Chaos, Kindness & The Flood of Garlic.

To write this, I wrote it five times -- and then a sixth.  It was still a mess.    

I printed it out and with my green pen I scratched out everything.   

Well, almost everything -- so I could start again.

I haven’t been able to think straight – too much on my mind.  I needed a little something.   

Then I woke this morning thinking of garlic.

If you use a little garlic it is amazing.  It adds that special something to everything you eat.  It is almost magical the way it transforms a dish.    

For some, garlic is their favorite thing.    Like water, they can't live without it.  It gives our food – depth.  It makes things interesting.  

But too much – indigestible.   It keeps vampires, friends and even lovers at a distance.

(although, I read once that it’s okay if you both have it….)

If you use too much garlic it masks the flavors of everything else.  It tastes like chaos.    Your senses became flooded – they are only aware of the garlic.

I haven’t been able to write because my brain is flooded.   I have a lot of worries – like my father and his mother before him, I am a worrier.  

There, I said it. 

You will probably tell me that I am irrational -- 

-- but it is my birthright.

I could make a list.  

In no particular order…

my broken pipe 

my patients.

the coming winter.

The Middle East

School shootings.

I have a bathtub in my doorway.  Don’t ask.

I worry that my house will not be organized.

That my house will not be clean.

That I won’t have time and energy to do it all.

  That I will forget my Italian

  That I will forget Hebrew.

That I will forget what I just said.

That I will forget what I just said.

Er...that I will forget what I just said.

  That I will use too much garlic.

   Strangely, I am not worried about the upcoming election.

   But I worry that I am eating too much salt -- too much sugar.

   I worry about gluten.

   I worry that I will say something to offend someone.

   Yes, it seems that I am very self-involved.   In fact, I worry that I am too self-involved.

   But I do worry about hunger.

   I worry about homelessness.   

I worry that I am worrying too much.  

Sometimes it is all – too much.    

I used to be a super straight thinker.   Now, it’s all a mess.

I am too much garlic.   Chaos.

I need whiskey.

There was another time when everything became a bit too much.    

God told Noah – build an ark.    Something big is coming.    A flood – a Mabul – is coming.

Mabul – chaos, confusion, cataclysm.  Deluge.  

Mess.

Way Back when God created the world, everything was in chaos.

When it was time to start to make a world, God made a list –   

(God was awesome at creating --  lists.)

one:    separate order from chaos.

two:    separate dark from light.

three:  more garlic.

Now, Chaos is returning.  

Winter is coming.

Back In the time of Noah,  God gave blessings freely. 

Blessings come down from heaven – in the same way that water is a blessing because it rains down from heaven. 

    

Oh how the blessings flowed!:    kosher dill pickles, pesto, hummus, moussaka, baba ganoush, chicken with 40 cloves of...garlic.)    

The blessings gave life depth.  Made life good.

But people took advantage.   They became selfish.  They gorged themselves.

They became violent – fighting over the pastrami.

And they didn’t even bother brushing their teeth.   

God was horrified at their behavior.

You like my blessings?  You like my garlic?  You like depth?

Sure, I’ll give you depth.   Go ahead and drown in it.

When it began, it was too much,    Flooding, chaos, confusion. 

DELUGE.  

The very same thing which had nourished us was now killing us.

Like the dish of an overambitious cook, everything was too much.

The world was drowning. 

  

It was as though God took out a big green pen and scratched out everything -- well, almost everything – to start again.

Chaos,  Noah.   There will be Chaos.    

And before those fragrant cloves begin to fall from the sky,   

Come into the ark.  Bring the animals, bring your family.

Bring Tums.

Build me this ark,  Noah, this teyva – this boat, this box.

It will be,  God says,  almost magical in the way it will transform you.  It will protect you.   I will protect you.   I will give you a taste of The World To Come.  

I will give you whiskey.

You will see how a lamb will be safe from a lion…

Where there will be no predators.

Where even people will not prey on each other -- for a corned beef sandwich –

Or even if only for the pickle.  

When there is chaos, when there is deluge, when there is too much worry, when things fall apart, when it is all much too much and when you are drowning -- it can house your souls and keep you safe.

When the world falls apart I will keep you safe.  

I will keep you safe.

Chaos and flood are not just about marinara sauce.

   It feels like chaos and flood when the waves of trouble in your life are rising – when you lose your job, your health, your safety and your home.

Grace, shelter, the ark are about saving us from the storm that will always come – no matter who you are and your place in life.

There is too much out there.   

There is too much to taste.  

Too much to stomach,

There is too much to feel.   

Man, we are under water.

Our senses are flooded.   Our hearts are flooded.   

We have too much to think about.

Too much to do.   

Too much to feel.

   

Too much worry.   

I could make a list!

You know what I need?   

I need an ark. 

  

I need a place which can shield me from the chaos.   

I need protection from confusion.   

I need protection from myself.

I need a place where I can begin again. 

  I need a place where I can think straight.

I need a place where I can be with my family.

Where no one fights over the food.

Into every life a little rain will fall.    

Most of the time a lot more than a little rain.

