Richard W. shared a stream on September 29, 2023
Illumine My Life's Path

Illumine My Life’s Path

Kol Nidre Reading Asks the Questions I Need to Answer

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 56 seconds

Illumine My Life's Path

Throughout my life, I have tried to stay on a steady path, even though I have occasionally strayed from it due to my flaws as a human being. However, I always found my way back to my life’s path and continued moving forward. When my wife passed away, it felt like an earthquake, hurricane, and tornado hit me at once, and my whole world collapsed. For a while, I felt like I had reached the end of the road, and I couldn’t find the path again.

Thankfully, I started going on quiet walks beyond what I thought were my physical limits, reading more, and becoming more involved with my faith community. Creating a memorial garden for my wife helped me stay focused during the first eighteen months. As time passed, I was able to form new friendships, rekindle old ones, and live life to the fullest.

I was privileged to read a passage about illuminating our life’s path for Kol Nidre this year. The selection of words amazed me as they reflected my current circumstances. Although I still have questions and need clarification, reflecting on how a few words profoundly impact our lives is inspiring. How shall we come to know the purpose of our existence?” The answer seems obvious, yet it can be challenging to comprehend.

As someone who was part of a couple for almost fifty years and now is alone, I often wonder about the purpose of my existence. While I can live alone indefinitely, I miss having a life partner and soul mate. But as the last part of my reading said, “Be gracious to us, answer us, empower us, and give us courage, for the answers are both in You and with You.” It’s comforting to know that the answers we seek are within us and that we have the power to find them.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Relapse: A New Musical

My Past No Longer Consumes My Life

I lived in the past in the initial months after my wife died. The loss of a loved one is like a mega-earthquake. When I lost my parents, a few books fell on the outer edge of my bookcase. When my wife died, the entire bookcase collapsed. I knew I needed to rebuild the bookcase and pick up the books from the floor, but I was frozen. I wanted my wife back, even though I knew that was impossible. The past consumed my life for endless days and nights and kept me from living. Almost twenty-nine months later, I am facing the unknowable future by living in the present and not letting the past consume my life.

Relapse was a stark reminder of how much power the past once held over my life. However, it also highlighted the sense of liberation I now feel. Even though we may be called towards the future, it can be difficult to envision life after loss. Only when we fully grasp Merrit Malloy's Epitaph can we break free from the past's grasp. Love never dies; only people do. I could live in the present moment when I finally let go of my wife's love. I cannot predict the future, but I am no longer afraid. I will work towards building a fulfilling life, one day at a time.

Richard W. Brown September 22, 2023

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May the Shofar's Sound Awaken Me!

Kol Nidre Reading Asks the Questions I Need to Answer

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 56 seconds
Rabbi Rick Jacobs of the Union of Reform Judaism

May the Shofar’s Sound Awaken Me!

Being a widow for almost twenty-nine months, I have learned to live alone despite the isolation, not by choice but due to the reality of widowhood. I have survived by seeking meaning and purpose in life; as Viktor Frankl wrote, "Man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather recognize that it is he who is asked. Each man is questioned by life, and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life and being responsible."

As we heed the shofar's call, let us awaken to our shared responsibility to repair the world. Let's work together to ensure this new year brings us the strength and courage to take action toward a better future. Shana Tova!

Richard W. Brown September 15, 2023
Richard W. Brown
Illumine My Life's Path

My Kol Nidre Reading

Kol Nidre Reading Asks the Questions I Need to Answer

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 56 seconds

Avinu Malkeinu – Illumine for us the path of our life.

Avinu Malkeinu – How shall we find the strength to take the road less traveled by?
Avinu Malkeinu – How shall we come to know the purpose of our existence?
Avinu Malkeinu – How shall we learn not to live life in vain?
Avinu Malkeinu – How shall we get out of our indifference?
Avinu Malkeinu – How shall we distinguish between truth and falsehood?
Avinu Malkeinu – How shall we find the answers to our questions?
Avinu Malkeinu – How shall we gird ourselves with strength to seek answers?

