Sabbath Messages > Sabbath Message: August 27, 2005
Good Sabbath
August 27, 2005
"But Thou has raised me to high honor;
I am anointed with fragrant oil."
(Sabbath psalm 27)
Summer heat boils towards Autumn's rustic gold, as leaves are the signs of seasonal beauty and change. God alters my morning pathways as I note the changing texture of grass, earth, leaves, blossoms and past blossoms. The carpet of green was dotted with white blossoms-now disappeared. The green leaves of spring are still there even as summer heat turns another tree's green to yellowed reminders of Autumn's close arrival.
I note that a couple of teachers made a commitment to teach special education at low-performing schools in San Diego. They just celebrated their first wedding anniversary. As opposed to just being young, just married, they build their souls while sharing their love of teaching into a focus on those who must learn to love learning, for this is the only hope future generations can have to mature towards peace and creativity. As part of this nobility there are programs that assist low-paid teachers in buying homes, which some will always call "socialism", while others know that this is the pathway that insures that the future will be better than the mess called "today". The first-time homebuyer makes a commitment to teach, for three consecutive years, from the date of the loan, in a high-priority school. This is very good and hopefully will spread to many other school districts.
I also note that a new movie is called "Going Shopping", which is like a women's right to shop gig. Then the N.Y.Times runs a feature on the new tapered clothes on the streets of Copenhagen, where young men look like they're walking on skinny stilts, with one guy wearing expensive skinny jeans that look as if they've been worn by an army crawling on sandpaper. Each of the five photos made my mind numb with how sloppy, undisciplined, how unkempt and unattractive these boys looked. My anticipation of this mess coming to America and becoming the rage discouraged my mind for a whole day, for I knew there was nothing I could do about it.
Well, each generation goes through its own evolution of sloppiness and immaturity; each one also seems to get worse, but that's only because we look at them through the prisms of having grown older with changed habits and styles. I was also depressed to comprehend that the sophisticated NY Times wastes trees and paper on the nonsense of youth's race between liquor and expected foolishness.
Then you look at the Little League world series and see a "more mature" expression of youth's energies and so realize that a strong bat and arm are reduced to boyhood teasing in the dugout and nothing will ever change. Boys tease; men tease, winners tease and losers get teased, so what else is new?
But there are possibilities when you focus on one boy instead of the mythology of another crowd, after all one can behave, while a group finds their recreation in teasing and poking fun. That has been known since a great book was written called "the extraordinary popular delusion and the madness of crowds", which illustrated that one bright person can become the greatest fool when joining a mob.
A tale told over the centuries about a master who asked a boy whom he was teaching: "my son, I will give you a gold coin if you can tell me where God is." And the boy answered, "Master, I will give you two gold coins if you can tell me where He is not."
A Hasidic master was once asked the same question: "where is God? And he answered "wherever you let Him in." That's the heart of Genesis and the mystery of creation. We mortals memorize in order to believe; then we build faith when what we memorize seems to be real, when little things prove that God has been there, though always invisible unless you believe that a summer blossom is His doing, or a winter snowflake was sculpt by Him, a rainbow was painted by the Him. We are blind to what's in front of us while we focus on the shine of the new car that became our ambition; it isn't wrong, just misplaced values and priorities. It's funny that we suppose faith in He who remains invisible, but remain attentive to collecting material riches and playthings. Which is reality and which the fantasy? As Seinfeld characters would say, "there's nothing wrong with that."
I introspect while my beloved tries to find what makes her so tired, even when all the doctors can find nothing. Ignorance is always cloaked in invisibility until we suddenly locate what makes us tick, what brings pain, what is wrong and what is all in the mind-the mischievous mind. We pursue education and wisdom so that we can locate pain and pleasure, as we construct spirit and soul.
Thank You, dear God
for spirit and for soul.
I try to use them wisely
as soon as I discover them
which takes
a lifetime.
Be fulfilled this Sabbath; be in love with life and fragile humans; expand the family to strangers who need your spirit and help them build their souls-and God will reward you. I know that to be true.
sandy
