Today a man brought his wife into my Center. "I'm Angelo," he said and this is my wife, Helen. I am 80 and she is 90. Helen is demented."
Helen was raw boned and tall, with obviously dyed red hair and blue eyes that could see only Angelo. She did not look her age nor did Angelo look his. He was muscular, with a waist length silver pony tail tied in a piece of blue cloth. His face was unlined copper, his hairline withdrawn a little and his eyes were deep brown. I extended my hand and he took it in both of his. Warm.
For some reason, at that time unknown to me, I did not say, "Hello Angelo. Hello Helen. It's nice to meet you." Instead, I asked, "Are you Yaqui?"
He answered, "I am Yaqui and I recognize you too."
We sat for over an hour and he told me of their life.
"I met Helen on the street in Santa Monica," he said. "She passed me and I suddenly thought, 'Maybe she's the one.' I stopped her and asked, 'Are you the one?' She said she thought so and we have been together since."
"She changed my life. I lied to her once but she didn't say a word. Months later I asked her if she knew I had lied. She said yes and told me she had not said anything because she loved me. I never lied again. I learned unconditional love from Helen."
"You see this?" he said, extending his right forearm. There was a blue mark that looked like a chicken track on his arm. "When I was only 13 I thought to tattoo myself with a needle and India ink. I was going to put my girlfriend Esther's name on my arm. But even as I began something stopped me. I saw a girl with red hair walking in blue flowers to her knees. It was not Esther."
Helen said nothing but did not take her eyes from Angelo. She was smiling. Unconditionally.
"Was Helen's hair naturally red?" I asked.
He smiled.
"I was very ill three years ago," he said. "I died twice and both times my spirit guide 'Grandfather Turtle' sent me back. He said it was time to care for Helen. I have been happy caring for her. This is not my first time with Helen. You know that, don't you?"
I nodded. I did know that. It was obvious in the way she smiled at him, the way they breathed in unison.
"Do you know why you asked me if I am Yaqui?" he asked.
I nodded. I did know.
"This is not our first time either," he said. "I know who you are. I will trust my Helen to you. Sometimes things happen like this."
I nodded.
Angelo took his Helen and was gone. They will be back tomorrow and I am anxious to see them. Theirs is the real ending to a love story.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
in other words...
at the green market a sun washed bench speaks of thoughts and memories
this is a gathering time
yellow haired girl with a guitar sings fly me to the moon
sound of her fingers on the frets keeps time with my heart
the moon was once a dream of mine
now I am earth bound
kept by a heart string
something caught in the grass sees me
flashes first blue
then green
I move my head the other way
red shines
I reach for the twinkle
gone
an illusion
it was always an illusion
I could never really fly to the moon
yellow haired girl sings
in other words hold my hand
in other words kiss me
this is a gathering time
yellow haired girl with a guitar sings fly me to the moon
sound of her fingers on the frets keeps time with my heart
the moon was once a dream of mine
now I am earth bound
kept by a heart string
something caught in the grass sees me
flashes first blue
then green
I move my head the other way
red shines
I reach for the twinkle
gone
an illusion
it was always an illusion
I could never really fly to the moon
yellow haired girl sings
in other words hold my hand
in other words kiss me
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
mother
October 1991
My mother is a flower closing, her belly button is the center, the point around which the collapse occurs, limbs drawing in. Her shoulders are compressed forward. There is a hump on her upper back. The matching curl of knees when she sits in her wheelchair or lies on her side in bed. The pale feet which she cannot move. At the center of her body, death is pulling on a cord, gathering her in and down.
No one knows what she is dying from. The doctors have tried many tests but she stops breathing every time and they always stop the tests. Ultimately, what does it matter? She is dying and it cannot be stopped.
Linda, Ann, Dianne and I visit her in the nursing home. She eats only enough to keep
herself alive and she is losing weight at an alarming rate. For the past month it has been a strain to visit my mother every few days, and I’ve finally decided not to see her so frequently. She was always so strong, healthy and in control; seeing her helpless, dependent and afraid breaks my heart and scares me. Yesterday, I thought about my own children, imagined them in the position I’m in now, and asked myself if I would want them to visit me if it upset them this much. I answered, honestly, No. And I was free of guilt for one day.
Sometimes I am resentful and angry about my responsibility for my mother. Other times, I simply acknowledge it as the natural duty of a daughter. My sisters visit her often and Linda has a lot of anger for her. Ann never speaks of her feelings. We all want to be with her when she dies. Dying, the final scene, will be dramatic, or at least interesting, but the process leading up to it is long and tedious. We all want to skip the last act and just show up for the finale.
