Rabindranath Tagore

Having recently lost my full-time job, I have become free to pursue other options. I am writing this post from Rome, Italy, on my way to Macau, China where I will be teaching philosophy and website design for the next two months. I will let you know what the world looks like from there.

On the way here, a friend from India reminded me of this quote by Rabindranath Tagore which we had heard in a homily at church:

The song I came to sing remains unsung to this day. I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my guitar.

Loosing my job has been a real blessing, a chance to reassess God’s call to me. Though I loved my teaching position, I feel as if in some ways I have stood accused by Tagore’s words–always just about ready to sing, but never really doing so. I go to China…

I hate the term “pro-abortion”. I recently came across it in a quote Tim used (not his own words) in his recent post and then in one of the comments. And I just want to put this out there: nobody is pro-abortion. Regardless of when you believe that life begins, nobody is advocating or encouraging abortions. I respect that differences in beliefs divide us into those that are pro-life (a term I also don’t like) and those that are pro-choice.

For me, this is an issue about choices and freedom. As a woman and mother, I can not imagine the trauma and pain a woman must experience with abortion. Both physical and mental. Judaism tells me that life begins at birth; after two pregnancies I felt life sooner.

So I’m not sure about when life begins but I can tell you this: I wholeheartedly support a woman’s right to choose. Hence the term “pro-choice”.…

With Passover around the corner, I am instantly transported back to my childhood. Some of my most favorite and enduring memories are from seders past with my family. Many of these memories have nothing to do with the actual celebration of the Exodus from Egypt, but rather my cousins reenacting scenes from Saturday Night Live, or my sister giving an impromptu lip sync performance to the music of the Pointer Sisters (I did grow up in the ‘80’s).

So what makes these trivial moments so vivid?

Well, it’s all in the way we observe this tactile holiday. In a nutshell, Passover is the celebration of the Jews’ freedom from slavery in Egypt. On the first and second nights (Passover is 7 days), we have a ritual feast called a seder.

Myjewishlearning.com sums it up:

During the seder, we don’t just tell the story of the Exodus, we see, smell, feel, and taste liberation.

Guided by the Haggadah (the “script” for…