So as we face the challenges of our time, will we allow ourselves to be converted by a love that will not let us go? Will we find the courage to speak both of love and judgement? Will we spread that love to others? Will we speak words of judgement to those who seek to spread divisiveness and fear? Will be a faith community that shines light and hope into the darkness?</div>
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As we celebrate this season of light, of hope, of lights in the darkness, how can we respond with love, light and hope to the fear and hatred being sown in our culture. This season of lights calls to us respond with courage and love.</div>
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As we reflect on these celebrations of light let us think about what they have to teach us. Let them call us into a deeper understanding and wisdom. Our third source states that our living tradition draws on “Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspire us in our ethical and spiritual life” and our fourth source states “Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves” so what wisdom are we gaining? How will these traditions inform our own spiritual practice?<br />
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So as we read the text from Isaiah of a people crying out for comfort, for deliverance, we ask how are we making a pathway for justice, for peace? How are we preparing not just our homes, but our hearts this holiday season? How will you celebrate? What are your most cherished traditions – spiritual and secular? For me I love sitting in the living room with all the lights out except those on the tree; the small lights of the tree illuminating the darkness. I love our family baking traditions of sugar cookies, fudge and usually a few new items to try. For me the holidays are about being with my family, welcoming back the light and reflecting on the year that is coming to a close. I know that yearning for a smooth, clear path as one year closes and another begins. I know that darkness can seem overwhelming and to be searching for that one small light to keep hope burning. What is it you are hoping for in this season of darkness and light? What are your favorite traditions? Will you put up a tree? Light the menorah? Eat latkes? What candles are you lighting? How are you honoring the communities and cultures of which you are a part this season.</div>
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During this time in the life of our country, we can sometimes feel overwhelmed with the violence of mass shootings, the loss of life in some communities at the hands of those who are charged to protect us and the rhetoric of politicians that seem to be tapping into the worst of our citizenry’s fears and prejudices … we can feel a sense of powerlessness and hopelessness. However, if we tap into this season’s message of light, love and peace, we may find that we can offer hope in the midst of despair. As individuals, we can speak up in our communities, on social media with a voice that judges what is contrary to our beliefs and offers a vision of hope especially to those who feel outside. As a community, we can support one another in standing for justice, we can offer welcome and sanctuary to those who are being turned away and we can be a beacon of light and comfort in the midst of violence.<br />
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As a community we lift up and celebrate the diversity of traditions here – Jewish, Christian, pagan, humanist. We seek deeper wisdom and understanding. We come together in recognition of our common search for meaning and for truth. We come together to make justice in the world - work we cannot do alone. So however you celebrate this December, may it be filled with love, joy and wisdom. As JLA said, may we ‘be seized by a prophetic power” and “possessed by a love that will not let us go” so that we can speak truth to power and offer love and comfort to those who need it most.</div>
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May it be so!</div>
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<br />Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-78495698994376810312015-12-10T06:30:00.000-05:002017-11-24T17:32:55.537-05:00I Will Not Stay Silent!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Now is not the time for silence, or saying it could never happen. Bad things happen when good people don't read the signs of the times. The signs of our time are very dire and bleak. When a person running for President of the United States can systematically insult, demean and put in grave risk whole groups of people of these United States and the world, then we as good people cannot stay silent.<br />
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As many have seen, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/07/politics/donald-trump-muslim-ban-immigration/index.html" target="_blank">Donald Trump</a> called for a complete ban on Muslims, even those who are US citizens from entering the United States, in addition to calls for monitoring mosques and ID cards for Muslims. Certainly Muslims are not the only targets of Trump's anger and violence - people of color, women, people with physical disabilities and immigrants (documented and not) have been targets of Trump. His message is resonating with a whole group of people, mostly white men who are angry. The anger of this group of white men is not without cause - after all many are working class who see every year that their jobs are vanishing and wages have failed to keep up with the cost of living for decades now. Our political rhetoric, particularly from the right, blames immigrants, poor people, people of color for their problems rather than an economy that privileges the top 1% over everyone else. Donald Trump is tapping into their anger and frustration and giving them someone to blame when ultimately those like Mr. Trump who are a part of the 1% are cashing in on that anger in a myriad of ways.<br />