And sometimes a lot more than a little garlic. 

  

Sometimes there will be heartburn.

Sometimes there will be fire.   

There will always be illness & there will always be death.   

But it is ok – not to be ok.

We will need shelter.

  

We will need alka-seltzer. 

  

We will need an ark.  

We may need the Divine….

  

We will need a little whiskey.   

We may also need a green pen to scratch things out and start again.

We will need kindness.

And we will need each other.

(as delivered at Temple Beth El in Madison, Wisconsin on Friday, October 24, 2014)

Fishing & The Hospital Bed

Yesterday they brought a hospital bed into my father's house

.   .

​Of course, in the past few weeks he has been declining and now he doesn’t have the strength to get up. But he did try, anyway.

And of course, he fell.

​Dad has always been so independent…wanted to do things his way….so now he is being offered containment.   With high rails on the sides, it is his worst nightmare:: a hospital bed.

​The guys from hospice took apart his own bed–the same one that I crawled into when I was

young and had nightmares. The same bed where I slept with my mom when he was on a trip.  That very same bed that contained a marriage….two marriages.

​That very same bed was disassembled and put into the garage, next to the forty years’ worth of

dusty immunological journals and bales of bubble wrap, broken fishing poles and my grandfather’s tools and thousands of pounds of beautiful, precious rocks…some for cutting and polishing and some just to have.

​

​Releasing forty years of medical journals or a few rocks, after all, requires that we open up that hole and make ourselves a bit vulnerable. It requires that we relinquish complete control. But is there anything that could make you feel a greater loss of control than you 'd feel when total strangers disassemble your bed and carry it into the garage, piece by piece, and put something else in your room: something with rails to contain you?

​A few days ago a young woman I know suddenly died. At home, just after her children went to school. She didn’t have a hospital bed. No bed. No hospice. No hospital.

​Just gone.

​The way I see it, a hospital bed means hope. It means that you are privileged to live at least one more day.

​When I was five years old I used to go fishing with my father. I was his pal. We would leave very, very early in the morning with a car full of gear, his thermos full of coffee, and a bucket full of worms– or minnows or cheese balls or wheaties balls or whatever folks said was working to entice fish in those days. We would arrive at the lake, the channel, the river, the pond…any and all of them…in the dark, unload some gear and traipse, hand-in-hand, through the chill and the misty morning marsh mud, settling on a spot from which to cast our lines. We would arrive before the light and walk together until we found just the right spot.

​Just…the…right…spot.

​I never noticed the chill.

​Dad cast out the lines. I watched the bobbers: little red heads going up and down, and

again…and time to pull in the lines…a silver flash. Sunfish! Bluegill! Perch!

​I was a great fisherman – for a little girl..

​The first time dad was hospitalized he wanted to walk from the car to the hospital together. So I parked and we walked hand in hand towards Admissions. To both of us, at the same time, came the memory of the fishing trips.  (We mentioned it to each other just after they took Dad’s blood pressure.)  So funny -- because to me, once again I was five, with my hair in pigtails and my father with poles and bucket in one hand and his little daughter in the other. But that time we walked together.

​Into the hospital.

​When you are fishing, you know, you cannot really tell a fish that it is time to bite the line.

As much as you try…you close your eyes and hope. You call to them in your mind: “C’mon little fishie…c’mon big fishie...come find my line…bite my hook….c’mon…” and if I were a really good little fishie I would swim really really fast -- in the other direction.  And yet, we try to get the fish to bite...that is why we devise such ingenious inventions as Velveeta cheese balls and Wheaties balls and multicolored lures…

​Somehow we delude ourselves into thinking that we can control the fish.  

​That we can control the outcome.

​But what is the thing that we really love so much about fishing? Is it the reminder that we are not in control? Is it the understanding that you are there, still as the earth, part of the wind? You and your line in the early light, in the morning sun…quiet, quiet.

​And if the fish comes, then it comes.​

​It is the beautiful reminder that it is not anything that we really do. It just happens.

​So yesterday my Dad got this hospital bed. Last night, during the night, he got out of bed, against strict orders. To do this, he had to climb over the railings. He climbed the railings, this time in the dark.

He really doesn’t like to be contained.

​My father had someone dial my number. He said, “It will be soon now. I know. I have been called.” Everything is clear now. I am not afraid.”

​

​If you have ever fished, then you know that sometimes you wait and wait and wait in the early dawn, when the fish are hungry and jumping but none come to your hook.  Not one.   So you leave, you pack up your things, you trudge back with no fish in the net.   And a bit of a hollow feeling of loss.  Or perhaps no feeling of loss.

​Sometimes you really do need to accept that it is not all in your control.

​To my father, needing palliative care, having the hospital bed arrive, these were all losses to him because it meant that dad could not heal himself…the thing that he wanted to do most.  To dad, the hospital bed meant total loss of control…. It meant failure.

​But when it was time…when there was no more time...there was only pain and fear.

​In order to actually die, though, you need to be able to wait with your line in the water…wait with your eyes closed in the morning light…still to the chill…waiting.