Avinu Malkeinu – Be gracious to us, answer us, empower us, and give us courage, for the answers are both in You and with You.

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Land of Milk and Honey: A Novel

Read: October 2023

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Land of Milk and Honey: A Novel

by C Pam Zhang

Today, I commenced reading Land of Milk and Honey: A Novel by C Pam Zhang, the award-winning author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold; she returns with a rapturous and revelatory novel about a young chef whose discovery of pleasure alters her life and, indirectly, the world. With the arrival of forest fire smoke in my neighborhood, it seemed a timely book to read.

A smog has spread. Food crops are rapidly disappearing. A chef escapes her dying career in a dreary city to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world’s troubles.

There, the sky is clear again. Rare ingredients abound. Her enigmatic employer and his visionary daughter have built a lush new life for the global eliteZhan, one that reawakens the chef to the pleasures of taste, touch, and her body.

The chef’s boundaries undergo a thrilling erosion in this atmosphere of hidden wonders and cool, seductive violence. Soon, she is pushed to the center of a startling attempt to reshape the world far beyond the plate.

Sensuous and surprising, joyous and bitingly sharp, told in language as alluring as it is original, Land of Milk and Honey provocatively bare the ethics of seeking pleasure in a dying world. It is a daringly imaginative exploration of desire and deception, privilege and faith, and the roles we play to survive. Most of all, it is a love letter to food, wild delight, and the transformative power of a woman embracing her own appetite.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Scarlet Carnation: A Novel

Read: March 2022

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Scarlet Carnation: A Novel

by Laila Ibrahim

Scarlet Carnation: A Novel by Laila Ibrahim is a book I enjoyed reading. Having read this book, I am now a fan of Laila Ibrahim and look forward to reading more of her novels. In addition, I am a fan of historical fiction, and this is one of the best I have read about the second decade of the twentieth century.

May and Naomi are related, but their lives are very relatable to the reader. The promises of equality and transformation of women’s roles resonate even now. Bringing together the myriad issues they confront – racism, shaming for decisions they made, peace, and the interlocking of their families from a plantation, make this a book that I highly recommend.

The only observation was my shock at reading that they were petitioning President Coolidge at the start of WW I. It is a minor issue as the story flows strongly from the first to the last page.

The Goodreads overview highlights the narrative of the book.

In an early twentieth-century America roiling with racial injustice, class divides, and WWI, two women fight for their dreams in a galvanizing novel by the bestselling author of Golden Poppies. 1915. May and Naomi are extended families, their grandmothers’ lives inseparably entwined on a Virginia plantation in the volatile time leading up to the Civil War. For both women, the twentieth century promises social transformation and equal opportunity.

May, a young white woman, is on the brink of achieving the independent life she’s dreamed of since childhood. Naomi, a nurse, mother, and leader of the NAACP, has fulfilled her own dearest desire: buying a home for her family. But they both are about to learn that dreams can be destroyed in an instant. May’s future is upended, and she is forced to rely once again on her mother. Meanwhile, the white-majority neighborhood into which Naomi has moved is organizing against her while her sons are away fighting for their country.

In the tumult of a changing nation, these two women—whose grandmothers survived the Civil War—support each other’s quest for liberation and dignity. Both find the strength to confront injustice and the faith to thrive on their chosen paths.

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Wolf Hall: A Novel

Read: May 2022

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Wolf Hall: A Novel

by Hilary Mantel

Wolf Hall: A Novel by Hilary Mantel is the first book in a three-part series on Thomas Cromwell. I am an amateur historian, and one of the characters I have always wanted to know more about was Cromwell. Although I might have achieved that by reading actual history textbooks, this three-part series seemed like the perfect next book for me to read. With a vast array of characters overflowing with incidents, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political were separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power, but a single failure means death.

At least this time, I am reading book one first instead of last. I highly recommend this book.

The Goodreads overview provides more details.

In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII’s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king’s favor and ascend to the heights of political power.

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe oppose him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Civil war could destroy the country if the king died without a male heir.

Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer, and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters overflowing with incidents, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political were separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power, but a single failure means death.

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Surfacing

Read: July 2021

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Surfacing

by Margaret Atwood

Surfacing by Margaret Atwood was a book I picked up on a random walk around the house. I had read The Handmaid’s Tale but was not ready to read The Testaments.

This book is a detective novel as well as a psychological thriller. A talented woman artist goes in search of her missing father on a remote island in northern Quebec. She had grown up on the island, and the journey includes her lover and another young married couple. When they arrive, the isolation and obsession of the artist shape all of their lives in unexpected ways. The marriage begins to fall apart, violence and death lurk just beneath the surface, and sex becomes a catalyst for conflict and dangerous choices.

Goodreads describes the book as,

Surfacing is a work permeated with an aura of suspense, complex with layered meanings, and written in brilliant, diamond-sharp prose. Here is a rich mine of ideas from an extraordinary writer about contemporary life and nature, families, and marriage, and about women fragmented… and becoming whole.

I also found myself captivated by the many layers of the book the search for her father, and the psychological impact on all four of them.

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Fourteen Days: A Collaborative Novel

Read: February 2024

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Fourteen Days: A Collaborative Novel

by Authors Guild

I started reading Fourteen Days: A Collaborative Novel today. It is set in a Lower East Side tenement during the early days of the COVID-19 lockdowns. Fourteen Days is a unique collaborative novel from the Authors Guild with a twist. A different, prominent literary voice has secretly written each character in this diverse cast of New York neighbors. These voices range from Margaret Atwood and Celeste Ng to Tommy Orange and John Grisham.

The novel’s story begins one week into the COVID-19 shutdown, where tenants of a Lower East Side apartment building in Manhattan have gathered on the rooftop to tell stories. As the nights pass, more and more neighbors join in, bringing chairs, milk crates, and overturned pails. Gradually, the tenants, some of whom have barely spoken to each other, become neighbors.

In this Decameron-like serial novel, general editors Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston and a star-studded list of contributors create a beautiful ode to those trapped when the pandemic hit. Fourteen Days is a dazzling, heartwarming, and ultimately surprising narrative that reveals how some communities managed to become stronger despite the loss and suffering brought about by the pandemic.

Includes writing from: Charlie Jane Anders, Margaret Atwood, Joseph Cassara, Jennine Capó Crucet, Angie Cruz, Pat Cummings, Sylvia Day, Emma Donoghue, Dave Eggers, Diana Gabaldon, Tess Gerritsen, John Grisham, Maria Hinojosa, Mira Jacob, Erica Jong, CJ Lyons, Celeste Ng, Tommy Orange, Mary Pope Osborne, Douglas Preston, Alice Randall, Ishmael Reed, Roxana Robinson, Nelly Rosario, James Shapiro, Hampton Sides, R.L. Stine, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Monique Truong, Scott Turow, Luis Alberto Urrea, Rachel Vail, Weike Wang, Caroline Randall Williams, De’Shawn Charles Winslow, and Meg Wolitzer!

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A Sovereign People: The Crises of the 1790s and the Birth of American Nationalism

Read: February 2019

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A Sovereign People: The Crises of the 1790s and the Birth of American Nationalism

by Carol Berkin

A Sovereign People: The Crises of the 1790s and the Birth of American Nationalism by Carol Berkin, Presidential Professor American Colonial and Revolutionary History; Women’s History Professor at Baruch College, focuses on four crises in the first decade. Most historians view these are part of the early partisan debates in America.

Professor Berkin takes a different perspective. She focuses on how the Whiskey Rebellion, the Genet Affair, the XYZ Affair, and the Alien and Sedition Acts helped build nationalism. Despite the partisan divisions, both sides could find solutions that helped America survive its first decade. The failure to resolve anyone of these could have doomed America to failure.

The Federalists – Washington, Hamilton, and Adams – were the leaders of that first decade and managed the successive crisis of sovereignty.

A Sovereign People is one of four books from my first One Day University class.

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