An Open Letter to My Future Wife

Dear Beloved,

The days seem long as I linger on your scent. You are not in sight, but your image dominates my dreams. My heart beats and I feel you in my chest. I reach out and grasp for your hand and find no comfort without your touch. You pump through my veins, feeding my life, nourishing my needs. I lay awake at night, praying for you, begging G-d for your hand.
If I told you your hair flowed like a flock of goats, your neck stands like the tower of David, and your breasts are like fawns, I would never do you justice. But your eyes shine as bright as the sun and carry the softness of Love itself. Your hair shimmers and floats, a halo around G-d's most precious gift to this lowliest of men. Words do not exist to describe the momentum of your smile; the power to leave me speechless in wonder stretches 'cross your face. Your lips taste softly on mine. The pressure of your love compressed into a lasting token in my memory.
All this and I have little to offer you. In amazement I wonder that something so glorious as you should desire something so broken as me. I have so little to offer you, but will give you all that exists within me. The breath I breathe I will give up if it should please you. Every drop of crimson blood in my veins I would spill if it would bring just one of your smiles into my life. But the grace you give is beyond comparison. You want not my suffering, but my pleasure. A more G-dly woman has never existed. You make the struggles of life meaningless and bring me hope and faith. When I grow wary you nourish me soul, you make my heart sing and bring Words of Life to my ears.
Dearest Beloved I promise to never leave you. When you grow tried I will be there to carry you through. Through the joys and the pains, I will share all of my life with you and charish your life above my own. With the blessing of our Abba, we will cling to one another and become one flesh. Life is a big adventure and I long only to share it with you.
When you get this, know that I am waiting with baited breath for your return to me my Beloved...

Yours Eternally,

Your Future Husband

Upward Mobility

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings." - Lewis Carroll

The time has come for me to move on. Not from PBA, but out of the dorms and into my own life. I have grown to hate the entrapment I feel here. It would not be so bad if I had a car to drive, a way to leave this place without having to depend on the grace of others. The way it is now, my whole existence revolves around this campus. I live here, I eat here, I work here, I go to school here. The only off campus activity I have is Congregation. I meet PBA people, I live with them, and exist with them. I want to cut that cord. I feel that if I had an apartment off campus, I could get more involved with other activities. Neighborhoods and apartment complexes are great places to meet new people. Grad school will start for me in a little over a year, and I am staying at PBa, so I need to make a change soon or I may burn out! Any advice?

Holiday Madness

As a man who was a Christian for a fair share of my life, I have always been out raged by the constant attack on the use of Christmas in our culture. It is appropriate to say "Happy Holidays," but not "Merry Christmas." The reason I was always given was because it may offend people with other views. This bothered me. I would think that that is un-American, people with different beliefs need to just shut up and take it. I just received from a friend an email about the difference in Christmas trees versus Holiday trees. The statement that came with it was that this holiday is Christmas, and we need to stand up for it. I was taken aback. Not because of Christmas and what ever holiday the Church decides is better that those given by G-d Himself, but by the denial of the authenticity of other holiday celebrations. I do not mind being wished a Merry Christmas as long as I am wished a Happy Hanukkah and I would even except Happy Kwanzaa even though I do not know what the holiday means. The key to this is that as a Jew, I will wish you a Happy Hanukkah whether you celebrate or not, because it is the reason for the season to me. I hope that the Christians will share thier holiday wishes and everyone else to. We do not need to be afraid of wishing people happy holidays, we need to be aware of the cross-cultural celebrations.

Update:

I feel bad for not writing anything new for a while so I figure a short overview of the last few weeks is due. August 14th-24thish.... I spent doing RA training. The training was pretty intensive... we worked all day long almost every day! Then I had to actually be an RA and check the students into their rooms from the 25th-30th. Then school started and I got sick... On Wednesday I caught Swine Flu and was quarantined... I have since recovered.. it was just a regular flu... and am home, but I have not been really in a proper blog mood... I am also at an impasse spiritually... so writing about spiritual things is not really the hot-spot at the moment... I will be back soon!

