Responsibility - #BlogElul 28

Taking responsibility has got to be one of the hardest lessons we ever learn. It's what the Bar or Bat Mitzvah ceremony is really about - taking on adult responsibilities, even if in our modern society they are "only" ritual ones, and we don't really expect a 13 year-old to be responsible for their own life. It is the beginning, though - the secular world recognises that - at least here in Manitoba, a child aged 12 and up can be charged with a criminal offence, implying that they can recognise and take responsibility for their actions.
To be treated as an adult, though, a person must have turned 18 or even 21 in some jurisdictions. The law then attributes full responsibility for the person's actions to them, and they can no longer hide behind their parents or somewhere else.

But how many people really take full responsibility for their choices in life? How many blame circumstance, their boss, their mother, whatever it is? Heck, this trend started with our first parents, Adam and Eve (Genesis, Chapter 3):

יב  וַיֹּאמֶר, הָאָדָם:  הָאִשָּׁה אֲשֶׁר נָתַתָּה עִמָּדִי, הִוא נָתְנָה-לִּי מִן-הָעֵץ וָאֹכֵל.	12 And the man said: 'The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.'
יג  וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים לָאִשָּׁה, מַה-זֹּאת עָשִׂית; וַתֹּאמֶר, הָאִשָּׁה, הַנָּחָשׁ הִשִּׁיאַנִי, וָאֹכֵל.	13 And the LORD God said unto the woman: 'What is this thou hast done?' And the woman said: 'The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat

It's hard to stand up and say, I choose. But as we go into the final Shabbat before Rosh HaShanah, here's a thought I'd love to leave with you. It's a very famous quote from the author Marianne Williamson, but none the worse for having been bandied about the Internet.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. 

If we can take responsibility for who we are, we can be powerful without measure in healing the world.

Awakening - #BlogElul23

Ooh, a tough one this time, Rabbi Sommer. I feel like I am in a dialogue with you, even though I've never met you or even corresponded with you. I do hope you are reading these blog posts - I think you are. It's funny how some of these little contributions just flow out of my fingers, and some just keep on getting erased again and again.

In search of inspiration, I asked Rabbi Google for a definition of awakening, and this is what s/he told me:

 a·wak·en·ing/əˈwāk(ə)niNG/

Noun:	An act or moment of becoming suddenly aware of something.
Adjective:	Coming into existence or awareness.
Synonyms:	revival - arousal

Ah. That gestalt moment when the vase suddenly becomes two faces, when we suddenly see or understand something we can never again unsee. Realisations hit us when we spend time on the accounting of the soul, and we can never again become unaware of them.

It can be pretty darned painful, but it is often a useful exercise, one way or another. The pursuit of mindfulness can have its costs, because ignorance or rather obliviousness sometimes can be bliss.

But in the end, it is better to know, to understand, to forgive, rather than to stuff things down into our unconscious and let them dictate our actions from the depths.

Awakening can mean looking reality in the eye, trying to understand the past and move forward to the future. Sometimes we would rather remain asleep, but Elul calls upon us to wake up to who we are and who we can be.

What will you awaken to today?

Excuses - #BlogElul 13

Another day, another blog post about Elul. I hope I don't bore you guys to tears before the month is done. Wouldn't that be a great excuse not to write them through to the end?

We are so great at making excuses. If we put a fraction of the energy we put into inventing excuses into just doing whatever it was, it would get done.

This is true whether it's about washing the kitchen floor (you would not believe how many excuses I have for that ...), making that scary career step or another important decision, or picking up the phone to call a friend.

In Elul, we have important soul work to do before we meet the King of Kings. We have so many excuses to avoid doing it. Let's discard them all and just work on becoming the people we would like to be.

Why Blog?

So I've been going on about these women bloggers I've been hanging out with on FB. One of them asked us why we blog, what benefit we accrue from blogging, what keeps us going.

I gave some kind of flippant answer, but in truth, now that I've been doing this for a while (almost exactly a year, in fact), maybe it really is time to stop and think about the why.

