Ezra's Moment of Silence (and Simplicity) at NMH Last Month

For those of us who are of the Jewish faith today is the Day of Atonement.  Today is Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur signals the end of the High Holy days and the Days of Awe that separates the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashonah, and today, Yom Kippur.  In Jewish tradition the Days of Awe represent G-d’s writing of each person’s name and their fate for the upcoming year, and on this day he seals that fate.  Jewish men and women around the world today will abstain from work, from food, and attend services at synagogue.  

Essentially Yom Kippur is the last day to atone for the sins of the past year and more specifically for the sins between man and G-d.

There is a short story I would like to share today with all of you about a young Jewish man who wanted to learn how to atone for his sins.  

The young man went to his Rabbi and asked him if he may observe the Rabbi atoning for his sins.  The Rabbi asked the young man how he atoned for his sins, and the man said, ‘I hold the prayer book in my hand and read from the text, I am nought but an ordinary Jew.’  The Rabbi looked at him over his glasses and said, “Child, I too then am an ordinary Jew, and do just as you do. If you want to see an inspiring atonement go to see Moshe, the tavern-keeper.” 

So the young man did as his Rabbi told him and went to the tavern and asked to stay the night.  Moshe said with sorrow, “I am sorry child I don’t have any rooms this is a mere tavern, but I see that you are tired and weary if you wish I can make you a bed in the corner and you can sleep there.” The young man gladly accepted and took up his space in the corner feigning sleep, but in truth patiently waiting for the moment of atonement.  

Just before dawn Moshe rose, and called on his wife to bring him his diary. He then took his notebook sat on a stool, and lit a candle. Slowly he opened up his diary and began to read out loud what was a book of misdeeds and transgressions.  As he read through his list of small sins (a word of gossip, oversleeping for prayer, forgetting to give a coin to charity) the young man sat quietly in the corner observing.  Soon he realized that Moshe’s face was bathed in tears and he continued to read for more than an hour.

Finally, he put down his diary and called on his wife to bring him his second diary. This was a list of misfortunes and troubles that had happened over the past year (the night he was beaten up by his drunk customers, the day his child fell sick, the days during winter when he was unable to supply firewood for his family, the morning the family’s cow died) and again he read for over an hour the entire time his face was bathed in tears.

When he closed his book, he knelt down on the floor, closed his eyes, looked heavenwards, and said, “So you see, dear Father in Heaven, I have sinned against You.  Last year I repented and promised to fulfill Your commandments, but I repeatedly succumbed to my evil inclination.  But last year I also prayed and begged You for a year of health and prosperity, and I trusted in You that it would indeed be this way.

"Dear Father, today is the eve of Yom Kippur, when everyone forgives and is forgiven. Let us put the past behind us. I'll accept my troubles as atonement for my sins, and You, in Your great mercy, I hope will do the same." 

With that Moshe took his two diaries lifted them above his head and said, “This is my atonement Lord, this is my exchange.”  He then threw his misdeeds, transgressions, misfortunes, and troubles into the fire and soon the coals turned his tear-stained pages to ashes.            

Although Yom Kippur is a holy day for people of the Jewish faith, reflection is a universal ability.  Yet, with the hectic lives we live these days there is very little time to reflect, so for a moment let us reflect and take the opportunity to turn our tear-stained pages to ashes.

Let us be silent. 

And what's it all for?

"How far we all come. How far we all come away from ourselves. So far, so much between, you can never go home again. You can go home, it's good to go home, but you never really get all the way home again in your life. And what's it all for? All I tried to be, all I ever wanted and went away for, what's it all for?

Everything was... better than he ever deserved; only whatever it was and however good it was, it wasn't what you once had been, and had lost and could never have again, and once in a while, once in a long time, you remembered and knew how far you were away, and it hit you hard enough, that little while it lasted, to break your heart."

A Death in the Family
James Agee
(found in my 1977 journal)

The Year 1977

While looking for a copy of Hobbes' "Leviathan" for Joshu's theology course downstairs in Claudia's Philadelphia basement this afternoon, where so much of my American 'sctuff' is kept, I came across one of my earlier journals written in the year immediately after graduating from Amherst.

1977 was quite a year of physical, emotional and spiritual transition in my youthful life. I'd come to Washington, D.C. (ironically where Joshua has come to start his college life in America) after an extra autumn in Amherst, slowly digesting the change from the peaceful academics of college life to the realities of work and professional challenges ahead, spending a year on Capitol Hill working for a U.S. Senator.