I realize that I am letting people care for my mother who love her less than I do and I must forgive myself for this again and again. I fantasize about bringing her home with a private nurse and assist her in dying quickly and with grace. But I can’t imagine my mother dying in my house.
“I’d shoot myself in two days if I had to care for her,” I tell a friend. But the guilt I am trying to dislodge is ancient and deep; I am not caring for the mother who gave birth to me, whom I ought to accompany through her dying.
“It doesn’t matter whether you visit or not” the counselor says, “so long as you are at peace with your choice. Your mother won’t remember.”
“But I will,” I say.
Inside me, a war rages, on one side is my small self, the coward who wants to hide, a delicate soul who cannot bear the smell of the nursing home, the sight of the deformed and shriveled bodies, the irrational and mournful sounds. This self cries often. She will always be too sensitive for this world. Her mother told her this constantly.
Opposing her is the conqueror, the self who strides out, takes on all comers, and wins. She says, Drop by. Visit. It’s no big deal. She bullies me. She’s impulsive, pushy. What kind of daughter are you? she chides.
"A scared one," I say, taking the side of the small self. I tell her that my mother wasn’t always kind to me. I dream up excuses. I turn mystical, saying that I’ll pray for my mother, light candles for her, visualize her finding peace in another realm.
The argument runs on and on, like a Russian novel with too many characters and lots of philosophical asides, political manifestoes, and religious debates. It is endless, this subject, to visit or not to visit. It is metaphysical, psychological, diabolical. It is the arena in which my angels and devils fight it out.
When I was a child death entered my bedroom each night. I was there in my body, but really I was at the bottom of a deep, dark pit with slick, oily sides. I fell into this pit every night, my pink nightgown blown up around my head, my body cold and wet with fear; no sound. A space at once too vast and too confined for a scream. Nothing but me, falling, falling.
I never called out for my mother. I knew better. It was a Chicken Little scenario. The sky wasn’t really falling. It was only my imagination. And so I kept falling alone into nothingness, into the idea of not being. I could not fathom this, could not imagine that the world could exist without me, without the sting of me – my teeth, my breath, my eyes.
As my mother continues to die, something inside me is dying, as well. Out of a storm of feelings, a wave appears and knocks me over. When I am no longer her daughter, whom is there for me to please? To answer to? To be happy for? To live for? Oh, I know the prescribed answers – I’ve been reading a few of those self-help books, but none of them does any good. Rage gathers in my belly. I boil as my mother cools, swells as she shrivels. ’ve tried so hard all my life and this is what I get? Worse, if I no longer have to be the person she wants me to be – the person I’ve tried to become and live inside for fifty odd years – then who am I?
I stare at a postcard in my “studio.” A stone sculpture of a primitive, animal-like creature, verging on human, stares back at me, eyes wide, teeth bared, nostrils flared. She’s sitting the way many poor women in India do: back on her heels, knees up, her breasts touching the tops of her thighs. From between her legs emerges a small replica of herself, also wide-eyed and grimacing.
My mother is in the hospital and the doctors cannot find out what is wrong with her. Every time they try to do what they feel are necessary tests she stops breathing and must be revived. What would we like them to do, they ask.
Take her back to the nursing home and let her go naturally we say. Do not torture her anymore.
My mother drifts in and out and at times I believe she knows what is happening to her but she is calm and seems to be accepting; strange behavior for my controlling mother, acceptance. I am grateful for it. I beg peace for her.
She asks Dianne for a doughnut and a cup of coffee. Dianne rushes madly about the nursing home looking for what is not to be found and returns, sad, not be able to grant my mother’s wish. My mother has already forgotten and drifted off to sleep again.
My son, Chris, has a daughter. I tell my mother and she says she is pleased and she has been waiting to see if this child was a boy or girl. I don’t believe she understands what I am talking about.
I must see this child right away and I talk to Linda and Ann and they agree it will not matter where I am when my mother dies yet I struggle with my conscious as I drive to Santa Cruz. It is a long drive and I vacillate between the feelings of excitement at meeting my new granddaughter and the guilt at leaving my mother.
Baby Evan is an enchantress and I am in love but I am only there a short time when the phone rings. Immediately I know what it means. Ann says my mother is dead. I fall into an immediate dichotomy – a life gone and a new life in front of me. I look for some meaning and finally decide it is exactly what it is – a life gone and a new life in front of me. Is that not the way life works? And it takes me along with it.