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Does this blame game sound familiar? It should, because it is the foundational story of nearly every act of genocide. Jews were to blame for Germany's problems, Tutsis in Rwanda, Bosnian Muslims in the former Yugoslavia. In the United States, we rounded up those of Japanese descent under the guise of national security. Over and over again, after the truth comes out, we are horrified and we pledge "never again." We see the pattern that good people ignored the signs, they didn't think it could happen, not here, surely it is just rhetoric or that they spoke up too late or not at all.<br />
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We cannot just sit back and say "Oh No it will never happen here." We must speak up now and over and over again. We cannot let Trump's words go unchallenged.<br />
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This list, which came from Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern, a Unitarian Universalist friend and colleague, of things we can do right now to be allies to the Muslim community. <br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.08px;"><br /></span>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #141823;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16.08px;">I do not use Nazi analogies lightly, but the leading contender for one party's nomination has suggested we should shut down mosques and close immigration to Muslims. It is time to talk about fascism, religious persecution, and how we stop them.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #141823;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16.08px;">What did Jews need German non-Jews to do when anti-Semitic demagoguery threatened them? </span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #141823;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16.08px;">Please. Do it now. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #141823;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16.08px;"></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #141823;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16.08px;">I asked Samina Sundas what we UUs could do to support Muslims in our area and she said, please come to our Eid celebration and sponsor it if you can; I'll be asking the Board to do the latter, and urge you all to do the former. Dan established a relationship with the new mosque on San Antonio so that our middle schoolers could visit for their "Neighboring Faiths" program--we'll be asking them what they need from their non-Muslim neighbors.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #141823;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16.08px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #141823;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16.08px;">Writing to the paper and declaring your support tells anti-Muslim cranks that it's they, not Muslims, who are isolated.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #141823;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16.08px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #141823;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16.08px;">Make a video of yourself saying how you feel and put it on YouTube so that the world knows the people at Trump rallies don't speak for us.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #141823;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16.08px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #141823;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16.08px;">Choose one thing and do it, so that we will not look back on this time and say "Why were the 'good Americans' silent?"</span></span></blockquote>
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Each of us can do our part and most importantly we can pay attention and take seriously the threats that are being made against whole groups of people. Faith, authentic living, decent humanity demand that this time we don't just look back and say "never again"; if we mean it, then we will speak up and act now to stop this.<br />
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During this season of lights, of hope, of celebrating the return of the light after the darkest, longest night, of the oil that burned for eight nights instead of one, may we let our own light shine into these dark corners bringing light, hope and love! <br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><i>Blessings during this holiday season! May it be one filled with </i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple;"><i>hope, peace and love for each of us and the world!</i></span><br />
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<br />Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-43393763487491151802015-11-30T06:30:00.000-05:002017-11-24T17:34:09.125-05:00A Reflection on JobRecently I posted to Facebook that I felt a little too much like Job at the moment. It is true, my life <br />
