Stuff that inspired me this week

Found a lot of cool stuff lately I wanted to share: rubber bands, JK Rowling, and re-Judaizing Jesus.

First, a YouTube video I saw on Guy Kawasaki's blog, How to Change the World, of kids at Stanford raising money for a project with rubber bands.

How to change the world, indeed!

*****

And this little snippet on CNN caught my eye. It's about how before she became successful as a writer, single mother JK Rowling contemplated suicide.

Harry Potter author: I considered suicide

I could totally relate to this, as having been in that position many years ago. Sometimes it's overwhelming, and you just want OUT. But she came through, clearly with strong faith and amazing understanding of human nature, which she then captured in her Harry Potter books. I shudder to think of the magnitude of our loss if she had taken that drastic step those many years ago. We would never have known Harry, or gotten the impulse for good those books provided to the world.

It makes me think deeply about how every life is important, and no one should cut themselves short.

*****

And one more thing is this fascinating entry in a series in TIME magazine about revolutionary ideas.

Re-Judaizing Jesus

The piece talks about how important it is when reading the New Testament to have an understanding of the Jewish context. Excerpt:

New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine says, that "if you get the [Jewish] context wrong, you will certainly get Jesus wrong."

The shift came in stages: first a brute acceptance that Jesus was born a Jew and did Jewish things; then admission that he and his interpreter Paul saw themselves as Jews even while founding what became another faith; and today, recognition of what the Rev. Bruce Chilton, author of Rabbi Jesus, calls Jesus' passionate dedication "to Jewish ideas of his day" on everything from ritual purity to the ideal of the kingdom of God — ideas he rewove but did not abandon.

Take a look—the ideas might surprise you. The entire series was interesting as well.

Thoughts? (Blogging is a lot more fun when everyone participates!)

Your ideas and inspiration are welcome! Please comment below or Contact Laura.
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Happy Easter

Hello! Yes, it's been a while since you've heard from me. The time since my recent trip to L.A. has been minute-to-minute, filled to the brim with work and planning. (It seems like if you go away for one week, it takes three to catch up.) This weekend I finally had a chance to catch my breath, so now I have something to write about. I do expect my blogging will still be more occasional than regular, but when I have something to say, I'll be here!

This weekend for Easter I went with my girlfriend who's writing the book about 52 Churches to the Unitarian Universalist church in town. Another friend of mine, Lynne, was participating in the bell choir, a wonderful ensemble of little hand bells.

That alone was jaw-dropping. But it was also a perfect sunny spring day (albeit still too cold for my SoCal sensibilities), just right for resurrection morning. The service was inspiring, tear-jerking, joyous and welcoming. I felt embraced as the call to worship included my favorite poem, "thank you God for most this amazing" by ee cummings.

Here are the opening words from the service, which it seemed the entire congregation knew by heart and recited together:

Love is the doctrine of this church,
The quest of truth is its sacrament,
And service is its prayer.
To dwell together in peace,
To seek knowledge in freedom,
To serve humankind in fellowship,
To the end that all souls shall grow
into harmony with the Divine—
This is our great covenant,
One with another, and with our God.

The message throughout, even though they did focus on Easter in recognition of the holiday, was that you can find truth everywhere and all will be respected in that search. Jesus was acknowledged for the work he did bringing truth to the world, and all opinions as to the literal or figurative nature of the events of his life were accommodated. In other words, those who believe in the literal death and resurrection would have felt as comfortable with the message as those who do not.

My friend and I wound up sitting right next to a group of teenagers. I kept recognizing faces, then realized that I knew many of them already from the contra dancing I used to do up in Concord. So when we got to the "greet each other" part of the service, I said, Hi, I know you from contra, and several said, Oh, yeah, hi! The girl sitting next to me explained that they all sit together in this one spot of the balcony, and they have youth group on Sunday nights. Too weird. I felt like I had friends there already.

So it was a nice start to the Easter morning. What did you do for Easter? What insights came your way?

Your ideas and inspiration are welcome! Please comment below or Contact Laura.
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The only constant is change

Pic is from the meditation center on Sunset near the PCH.
Inscription is the verse from Luke:
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all they heart
and with all thy soul and with all they strength
and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself."

I'm back from my trip to Los Angeles. Did everything I set out to do, and then some.

Upshot:

• I was myself.
• I was at home.
• I'm going back.

Things might get a bit hairy around here for the next several months as I figure all this out. It may be that I won't be able to blog four times a week anymore (sorry, Mom!). The best way to stay in touch with the blog is either to sign up for an RSS feed like Bloglines, or subscribe to the notification email that I send out whenever I update (see link in the right hand column). (Another way to stay in touch is to "friend" me in Facebook, but be warned, it's a wild world in there!)

So, I'll probably be posting to this blog when inspiration strikes, rather than being as regular as I have been. I'll be learning significant lessons as time moves on, which I'll write about, and the spiritual journey continues as it always has. Right now my head is too full of details and plans to write coherently, but I'm sure that will settle down eventually, and I'll be in here again with my weird brand of observations on the world.

Talk to you soon!

Your ideas and inspiration are welcome! Please comment below or Contact Laura.
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