Blessings in our own life
For the months of January and February we have been focusing on the idea of "Blessing" inspired by the book God's To Do List. This week Thea brought in a poster to share the blessings in her life. She talked about the different people in her family and important and memorable events that have happened. Then the class had the opportunity to ask questions about what she has shared.This is the first time for children to speak in front of a group and present their work. For some, being the center of attention is wonderful and for others a little more challenging. For the listeners, they get a chance to ask questions about the poster. This does not include giving similar experiences about themselves, which is sometimes difficult. You have to begin your question with who, what, where, how , why, or did! This is only a time that we talk about the presenter.Today the class was most interested in the puppet theater Thea received for a present. She must have fielded at least 10 questions on the subject. When Thea's presentation was finished, everyone wanted to know when it would be their turn to talk about themselves. They are very excited.
Jill Clark, January 23, 2009
September 2009 "Wrestle"
Friday, January 23, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Blessing in a Period of Financial Crisis - D'var Torah: CBI Board Meeting - December 16, 2008
As you no doubt recall, one reason for distributing the book God’s To-Do List to every member of CBI during Rosh Hashanah was to create the possibility of a multi-month, collective CBI learning experience around themes in the book. The idea to use themes from a book in a given year (or more or less) for CBI wide reflection grew out of the notion of systemic, non-compartmentalized thinking which our staff has been trying to imbibe through our grant with the Legacy Heritage Foundation and from experience gained from our Shabbat Connections initiative, which is now proceeding in expanded fashion into its second year.
Perhaps you have noticed a banner set up in the courtyard on Sunday with the name of the “theme of the month,” or the interactive poster in the lobby on which teachers, committee heads or any CBI member can post their own contributions to the collective conversation, or the CBI GTDL blog on which folks can share as well. You may have noticed a bulletin article by Shelby Apple who receives a tiny grant funded stipend to coordinate the GTDL project. We have just begun this experiment in community wide learning. I am sure we will learn as we go better ways to extend and deepen the discussion and include more folks in it. Your ideas are welcome.
The second chapter of GTDL is “Bless.” The Mishnah Tractate which deals with the topic of blessings and prayer is called Brachot, meaning blessings. One of the many intriguing passages in Mishnah Brachot struck me as both challenging and particularly pertinent to the current global climate of financial woe. The mishnah says not only are there specific words of blessing to recite for the many blessings we experience in our lives – holidays, happy moments, celebrations, food and drink, the experience of nature’s beauty (the ocean, a rainbow, a tree), encounters with wise people or friends, and the like, the good news, as it were – but, says the mishnah, one is required to say words of blessing upon hearing bad news as well.
We are required both to bless the good news and bless the bad news. It occurs to me, in the face of so much apparently bad news these days, and therefore so many opportunities to fulfill this odd injunction, it might be worthwhile to reflect on what it might mean to do so. Here are some of the ways I would pose the question as I invite you to jot down on the reflection sheets any thoughts you have at the moment on the matter and let me know what arises for you as you ponder it in the days ahead. I expect that circumstances will allow us all a good amount of time for further pondering.
Obviously, many people are suffering or will suffer due to the forces of this prolonged economic downturn. However, in what ways does this financial crisis contain blessings? On personal, communal, national, and global levels, where are there sources of blessing or potential blessing?
On all these levels I see an opportunity to recover our sense of higher values and greater virtue. If and when we collectively move from not only blaming those who acted corruptly, deceptively, and immorally to an admission of collective responsibility for the degree to which we too were willing to profit from a system built on greed, we may then be able to seek those higher values, our “greater angels.”
When the rabbis in the Gemara discuss the mishnah’s odd injunction that we must bless both the good and the bad, they suggest that the reason may be that long term good often arise from bad circumstances. That is, when we bless the bad we really are blessing the potential for a benign, even if difficult to envision, future.
Along this line of thinking, the educator Parker Palmer, in a recent interview with Krista Tippet, on the Public radio show Speaking of Faith, opined that we may have entered one of those curious times in history when ideals and self interest correspond, where we will be forced to shift our emphasis away from the value of acquiring more stuff to the value of a life of service where humility replaces avarice, where we seek to establish and cultivate a culture of trust, and the like. If so, maybe the seeds of good do inhabit tough financial times and warrant our words of blessing.