My mother is a flower closing, her belly button is the center, the point around which the collapse occurs, limbs drawing in. Her shoulders are compressed forward. There is a hump on her upper back. The matching curl of knees when she sits in her wheelchair or lies on her side in bed. The pale feet which she cannot move. At the center of her body, death is pulling on a cord, gathering her in and down.
No one knows what she is dying from. The doctors have tried many tests but she stops breathing every time and they always stop the tests. Ultimately, what does it matter? She is dying and it cannot be stopped.
Linda, Ann, Dianne and I visit her in the nursing home. She eats only enough to keep
herself alive and she is losing weight at an alarming rate. For the past month it has been a strain to visit my mother every few days, and I’ve finally decided not to see her so frequently. She was always so strong, healthy and in control; seeing her helpless, dependent and afraid breaks my heart and scares me. Yesterday, I thought about my own children, imagined them in the position I’m in now, and asked myself if I would want them to visit me if it upset them this much. I answered, honestly, No. And I was free of guilt for one day.
Sometimes I am resentful and angry about my responsibility for my mother. Other times, I simply acknowledge it as the natural duty of a daughter. My sisters visit her often and Linda has a lot of anger for her. Ann never speaks of her feelings. We all want to be with her when she dies. Dying, the final scene, will be dramatic, or at least interesting, but the process leading up to it is long and tedious. We all want to skip the last act and just show up for the finale.
I realize that I am letting people care for my mother who love her less than I do and I must forgive myself for this again and again. I fantasize about bringing her home with a private nurse and assist her in dying quickly and with grace. But I can’t imagine my mother dying in my house.
“I’d shoot myself in two days if I had to care for her,” I tell a friend. But the guilt I am trying to dislodge is ancient and deep; I am not caring for the mother who gave birth to me, whom I ought to accompany through her dying.
“It doesn’t matter whether you visit or not” the counselor says, “so long as you are at peace with your choice. Your mother won’t remember.”
“But I will,” I say.
Inside me, a war rages, on one side is my small self, the coward who wants to hide, a delicate soul who cannot bear the smell of the nursing home, the sight of the deformed and shriveled bodies, the irrational and mournful sounds. This self cries often. She will always be too sensitive for this world. Her mother told her this constantly.
Opposing her is the conqueror, the self who strides out, takes on all comers, and wins. She says, Drop by. Visit. It’s no big deal. She bullies me. She’s impulsive, pushy. What kind of daughter are you? she chides.
"A scared one," I say, taking the side of the small self. I tell her that my mother wasn’t always kind to me. I dream up excuses. I turn mystical, saying that I’ll pray for my mother, light candles for her, visualize her finding peace in another realm.
The argument runs on and on, like a Russian novel with too many characters and lots of philosophical asides, political manifestoes, and religious debates. It is endless, this subject, to visit or not to visit. It is metaphysical, psychological, diabolical. It is the arena in which my angels and devils fight it out.
When I was a child death entered my bedroom each night. I was there in my body, but really I was at the bottom of a deep, dark pit with slick, oily sides. I fell into this pit every night, my pink nightgown blown up around my head, my body cold and wet with fear; no sound. A space at once too vast and too confined for a scream. Nothing but me, falling, falling.
I never called out for my mother. I knew better. It was a Chicken Little scenario. The sky wasn’t really falling. It was only my imagination. And so I kept falling alone into nothingness, into the idea of not being. I could not fathom this, could not imagine that the world could exist without me, without the sting of me – my teeth, my breath, my eyes.
As my mother continues to die, something inside me is dying, as well. Out of a storm of feelings, a wave appears and knocks me over. When I am no longer her daughter, whom is there for me to please? To answer to? To be happy for? To live for? Oh, I know the prescribed answers – I’ve been reading a few of those self-help books, but none of them does any good. Rage gathers in my belly. I boil as my mother cools, swells as she shrivels. ’ve tried so hard all my life and this is what I get? Worse, if I no longer have to be the person she wants me to be – the person I’ve tried to become and live inside for fifty odd years – then who am I?
I stare at a postcard in my “studio.” A stone sculpture of a primitive, animal-like creature, verging on human, stares back at me, eyes wide, teeth bared, nostrils flared. She’s sitting the way many poor women in India do: back on her heels, knees up, her breasts touching the tops of her thighs. From between her legs emerges a small replica of herself, also wide-eyed and grimacing.
