The Jews, My People

The DNA I’ve been granted.

Pilgrim on a Long, Long Journey

Memoirist Dani Shapiro in her memoir, Inheritance, having learned she was not completely, but, in fact, one half Jewish expressed:

“I did not come from the line of small, wiry, dark-eyed people of the shtetl, the men swaying over crumbling tombstones, prayer books in their hands. The imprint of pogroms, of the difficulties and sorrows of immigrant life was not mine—at least not in a physical sense.”

The lines reminded me that these
are my people. I am small and wiry and dark eyed. This is how they suffered and
transcended the everyday in prayer. It brought meaningful tears to my eyes.

Those eyes of mine, I suspect from all the inbreeding in the ghetto, have been followed for many years for their over abundance of dark pigment. The pigmentary changes are called Krukenberg’s Spindle. The disease, also known as Pigment Dispersion Syndrome, enhances one’s odds of developing glaucoma…

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Friendship

“Don’t look at me in that tone of voice.” Dorothy Parker, the late, American satirist, critic, short story writer and poet.

Says a lot. Don’t you think? The subject is conflict. Anyone who has ever been the recipient of an angry look, all of us, appreciates it’s visual power.

As a believer, I try to pray for patience and humility in those moments, but it is hard. Ancient and current wisdom suggests the actions or words that most upset us entail those flaws in others that we own as well.

I need all the help I can get. The poet, David Whyte, said, “All friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness. Without tolerance and mercy all friendships die.” The theologian/pastor/author Tim Keller believes holy matrimony is a vital place where we learn to love.

May God bless us all with ever growing patience, understanding and forgiveness.