Comfort food?

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Why don’t we skip the food part of “comfort food” to go straight into comfort?

Part of the problem is that we have equated everything with food. If there’s a party, there’s food. If there’s grief, there’s food. Happy or sad, we use food. We use food to celebrate and to bring ourselves out of a funk. Food is equated with feeling good.

We self-medicate with food all the time, in part because this is what we were taught to do. We aren’t taught how to deal with our feelings or with problems.

We teach our children that if they are upset they should put something in their mouths. We do it with actual food or we do it with a pacifier. This is incredibly unhealthy. You may think food isn’t as bad as drugs but the side effects of overeating can include obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. And the problem still isn’t solved. The reason for the need for comfort is still there.

Cover part three

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(The final part of today’s musings.)

I realized something else about today’s events, after going to lunch. I currently only cover my hair at home or at work on the Sabbath. It’s a new thing to start covering my hair among friends if we go out together. It is like I’m coming out.

I have never had my hair covered with a tichel and been alone around strangers. When I was in college I used a snood or a bandanna, but not for the same reason I do now. And the climate was more tolerant then. There was less paranoia about Islam. My haircovering isn’t a hijab, but most Americans aren’t that savvy. A cloth on a head is a cloth on a head.

When I cover my hair at work I’m around people who don’t quite understand, but I am in a place that I have worked at for 14 years. The patrons know me there and because I work at the library I’m afforded a certain level of respect. Generally they are supportive if they say anything at all. Sometimes they are concerned that I might have cancer. I have since started exposing a bit of my hair at the top or showing some bangs so that they don’t worry about that.

But I just thought about it in a different way. What if I was in a restaurant by myself? What is to stop someone coming up to me and challenging me or accusing me of being a terrorist, thinking I’m wearing a hijab? That’s really frightening.

Or saying that “You need to go back home!” even though I was born and raised here, and am very white?

Or even saying that I’m not a real woman because I cover my hair? So many people think that a woman who covers her hair has to do it, or is forced to do it. They don’t get that it is a choice. To do so in America is even more a sign of a choice. It is even harder to do it here, because it is so unusual, especially in the South.

Cover part two

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(This is the second in a three part essay on headcovering for women, written over the course of a day.)

I returned from my diversity class that I’d attended with a coworker. She asked me how I liked it, and I shrugged. I thought about it further and decided to share with her one of my feelings about it that I’d shared with other coworkers.

I told her that I stayed afterwards to speak with the teacher about headcoverings. She’d said that some women who moved to the US stopped covering their hair because they became “more modern”. I was taken aback by this, as if it is primitive to cover your hair. Perhaps she thinks that women in other countries cover their hair because they don’t know better? But I digress.

So I said to this lady “Since I don’t work the same weekends with you, it might help if you know that I’ve started to cover my hair on the Sabbath.” She smiled and rolled her eyes a little and said “I was told.”

This gave me pause. This means I’m being talked about. Gossip has been a rampant problem here, but it has gone down. Apparently not enough. It isn’t necessary for her to know it, and I wonder who told her.

I gave my opinion on the “more modern” statement and she argued, but not how I expected.

She said “Only Jewish MEN cover their hair.”

I said “And Orthodox Jewish women.”

I said “How long have you been studying about Judaism?” (because I’ve been studying it for 4 years.) I paused, and answered for her. “Never.”

She argued back, naming a patron who is Jewish – that she doesn’t cover her hair.

I countered, “And she’s not Orthodox.”

And now I think about it, we’ve had two male Jewish coworkers – neither of which wore kippahs.

I was getting very angry so I had to stop talking with her. Later I thought – why am I getting angry?

Why do I care what she thinks? Her opinion didn’t matter to me when I stopped smoking, or started exercising, or wrote my book. All the things that I’ve done for self-improvement have been of no matter to her. So why does it matter now?

And then I have to think, why do I cover, and how much of that explanation am I required to give to anybody? How much of it do even I really understand? The more I understand about it the more I appreciate it. It is a very private and deep experience.