My mother is in the hospital and the doctors cannot find out what is wrong with her. Every time they try to do what they feel are necessary tests she stops breathing and must be revived. What would we like them to do, they ask.
Take her back to the nursing home and let her go naturally we say. Do not torture her anymore.
My mother drifts in and out and at times I believe she knows what is happening to her but she is calm and seems to be accepting; strange behavior for my controlling mother, acceptance. I am grateful for it. I beg peace for her.
She asks Dianne for a doughnut and a cup of coffee. Dianne rushes madly about the nursing home looking for what is not to be found and returns, sad, not be able to grant my mother’s wish. My mother has already forgotten and drifted off to sleep again.
My son, Chris, has a daughter. I tell my mother and she says she is pleased and she has been waiting to see if this child was a boy or girl. I don’t believe she understands what I am talking about.
I must see this child right away and I talk to Linda and Ann and they agree it will not matter where I am when my mother dies yet I struggle with my conscious as I drive to Santa Cruz. It is a long drive and I vacillate between the feelings of excitement at meeting my new granddaughter and the guilt at leaving my mother.
Baby Evan is an enchantress and I am in love but I am only there a short time when the phone rings. Immediately I know what it means. Ann says my mother is dead. I fall into an immediate dichotomy – a life gone and a new life in front of me. I look for some meaning and finally decide it is exactly what it is – a life gone and a new life in front of me. Is that not the way life works? And it takes me along with it.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
our big adventure
I stepped out the back door to water the garden and Bluebell, our new cat, walked out with me. I reached for her and she skittered away on her long spidery legs. She KNOWS she is not allowed outside. I slid the screen door almost closed so the other cats couldn’t get out and it jumped the track and landed on my head with a crash. I will spare you the rest of the sordid details. Suffice it to say I ended up on my knees under a Mediterranean palm with long thorns in three of my fingers, a lump on my head from the screen door and Bluebell was GONE!
Rudy was not home. The neighbors and I searched and searched and it got darker and darker and… no Bluebell.
Rudy came home to a house full of neighbors and an upset wife. My husband is a calm man. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “She’s a smart little cat. She’ll show up when she’s hungry.” So we left to eat dinner. We were worried and just a little down. And then, in the park just up the street, I saw a cat!
“Rudy,” I yelled, “is that Bluebell? It is! It’s her.”
Rudy stopped the truck and approached her. She came right to him and he brought her to the truck. I rolled the window down and he passed her in! That cat sunk three claws into my right leg and I yelled! She flew around the cab of that truck like a crazed animal, yowling and clawing.
“Rudy,” I screamed, “don’t open the door! She will tear you up!”
But, my husband is a calm man. He opened the door, reached in, tucked Bluebell under his right arm and got in the truck. Rudy drove home holding her with nary a word. I was nursing my bleeding leg. We put her on the floor in the living room and watched as George and Winnie, the other cats approached, stiff legged and muttering under their breath. Suddenly I realized what we had done!
“Rudy,” I yelled, “that’s not Bluebell! Get her out of here quick! Get her out before George and Winnie get hurt!”
Calmly, Rudy picked up the “not Bluebell” cat and took her away. Whew! What had we done?
At dinner we talked about the “catnapping” and how we would probably laugh about it “someday” when Bluebell was home and safe.
We returned from dinner, I opened the back door and called, “Bluebell!” She came flying from God knows where, crying as if to say, “Well, it’s about time! I have been waiting for my dinner.” She hesitated at the door, I reached for her and she backed up just out of reach. Rudy reached out calmly and pushed her little rear end in the door and slid it closed.
Bluebell has not gone near the door since. Rudy and I laugh every time we pass the park where we nabbed someone else’s cat and we wonder what the poor thing thought about being “catnapped.”
Rudy was not home. The neighbors and I searched and searched and it got darker and darker and… no Bluebell.
Rudy came home to a house full of neighbors and an upset wife. My husband is a calm man. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “She’s a smart little cat. She’ll show up when she’s hungry.” So we left to eat dinner. We were worried and just a little down. And then, in the park just up the street, I saw a cat!
“Rudy,” I yelled, “is that Bluebell? It is! It’s her.”
Rudy stopped the truck and approached her. She came right to him and he brought her to the truck. I rolled the window down and he passed her in! That cat sunk three claws into my right leg and I yelled! She flew around the cab of that truck like a crazed animal, yowling and clawing.
“Rudy,” I screamed, “don’t open the door! She will tear you up!”