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over the last year has been filled with a great deal of pain and loss. It has reminded me of the story of Job, which of course is considered one of the premier texts on suffering and asking the question of why people suffer, particularly on why good people suffer. I have been feeling however that the story has needed some contemporary updates, because we humans have found all sorts of ways to not actually sit with people in pain but to let them know that in some way they are responsible for all of their own pain and that if they just took these simple steps life would be grand. The assumption of course is that we can avoid pain, loss and suffering and yet that is the biggest lie of all. Our culture lives in a deep state of denial about loss and death. Somehow we live in a state of believing that death is optional, that loss is optional, that somehow we can protect ourselves and our loved ones, particularly our children, from bad things happening. Now not to be a kill joy but that simply is not true. We will all suffer loss - loss of those we love, loss of dreams, we will fail, we will have bad things happen to us and in my mind we do no service to those suffering or those we try to protect by heaping on a bunch of useless platitudes and spreading the lie that life can be lived without pain or sorrow. In fact, I think we make the pain worse, the suffering more acute when we let people believe that loss and sorrow are optional, that we can avoid them and that if they do happen than they are solely our fault and we are left alone to figure out a way through.<br />
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So let us get back to Job. In a brief re-cap of the Biblical story which is its own book in the Hebrew Scriptures, Job is a righteous man, even making sacrifices on behalf of his wayward children. He has been blessed with a wife, many children, lots of cattle, sheep and good crops. He is obedient to God, following the law. In the story Satan, "the accuser," has been wandering the earth and in a gathering of the heavenly beings with God, God holds up Job as a bright shining example of faithfulness. Satan challenges God and says that Job is only so faithful because he has had such a good and easy life. God agrees to let Satan take away all his children and wealth but does not allow him to touch his person. So Job loses everything - children, crops, livestock. Job however does not renounce or blame God. He remains faithful despite his great loss. The heavenly gathering gets together again, God once again holds up Job as an example of faithfulness even in the midst of loss, yet Satan again challenges (this is where our term "Devil's Advocate" comes from) and says well yes but he still has health. God agrees to let Satan test Job again but orders him to spare his life. So Job becomes covered to head to toe in boils. Job still does not renounce God instead crying out in suffering and pain, pleading to be allowed to die, wishing he had never been born. His wife, whose suffering is not really dealt with in the story, tells him to renounce God already and die. Job is then visited by three friends all of whom are convinced that Job must have done something to displease God because otherwise why would all these bad things happen to him, they tell him to be patient, to repent, to examine his life and discover where he went wrong. Job finds little comfort from his friends' words. Our story ends with God giving little explanation for God's actions and yet Job finds his health, family and wealth restored.<br />
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Now let's give a modern twist to the Job story because the questions the story of Job raises are eternal ones - are wealth and health signs of divine favor or making good choices or a result solely of our own achievement? Why do good people suffer? Are bad things some sort of test of our faithfulness?<br />
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Let us reconsider the Job story in this way. Job is a good guy, he has a great job, house and every material thing he could want. He has a good wife and family even if sometimes his children act out and don't seem very grateful, Job takes steps to keep his children out of trouble and to smooth their way. Job's life is good and he is a good man - faithful, loving and grateful! Suddenly though Job loses his good job and cannot find a new one. He loses his wealth, he can no longer protect his children so they end up in all sorts of trouble. Yet even in the midst of this Job remains faithful and a good man, not allowing misfortune to make him bitter and angry. Then on top of everything else, Job develops a chronic illness. Now Job is living in daily pain, there seems to be no end to his pain and his suffering. In the midst of this, Job's wife just cannot take it any more and wonders why he continues to be so faithful, so lacking in bitterness and anger - in anger she strikes out at him. Job's friends come to see him and they barely recognize him. They cry out in pain for their friend and for a long while they just sit with him in silence. Job cries out wondering what has happened to him, wondering why, crying out for relief to his suffering. His first friend venturing speaks, warns him against negative thoughts. Job's friend reminds him that if he just keeps a positive attitude, not allowing negativity in, that soon all will be well. Job looks at his friend with a look that says "are you out of your mind?" What do you mean have no negative thoughts? I have been a faithful and good person, I played by all the rules, I did what was expected and have accepted my fate without bitterness and yet sometimes it is just all too much. Job's second friend offers that Job's predicament must be a result of something Job did - maybe his illness is because of his diet, an allergy to gluten and if he just tries this great new cleanse and juice diet, Job will soon be feeling better than his old self. It worked wonders for me, this friend says and I know people have been cured of all sorts of things just by changing their diet. Again Job looks at the friend with wonder. A diet that can cure all that ails him? The third friend offers that Job just needs to put himself back out there, job search - there is something out there, the pain can't be that bad, just pull up your bootstraps and get out there. He just can't sit here and feel sorry for himself. He just needs to network, brand himself, and in terms of his health, well it is just a matter of mind over matter. Job insists to his friends that his suffering is not due to his diet or negativity and he can't just put himself out there. Job cries out for mercy and relief and not to feel so alone in his suffering. So what happens to Job? In this version, we don't know. It may be that Job's friends are actually able to help him find a new job, his doctor finally figures out what is wrong with him and is able to offer relief and remission, his children finally find their way back and his family is restored. It may also be that Job wastes away, his friends leave him and he dies alone. <br />
