And...the answer is...???

I've been asked the question so many times that I should have charged admission.

I've asked myself this question, over and over, also. But I always came up with the pretty answer, the one that would allow the maximum affinity, and the minimum of distress to the eager asker of the question.

They all have their own idea about what it is that drew me from a protestant upbringing, coddeled in a catholic-hating xenophobic white society. Why did I leave the fold? Reject the salvation myth? And join with the bearers of an "old" testament? What was it about this small group of people, who have been splashed around the globe like ink? How do they have what it takes to become the sacred practice of a 23 year old boy, from a small island nation?

That, and joined with the fact that I do not believe in the divinity of Jesus from Nazeret, called Christ. It is a crock. "made up". Un-real, not based in fact, a mere human construction. An interrogation and enfolding of the gods of the ancient world, a reaction of the pagan priests to Christianity being chosen as the state religion.

It is the logic of belief. That I reject one idea and it's ilk, for another that have seemed like just sides of a coin. So close to one another, and flung around like a genus of small and insignificant animal.

But the truth is there in Judaism for me. The truth about what it means to live a good and meaningful life.

Judaism speaks of a true and enduring path. Guided by the highest values and principals. There is nothing evil in the reality of religious Judaism. Loving respect for every one of the people on this planet. The truths it calls it's own, I strive to exemplify. It has not always been so - and I have not always strived to be anything - let alone modest. But life has a habit of doing funny things - and we find ourselves making decisions that just work for us, again. And this is the chance of re-formation, re-turn to the path - which I have been able to take advantage of.

There's an old lady up ahead

She is frail, gray, and using a walker. With a hunched, crooked back.
A younger woman - obviously a hired person, standing with her, they are waiting for a car. They stand quietly, each in their own corner of the globe.

Perhaps the older woman remembers her youth, when she would have skipped to the car, in a pretty cotton dress, her hair braided and tied with matching ribbons. The sun would have been kept off her face by a straw hat, with a ribbon wrapped around it the to match the dress, and the hair ribbons.

Perhaps the younger woman remembers her daughter, who skips across the playground. Wearing the same cotton dress, sent by her mother, who works far away, and sends her packages of clothes, instead of tucking her in at night.

By the time I found my car, put the new glasses carefully on the floor of the back seat of my 10 year old Honda, safe in their utilitarian paper wrapping, and stacked efficiently in the white Crate and Barrel bag by a man called "Bill" - who remarked to me that he was able to wrap faster in his youth - and driven the circle which was my exit route, they were there.

The car had pulled up, and the younger woman was being assisted into the car. My escape was blocked, and I watched the three - for the first two women were joined by a third (the driver) - gently maneuvering the elder inch-by-inch.

It was an interesting scene from the human drama - today I was intent on watching it.

September by a creek

late summer afternoon
spent in liquid solitude
no sound but the breathing of the chill water
solitude like no other

the sounds of the body drowned out
absorbed in the blue tail of a gekko
wrapped in the rose hip's red sphere

the mind's babble reduced to the gentle massage
of rock by river. jostling them in unity. interacting.
as individual members of an everlasting family of humanity

as small frogs cling like so many
to the safety and comfort of the past.

And then he kissed me...

I guess the inevitable is taking place - the vivid frame by frame is now slowly melding into a blur of emotions and memories.

Beneath the Huppah it was as if there was no other existence. Time moved so slowly - or so it felt - that I was sure we had been standing there with Rabbi Denise much longer than the 20 minutes it actually was. It was such an intimate experience, shared between the three of us and G-d. I lost all sense of the ka'hal, and all the creation that existed was under that four corners of fabric.

We spent the time pretty much locked on one another - seeing deeply into each other. Seeing past, present and future merge and become one. Watching the mist of emotion wash over our faces, feeling the layers of love falling on us like a warm, silent rain.

U'lai gam hu ya'vo - k'she hu'ya'vo, yered alienu, k'mo geshem

I felt the presence of past generations, from far in the distant past they came and stood with us. Ancestors - both real and spiritual - standing around us in loving support. Witnesses to our commitment, our love, our vow.