But, my husband is a calm man. He opened the door, reached in, tucked Bluebell under his right arm and got in the truck. Rudy drove home holding her with nary a word. I was nursing my bleeding leg. We put her on the floor in the living room and watched as George and Winnie, the other cats approached, stiff legged and muttering under their breath. Suddenly I realized what we had done!
“Rudy,” I yelled, “that’s not Bluebell! Get her out of here quick! Get her out before George and Winnie get hurt!”
Calmly, Rudy picked up the “not Bluebell” cat and took her away. Whew! What had we done?
At dinner we talked about the “catnapping” and how we would probably laugh about it “someday” when Bluebell was home and safe.
We returned from dinner, I opened the back door and called, “Bluebell!” She came flying from God knows where, crying as if to say, “Well, it’s about time! I have been waiting for my dinner.” She hesitated at the door, I reached for her and she backed up just out of reach. Rudy reached out calmly and pushed her little rear end in the door and slid it closed.
Bluebell has not gone near the door since. Rudy and I laugh every time we pass the park where we nabbed someone else’s cat and we wonder what the poor thing thought about being “catnapped.”
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Leroy ...Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Leroy is demented. His mind no longer works in a reasonable fashion. He lives with his wife who loves him and wants to keep him home as long as possible. It is our job to care for him during the day, keep him warm, full and happy. Leroy is easily stressed and when he becomes stressed his adrenalin kicks in and he goes into fight mode. Today the staff is setting up for the Art Party. There is a lot of motion, a lot of carrying to and fro and people chatting in anticipation. Preparing for an event stresses the staff and it stresses Leroy.
Leroy approached the nurse's desk and one of the staff members told him to sit down. Leroy became upset, gave the staff member a dirty look and she told him to sit down again, in a louder tone of voice. Her voice set off another demented client who called Leroy a son of a bitch. Leroy flushed bright red and sat down, glowering. The stage was set and I was called in to "fix" things before they escalated.
I got Leroy a glass of milk because he likes milk. He asked for cereal too. I got him cereal. He calmed down and began to eat. It seemed reasonable enough to me to please him. Don't we all like to be pleased, demented or whatever passes for "not demented?" The staff, who had called me to "fix" things, because that's my business, did not like the way I fixed them.
"Well what are we going to do?" asked the nurse. "Feed him all day?"
"I think if we let him calm down you will see he won't want to eat all day. He will forget what he was angry about. What we need to do is not confront him. We all know the nature of his disease. He is the client and we are the professionals." I guess I should not have said that. I am not always smart.
"We can't put up with this nonsense," said another staff member. "He's a big man and I don't want to get hurt. He doesn't belong here."
Suddenly I hit the wall. "Then where does he belong? In a nursing home where they will tie him to a bed, drug him so he can drool and wet himself until he dies? We know what happens to our people once they leave us. Our mission is to allow these people to stay home as long as their families are willing to keep them home."
"They don't pay me enough to take care of him!"
DAMN! Those words make me crazy! All I can think is, "If you don't want to work here, why are you here? How much money is enough money to take care of the Leroys of this world?"
"Then let me know what you want to do with him!" I said. "It is obvious to me you don't want to work with him so it's your call. Get the staff together and make a decision. If you want him gone from here I can make that happen today!!!"
I went back to my office. I am sitting here wondering what it takes to give a frightened, demented man a glass of milk and a bowl of cereal and leave him alone to compose himself.
Leroy approached the nurse's desk and one of the staff members told him to sit down. Leroy became upset, gave the staff member a dirty look and she told him to sit down again, in a louder tone of voice. Her voice set off another demented client who called Leroy a son of a bitch. Leroy flushed bright red and sat down, glowering. The stage was set and I was called in to "fix" things before they escalated.
I got Leroy a glass of milk because he likes milk. He asked for cereal too. I got him cereal. He calmed down and began to eat. It seemed reasonable enough to me to please him. Don't we all like to be pleased, demented or whatever passes for "not demented?" The staff, who had called me to "fix" things, because that's my business, did not like the way I fixed them.
"Well what are we going to do?" asked the nurse. "Feed him all day?"
"I think if we let him calm down you will see he won't want to eat all day. He will forget what he was angry about. What we need to do is not confront him. We all know the nature of his disease. He is the client and we are the professionals." I guess I should not have said that. I am not always smart.
"We can't put up with this nonsense," said another staff member. "He's a big man and I don't want to get hurt. He doesn't belong here."