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Probably the most powerful thing Job's friends do for him, before they speak, they sit with him in silence. In the original story, we are told that they sit in silence for seven days. For many people suffering, there is nothing that can be done, nothing to be "fixed" and all we can do is sit with our friends as they ride the waves of grief. It is not comfortable to sit there like that, we want to be able to do, to fix, to act. Grief however does not have a fix. As this powerful <a href="http://www.timjlawrence.com/blog/2015/10/19/everything-doesnt-happen-for-a-reason" target="_blank">article </a>attests, some things just have to be carried.<br />
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Sometimes though there is practical help that can be offered - networking for a job, passing along a resume or an introduction. There is a reason we bring food when there is illness or death, the thought of cooking or taking care of routine daily tasks is just too much - so bringing a meal or offering to go to the store, paying a bill if the problem is financial are practical, things that friends can do to help.<br />
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Most importantly Job's friends were least helpful when they kept insisting that Job's suffering were a result of his own actions or lack of actions. Sometimes that is true, we make mistakes and we suffer the consequences. Yet in the midst of those consequences, is it really helpful to say "well if you just had not....then you wouldn't be in this mess" or "I told you this would happen if you did this and so." Unless you have some magical way to change the past, pointing out a person's failures or mistakes is not usually helpful in moving them forward. Sometimes though things happen - jobs are lost, people get sick, people die, relationships end, dreams end. When that happens we don't need more positive platitudes about how it will all get better, that somehow God won't give us more than we can bear. In fact to take the story of Job on its face, God doesn't come out looking very good. Job's suffering is a test of his faithfulness, that maybe we don't have free will and we are just pawns in the great chess game of the universe. Clearly God gave Job more than anyone could bear that fact that he didn't break may be more about his friends sitting with him in silence for seven days rather than God's care or the friends' advice. <br />
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Loss, grief, pain are a part of life along with love, joy, gratitude and happiness. More often than not, they exist side by side in a paradoxical fashion. In the midst of great suffering we can smile and laugh, we have better days, an unexpected gift or blessing comes our way at just the right time. None of us does it alone. Each of us can help one another even if it is just to look at another and say "I see you and I know you are suffering and you are not alone." <br />
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So let's stop with the platitudes and meaning making and be willing to get real, to be messy and to accept that we are not in control. The biggest lesson of Job's story may be the lesson that we are not in charge, we can't control all the events of our lives and we cannot shield ourselves from life. Also people are fragile, they can break, so please handle with care.<br />
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<i style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: purple;">So what does Job's story have to say to you? What are your thoughts? How would you make a modern version of Job's story? What have been the most helpful things friends have done for you? What have you done for others?</span></i></div>
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<br />Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-68651401772873258622015-11-27T12:13:00.001-05:002017-11-24T17:33:39.351-05:00Gratitude in Hard Times - RevisitedWell this is a late Throw-Back Thursday post, making it a Fall Back Friday post! I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving however you spent it.<br />
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This sermon from 2014 is still relevant today as so many are struggling in hard times. I continue my Three Good Things practice and it does continue to help me hold on to hope when things feel very hard and that there is nothing to be thankful for. <br />
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As we enter into this season of so much expectation, may we be gentle with ourselves and others who may be suffering in so many ways. There are those who are grieving, those who are struggling financially, those who live everyday with chronic illness and pain. May we tone down expectation and focus instead on what is most important to us. May we be able to find gratitude even in the midst of hard times.<br />
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Blessings!<br />
Margaret<br />
