Live, Love, Learn

Years ago when I thought I was old enough to get them, but long before I truly did, I wrote a poem about meetings. This came to mind today.

Meetings

Endless words

Time runs on

We grow old

Meeting adjourned

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Here's a poem that I will not explain. Last night I wrote a poem that I deemed too raw and personal to post. In deeming that one unfit for blogging, this one is earning the benefit of slipping through (even though this one may be more personal, somehow this one I'm more comfortable posting. It's like when I was a kid and was afraid to climb the ladder up the slide, but was fine climbing up the slide itself. Even though that was the more precarious/dangerous way, it felt more comfortable to me) :

Many missed signals
Much time gone by
Alone, lonely too
Why why why why

Aloneness, my dear
Like a shrubbery maze
Uneasy to escape
The comfort she pays

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Once upon a time there was a young prankster magician who gathered together some of his little friends late at night in a back room and showed them his magic. His feat was that he swallowed fire. At first this was something he did rarely - for friends, but in time, as he grew older he became known. And he performed in front of large audiences on a regular basis. He became a famous entertainer and did TV, Broadway, Vegas. Once, before a performance some friends decided they had to do something about a problem they'd become aware of. More than once they saw The Fire Swallower taking a drink of whiskey or wine before a show from an ever present bottle in his dressing room. So they hid the bottle. As performance time approached The Fire Swallower started looking around and as he didn't find what he was looking for he got increasingly anxious. Finally, the friends asked what he was looking for and he said his hair brush. They found him the hairbrush but he kept searching for something, not wanting to reveal what. Finally one brave friend (I think his name was Dave) said, "You don't need it." To which The Fire Swallower replied, "Yes I do." They pushed him on stage and he did his act. And he burned to death. Months later, in going through his diaries, it was discovered that The Fire Swallower had a secret. He discovered at a young age that somehow for him alcohol had a strange, backwards, affect. When he sipped some alcohol it made his insides inflammable, and thus he was able to swallow fire. In taking away what they thought harmful to him The Fire Swallower's friends took away that which made him unique - they took away his life.

I created that story and the following haiku that I think fits with it. We all need to breathe. But we all also have other things that are part of our core, that we need to survive. And you can never guess what someone else's essence to survive and thrive may be.

People like to breathe

Try, but you just can't stop them

We all have our breath

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Davening is hard for most everyone. In some communities they speak of and practice Avodas HaTefilah. Sometimes, this work is neglected.

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Why spend all that time?

Some learn sfarim and others chat

a few truly pray

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"Hungry for your love"

Van Morrison wrote and sang

So true about G-d.

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At a graduation I recently attended the principal cited the school's founder's motto: Learn Torah, Love Torah, Live Torah."

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We learn or love it.

But do we truly live it?

And what does that mean?

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I hope that whoever you are you are happy and healthy and having a good moment, a good day. If you happen to be someone I've hurt in any way, whether I've ever said it before, or didn't, or couldn't, I'm sorry.