Suddenly I hit the wall. "Then where does he belong? In a nursing home where they will tie him to a bed, drug him so he can drool and wet himself until he dies? We know what happens to our people once they leave us. Our mission is to allow these people to stay home as long as their families are willing to keep them home."
"They don't pay me enough to take care of him!"
DAMN! Those words make me crazy! All I can think is, "If you don't want to work here, why are you here? How much money is enough money to take care of the Leroys of this world?"
"Then let me know what you want to do with him!" I said. "It is obvious to me you don't want to work with him so it's your call. Get the staff together and make a decision. If you want him gone from here I can make that happen today!!!"
I went back to my office. I am sitting here wondering what it takes to give a frightened, demented man a glass of milk and a bowl of cereal and leave him alone to compose himself.
It’s all about being right… Monday, August 27, 2007
It seems to me that life has two components…. what happened and the story we tell ourselves about what happened. Though the way we remember facts may be perfect, it is always tinged by our perception and emotions. So, our perception, emotion stained facts become a story that we tell ourselves, our friends, lovers, spouses and in time our children… who are already busy working on their own stories.
In our stories about our life the problems are always someone else's fault. Imagine that! The more we think about and tell our stories the more real they become until finally, to us, they become, not the story but the fact. Forgiveness becomes difficult, if not impossible, because we have become so entrenched in our story about what happened that we forget the other people involved are just that… people… imperfect and destined to make mistakes. Incredibly, they have their life stories too and in their stories, we are wrong.
Ultimately our primary goal becomes not to live our lives, but to be right about our life stories. And thus, we give up living in favor of being right.
In our stories about our life the problems are always someone else's fault. Imagine that! The more we think about and tell our stories the more real they become until finally, to us, they become, not the story but the fact. Forgiveness becomes difficult, if not impossible, because we have become so entrenched in our story about what happened that we forget the other people involved are just that… people… imperfect and destined to make mistakes. Incredibly, they have their life stories too and in their stories, we are wrong.
Ultimately our primary goal becomes not to live our lives, but to be right about our life stories. And thus, we give up living in favor of being right.
the Lamed Vav ...Thursday, September 06, 2007
Several days ago I had a conversation with a dear friend that today, has me thinking about "lamed-vavniks". Jewish legend has it that the "lamed-vavniks" are 36 completely righteous, good people committing acts of kindness, taking pity on the poor and compassion on the helpless and it was for their sake that the world was created. Legend also says that as long as God can find 36 righteous people the world will go on and of course, on the day He can't find 36 "lamed-vavniks" the world will perish.
The world is a complicated place populated by complex people and every day I am amazed that life goes on as well as it does. It seems to me the world operates by agreements and small acts of kindness. Most of us agree to stop at red lights and to pay for what we take from stores. If it were not for such agreements the world would be chaos. Of course I don't believe the legend of "lamed-vavniks." It seems to me however that some people are "lamed-vavniks" in their own right, working at "tikkun olam"… repairing the world and making a difference. Some of us march on Washington to right the problems in government…. some of us feed the hungry (though it's against the law in some parts of Las Vegas)…. some of us hold the hand of the ill and dying and some of us fight for our children, the children of the world. Some of us walk to raise money for Alzheimer's disease research or Diabetes and some of us merely extend a helping hand to our fellow man. Making a difference. In my mind it's the intention to do something to make a difference that keeps chaos at bay.
I have to believe that the majority of the people on the planet have some degree of righteousness or the legend of the "lamed-vavniks" would be real and the world would perish.
The world is a complicated place populated by complex people and every day I am amazed that life goes on as well as it does. It seems to me the world operates by agreements and small acts of kindness. Most of us agree to stop at red lights and to pay for what we take from stores. If it were not for such agreements the world would be chaos. Of course I don't believe the legend of "lamed-vavniks." It seems to me however that some people are "lamed-vavniks" in their own right, working at "tikkun olam"… repairing the world and making a difference. Some of us march on Washington to right the problems in government…. some of us feed the hungry (though it's against the law in some parts of Las Vegas)…. some of us hold the hand of the ill and dying and some of us fight for our children, the children of the world. Some of us walk to raise money for Alzheimer's disease research or Diabetes and some of us merely extend a helping hand to our fellow man. Making a difference. In my mind it's the intention to do something to make a difference that keeps chaos at bay.
I have to believe that the majority of the people on the planet have some degree of righteousness or the legend of the "lamed-vavniks" would be real and the world would perish.
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