I don’t cover during the week in part because of where I work. I don’t want to upset people. I don’t want rumors and questions. I just want to be modest and show respect to God. But how can I be modest if I’m sticking out like a sore thumb, with a scarf on my head? How am I showing respect to God if I’m causing other people to worry about whether I have cancer or not, or appearing that I think I’m more pious or devout than they are?

Cover part one

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(This is the first in a three part essay on headcovering for women, written over the course of a day.)

I was just in a class where they were talking about diversity. The presenter brought up the idea of different cultures from the US, using the Middle East as an example.

The presenter (a white woman, probably in her 60s) was speaking about how women cover their hair there. She said that some women from the Middle East who move to America don’t cover their hair here because they become “more modern”.

I winced when I heard her say that. It sounded so negative, so pejorative. As if covering your hair is archaic and backwards. As if covering your hair is primitive. I decided to wait until the end of class to speak with her about this, in part out of respect for her position and in part to not embarrass her.

I told her that covering your hair is not a sign that you aren’t modern. I said I have a lot of friends to cover their hair who were very modern. Now, I did not have my hair covered at the time. Currently, I only cover on the Sabbath, but after this experience I kind of want to cover more often. I considered covering that day but I didn’t. Would she have said what she did if I had been wearing a tichel?

I said there are various reasons for women to cover their hair. She on her own suggested modesty. That is a very important reason, but it is just the start. I didn’t feel like going deep into this, but I wanted her to think about what she said.

I just expect more acceptance of diversity out of a diversity class presenter.

Thoughts about taking care of a marriage.

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I’ve realized that building up a marriage is a lot like building up your immune system. If I’m not getting enough sleep or eating well, my immune system gets low, and I’ll catch any cold. If I take care of myself, then I don’t get sick.

Showing love and care for your spouse builds up your marriage immune system too. Showing attention, saying thank you, being thoughtful -they all build up the “bank”. That way, when there is a bad day, everything doesn’t come crashing down.

If you make deposits into your marriage bank, then when something big happens, your spouse can draw on that and come out fine. If the bank is empty, your marriage is in danger.

All the things you did when you were dating are all the things you should do when you are married. The number of years married makes no difference. Perhaps that is part of the “seven year itch”. You are used to each other, and you start to take each other for granted. So you slide a little, and then you discover that you just don’t care about each other as much. You don’t care, because you don’t “take care”. You have to tend a marriage, like you tend a garden. If you don’t work on it, it gets overgrown and ugly.

Just like a bank, you have to make “deposits” – make special breakfasts for each other, give cards for no special reason, come to visit at work, do an extra chore – it doesn’t have to be things. In fact, you are probably better off if you don’t buy things. You want to show them that you are thinking about them.

Flower fund

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There is a flower fund at the church I went to. It pays for the flowers behind the altar, but it also pays for the wine and the wafers used for Communion.

Often people give to the flower fun in thanksgiving for something good – a birthday or an anniversary, for instance.

But it is also given in memory of someone who died. Some of those deaths are natural. Someone died after a good long life, well lived. But some of those deaths are tragic – accidents, suicide, crib death.

We eat joy and sadness when we share Communion together. Those wafers and that wine were bought with money in memory or honor or thanksgiving of those very human events.

We eat them together, kneeling, at the altar. This is a profound thing. This is a healing thing.

I know people who think they are too sinful to go to church. This is like saying they can’t go to the gym because they are too fat. Church isn’t about being holy. It is about being whole. It is about accepting and sharing our joyful and sad times together.

But church isn’t about a building or a denomination. It is about being part of the Body of Christ. We are all members of the same Church, regardless of creed or ritual, or tradition, regardless of whether we go on Sundays or Saturdays, or not at all. We are all called, and we all serve in our own way, according to our calling.

The escape and return of the Holy Family

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The flight into Egypt.