2009 means that I'm looking back some 32 years, across the decades of a life lived abroad, professional accomplishment, international development, human rights, with marriage, young children, college children and the personal perspective that such physical, emotional and spiritual distance offers.

I think the line in the 1970s Paul Simon song from 'Heart and Bones' about Carrie Fischer refers to 'an arc of a love affair'.

For our lives aren't merely momentary points on a continuum, nor linear lines of grades, salaries or achievements. Rather, we are human parabola, arcing towards a still point of self-knowledge which, when fully realized, we arc gently away again.

Solitary souls in our body kyacks paddling gently, steadily away from our origins, our births, to middle age to observe more calmly with the safety and quiet silent distance provides the nature of these lives we live, before we turn back to that distant shore, where we return our rented kyacks and ready ourselves for the next journey.

Reading these thoughts of those years, the past Keith speaks still so directly to the present Keith.

In some ways, there was a prescient part of the much younger Keith, even in his turbulent confusion, who could sense the distant future and began to capture some of those feelings in his journals of his 20s where he sensed what he would know -- what life would teach him -- more fully in his 40s or 50s.

"An arc of a love affair..."

The College Search

I'm in Georgetown now, staying in Matthew's Mom (Janice)'s exquisite, book-line home a block away from the Dunbarton Oaks gardens. What a gift of a place to stay while I visit Joshua!

I spent my last morning in NYC going with Eileen to get a flu shot. Eileen insisted (and I thought she was getting one, too), so we left early from her place on the 23rd St. cross-town bus (her favorite steed...) to reach the NYC Dept. of Public Health on 26th and 8th Avenue.

It was quite a trip seeing America from the under belly up. As the offspring of doctors, I'd never visited the public health world of American society -- which is ironic given how much work I'd done over the years on public health through Save the Children in Nepal and a handful of other countries around Asia.

So, without much forethought, I was in line, with a hundred other souls from all parts of the globe living in Manhattan. I recognized a couple of young Tibetan/Nepali women, plenty of Hispanics, a bevy of Chinese, a few Indians, some Russian and, possibly, Polish and other European immigrants, as well as Black Americans and a handful of othe native English speakers. Although the whole process took nearly four hours, the shot was free and all the public health services staff were individually kind, warm and attentive. In this world, that's saying alot.

On Thursday I came by AMTRAK down to DC to meet up w/ Joshua who is in his first year among the Jesuits. (As I say, 'when in doubt, send your kids to the Jesuits').

For me, as others, it's equal parts amazing and painful to see our offspring grow up. I'm too much a sentimentalist to let go of these beloved youth easily. Altho there is definitely a sense of parental pride in their growing independence, their character, and their heroism in finding their places in the larger world.

We did it once, too, but we weren't the parents in the story at that time.

I can offer a few vignettes and insights from our tour. Ezra and I visited Williams, Vassar, Bard, Sarah Lawrence and NYU. For us, Bard and NYU were the stand-outs (partially b/c we got to meet Magic Johnson at Bard, where his son was looking around while the Prez of NYU stopped by our tour and gave us a few of his insights on what this process is all about...).
ENaturally, Amherst and Williams are both brilliant academies for the mind, altho a bit isolated from la vrai world compared to an NYU, Columbia or Georgetown.

Ezra is also looking seriously at St. John's (The great books school in Annapolis or Taos), as well as a totally outside the box place, Deep Springs College in the desert of southern California, a two year intellectual monastic ranch for a couple dozen outstanding young men. Ezra wants a 'game-changer' school which will help him move the world in the direction we all need to go in the coming century. One can't fault his logic or question his moral ambition...

In truth, Georgetown works for Joshua as he was ready for a real city and DC is a purrrfect size city in the States. Altho Josh is now talking about a South Asia Dept. which Georgetown doesn't have, so I've told him, if he does well, he could think about a transfer to Columbia (who wouldn't want to go to Columbia?) after two years since they have a strong South Asian Dept.

But, also, these schools are all ridiculously difficult to get into these days. I call them the 'Impossibles' and the 'Near Impossibles'. Some take only 8-10% of their applicants, whereas none take more than 20%, so it's best to play the field and try to get interviews since our kidz are likely to impress most admissions folks if they can get their toes in the door.

