When there’s much shifting through me, it helps to look to outside sources to help me make sense of myself.
One such viewpoint came by way of a podcast by Tara Brach on gratitude. What an apt view for this holiday season- suggestions on how to awaken our natural capacities for gratitude and generosity though pathways of honest presence and purposeful cultivation. Tara Brach is a gem!
The next influence came by way of a new book of short stories by Nicole Krauss. Each one is more fabulous than the next. The NYTimes explains her writing this way: In each of these moving stories, we feel the weight not only of family, but of history and faith and leaving a legacy, pressing down on every one of her characters. Birth and death, joy and mourning, love and heartbreak — these too animate the collection. But as a writer Krauss is less interested in describing life’s grand explosions than she is in showing how people make sense of the rubble. My, my, my, another gem: Nicole Krauss.
Finally, though this might be a little harder to understand, was the documentary series on Netflix about Ivan The Terrible called The Devil Next Door. The story itself is difficult to watch, scary and horrific with interesting twists and turns until the very last scene when the foreman of the Ford plant explains that most of the men on the assembly line were just like Demjanjuk, undercover, silent, make no waves so as to blend into America’s melting pot, acting as if, proving that the true horror of hidden prejudices and behaviors are right there to been understood and conquered by all who choose to shine the light and look closely.
BubbeWisdom 