Perhaps you have noticed a banner set up in the courtyard on Sunday with the name of the “theme of the month,” or the interactive poster in the lobby on which teachers, committee heads or any CBI member can post their own contributions to the collective conversation, or the CBI GTDL blog on which folks can share as well. You may have noticed a bulletin article by Shelby Apple who receives a tiny grant funded stipend to coordinate the GTDL project. We have just begun this experiment in community wide learning. I am sure we will learn as we go better ways to extend and deepen the discussion and include more folks in it. Your ideas are welcome.
The second chapter of GTDL is “Bless.” The Mishnah Tractate which deals with the topic of blessings and prayer is called Brachot, meaning blessings. One of the many intriguing passages in Mishnah Brachot struck me as both challenging and particularly pertinent to the current global climate of financial woe. The mishnah says not only are there specific words of blessing to recite for the many blessings we experience in our lives – holidays, happy moments, celebrations, food and drink, the experience of nature’s beauty (the ocean, a rainbow, a tree), encounters with wise people or friends, and the like, the good news, as it were – but, says the mishnah, one is required to say words of blessing upon hearing bad news as well.
We are required both to bless the good news and bless the bad news. It occurs to me, in the face of so much apparently bad news these days, and therefore so many opportunities to fulfill this odd injunction, it might be worthwhile to reflect on what it might mean to do so. Here are some of the ways I would pose the question as I invite you to jot down on the reflection sheets any thoughts you have at the moment on the matter and let me know what arises for you as you ponder it in the days ahead. I expect that circumstances will allow us all a good amount of time for further pondering.
Obviously, many people are suffering or will suffer due to the forces of this prolonged economic downturn. However, in what ways does this financial crisis contain blessings? On personal, communal, national, and global levels, where are there sources of blessing or potential blessing?
On all these levels I see an opportunity to recover our sense of higher values and greater virtue. If and when we collectively move from not only blaming those who acted corruptly, deceptively, and immorally to an admission of collective responsibility for the degree to which we too were willing to profit from a system built on greed, we may then be able to seek those higher values, our “greater angels.”
When the rabbis in the Gemara discuss the mishnah’s odd injunction that we must bless both the good and the bad, they suggest that the reason may be that long term good often arise from bad circumstances. That is, when we bless the bad we really are blessing the potential for a benign, even if difficult to envision, future.
Along this line of thinking, the educator Parker Palmer, in a recent interview with Krista Tippet, on the Public radio show Speaking of Faith, opined that we may have entered one of those curious times in history when ideals and self interest correspond, where we will be forced to shift our emphasis away from the value of acquiring more stuff to the value of a life of service where humility replaces avarice, where we seek to establish and cultivate a culture of trust, and the like. If so, maybe the seeds of good do inhabit tough financial times and warrant our words of blessing.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Chapter 2 - Bless
This month and next, we will be reading Chapter 2, Bless.
Chapter 2, Bless, tells us that there are three ways of fulfilling a life with blessing:
1. Bless some thing or some action
2. Count your blessings
3. Ask God’s blessing
Ideas for God’s To-Do List – Bless
1. What are the blessings in your life? To whom do you owe thanks for them?
2. Think about the “bless” stories in Chapter 2. Do you have stories to share about blessing?
3. Bless your children, your spouse. You might need to explain why you are doing it beforehand.
4. If you are on a committee at CBI, create an activity or program in which you can create or be a blessing.
5. Bless your extended family and your friends.
6. Bless your home. Make it a sanctuary, a safe place, a retreat.
7. Bless our country.
8. If someone gives you a great service, ask the person of the name of his/her boss and write a thank you note.
9. Ask God’s blessing for the food you eat, safe journeys, and healing.
10. Ask Rabbi Dan or Rabbi Tom or a respected friend to offer blessings from God at times of need.
11. When someone asks you for your blessing, give it.
12. Think of yourself as a blessing, you are!
As a continuation of this process, we invite you to share your ideas/stories/creations with the rest of the CBI community. We have begun a God’s To-Do List blog spot to promote the sharing of our experiences. You can find it at, http://cbigodstodolist.blogspot.com. If you would like to post your experiences with this chapter on the blog, please e-mail me at shelbyapple@yahoo.com. We would also like to feature an individual or family every month in the new God’s To-Do List section of our bulletin. If you or your family has had an experience you’d like to share, please let me know. Also, please make sure to check out the CBI lobby for our traveling display. Feel free to tack up your experiences and ideas for others to read.