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PS I am working on a brand new blog post I hope to have ready for Monday morning!<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">I preached this sermon on Sunday November 9, 2014 at the </span><a href="http://www.uucob.org/" style="background-color: white; color: #4d469c; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Outer Banks</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Texts:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Story: An adapted excerpt from </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;"><a href="http://www.broadcaster.org.uk/section2/transcript/hidingplace.html" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Hiding Place</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;"> by Corrie ten Boom - this link takes you to the full passage but I did shorter adapted version</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Poem: "</span><a href="http://daringtolivefully.com/gratitude-quotes" style="background-color: white; color: #4d469c; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Be Thankful</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">" Author Unknown</span><br />
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<b>Gratitude in Hard Times</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">I know that many of us are struggling this week with hope and gratitude following the elections this week. Not all of us and some may be pleased with some if not all of the results. If my Facebook newsfeed is any indication there was a great deal more disappointment than exuberance following Tuesday. Others of us are struggling with illness or family members with illness, are struggling financially, battle depression, are worried about loved ones who are struggling and all the other things that can make it hard to be grateful. Around the world there are people living in a poverty we cannot imagine, live in fear of bombs and war, are in prison, are facing death, are alone. Finding things to be grateful for is not always easy. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">In our story from Corrie ten Boom it would be hard to imagine a more dismissal picture…Corrie and Betsy are in a concentration camp, they are starving, they are in a confined space, it is filthy and there are fleas. They don’t actually talk about being bitten by the fleas but we can imagine that we can add itchy bites to the whole situation. Yet in that situation Betsy tells them to give thanks for the fleas and it turns out it was the fleas that kept the guards from checking too closely on what was going on in the barracks so the Bible remains safe and the reading of it goes on. Corrie is skeptical as I would imagine most of us would be at giving thanks for the fleas. Yet what might it mean for us to give thanks for everything, including the challenges in our lives?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">I am reminded of Parker Palmer who is an author and educator who also shared in his book Let Your Life Speak about his battle with depression. Parker, over time and it took a long time, came to see his depression as part of his spiritual journey, as leading him to his truth self and true vocation. In the midst of his journey through depression Parker finally found a therapist who would also treat his depression as part of an inner journey. In one session, she suggested that rather than see his depression as the hand of a friend pushing him down to the ground where it is safe to stand rather than as an enemy seeking to crush him. Parker, like Corrie, was at first incredulous at this image. In time however this image of depression as a friend who pushed him down where it is safe to stand slowly healed him as began to live a more grounded, authentic life. He could see how fear, ego, and a series of what his life “should” be had led him to living an ungrounded, inauthentic life and his journey down into the depression and facing the demons there led him to a deep healing; to authenticity. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Not everyone can make that journey; not everyone makes it through. We can name far too many who do not, many our own family members, friends, celebrities like Robin Williams who finally lose their battle with depression. It is critical that we not reduce hard times, debilitating times, to Pollyannaish opportunities for silver linings and gratitude. It takes great strength to see good in the midst of suffering. It should never be a demand, only a possible way forward. Yes many have shown us that it is possible and we must also acknowledge that hard times do break people, people are fragile, and not everyone comes out stronger – it is not true that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It may be true for some and our care, love and prayers are needed for those for whom life is filled with too much grief and suffering.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">In my own life I can see things that at the time felt like the end of the world that became pathways to new places. Like so many others I was once fired from a job and I can honestly say it was a gift. I was blessed with enough income from unemployment to figure out what to do next and it led to my decision to enter Wesley Theological Seminary. Being fired removed me from a highly toxic work environment and allowed me to embark on a new direction. I remember at the time though part of me felt like the world had ended. I was ashamed and embarrassed. I was relieved. I was scared. It took time to see it as a gift; as a blessing. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Lately I have embarked a on new practice, learned from the Science of Happiness class that I have been taking through edX and UC Berkeley. It is the practice of Three Good Things. Each night I write down three good things from the day. For me, even on the hardest days, this practice helps me see the good. They may be small simple things, like cuddling or playing with our kittens, a delicious meal or a hot shower but remembering that it was not all bad, that there was good in the midst of it all restores hope and gives strength to put the day to rest and begin again the next day. For me this has been a life giving practice and helped me to deal with some of my current struggles. For others it may be impossible to see even three good things in their day. I offer it as a practice that I have found helpful and healing.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Part of what is so broken in our American culture and in particular American politics is that we don’t stop to reflect on what is working, on that which we can be grateful for. How many positive political ads were run that said hey this is really working and I pledge to support policies that will help keep this working or expand it so even more people can have access? We don’t run our campaigns this way, our campaigns feed on what is broken, what is lacking and then promising to fix it. This is true of our political system and it is also true of our consumer culture. Our consumer culture thrives on our sense of scarcity. It thrives on making us believe that happiness can be purchased and packaged. It requires us to be always hungry and never satisfied.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Our poem this morning invites us to give thanks for hard things, for opportunities to grow. It offers a practice, like the Three Good Things, to re-frame the story we tell ourselves. Just like the ten Boom’s their prayers and practice did not change the situation which was horrible and evil, it did however change them. Finding gratitude in the midst of hard times does not always change the conditions but it can change us, it can give us the opportunity to see a new way through. It can give us strength to persevere or maybe to let go.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Another troubling aspect to our culture is the assumption that there is a way through or things can be fixed and yet there are some things that cannot be fixed or cured, they can only be accepted. Death is one of those things. All of us will die and all of us will lose those we love to death. There is nothing we can do to change this, we can only accept it. In the midst of grief, often people will offer words that time will heal and yet that is not always a comfort. Sometimes in the midst of grief healing is the last thing we want. I also think it is not true. Grief does not truly heal, the loss remains. With time, love helps fill the cracks and crevices. Much like the Japanese art of filling a cracked bowl with gold which I find a more helpful image; the bowl is cracked and remains so but with care and time the cracked places become beautiful. Those who live with chronic illness, including my wife, struggle to have people understand including medical and other professionals, that there is no healing in the sense we usually think of it. This is not a cold or the flu where we are sick for a while and then get better. With chronic illness, terminal illness, what we consider healing has to look different. It may look like more good days, less pain, sometimes just allowing oneself to be with the pain or may even look like letting go as in the case of Brittany Maynard for whom there was no cure for her brain cancer. Her healing was about accepting that she was dying. In our death denying, everything can be fixed culture, acceptance and letting go are not easily done. Yet we can also be grateful in the midst of letting go. We can be grateful that a loved one is no longer suffering; grateful that in the midst of our own pain another’s has ended; grateful for the life lived. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">All of the world’s philosophies and religions seek to make sense of suffering, grief, illness and death. Each tries to offer a why, to offer a way through. Gratitude in the midst is one way, one practice we can embrace to make hard times easier, to shift our perspective. We do not have control of all of the circumstances of our life, we can choose how to respond and the story we choose to tell. It may take years for us to find gratitude in the midst of hard times, in the midst of grief, illness, death. We can cultivate gratitude as a practice, as a habit that we develop. We can take to the heart the words of Meister Eckhart “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">May it be enough!</span><br />
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Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8072876640870724997.post-41432022787502398562015-11-19T06:30:00.000-05:002017-11-24T17:34:44.777-05:00We Who Are Weary RevisitedI wrote this post in August 2014. I wish I could say that a year plus later that things are better but I can't. Even in our world, now it is Syrian refugees, those fleeing the very same extremists and terrorists that we do. Our best response is to open a place for them, not to close down and hide behind our borders thinking that will keep us safe. Think how weary those families are waiting to find a safe place for themselves and their children. I think these <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/lynzybilling/where-syrian-children-sleep?utm_term=.hgzpjb0bpX" target="_blank">pictures </a>speak to the weariness of these children and their families.<br />
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I have struggled to write and post here since my father's death. Grief has a way of making it hard to find words and put them down. I have many ideas but I am not quite ready to write so please bear with me as I walk through this deep valley of grief and worry.<br />