The Magi left, and an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to Joseph in a dream. The angel said “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the baby and his mother and stay there until I tell you it is safe to return. Herod is about to search for the child to kill him.”

That very night he got up, and taking Mary and the child, escaped to Egypt. They stayed there until King Herod died. This fulfilled the prophecy of Hosea who said: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

MT 2:13-15

The massacre of the innocents

Herod flew into a rage when he realized that the Magi had outwitted him. He gave orders that all male children who were two years or less who lived in and around Bethlehem were to be massacred. This was because the Magi had told him that the star first appeared two years earlier.

This fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah who said “Cries of tears and mourning were heard in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children, and she was unable to be consoled because they are dead.”

MT 2:16-18

The return to Nazareth.

Herod died, and an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph while he was in Egypt, saying “Get up! Take the child and his mother and return to Israel, because those who wanted to kill the child are dead.”

Joseph immediately traveled to Israel with Jesus and Mary. While on the way he learned that Herod’s son, Archelaus, was king over Judea, so he was afraid to travel there. He was warned in a dream as well, so he went to Galilee instead and settled in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled the words of the prophets who said “He will be called a Nazarene.”

MT 2:19-23

Jesus grew up in Nazareth, becoming strong, wise, and filled with God’s grace.

LK 2:40

In his father’s house.

The family travel to Jerusalem for the Passover festival every year. When he was 12 years old, Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem while his family traveled back home to Nazareth. His parents didn’t notice his absence the first day because they thought he was walking with friends among all the other travelers. Then they began to look for him among their friends and relatives. Not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to continue their search. They finally found him after three days. He was sitting among the teachers in the Temple complex, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him talk was amazed at the depth of his understanding and answers. His parents were astonished when they saw him.

Mary said “Son! Why have you treated us this way? Your father and I have been worried sick looking for you.” Jesus replied “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know that I would be in my Father’s house?” But they didn’t understand what he was saying.

Then he returned to Nazareth and obeyed them, and Mary stored up this story in her heart. Jesus grew in wisdom and height, as well as in favor with God and people.

LK 2:41-52

Poem – can’t look at God

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Look at all the people in the Bible who say
they can’t look at God
– to look at God,
they will surely die.

An angel appears and they
throw themselves
down to the ground,
protesting.

Where did they learn this behavior?
The angel never says
“Grovel, because God’s messenger is present”,
in fact,
the angel says the opposite.
The angel says “Stand up.”

Gideon, Joshua, Jacob,
to name a few.
Moses protested a lot.

They all said that they felt
unworthy
to look at the angel,
to be that close to God.

But consider this:
– the mere fact that God
chose to appear to you
is proof
that you
are good enough.

And consider this:
Mary
didn’t throw herself down.
Mary
didn’t grovel or whimper.

And perhaps
that is the difference.
Perhaps the Messiah
will come to all of us
when we realize
that we are worthy,
as we are.

The visit of the Magi.

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Wise men entitled Magi (who were ministers and astrologers from Eastern lands) arrived in Jerusalem after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, during the reign of King Herod. They began to ask “Where is the King of the Jews who has just been born? We came to worship him because we saw his star rising in the east.”

King Herod and everyone in Jerusalem were upset and concerned by their question. Herod called a meeting of all the chief priests and scribes, asking them where the Messiah would be born.

They answered that it was to be in Bethlehem of Judea because the prophet Micah said: “You Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not an unimportant Judean village, because a leader will come from you who will shepherd the people of Israel.”

Then Herod secretly sent for the Magi to find out exactly when they first saw the star. He told them “Go to Bethlehem and find this child, then come back and let me know where he is so that I can go and worship him as well.”

The Magi continued their journey to Bethlehem after leaving Herod. They were overjoyed because the star that they had seen led them straight to where the child was. They entered the house where the child and his mother were and fell to their knees to worship him. They presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Then they returned home by a different route because they were warned in a dream not to go back to Herod.

MT 2:1-12