Here is just a sampling of some additional BLESS ideas which come from the CBI preschool teachers during a BLESS brainstorm session:
- Encourage use of blessings for food at home- video, send home informationand words
- Blessing for each class
- Attitude of gratitude- gratitude journal, different blessings
- Friends as a blessing
- Take photos of blessings for the children- visual journal
- Slideshow of blessing drawings/art
- Poster of blessings
- Shehekiyanu- new things in life
- Count your blessings- how to appreciate
- Blessing tree or bush in the classroom- kids bring in blessing notes fromhome
- Learn all the different blessings for food
- Pick a blessing theme for class blessing- use as a welcome at beginning ofyear
- In corporate family blessings on dreidel shield
- Representative art display or mural
- Shabbat blessings
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at shelbyapple@yahoo.com. I’m looking forward to hearing about all of your ideas, progress and blessings!
Now as we start on this journey together in hopes of walking with God, let’s put one foot in front of the other…and begin!
B’Shalom,
Shelby Apple
God’s To-Do List Coordinator
Chapter 2, Bless, tells us that there are three ways of fulfilling a life with blessing:
1. Bless some thing or some action
2. Count your blessings
3. Ask God’s blessing
Ideas for God’s To-Do List – Bless
1. What are the blessings in your life? To whom do you owe thanks for them?
2. Think about the “bless” stories in Chapter 2. Do you have stories to share about blessing?
3. Bless your children, your spouse. You might need to explain why you are doing it beforehand.
4. If you are on a committee at CBI, create an activity or program in which you can create or be a blessing.
5. Bless your extended family and your friends.
6. Bless your home. Make it a sanctuary, a safe place, a retreat.
7. Bless our country.
8. If someone gives you a great service, ask the person of the name of his/her boss and write a thank you note.
9. Ask God’s blessing for the food you eat, safe journeys, and healing.
10. Ask Rabbi Dan or Rabbi Tom or a respected friend to offer blessings from God at times of need.
11. When someone asks you for your blessing, give it.
12. Think of yourself as a blessing, you are!
As a continuation of this process, we invite you to share your ideas/stories/creations with the rest of the CBI community. We have begun a God’s To-Do List blog spot to promote the sharing of our experiences. You can find it at, http://cbigodstodolist.blogspot.com. If you would like to post your experiences with this chapter on the blog, please e-mail me at shelbyapple@yahoo.com. We would also like to feature an individual or family every month in the new God’s To-Do List section of our bulletin. If you or your family has had an experience you’d like to share, please let me know. Also, please make sure to check out the CBI lobby for our traveling display. Feel free to tack up your experiences and ideas for others to read.
Here is just a sampling of some additional BLESS ideas which come from the CBI preschool teachers during a BLESS brainstorm session:
- Encourage use of blessings for food at home- video, send home informationand words
- Blessing for each class
- Attitude of gratitude- gratitude journal, different blessings
- Friends as a blessing
- Take photos of blessings for the children- visual journal
- Slideshow of blessing drawings/art
- Poster of blessings
- Shehekiyanu- new things in life
- Count your blessings- how to appreciate
- Blessing tree or bush in the classroom- kids bring in blessing notes fromhome
- Learn all the different blessings for food
- Pick a blessing theme for class blessing- use as a welcome at beginning ofyear
- In corporate family blessings on dreidel shield
- Representative art display or mural
- Shabbat blessings
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at shelbyapple@yahoo.com. I’m looking forward to hearing about all of your ideas, progress and blessings!
Now as we start on this journey together in hopes of walking with God, let’s put one foot in front of the other…and begin!
B’Shalom,
Shelby Apple
God’s To-Do List Coordinator
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