Ha'ray, atah me'kudesh li, ba'taba'at zo - lifnai elohim v'adam, u'v'ruach emainu

Behold indeed - for you are made sacred to me, and I to you, by this ring, before the earthly and that which is beyond the earth, and in the spiritual intention of our people.

Now that I've found how to load pics there is no stopping me!

Gosh it's yummy stuff!

The perfect gift!

Diana & Bruce bought me two huge jars of Vegemite! http://www.vegemite.com.au/
How stoked am I?

Yeee Haaa

Being hoisted up on chairs!

And then...

I'm using smaller fonts these days - I'm not quite sure why - maybe large letters feel wasteful? I dunno...

So...

After the mikveh Merav and I went for lunch at the Farmers Market. Both of us delighting in being together after not seeing each other for probably 3-4 weeks. I am sure we were the typical annoying couple at the far table who laugh too loud and shout their stories at each other - but, y'know what, we didn't care so much. It was like being 3 year olds who were best friends from day care until one of them moved away, and then they are together again at a grown-up party where no one really pays that much attention to them anyway - and they just don't care!

A little shopping (I found the perfect Israeli "gever hatik" sunglasses I had been looking for for ages). Merav bought a jacket and we had so much fun just talking about noting and everything.

She just loves her new job - which I have to say, while I wish she were still here, I am thrilled too. It sounds like such a window has been opened to her, and she now flies free in a beautiful scented garden, among the heady aroma of intellect and intellectuals.

We shopped, we ate, we laughed, we enjoyed being together.

Later that evening the wedding journey really began in force.

Diana and Bruce had arrived from New Zealand earlier in the day, and we picked them up for dinner at Campanile on La Brea - http://www.campanilerestaurant.com/ - grilled cheese night! Yum! Diana, Bruce, Merav, Dean and I. It was fantastic to mix two friend groups together and see the imagined divisions of live fade into a continuous, seamless union. Lots of funny stories, and catching up, a few glasses of a lovely riesling, and the best grilled cheese in the city!

What a whirling weekend of emotion and experiences.

The ball started rolling with the arrival late Wednesday of my dear friend, Merav. She flew in early to be with me on Thursday morning when I went to the mikveh, to act as my witness, and supporter. Two things that Merav has been for me, thru good and bad, elation and sadness. She is like a sister to me, but in some senses is even more dear than a sister, for she sometimes feels like she is another "self" for me.

We met at the University of Judaism where the only non-Orthodox (and therefore open to all) mikveh in Los Angeles is located. The mikveh is a ritual practice that I have taken to my heart as one of the most spiritually nourishing that I know of. The waters of the mikveh have enabled me to shed pain and sadness, guilt and sin on past occasions, so this visit was one that had a new and different focus for me.

This time I came as a groom on the spiritual journey of a lifetime. In the ritual immersion in the cool waters of the may'im hay'im I was able to stop time and allow myself to re-focus away from the balagan of preparations and "to do" lists, and take spiritual stock of myself, and gird my nefesh for the days that lay ahead.

Merav brought with her two poems which she read to me as I stood nude, neck-deep in the waters, surrounded by the glow of candlelight. Sue Rosenthal - "the mikveh lady" - is a truly amazing and incredibly competent guide for the perplexed mikveh goer. She had known the reason for my visit, and had prepared readings and meditations prior to my arrival. Her voice soothed away the outside world from behind the curtain, where she and Merav sat.

She walked me into the water, and brought me to a point where I felt so incredibly safe and focused that at a couple of points I was unaware if I was even breathing. It was just the most astoundingly personal and open moment of my life, up until that point.

I immersed myself a total of three times, and each time stayed inside the waters (completely submerged) for as long as I possibly could, expelling every last possible cubic centimeter of air from my lungs. This made each emergence from the water a full gasping of air, as if from the womb of the world.

My tears merged softly with the cool blue waters, and I felt both renewed, and to a certain point re-born (or perhaps re-directed is a better term to appropriate to describe this?).

This most ancient of rituals, is one that I truly feel I own as an intergral part of my life of faith.

Baruch atah ha'shem, eloheinu meleh ha'olam, asher kid'sha'nu b'mitzvotav, v'tzivanu al hat'vi'lah
Blessed are you - wellspring of the universe - who has made us holy through holy decrees, and has decreed that we immerse ourselves