jenk

Forgive
You did the best you could with who you were and what you knew at the time. As soon as you learned something better, you did that.

So why can't you forgive yourself and others for past mistakes?

For some people, punishment is not enough, atonement insufficient, retribution never satisfying. They wallow in guilt. They refuse to forgive themselves or others. They lose the future because they are trapped in the past.

Search out the painful mistakes in your past and prepare a certificate of forgiveness, complete with a gold seal for each one. ( ... )

Give one to yourself: "I'm not perfect.... I made a mistake..."

Create your certificates, forgive yourself. Then, sit down, relax, breathe deeply.

Let go of the guilt, let go of the past, breathe in the present and stay open to your future.

( About the book _Up, Up, and Oy Vey!_ )

The volume, which has nearly sold out its first run of 5,000 copies, contends that writer-artists of the classic comics, many of them Jewish, were influenced by their religious heritage in devising characters and plots. ( ... )

In the early 60’s, when he developed the character known as the Thing as part of the Fantastic Four, Mr. Kirby gave the bricklike being a human past as Benjamin Jacob Grimm, using his and his father’s Jewish names, and a tough childhood on Yancy Street, a thinly veiled version of the real Delancey Street.

For his home, Mr. Kirby even made a drawing of the Thing wearing a yarmulke and a prayer shawl.

Along with those examples of Judaic influence, “Up, Up, and Oy Vey!” offers instances like the name of Superman’s father, Jor-El, with “el” being the suffix to many biblical names and the common use of masks and false identities, akin to the heroine Esther in the Purim story, who goes by an alias in Persian society.

Trying not to overreach, Rabbi Weinstein cut out a passage that likened Batman’s bat cave to the Machpelah, the so-called Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, where the Bible says Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah are buried.

“Simcha,” he says aloud to himself, “the night you wrote that, you had too much Starbucks.”

In the months since publication, the book has brought Rabbi Weinstein invitations to book fairs, Jewish events and comics conventions in places like San Diego and London.

And it has given him what all rabbis worry about and plan for at this time of year, a sermon topic for Yom Kippur. On the Day of Atonement, Rabbi Weinstein said, he will be preaching about the Thing.

When I was teaching at the university, a talented young student informed me one day that she could be doing what I was doing. I agreed with her and suggested she enter graduate school. She said that wasn't fair; she should be able to do it without credentials because she was just as smart as I was. Why should she have to wait when I was already there?

Dreaming is wonderful; wishing is okay; but "if only" is a way of saying "never". It is an attitude that focuses on what you lack, on what others have, and that makes it difficult to care about yourself as you are.

[if you are] clear that more money and status would significantly add to the quality of your life, then go for it. Decide what you want to earn or do; list the sacrifices you will have to make (time, relationships, other activities, personal change); and make a plan. Read, study, question, and start building capital. [...] Accept full responsibility for doing it yourself. [...] Any money or status that comes through others (male or female) has strings attached and trades that must be made.

[After 9/11], a lot of people spoke of waking up to the fact that life offers no guarantees, and they vowed not to continue taking their lives and loved ones for granted. But why were they asleep in the first place? People die suddenly every day; why did it take planes flying into buildings to realize that the spouse they fought with this morning might not come home tonight?

- from Following Francis: The Franciscan Way for Everyone by Susan Pitchford

From the beginning, Scripture was seen as complex and contested: two creation stories; two rival accounts of how Israel got its first king; the argument of the Deuteronomist that the good are always rewarded and the bad always punished countered by Job; the argument against taking foreign wives in Ezra and Nehemiah countered by Ruth; the argument for exclusivism countered by traditions of inclusion in Second Isaiah and Jonah. Scripture itself corrected and amended earlier versions of scripture in some cases; in other cases, rival arguments were allowed to stand side by side unresolved. The idea that there is only one correct way to read or interpret scripture is a rather modern idea. ( ... )

We confess that at times we have acted as though the Church has never argued about its doctrines and practices, has never changed its mind; as if “the Scriptures are perfectly clear and do not need interpretation” or that “all reasonable people will agree” with us. We confess that even though we know this is untrue, and even though the quickest glance at the history of biblical interpretation of ethical issues demonstrates its falsity, we persist in acting as if all Christians could agree on complex matters. We mention, for examples, such issues as the right use of creation, whether Christians can lend money at interest to other Christians (usury), whether slavery is justified or not, the use of force and violence, abortion, the death penalty, war, contraception, the nature of marriage, the property rights of women, child labor laws, prison systems, how many languages should be taught in schools, whether evolution should be taught in schools, and many other questions in which the Church’s appropriation of Scripture has been complex and in many cases even at odds with the most obvious sense of the biblical text.
- from paragraphs 2.4 & 2.12

L'Engle's family habitually refer to all her memoirs as "pure fiction," and, conversely, consider her novels to be the most autobiographical — though to them equally invasive — of her books.

1. "Want to have dinner tonight?" "Sure!".
   
2. Evenings of laughter, wine, new perfumes, and jw1776's pizza.
   
3. jw1776 arranging a spa visit for my birthday :)
   
4. I haven't lost my touch at massage.
   
5. Snuggles.
   
6. Found a place to order the 4th Leonard & Larry book.
   
7. Getting to smile at a chandelier I haven't seen in a while.
   
8. Waking up to a clean sink.
   
9. New warm-weather robe.
   
10. Friends and chosen family.

1. You loaned me some of your Anita Blake books to underscore your relationship with the Episcopalian church. What are other books that you use to help explain facets of your personality or life?
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2. We've yet to take each other up on pairing up for workshops. What sort are you interested in attending?
   
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3. What do you think of cuisines like Indian, Greek, Persian, Afgahni, Thai, Ethiopian, etc.?
   
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4. What things have you coded for fun rather than for pay?
   
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5. At a game night, what's your favorite game to play and why?
   
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