Fortuitously, Ez had 15 mins. w/ the Bard admissions director . We loved Bard for its academic rigor, intellecual stimulus, attention to the individual student and manifold charms. It's a special place, sans doubt.

Yet, it's a tender process emotionally when it's your own child as opposed to our selves. As parents, our hearts are on our sleeves as our kids have to go through this demanding, time-consuming and exposed college search and application process.

Ouch! doesn't do it justice.


We just need to be kind to ourselves, and children, in order to find the college or university where they would really enjoy being a student. There are scores and scores of great schools around the States. We shouldn't get too attached to only one or two school ideas; instead leave oneself open for new possibilities. America is gifted with great and noble academic institutions.

The Rain King Returneth

and so w/ a vulcan wave and an intimate smile, ezra disappeared down the apartment corridor w/ the our own carole lombard, vivacious, charismatic aunt eileen, to the dark, throbbing and yielding new york streets below for his day and life ahead.

'alas, alone, along, alove, the...'

i borrow from james joyce's end of 'finnegan's wake' as a backward glance and nod at the current sarah lawrence college president who we were told teaches the course on 'who's afraid of james joyce?' (who's not??).

in truth (outside of beloved literature) are there any 'good' endings to life's drama or necessary partings? any decent or at least not fretful ways to say 'goodbye?' -- especially to one's own child?

(i remember the start of durrell's 'alexandria quartet, when the 'sea is high w/ the thrill' -- or is it 'rush' -- 'of the wind...' as he longs achingly for 'her child', justine's child... and then the drama unfolds...)

i wonder if any of the colleges ez and i visited this week teach such a course? 'tears and fears in american literature: separation anxiety at a child's departure' i'd sign up immediately! or, if no one has yet claimed the academic space, be ready to teach the course if it could bring me back in time and space closer to my own children...

the time, once again and always, disappears. so much expectation ('great expectations'...) and then -- whooosh -- the time with ezra recedes so quickly like the faint car lights following behind us on the taconic (iconic? ironic?) parkway as our mutual journey disaggregates and i am left alone, in the car, on the subway, on the train, traveling now and once again by myself in the vast and echoing american landscape.

i lie in bed this morning, trying to catch up a bit on the sleep i didn't get while together this week, seeing my second son in my perpetually cluttered mind's eye finding his taxi to port authority, boarding the bus ('all aboard for greenfield, that's a last call for greenfield!'), throwing his NMH laundry bag of old clothes and bare necessities underneath the 'buus while lugging his precious ibook and headphones up on the stairs into the quiet of the transport for his early 6 am journey back to the isolation and stimulus of boarding school.

i want, at such times, to thank-you my sons for sharing this life's journey with me. i feel, at times, it's tedious for them, worldly and smart teenagers bursting out to be real adults, yet still having the father around with his incessent humor, tense at times about arrangements, over-scheduled, rushing to college tours and still full of the memories of his life on these fragrant shores -- all those agonizing and fraught moments a child must endure with their parent.

yet, these sons are kind to be patient with me, as i, at times, seek to be w/ them. it is another aspect of the parent-child relationship, but now they are close to real independence. they have wings on their sneakers, altho with deep roots in our family love.

alas, again, what to say, but i do love being w/ them, having them nearby, observing their ease and comfort with whoever they meet, their bright, eager intelligence and casual humor, their deep and caring thoughtfulness about the world and those within it.

shakun says i love my sons too much. maybe she's right. altho she says it w/ a wry smile knowing, as i do, that there's hardly such a thing as 'too much love'. maybe too much attachment. too much attention. too much sentimentality et al. but love? never too much love, methinks.

so, off y0u go, dear son. i must toss you back in to those wine-dark seas. each of us our own odysseus. each anchored to our own noble quest.

for the world is your oyster and i am simply the ancient mariner on the shore watching the gulls frolic, the fish leap, the seals splash as the sun sets spraying light of such brilliant, diffuse color over the distant horizon..

om shanti! om shalom!