I started this blog as a place to experiment with writing, to see if it was something I could do. I didn't have any particular audience or purpose in mind beyond my immediate family and friends. I called it My Coat of Many Colours because I love Carol King's song Tapestry, in which a character wearing a coat of many colours drifts across the Tapestry of her life. I even explained all of that in this blog post. I am such a classic ADHD person, a drifter and a butterfly and a jack of so many trades. This blog was started as a way to explore all those different interests and passions that I have, trying to figure out what I want to be if I ever grow up. I'm fifty years old now, so you'd think I have a pretty good sense of self, but if anything, I'm more confused now than I was when I was twenty, because I've tried a few things I thought then that I might want and it turns out I was wrong.

So the first purpose of this blog, for me, is to help me figure things out by writing about them. I've never been much of a journal-keeper, but I do find that sometimes thoughts flow out better through my fingers than swirling around in my brain. Obviously I do practise a certain amount of self-censorship, especially as it involves other people.

Another thing this blog has done for me is to help me find new communities. I've joined a couple of blogging groups on Facebook, and both of them have been wonderful. I've developed a passion for local food, and I've met some amazing people through writing about that. I've joined a Paleo Bloggers' group as well, and have learned a lot from reading the blogs there. I'm exploring all kinds of traditional food skills like fermenting and dehydrating, and the blog is one way for me to talk about those beyond a few status updates and pictures on Facebook. I also talk about Judaism. It is indeed a coat of many colours, which means I don't fit into any niche. How beautifully my blog mirrors my life.

I would love to find some way of making a living from blogging, but yeah, so does everybody else out there. Trust Julien Smith to express that with his trademark ferocious succinctness. I'm no Dooce, that's for sure. I've thought of putting affiliate links and stuff like that (not ads) on this blog and I'm afraid my friends will all hate me if I do. Still working that one out. Would you mind if I did? What would you like to see?

So why do I blog? Because it's there. Because there are people out there who actually read it sometimes, and it makes me happy when they do. Because it forces me to articulate my thoughts, just like Ruchi's question in our FB group made me stop and think. Because it's one of the few things in my current life that require discipline, and I need more of that in my ADHD soul. I've actually got my calendar set up to send me a reminder every day to write. It doesn't always happen at the time, but at least I think about it, and that sometimes leads to writing later.

I've often wondered whether I should focus this blog more on one thing and try to turn it into a source of income. Or maybe I should split it up into specialised baby blogs. Or maybe I'm wasting my time trying to "find myself" and I should just suck it up and get a job.

What do you think? If you blog, why do you? If you don't, why not?

I'm a Shabbat Guest!

My new friend Miriam Steinberg-Egeth has got one of the coolest Jewish blogs you are going to see anywhere. Last year she blogged each of her Shabbat experiences for the entire year. This year, she's getting her friends to do it for her, clever girl.

Getting 52 friends to blog for you can be a bit of a stretch, so Miriam put out an invitation to a group of Jewish women bloggers. I'm very fortunate to be a member of this group - there are some pretty darned big names here, and I'm humbly learning from them and everyone else.

I'm especially fortunate that Miriam agreed to have me be one of her guest bloggers! Woo hoo!

So, here it is - me posting on Miriam's blog about a summer Shabbat in Winnipeg - this past one, to be exact. I love her reference to alternate spelling - she clearly needs more Canucks on this blog! If you have something to say about Shabbat, consider contacting Miriam. Even if you don't, her blog is a pleasure for anyone to read.

You can put your comments here or on Miriam's blog - we both love them!

More on Chinese workers

My friend the writer Holly Jahangiri introduced me to a fascinating man named Peter Wright. You need to read Peter's life story to really appreciate his point of view - he was a farmer in Zimbabwe at the time that Mugabe's thugs took over, and has gone on from there. He now lives in Canada. I don't often agree with his political views, but I have great respect for him nonetheless.

Read his blog post on buying stuff made in Chinese factories and tell me (and him) what you think. This could be a fascinating conversation!