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I still hope that this will be a place to share our stories, to offer hope and support.<br />
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Blessings,<br />
Margaret<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: purple;">We Who Are Weary</span></span></h3>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: inherit;"><i>"Come to me all who are weary and I will give you rest" Matthew 11:28</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: inherit;"><i><span class="text Ps-119-28" id="en-NIV-15927" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px; position: relative;">"My soul is weary with sorrow;</span><span class="indent-1" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;"><span class="indent-1-breaks" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0;"> </span><span class="text Ps-119-28" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;">strengthen me<span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-15927C" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-15927C" title="See cross-reference C">C</a>)"></span> according to your word." Psalm 119: 28</span></span></i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnUNQnRE1tbU87jl3he2hovKdzmfuE6qtcbVZNmRDHPaaJUpJMj_tuX8YhseXDZ9Ui41FDTcv3F3Y4LSuuVKsjGX2WOORPVT9aDYNRnMptSot1FXu5pIZwkJF92jBlPAkm21HRs9RopwSj/s1600/-Comfort,+Comfort+My+People+says+your.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #4d469c; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnUNQnRE1tbU87jl3he2hovKdzmfuE6qtcbVZNmRDHPaaJUpJMj_tuX8YhseXDZ9Ui41FDTcv3F3Y4LSuuVKsjGX2WOORPVT9aDYNRnMptSot1FXu5pIZwkJF92jBlPAkm21HRs9RopwSj/s1600/-Comfort,+Comfort+My+People+says+your.png" style="background: transparent; border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="213" /></a></div>
<span style="line-height: 24px;">I sense a great weariness in our culture that is manifested in fear and scarcity. It lashes out in anger. It hunkers down and closes our borders. It cultivates an unhealthy, over the top individualism that is not concerned with the common good.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 24px;">What is weariness? Weariness is a tired that goes well beyond being physically tired. It is a tired that is in your bones, in your heart, in your soul. It is not new. It is not a recent phenomenon tied to our high rate of inequality or modern living. Ancient people knew about weariness. There are at least 40 </span><a href="http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Bible-Verses-About-Weary/" style="color: #4d469c; line-height: 24px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">references </a><span style="line-height: 24px;">to being weary in the King James Bible in both the Hebrew and Christian books; another<a href="http://www.openbible.info/topics/weariness" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">site </a>listed 100. In some cases the writer tells the listeners/reader to not give up, do not grow weary. In other cases, the writer promises rest and renewal for those who are weary and heavy burdened. </span><br />
<span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 24px;">We don't talk about being weary. We hide it away, barely acknowledging to ourselves how worn down we actually are. We somehow believe we are alone, that it is our own fault. We know others don't want to hear about how weary we are because if I am your friend and I hear you are weary it might call attention to my own pain, my own despair. We also live in a culture that discourages talking about it. All the self help books talk about positive thinking, banishing negativity, remaining positive, facing our fear. Some of that is helpful, a reminder that we have more strength than we might imagine. On the other hand, it reinforces the belief that if we could just be more positive we would not be so weary. </span><br />
<span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;">I am weary. I have a wife in pain, in pain everyday and we don't have the financial resources to get her fully diagnosed or even have her on all her medications. I need to earn more income because I am only working half time and I need a full time salary. And I don't even know that I "should" post this post because most people would rather talk about anything other than money, or financial hardship. We are more silent about money than sex. You see in this country if you are anything else other than making it, you are a failure and it is all your fault. I am not poor, I don't qualify for public assistance. I am a minister, what used to be a solid <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/higher-calling-lower-wages-the-collapse-of-the-middle-class-clergy/374786/" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">middle class job</a>, sure clergy complained that they would never make any money doing what they are doing but they did make it. They bought homes, they did take vacations, they had retirement and health care. They worked full time. Now increasingly salaries are lower, full time jobs are fewer and farther between and student loan debt for those in ministry is sky rocketing. Yet we don't want to talk about this. It is too scary for others in </span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;">similar</span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;"> positions or just a paycheck away from it because if I am </span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;">struggling</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">, if my family isn't making it then maybe they are only an illness or job loss away from it as well. We are afraid - afraid of what little we have will vanish. So we are </span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;">further</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"> isolating. We don't talk to each other. We don't join faith communities and when we do, those faith communities all too often offer prosperity gospel or speak not at all to the deep pain and suffering. As a minister I am not supposed to share how I may be hurting or stressed. Recently, the loss of a colleague has made me re-think how important it may be to open up even when it is scary or others may feel uncomfortable.