This might be one of my favorite posts of recent memory but I haven’t decided yet.
Picked up How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America by Heather Cox Richardson but probably won’t start reading it until late tonight.
Looked for those three stars and broke the fast with traditional foods and was grateful this year didn’t include a caffeine withdrawal headache.
Thought some more about our tradition and how it says on this day our fate is inscribed into the Book of Life and made a second note to contact my brother-in-law to see if Dad spoke with him about a few things.
Spent more than a few minutes as a young kid wondering what that Book of Life looks like and what is inside.
Got me thinking about how people sometimes ask you questions like if you could eat dinner with any historical figure who would you pick and why.
Or how they said if you were given five minutes with G-d and could ask any question what would you ask and why.
Some years back I said I would ask why people had to invent umbrellas, what is your spleen really for, why can’t we tickle ourselves and why aren’t donuts good for you.
I got yelled at for not asking for an explanation of why people die, why people kill each other and not asking how to cure cancer. That doesn’t include the tongue lashing about how disrespectful I would be and ten other things.
Or my response about how they were ridiculous.
I told a girl to be careful because one kiss could change everything and that I know things.
Both are true.
Told someone else I could open a steel can with nothing but my hands and then proved it by doing it.
Suggested to my father he could beat back pancreatic cancer for a while longer but he would have to want it. I think this was probably true, but I didn’t push it.
Though about it. Thought about telling him we needed him to do it and couldn’t bring myself to ask him to put himself what would have been required to do it.
That was painful because if I had asked in the right way I think he would have tried. I am not saying he didn’t fight hard, but he was exhausted.
It would have been selfish for me to ask him to go that extra distance but I considered it and then I wondered if the Book of Life is real and whether it was like a choose your own adventure book.
Wondered if there was a section that says “Josh asks his father to fight a little harder” followed by a description of what happened if he chose that route as opposed to the other.
When people said I ought to be more respectful when dealing with the “True King” I shook my head at them.
An omnipotent being already knows who I am and what I am about. If free will exists than I have the ability to use it. If I was granted the opportunity for an audience I am not worried about not using my time properly.
I don’t look at it like a sitcom or movie where I get one minute and instead of asking how to end world hunger I ask how to make french fries for cheap.
Been called stupid more than once by more than one person and maybe they are right, maybe I am.
Definitely have done my share of stupid things and at times have felt stupid, but I don’t think of myself that way.
There are a ton of people who are smarter than I am, some significantly so.
Certainly am smart enough to be aware of my own shortcomings and to notice them in particular situations but I usually do better than just get by.
And given a choice of being aware that I have fallen short against being unaware but simply content I might pick content.
I am a thinker and spend lots of time lost in thought and appreciate the gift that can be had by being able to just accept what is.
Put lots down and hoped the right people would read some of it and that if they did they would be moved.
Always understood there are limits and that sometimes we press up against them.
Sometimes you try to push by them and are told no for logical reasons and sometimes by rote.
Both are irritating and sometimes the logical no is more annoying than the mechanical unthinking response you get.
But experience has also taught me that if you don’t ask you don’t get and that even the logical no isn’t always as logical as the giver thinks it.
Things change and circumstances evolve so that logical no isn’t always such for years.
Still I wonder about the Book of Life and if maybe those things we wonder and worry about aren’t written about there. Maybe if we could get a gander we’d get answers ahead of time and be comforted with what we saw.
Maybe it would help make sense or maybe it would just annoy us. Can’t say and don’t ever expect that to change so for now we just have to play the hand we are dealt and do our best to play it well.
