Rabbi Kushner

Finally, I'm reading one of his books. Living A Life That Matters is a wonderful short book, easy to read. Given he's a Rabbi, he's scholarly in the Old Testament and his story telling helps to make otherwise dense material crystal clear. Kushner deals with complex issues of conscience and the need to be good versus the need to succeed (knowing we matter). He shows us the grey area where the choices are hard and the still small voice of conscience is too easily suppressed. And he gives a wide berth to us all in this regard.

"Only morally sensitive people struggle with the gap between who they are and who they know they ought to be." (page 42. )This sentence alone speaks right to the heart of the book I'm writing. We all have a gap; if we were to honestly size it up, write it down and view the big picture, where are our personal gaps and is there a will to begin (or continue) to gnaw away at the hard shell of compromise we've developed, living with a conscience on the one hand and a need to survive on the other?

I'll probably finish this in 24 hours. Stay tuned. His work is inspiring.

What Does G*d Care About?

The central issue in looking at our final reckoning is this: is G*d liberal in reviewing our life or is He conservative? Is G*d a fundamentalist at the gates of heaven, or does He take a loose interpretation of our character, our deeds, our best intentions?

It seems the framework for reckoning then come down to our own conscience. But how can we trust such a wily self-serving little devil, the little voice inside our head that sets the red, yellow and green lights for the continuous, noisy traffic that passes through all day and night? How many times have you said, or heard someone else say ingenuously :"I can live with that decision", knowing full well that that admission often includes traces of anguish and remorse.

This reckoning is with us daily, most often not critical enough to bother our conscious mind, but it's there nonetheless.

However we orient ourselves to G*d is not just a whimsy. I for one must feel connected to something fundamentally sound to get through a day with ease. My conscience is a hound dog and will not let go. I don't always act on this gnawing, but I can't deny it's there. A conflicted conscience holds me back from a "flow" day, a day of peace and ease. Strange things happen on those kinds of days: I forget my keys, spill my cereal, race through yellow traffic lights, blank out names of familiar people.

"Alas, conscience doth make cowards of us all." Hamlet.

Alas, conscience doth make flubbadubs of us all. If the "instrument" of conscience is tuned, it will make itself felt with the annoying stridency of a violin in need of attention. Pay heed.