</span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">I know I am not alone. I think too many people are weary and longing for rest. People are scared and you can hear it on-line, in person. People are isolating because they are afraid, they are tired and for too long they have been asked to keep going on their own. Because in our American individualistic culture, you cannot be tired and if you are not making it is your fault. You must not be working hard enough; you must be lazy.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;">So we yell at immigrant children arriving here alone and scared, fleeing the violence of drug cartels in oppressive regimes that our U.S. government has supported. We have judges and lawmakers seeking to take away affordable health insurance from hard working people. We have people hurling unspeakable vile at our President because he is a person of color and yet we live in a "post-racial society"... whatever that means. We have religious folks caring more about who gets to legally marry who than about why our young people are delaying marriage because they can't afford it. We have religious folk caring more about unborn fetuses and fertilized eggs than living, breathing babies whose parents struggle to feed them, to house them, and then they get blamed for not being more involved at their child's school. We tend want to scrutinize every purchase of the poor under the guise of helping them become financially stable but when the rich crash our economy all while collecting their multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses, we bale them out without question. Apparently banks are "too big to fail" and yet my family, and thousands, maybe millions of families are expendable. Yet we blame the poor and the undocumented for the state of our economy instead of laying at the feet of the very wealthy who have made life harder and the American dream more elusive for more and more of us. No wonder so many are weary.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;">Yes I am weary and I long for rest. I long for this peace that Hebrew and Christian scriptures promise us. The promise that we are not alone. The promise we have not been forgotten that there is a love that holds us and will not let us go. A love that tells us yes we can go one more day, that it will get better. That there is a better place, a promised land and the only way we will get there is together. Yet to get there together we must be willing to speak the truth of our lives. That truth includes our financial truth. As long as people like me stay silent, make it look like everything is ok then nothing will change. As a white educated woman I am not supposed to be here. I am supposed to be doing ok. My family and I are not ok and I know that there are many other families out there losing sleep, weary, worried and feeling very much alone. We don't want to talk about it. We are not supposed to talk about it as if our silence will make it less real. Yet Audre Lorde reminds us that "your silence will not protect you." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;">So today I break the silence. Today I tell you I am weary - weary of not having enough, weary of worrying about how to pay the bills, how to keep food on the table, how to help my partner get the health care she needs. Weary of there never being enough money. Even more weary because this situation has gone on for a long time and seems to be all I think about or talk about with close friends. The long lasting weariness zaps my creativity to make change, jeopardizes health even more and shuts down hope. There I have said it. There I have spoken it. Will you think less of me now? Am I less worthy in your eyes because not only do I not have it, I said it out loud? I have "come out" as struggling financially, of not knowing how my family is supposed to make it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;">I am weary and I know I am not alone. Maybe all of us who are weary need to come together. Maybe we need to start speaking the truth of how weary we are. Maybe we need to stop pretending, stop hiding, stop thinking we are alone. Maybe your weariness comes from a chronic illness, a child dealing with addiction, a job that is burning you out, a betrayal in your marriage ... or like me, some combination of things. Maybe the most powerful thing we who are weary can do is to stop the hard work of pretending, of staying silent. Maybe the most powerful thing we can do is speak the truth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 24px;">So, I offer an invitation to we who are weary, please share your story. Please let this be a place where we can break the silence and shame that often surround our weariness. Perhaps, the ministry I wish to be engaged in makes room for being honest about my own life in an effort to allow others to share their stories as they really are. Maybe then we will find the resources, to use the words of James Luther Adams, both human and divine to achieve</span><span style="line-height: 24px;"> meaningful change.</span><br />
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Margaret Sequeirahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11890443278226636647noreply@blogger.com0