WHO DAT?

The New Orleans Saints are going to the Superbowl!!


This is what I'm listening to right now.

GEAUX SAINTS!

Prisoners of Parole

Check out this New York Time Magazine article about rethinking parole and probation.  I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts!

Prisoners of Parole

Listening or Waiting to Talk?

I saw this and my mind jumped to some discussions we have had in our house in New Orleans about listening, and to a program that Jordan and Mallory did with us about active listening.

I don't know about the rest of you folks in other cities, but I know that in our bayit, we sometimes struggle to actively listen to each other.  Sometimes we get so caught up in our eagerness to share what we know that we forget to listen.  We forget that we don't know everything; or that somebody else might have something really valuable to share.

I've gotten so much out of our intentional community this year, but one of the most valuable--and challenging--things for me has been learning how to actively listen and how to engage in a balanced conversation.

How about the rest of you?  What does active listening mean to you?

--Michal (AVODAH New Orleans)

How I Met Ruth

When I spent the night with Ruth, I didn’t even know what her last name was.  I didn’t know how old she was, or whether she’d had children, or what her line of work had been.

I met Ruth at a funeral home in Metairie.  It was raining and cold when I slid out of the cab, slammed the door shut behind me, and ran with bent head toward the back entrance of the funeral home.  I punched in the code and pushed my way in through the unassuming white door.  A woman named Sandy from the local Conservative synagogue was there to greet me and show me the way to Ruth, the deceased woman with whom I would be spending the night–I on the couch, she in a plain wooden coffin.

I’d responded to the email I’d received about a request from “the local Chevra Kadisha–or burial society…for people to sit with the body of a recently deceased community member.”   The Chevra Kadisha is a group of Jews who see to it that the deceased in their community are properly attended to between death and burial.  They are responsible for the ritual cleansing and dressing of the body before burial, and also for providing “shomrim” to watch over the body.  The work of the Chevra Kadisha is considered a “chesed shel emet,” or a “good deed of truth.”  It is a unique good deed because the deceased has no way of returning the favor.  Somebody who takes part in a Chevra Kadisha cannot have ulterior motives to the work that she or he does, because there is no possible way of getting anything in return.  I was looking forward to having some part in all of this, and also for experiencing what it would be like to spend the night alone in a room with a deceased woman. I called Sandy to let her know that I would be willing to be a “shomer” (literally “guard,” but in this case, somebody who sits with the body–or, as one of my housemates put it, “bodysitter”).

When I arrived, Sandy showed me around, pointing out the telephones, the coffee pot, the couch where I would be spending the night.  There was a book of psalms on the table (it’s customary to read to the body from the Book of Psalms), a coffin in the middle of the room.  “Call me if you need anything,” said Sandy.  “Call if you get scared.”  And she was gone.

I sat down on the couch.  I picked up the Book of Psalms.  I looked at Ruth, lying–laying?–in her coffin, covered by a blue cloth velvety-looking blanket with a Hebrew phrase on it, the meaning of which I failed to make out.

After a few moments, it occurs to me that I’m not scared, and I am slightly surprised by this realization.  I like Ruth.  I don’t know anything about her, other than that her name is Ruth and she’s dead and she’s in a coffin under this blue blanket.  Sandy told me that she would send me Ruth’s obituary in the mail, so that I’ll know who I sat with, but for the time being, she could be anybody.

With.  Sat with, and not for.  That’s how I’m feeling about all this.  It feels like the two of us are keeping each other company–it feels mutual.  I don’t feel like I’m doing anybody a favor, or watching over anybody.  I feel like I’m hanging out with an old friend.

This place is so big and empty, I’m glad I’m sitting with Ruth.  When I left the room that Ruth and I are sharing (it’s almost like we’re roommates), I felt lonely, the tiniest bit frightened.  I missed her presence, I guess.  Her presence is still and calming.  I wonder what her life was like, how she was in life.  It hardly matters now, and somehow, that’s soothing.  It’s soothing to think that no matter what happens in my life, no matter what I do or whether I fail or succeed or how tired I make myself, in the end up I will end up like Ruth, beneath a blue blanket, in the presence of a girl and a book of psalms.
I’m grateful that Ruth is here with me.

Indeed, I think it’s striking how much Jewish rituals around death and dying are put in place for the mourners and those of us who remain here on earth, rather than for the deceased.  Sitting shiva, saying kadish, and even being a shomer–all of these rituals are, in one way or another, a way for the living to cope with and reflect upon death and dying.

