Back in high school all I knew was that I wanted to be like Rabbi Dan.
I had the good fortune to have Rabbi Dan as my religion teacher for two years in a row. During my senior year, Rabbi took a semester-long sabbatical – which meant he was not able to teach his year long course to the juniors. Instead, he taught a one semester course to the seniors – my class. He called it, “Senior Religion.” We called it, “The Meaning of Life.”
The timing was perfect. During the summer between my junior and senior years, I experienced a personal trauma that left me struggling with despair. Up until that time, I had approached life with the kind of hope that believed that if I did things right and followed the rules (more or less) I would be safe and secure. Being a victim of violence changed that. I came into senior year needing some other kind of ground on which to stand. I needed a way to hope in the midst of suffering.
I went straight to Rabbi Dan’s office. With great outrage, I demanded to know why there is suffering in the world; why bad things happen to good people; why God made the world this way. My own pain made me keenly aware that I was not the only person suffering as a result of evil. I wanted to know not only why I had been victimized, but why people all over the world suffer violence. How could a good God allow that?
I thought Rabbi would know. In my eyes, he was one of the wisest people at Holy Child. He had traveled to places where people engage in violence in the name of God and still had not given up on people or God. His sense of humor and joy suggested that he had inside information about how love and life hold in the midst of violence and death. I wanted it.
Rabbi didn’t answer my questions. Instead, he told me stories - about farmers, painters, doors that were open, doors that were closed and fields of lavender. I remember best the story of the Greek man who responded to life’s hard questions by dancing on the beach. At that time, I had no idea how dancing on the beach was the answer to suffering.
My education continued in Rabbi’s classroom. We read the book of Job, the play, “J.B.”, the short story, “The Lottery.” Rabbi showed us slides from archaeological digs. He told us about his vertigo and how he had learned to cross chasms by leaning on supports held by friends. He showed us photos from his travels to remote places in the world.
The world I was introduced to in Rabbi Dan’s class was a place where spiritual guides showed up disguised as ordinary people in marketplaces, on farms, at beaches, and even in the convent at Holy Child. Looking at their faces through Rabbi’s eyes, I began to sense that it was possible to drop beneath the pattern of life that had presented itself as self-evident in Westchester in order to find a way of living that was rooted in the sacred and in joy. In Rabbi’s class, I began to sense that life could be an adventure and a gift. I wanted to receive it.
Initially, the only way I knew to do that was to imitate Rabbi Dan. In college, I studied religion. Then I went to Israel. I read books that Rabbi recommended. I followed his example of noticing details and listening to people’s stories. And I did my best to keep my spirit playful even as my increasing understanding of injustice strengthened the arguments for despair. At one point, I asked Rabbi if I could convert to Judaism. His answer was clear. No.
So I went back to Georgetown to find the path that was mine. I studied liberation theology. I attended mass - even though I couldn’t bring myself to say the creed. I went on silent retreats and demanded that God show up and prove his existence burning bush style. I refused to attend career planning workshops and applied instead for a volunteer program. When I graduated from college, I didn’t end up in law school or on Capitol Hill as people expected. Instead, I found myself working in the inner city of Washington, D.C..
It was there that the Gospel finally came to life. Bringing meals to homeless people on the streets, I began to understand Matthew 25, “I was hungry and you fed me.” Vigiling outside the Pentagon, I learned how difficult it is to “love your enemy.” Breaking bread with men at a hospital for the homeless, I was fed by the real presence of Christ. As my heart was educated on the streets of DC, the Gospel began to take.
About that time, a man who specialized in converting rich folks like me invited me to come to Haiti with him. A year later, he invited me to go to Bosnia. Though I had been to Israel and traveled through Europe, my trips to Haiti and Bosnia changed my life. Not because there was so much pain there, but because the trips awakened my humanity and my joy. Traveling to Haiti and Bosnia shattered the categories and numbness that had allowed me to keep the painful realities of the world from getting to my heart. With my denial gone, I could feel more deeply the world’s pain, but I could also feel its joy. And I could feel the deep connection that is possible when people from different cultures, races and classes come to the table as human beings.
It’s been over 10 years since I went on those trips, but my life is still very much a response to the call I heard then to live with my eyes and heart open to the world - without anesthesia. Since then, I have traveled to seminary, into the joy and humility of parenthood and most recently to examine the shadows within so that my vision can be less cluttered by assumptions that train me to fear myself and my neighbors.
So far, I have not felt led to live outside of this country. On the contrary, I have been led right back to the community from which I came. These days I live out my solidarity with the world by companioning wealthy Christians who want to learn how to let their lives and financial resources flow in a way that makes sure that everyone has enough.
I would like to say that my work and my journey along the Christian path have taken away my questions. I would like to say that I no longer experience the kind of despair I felt when I was 16 and coming face to face with suffering for the first time. I would like to say that I have overcome the temptation to trust fear more than love.
But I do notice that I see the trees more clearly. I notice that I have learned to sense the open doors – and the closed ones. I notice that I have learned how to paint. I notice that I recognize spiritual guides when they show up in places like Catholic Worker houses, on airplanes, at the Native American reservation down the street from my family’s summer home, in bars, and in my young sons.
Last spring a colleague and dear friend was in Haiti meeting with some of our organization’s partners there. On the day he was to return, his Haitian friends were kidnapped on their way to pick him up to take him to the airport. My colleague narrowly avoided being kidnapped himself by going into hiding. Back in California, I did not know what was unfolding in Haiti. But I knew that I needed to be praying for my friends. So I took my boys to the beach. There we danced and danced and danced.
I have learned that there are times when the world’s pain and violence are overwhelming. There are times when there is little that I can do. If I am lucky, in those moments I remember to surrender to joy as my prayer for the world. I remember that sometimes dancing on the beach is the only thing that makes sense.
My rabbi taught me that.
This piece was originally published in "Glimpses" a publication of the School of the Holy Child in Rye, New York.
