This Blog Has Moved

Please check out my new home here

Singing for Ted

It was almost exactly a year ago that the choir gathered at Ted Cron's house to share an evening of music with Ted, who was a Temple Micah (TM) choir member for 40 years. Usually, Ted sat next to me in the bass section and gave me (sometimes unsolicited :-) ) some newbie guidance. He was a big help to a neophyte. Ted had ALS and we thought he did not have long to live. Boy, were we wrong. Ted lived another year and just passed away two days ago. Ted was a remarkable man even as he struggled with this terrible disease.

Today, his funeral service was held at his beloved TM. On quick notice, almost the entire choir was able to rearrange their schedule to sing at the service - our last gift to this man, who had given each of us so much over the years.

During and after the service, I ruminated on a few things:

• Eulogies. Those that spoke to and about Ted described a man that I think we would all aspire to be. And it was all true. Ted was loving, inspired, devoted to Judaism and Temple Micah, hard working, persevering and always up for new challenges (e.g he decided to learn how to ski at age 50). It made me think about what my eulogies will be and made me think about living my life in such a way that people who will hear them will remember me for the right reasons. Because who wants to be remembered for the mundane successes - how much money we made, what nice homes we had, or even for our childrens' accomplishments? I want to be remembered for the love I showered on others, and about making a (albeit small) difference to my family, my synagogue, my community and maybe the world.
  


• Why didn't we visit Ted more often?
  We had planned to pay Ted a visit during the last couple of months, but "never found the time". And, now we regret it. Hopefully, we'll learn from this not so much because it is a mitzvah opportunity lost (which it is) but because we could have made his life a little sunnier if only for a few moments. What takes higher priority than that?
  


• What's the right weather for a funeral?
  
  Today it was dark and rainy. Perhaps, this is fitting for a day which is sombre and full of sadness at our loss. But, OTOH, a sunny day may help remind us of the love and joy the deceased caused to shine upon us.
  

The choir sang 3 selections as part of the service.

Elohai/Asher Yatzar, the 23rd Psalm (Bernstein's version) and finally Esa Enai, Psalm 121:


I lift up my eyes to the mountains:
What is the source of my help?
My help will come from Adonai,
Maker of heaven and earth.

God will not let your foot stumble;
Your Protector will not sleep.
The Protector of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.

God is your Guardian;
God is your protection at your right hand.
The sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

God will guard you from all harm,
God will guard your soul,
your going and your coming,
now and forever.

The Real Question of the Season

Poems for the Blogosphere

From one of the great poets - an American immigrant and one of my tribe - about the New Orleans disaster

The Iconography of Hell and Our Guilt -

Eleven days into disaster, a poet reports

By Andrei Codrescu

Each day has its own pictures:
bumper to bumper traffic two states long
a frenzied mob in a domed prison
rising water
the hungry pushing carts out of looted stores
rooftops in a lake as vast as the eye can see
dead city silent city
the survivors the tribes
stadiums filled with refugees
helicopters over a dead unlit city
a ragged parade of decadents spitting defiance
television cameras as numerous as marchers
a can of tuna and a strand of beads
take that you former shithead king
dead pets rotting away behind locked doors
the smell of putrefaction visible
muck darkness heat an eviscerated pigeon
two dogs shot by a hired executioner
a sea of horrible stories rising like swamp fever
from the foul mouths of dear ones from exile
11TH DAY OF HELL!
We are all working in this pit of sorrow to unfreeze time.

Time is the universal chauffeur

by Willis Barnstone

Time is the universal chauffeur. Slow
he carts me through space,

but when he dumps me I've no place to go.
He's also the surgeon general

who heals (and in time kills). He heals with hours
and days, his best pill of all--

no ointment or gauze--just his fat face
hovering over me. And he is author

of a novel titled LIFE. I'm crammed in his briefcase,
plotted in chapters till THE END.

A famed dermatologist he moderates the sun.
If I measure him and cream down,

I can always spot the damage he has done.
It's the secret stuff inside

my skinsack that worries me. Yes, machines catch
his photo and footsteps, but I abide

with fear. Once he's gone, I'm not. Often I try
to slow him down as he walks

through me. Slowtrack, I say. This clown is sly,
abstract but relentless like a star,

and goes through his set acts, laughing at me.
Godless, I bless him for his laziness.


Ready for some lighter fare? Happy to oblige -

Shelby the Dog

by Robert Sward

";all that I cared for was the race of dogs, that and nothing else; To whom but [dogs] can one appeal in the wide and empty world?" --Franz Kafka

Philosopher Dog

Shelby:

In a world of No,
dogs are a Yes.
Sixty-eight million dogs in America
and they understand
there is a fundamental human reaction
to everything--,
and it's No, No.
Grrr! Dogs hate hearing shit like that.
People, it's all No and it's No
and it's No.
And they look at a dog sometimes
and the dog is on its back, say,
on someone's lawn,
legs in the air,
rolling and bouncing;
'This is the hand I was dealt. I'm a dog,'
says the dog. 'It's not a problem.'
But people
Look at me, Goddamnit! '
I don't have time for this,' you're thinking.
'Something better is going to come later.'
No, no it won't. As Ram Dass says, This is all there is.
This is all you get.
'All knowledge, the totality of all questions and answers,
is contained in the dog.'
Do you know who said that? Kafka.
That's right, Kafka.
Bow wow, bow, wow. Bow, wow.
Bow wow NOW.

P.S. Also, see "Sand and Water" by Beth Nielsen Chapman below