Bard, Bardic and Bardo along the Hudson

oh, great bardic madhyamika buddhist monk in the heart of compassion along the hudson valley,

i do accept your wise and subtle teachings sans question. they are noble, concise and, of course, clearly cutting through spiritual materializm. toute suite!

they are full of the emptiness ('sunyata') that is at the core of our understanding of the universe. not to mention, our place within it.

in that regard, i don't think i am out of place to shout down the morning canyons of manhattan:

OM MANI PADME HUNG!!!

so loud, even big bob thurman sitting meditating at columbia university on the forms and nature of student dakinis dancing in front of him...

among whom ezi and i had dinner last night at a bustling, noisy, crowded, exquisitely collegiate bistro with scott and sochua's lovely and talented daughter, malika, a first year columbia student straight from 18 years in cambodia to the source of american academia.

like josh and ezi, another of these youthful, wise and observant blended souls whom, as parents, we have offered as our hopes and sacrifices to the 21st c..

OMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

down the through the ages as only van morrison could wail. rave on, van morrison. rave on!

illuminating the world's sacred heart and teachings through music for those of us without the time to read the holy texts.

yes, and yes again, let me say for through the cosmopolitans, lamb chops and tuscan wine reuniting us 'til 1 am along the sleepy hollow estates of the great hudson river with the conversation only subduing because of a one hour darkened drive to our evening rest stop in carmel with a 10 am tour at sarah lawrence the next morning, alas.

HUNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

says the teachings. the pure lotus rises through the muck, drama and forgetfulness of human existence. the heart of our noble quest for truth, clarity and love.

oh, yes, and did the buddha mention 'friendship'?

(it may be in one of those heterodox mahayana canons written in kashmir in the 7th c. with that bengali tantric influences referring to the nature of joy and freedom...)

the jewel in the lotus.

the jewel in the crown.

the jewel in our lives.

it was a very lovely and inspired evening.

there along the darkened shores of lethe,

oh, charon!

my eternal guide and companion.

Never Really Alone

mom, i spoke to claudia the other night.  she said you were going to grandma rose and ben-henry's graves the next day outside nyc.  i can only imagine how emotional this was for you to return to your parents' grave sites six months after dad's departure.  

i wish i could have been there, too.  i'm sure it was good for your soul and thoughts to be near their resting site for a quiet conversation w/ them.  when i mentioned this to shakun, leah was listening and asked me if you put a stone on the grave.  she knew that jews do that as a token of remembrance from a children's book she'd read.  (we read it again last night...)   

how wise and observant children are in our lives.  they speak such simple truths so openly...

still, for us, as we age, we learn to acknowledge that we'll never really know what happens after death.  

yet, we feel, as well, that these after-life conversations carry emotional presence or substance to an unseen/unseeable world.  we believe that in an uncertain existence, anything is possible -- including some form of spiritual communication w/ those we love who have gone.  

we hear ourselves speak from our hearts, at the very least.  which in itself is important.  

then, if the ones we love can hear us, too, in whatever hearing may mean in the great beyond, at least some flicker of recognition and affection, then all the feather weight of those words and emotions travel truely.  

if they merely echo across the empryean, we believe the echo itself is a form of life.  like the lightwaves that that our science mind tells us travel to eternity across the open, empty space of the universe, there for those to see who have eyes and and recognition, our words, prayers and love may travel, too, beyond any world we could ever recognize, or reach.  

yet, as we look inside and out, we smile gently, if a bit wanly, as we look up to see the universe stretch beyond our imagination knowing that the people we have embraced and love still may have formed their own light waves or sound ripples cascading 'across the universe' (as the beloved beatles sing...).  

so we reflect, we pray, we remain silent, we go down on one knee or put our hands together in solicitation.  we close our eyes to meditate, or open them to stare w/ slack jaws at the immense beauty and distance of the stars above.  

either way, we stand in awe and appreciation of the brief time we are given to acknowledge the surprising existence we find ourselves temporarily inhabiting on this wondrous world.  

we are fortunate to see and perceive.  

we are fortunate to have each other.  

we are fortunate to have had so many who have gone already.  

we are fortunate.

of course, the pain and loss never leave.  the reality of the shortness of breath.  the gut-wrenching fear that something has gone wrong..  the sudden disappearance of those we love.  the broken shelter they offered us in this vagrant world lost, forever.  

yet, to where, we can never know.  so we speak in our silent voices, standing at the graveyard or on the sacred mountain or in the quiet of our own homes.  we radiate our loss and our love.  we send out to that dark and distant universe the love we feel and will never forget.  the message of connection and affection.  the truth that is even greater than the loss.  that time and distance have not broken, nor ever will.  

we love, therefore we are.  we love, therefore, we weep.  we love, and in loving will never forget.

are never really alone.