Forced Seperation and Flowing Tears

So this post in not a religious epiphany or Biblical lesson, it is just what I have been going through for the last two weeks. The first big happening for the last two weeks is my separation from my religious family, and, worse yet, my separation from my Abba. As I mentioned in my last post, I have been doing RA training at my school. The school lives on the Christian calender which uses Sunday as a replacement Sabbath instead of Saturday which is when the Jewish Shabbat is held according to the decree of G-d. This means that they plan a lot of activities and work day on Shabbat. I knew that to some extent I would be giving up Congregation for a few weeks to complete training. I did believe that I would be able to at least make some of the Tuesday night Bible studies, but have been unable to do so. Something always comes up with training. I now feel horrible. I have not been fed in weeks and do not see the any of the family I have made. I feel like there is a gaping hole between me and the Congregation and also with G-d. I was looking at my "Are You All In?" post and just realized that I have fallen out of that attitude and into a depression. Father, help me to get through this season of separation! There have been other happens, to which I alluded, but I will write about them another day... I am going to sleep now!

Update: RA Training!

I have been pretty quite for the last few days, but I have been very busy with RA training! I love the group I am with, the team we have is a gift and I look forward to both the highs and lows with these people. "Just as iron sharpens iron, a person sharpens the character of his friend! (Mishlei)" I am with a group who have so much for me to learn from them! Their love and strengths mixed with their brokenness is forming what promises to be a beautiful whetstone for my continued sharpening. The training I am in right now is sucking up all my time but for sleep! I will try to update more as the weeks progress!

Mishlei (Proverbs) 27:17

My Abba

Do you ever feel like you are wrong, that something you have done is horrible and you wish you had never been tempted in the first place? You say a wretched thing to you friend, you are tempted to that movie you know will only cause you unrest and a night full of the darkest dreams. Or maybe you are tempted by the thoughts and desires of your masculine flesh. You think to yourself, how can a sinner like me deserve the love of a sacrificial lamb? A Messiah who would lay His life down to take away the sins that tempt you to turn from the light of G-d and hide in the shadows of your own twisted heart. Your soul cries out, "Abba, Father of my soul, I long for the grave. I do not know why I can not love you the way You desire, the way you require of me." You listen for the great wind, you wait for the earthquake, you watch for the firestorm, but they never come. Then in that still, small voice, you hear your Papa sooth you gently, "be still, know that I am G-d." As you draw in your breath, waiting, hoping for His voice, He tells you, "You are mine, child. I love you. Nothing you say, nothing you do, no shame you bring to your flesh, no crime you commit to your heart will change My heart for you."
You have never felt so small knowing of the tantrums you have thrown, the words you have used, the hatefulness with which you have spoke to you Abba; that no matter what you are His and His alone.
Imagine the love that G-d has for you. Think of the childless man you know. There is a desire to connect with children, to have offspring to share the joys of this world with, the flesh of his own flesh. He becomes a pediatrician and spends his time caring for the children of others.
Imagine that after years of infertility that man has a child. He is the sparkle in the man's eye. The man raises him exactly in his shoes. The boy fills his father with joy at everything he does. But disease has over taken the world and the man knows that the only way to save the children is to give up his only son. As much as he loves his son, he gives him up.
Now think of G-d. In B'resheet, we see G-d, alone and desiring to connect. He creates man to have community with him. Man abandons G-d so he can chase the desires of his heart. G-d has a son, but knows that the only way to bring the sons of man to Him is to offer His own flesh as a sin offering. What kind of love does the creator G-d have for the children of man if He is willing to give up His son to bring you into a relationship of healing with Him?
My prayer is a constant cry to let go of sin, but hearing that still small voice of the Master of All the Universe lets me know that I will fall down, but my Abba will be there to doctor my boo-boo, to pick me up and, holding my tiny hand in the mighty hands that forged the earth, together we try my walk again.

M'lakhim Alef ( 1 Kings) 19:11-12
B'resheet (Genesis) 1-3
B'resheet (Genesis) 2:23
Tehillem (Psalms) 46:10
Yochanan (John) 3:16