For so many years I’ve drifted along life’s byways, often paying little attention to the wonderous scenery to behold so bright. Sometimes I was honored by the presence of wonderful minds who showed a different way to live, one of mindfulness and peace.
When we first moved to Chelmsford, now some thiry plus years ago, with our baby daughter in our hands we discovered what was to become the center of our spiritual life at Temple Emanuel. It was a disparate group of gentile liberal souls. The engaged in rarified discussions about how best to achieve ‘Tikkun Olam’ – the healing of the world as it is known in Judaism. Over those years and until we were forced to close because of money issues we remained a tightly bound part.
Rabbi Everett Gendler was a major attraction for the temple drawing people from around the Boston area and not just the nearest radius. People literally sought him from far and wide. But this aquaintantance of the Dali Lama was not an egotistical man. One of favorite memories is of our daughter running up to him in the middle of a celebration in his honor and him st00ping down to her level to seriously hear her query and give a careful answer.
There was a combination of pride and honor in knowing Everett.
Later when he needed to retire you would find many who took it hard.
Our contributions were much more modest in running the board 0r in my spouse’s case basically running the temple.
Unhappily financial hardships did in our little temple a few years ago and many still miss it.
When I entered that Temple my daughter was 9mo’s old, this year she turned thirty five – where does the time go? Then my health was pretty good, just my occasional migraine. Then healthy and making repairs to our house now, shy of climbing to the top step. Parkinson’s takes a slow but inexorable toll. I was diagnosed in 2016. Now, I am coming up on ten years after diagnosis and while better then i had feared, still no piece of cake. I walk with assistance, usually just a cane. When I venture out in public I fear no larceny because half the town thinks I’m falling down and I give full credit to the kind folks who lend me an arm or a hand,
Whether fortunate or not, I can’t see the future. I hope to always have loving friends and relations to spend time with and share news. I pray for the people of this world to learn to share and live in peace and turn away from violent solutions. In my life I try to find opportunities to show kindness. But I fear that two often I let pride or lack of tolerance allow me to accept other valid views, instead of using these differing views as a way of understanding my fellow humans.
So as I grow older I try to grow more accepting of my limits and other’s limits. Rather than argue with those I disagree with I am starting to seek what makes them believe in such a radically different worldview. How to they miss such an obvious thing, or how did I not understand what they were objecting to?
So my goals are currently to be less prideful, listen more and try to see the world through other’s eyes. I suspect those who know me well are sighing and saying “we’ll see” and truthfully that would be my advice.
My Gifted Life 