​

​You cannot call a fish to the line and neither can you call death to your door.

Death arrives when she arrives.

​She whispers to you, “All is okay. No need to be afraid. All is clear. It is almost time.” And when she comes, you don’t notice the chill.

​You walk with her, hand in hand…towards the lightening sky.

Everything is a Seed.

 

Basically I’m an hopeful soul. 

Along with all the other hopeful souls in the four-season world, the end of summer makes me excited for the bulbs which I can plant in September for the time when life returns after long winter.

I gaze longingly at the garden catalogs which arrive in January amidst the month of bright, beautiful and clear snowy light…(and barren) landscape. 

And ah, I love the spring.   From the fragrant black earth shoots teeny skinny bright green bits of ambition.  

 

I always want to be part of that process.   I want to have the illusion that I am the starter of that greenness.   So, I find myself at the hardware store gazing at the packages of seeds.    I think to myself…which of these will actually grow in my world?   My intentions are always good.  

They are always good.  (almost...)

Years ago I started seeds in little newspaper cups and little moss cups and plastic cups near windows, in bathrooms and in the kitchen.   I have soaked seeds, scored seeds before soaking and before planting.  I have done what I was told to do.

I have used little pitchers, little spray bottles….but at some point, either the seeds don’t come up for me or – after a period of time…after an inch of growth – or two….suddenly they wither and they die.

I look at them for awhile.  I wonder what I have done wrong.   I realize that once again, for another year, I have spent probably fifteen dollars on seeds because I was hopeful...and again, I have failed.

Sigh.

I was thinking about this recently because I was thinking about how we all have something in our lives which we have planned…planted and carefully tended.   Something that we all have watched and watered daily with spray bottles and little pitchers.  

We all, in our own ways, have searched for the green and have poked around in the earth, looking for the sprout.  

Looking for the beginning and the potential.   

And then…either the seed doesn’t grow or after a few hopeful days, it dies.

And we are left with a little cup of dirt and a brown leggy bit of something that we hoped would live.

There are many others, gifted ones, in this world…who plant seeds in March…who put them in windows and bathrooms and under lights…and they grow.  Boy, do they grow!   They flourish and are replanted outside and become bunches of flowers or prolific zucchinis….too many for one person to use….or pumpkins or lettuces in abundance.

For me, the only seeds which seem to grow are the accidental ones.    Seeds like Nasturtium…which I carelessly throw into pots only to have them dance about with their rounded leaves and happy orange edible flowers.     The fact that I can grow those makes me feel lucky.

But I am jealous of those who seem to have more fertile gardens.

I am jealous of the woman with the beautiful beans -- purple and green and yellow.   I am jealous of the guy down the street with the beautiful tomatoes.   I am jealous of the river of tulips.   

But not everything that they plant comes up so nicely -- because the guy down the street with the beautiful tomatoes…doesn’t speak to his children.   

So here is the question:    The guy planted tomato seeds, obviously.  But also – he planted other seeds – those other, unintentional seeds – the seeds with his family that grew to be something -- painful.

The truth is – that all the seeds we plant – in our garden and in our lives – grow to be something that we want – or something that we don’t want…if we are not aware what we are really planting.   

Intentionally or not, we are planting.

In relationships and in society, kindness, for instance, is a seed that can grow into something magnificent.  

Trust is a seed that grow into a tree which can help different communities relate to each other peacefully. 

The seeds of peace, the seeds of racism, the seeds of violence, unnecessary violence,  as well as the seeds of the overuse of power– these all start somewhere.  Even these seeds are planted and fed and watered and tended.

Everything is a seed.

It is easy, easy to look at what has grown and say to ourselves – that is not what I have sown.  

But you know, we only reap what we have sown.   

Nothing comes from nothing.

There is war and and mistrust in the world news.    

There is pain.

So I ask, which seeds did we plant – and why?  For all the good seeds that we do plant -- why would we even bother to plant the bad?  It takes so much gosh-darn hope to even get a seed to begin, why even exert energy to grow the bad.?

Nah, people say, I didn't plant this.   

I didn't, they say, contribute to the mistrust.

I didn't, they say, treat another with carelessness.

I didn't, they say, overreact.

But yet, how is the world such as it is without the seeds?   How can we continue to say that we were not, did not plant the seeds which made the world thus.

Shall we only take credit for the planting of the beautiful tomatoes -- and the almost-unintentional nasturtiums -- but not for our troubled family relationships?

We all, in our own ways, have searched for the green. We have poked around in the earth, looking for the sprout -- and maybe we have found the sprout we hoped we would not find. 

We are left with a a brown leggy bit of something that we hoped would live -- while the menacing vine flourishes.    

How can any of us deny that we did not plant those seeds as well?

I can't speak for them.   I can only speak for me.

I have planted them.   
I have planted all the seeds.

All the beautiful ones...some of which did grow a little
and so many which did not flourish.  

I also planted some ugly ones. 
I planted some painful ones.

Even when my intentions are good.   
And even when they were not. 

Sigh.

Everything, everything we do....everything is a seed.

We have to be so careful.

So very careful.