Finding Reality in a Floating Pink Abstract World

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, “Finding Reality in a Floating Pink Abstract World.”

But when we return home to our Maker then we’ll see beyond time and space what we could never see while we were enveloped in a physical body and a material world. For the spirit survives the life as our L-rd spans infinity and one day too we will rejoin with Him and discover what our eyes could never see and our ears did never hear.

For our heart was hardened of flesh while our soul was molten and deep until eventually we awake from our slumber and find what we always did seek.

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Strategy, Strategery, Stratego

Like the all knowing eye…

Strategy is our way of trying to forge a coherent path ahead. 

Of course, as humans, we are imperfect and don’t know what we don’t know. 

But whether we call it strategy, strategery, or stratego, the goal is to have a method to our madness. 

We can’t just rely on luck, gut, intuition, or subjective whim to get us wherever. 

Having no strategy is brainless following or aimless wandering. 

Strategy means your thinking ahead what you want to achieve and then at least trying your best to accomplish something. 

Ample course corrections allowed and encouraged, as needed. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Flying Sneaks

We can all fly.

Not necessarily through the air.

But through life and ultimately in death, we can fight and take flight and soar. 

It is our attitude and determination to overcome the hardest of hardships that we face. 

We feel the pain for the situations where we fell, failed, and lost control over outcomes. 

People who told us what they thought we are and where we can go…our ego busted, our shame written all over us, our regret and fear over what we did or should’ve done differently.

We can’t go back.

We can only go forward.

We can learn, and we can grow.

We can compartmentalize the problems and hurt. 

We can pick up the pieces wiser than before and more determined to succeed.

Wings are not just for angels, but also for sneakers and for souls. 

I want to fly all around the world, and more so into the heavens to see my Heavenly father and be reunited for eternity with my family and loved ones.

Fly free and wide.

Fly high and unobstructed by poverty, illness, abuse, and loneliness. 

Fly and soar beyond anything we could ever have imagined. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Body of Armor

So had some disappointments recently.

Nothing terrible (and for that I am so grateful). 

Just life happening. 

Have to fail and fail and fail {more}…in order to get to that single success. 

Along the way, sometimes it feels like arrows going through your body.

Or as someone said to Tina Fey in a movie we watched yesterday:

“Hearts and minds, the two best places to shoot someone.”

Is that funny? 

Ok, now I know that I am feeling a little down, because even that made me smirk but not fully smile. 

It’s okay.

Life is a series of peaks and valleys. 

Time to climb that next peak. 

I will do it with body armor on and solid. 

Won’t let those arrows pierce me, while I ascend.

I am trying, and learning and growing along the way.

If I am to fall, Hashem, in mercy, pick me up that I may keep doing my mission you have for me in life, so that I may ultimately prevail toward the destiny only that You know and have planned for me, for the good. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

(Re)Kashering The Kitchen

So with all the 613s that we and are our friends and family are seeing, we are taking these as a sign and important message. 

Yesterday, I posted that I would show you today how it is personally affecting us.

So one of the things that we are doing is (re)kashering our kitchen. 

New and separate dishes and cooking utensils for meat and dairy meals.  

We got these beautiful French Perle Lenox in gorgeous lilac and ice blue (of course, no one better actually use one and break it). 

Being more a part of the synagogue and community now, we are hoping to host more people for Shabbat etc.

There are other small (and large) ways that we are coming back to more of our traditions, but we are far from perfect. 

Sort of a blend of the secular world, the religious one, and just being ourselves. 

But that is our road, and we strive to do better in all aspects of our lives and pray for G-d’s mercy and blessings all along the way and at the destination. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Helping Kids To Stand On Their Own

So my wife and I have a longstanding disagreement on the best way of teaching children. 

Her perspective:

TEACH TO CARE – Get the kids to do them for themselves, learn to be independent, by doing they learn to stand on their own two feet, don’t baby them, by teaching them to do for themselves you are caring for the kids, if you jump every time they ask then there is no reason for them to try themselves.

His perspective:

CARE TO TEACH – Do for the kids when they are young, by showing them how then they start to learn how to do it for themselves later in life, children need to be shown love and caring so they can learn to one day care for themselves as well as for others, by loving and giving selflessly to children they learn that they are valuable human beings and grow to a healthy maturity. 

The reality:

CARE AND TEACH – We need to show care and love to children, but also need to teach them to do for themselves. We can’t smother children nor can we send them out into the world unprepared. Care for them at an early age, show them how, and then give them opportunities to do it for themselves and become full adults. 

Like with most things in marriage, and relationships in general, the bringing together of two heads and hearts is better than just one alone. We balance each other, complement each other, and synergize each other–one is alone and deficient, two is together and with G-d making three, it is a whole. 

And always tell your wife she was right. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Walking Off Into The Sunset

My daughter snapped this photo of my wife and I while we weren’t looking. 

When we got home my wife titled it “Walking Off Into The Sunset.”

We both cried when we saw it!

So full of meaning…

Two people, different, but hearts and hands together.

Walking into the future, not sure where it is going to take us. 

Some day we’ll be old, and we’ll look back at all the times. 

Hopefully, all for the good, but always trying to make the best. 

We’ll walk off into that sunset sometimes with tears, but always with joy. 

(Source Photo: Michelle Blumenthal)

>Life Building 101

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The Guardian U.K. (2 April, 2011) has this wonderfully inspiring story about a very special body builder.

Dr. Charles Eugster is a dentist and athlete extraordinaire–you see Eugster is 91 years old.

And he says that “At 85 I had a crisis. I looked at myself in the mirror, and saw an old man. I was overweight, my posture was terrible and there was skin hanging off me. I looked like a wreck.”

Now, he is doing dips, crunches, chin-ups, and push ups and scoring higher than contestants in ANY other age category.

Eugster says “I’m not chasing youthfulness, I’m chasing health.“

Although he was already rowing 6 times a week when he was in his late-80s, he figured he could push himself a little harder and so he joined a body building club–OMG, this guy’s attitude is amazing!

What an inspiration…

His outlook is that “We’re told that old age is a continuous state of decline, and that we should stop working, slow down and prepare to die. I disagree…one day something will happen and that will be it. But until that day comes, I’m going to carry on working my abs!”

While none of us know when our time us up, it seems that we can choose how we approach our personal maturation–we can look at it as reaching a peak and then going over the proverbial cliff of life OR we can fight to continuously transform ourselves–for as long as we can–and to always try and be the best we can be.

Age, sex, race, color, religion, national origin, or disability–none of these should inhibit us from working our hardest and going for the gold of what is meaningful in life to us.

I remember a wise saying I learned from my teachers–the competition is really not with anyone else, it is with yourself.

So to me it’s not really body building we’re talking about, but rather life building–and this is something we can all strive for.