A few days after my “bodysitting” experience, I received Ruth’s obituary in the mail.  I found out that she was the mother of four, the grandmother of twelve, and even the great-grandmother of nine!  She was influential in shaping early childhood education in New Orleans.  She was a dancer, a successful spelling bee participant, and an art docent.  She was a social worker, a sculptor, a teacher, a friend.

And we kept each other company through one rainy night in December.

-Michal (AVODAH New Orleans)

Don't be chicken. . .

By a unanimous (and rather hilarious) vote tonight, we have decided to look into getting. . . hens!

We still have much research to do for this endeavor, but it might have been our most amusing discussion yet at a house meeting.

That is all. We'll see how it goes.

Eating for $30 a week for two!

My sister just sent me this blog, and it had some good recipes/ideas. Enjoy!

http://thirtyaweek.wordpress.com/

The Great Pumpkin Parade

Cross Posted from Jews 4 New Orleans....

For the past two months, Jericho Road has been hosting “Community Dinners” for our members of the neighborhood to come together, share a meal, receive some sort of training and discuss events going on in the neighborhood. During our dinner in September one resident stood up and described his dream for a Halloween event in our neighborhood. He called it “Trunk or Treat” and described how in a previous neighborhood he had lived in, residents would deck out their cars with Halloween decorations and load up their trunks with candy. Last year he took some kids from the neighborhood to trick or treat in the Garden District, a far wealthier community only a few blocks away, and lamented the fact that little trick or treating took place in Central City. However, with only a month to go, a full time job, and little funding for this project, he felt that planning an event like this wasn’t a feasible idea, for this year at least. I sat there and nodded my head, I figured we’d do something next year, when there was a neighborhood association or something to sponsor it, I figured we’d stick to small dinners for now.

But the other residents didn’t agree, and were enthusiastic about providing a safe environment for trick or treating in. Two other residents volunteered to participate, and when the local church got wind of this, they donated their space, recruited volunteers and solicited donations from their members. I still wasn’t sure it could succeed, even up until last Saturday morning I was unsure if our work would pay off. Well, nearly a month after that idea was initiated, I’m glad to say that we did it. This Halloween volunteers donned bright orange shirts, residents opened their homes to trick or treaters, and children in costumes from Tinker Bell to the Batman to bloody vampires filled the streets.

My elation at the success of this event has helped quell a feeling of ineffectivenss I’ve felt since I’ve begun to work. For the past two months I’ve been constantly comparing my work to those of my housemates – at times I feel as though I am not carrying out social justice on such a direct level – I’m not helping someone find a job, or rebuild their home. The work I am doing is slow, methodical and aimed at creating a community where my housemates will be out of work because the residents will be able to find jobs that support them rebuilding their own homes. Furthermore we want the residents to create this stable community themselves, with us acting as the facilitators, not the creators of this neighborhood. This overarching goal seems like the very definition of social justice, but on a day to day basis I create flyers for events and make brochures for a neighborhood association that we hope will one day exist. The goal of a safe, happy neighborhood where all residents can support themselves seems like a distant one. So how does this relate back to Halloween? How do children in silly costumes and volunteers passing out hot dogs and mountains of candy relate to creating a self sustaining community?

Brad Powers, the Executive Director of Jericho Road has joked for the past few weeks that we’re going to write a book on using national holidays as vehicles for social change. I had been laughing at it for weeks, but since this weekend I’m beginning to think there might be something to it. While from the beginning I knew that this event was about more than just having a good time and creating safe Halloween fun, I think at some point I got so hung up in the details – in making sure we had enough candy and volunteers, and trying to get participants to come to the event – that I forgot what it was really about. This event not only provided fun, it gave this neighborhood, so plagued by blighted property and gun violence, something to dream about.

What this event showed me and the community (I hope) is that this dream of a Halloween event that one man brought to his neighbors on September 28 could be brought to fruition in a little over a month. We as an organization, together with the community, made this event that seemed so impossible, a possibility. And if we can make this a reality, what else can this community do?

While I might spend much of my time doing work that doesn’t seem as directly impactful as many of my housemates, the success of this event showed me that the work I do – organizing community meetings, writing agendas and setting up systems for collecting information about the neighborhood – are the building blocks for the work of transformation that our neighborhood will one day undergo. I’m hopeful that I’ll get to see this community transform, if ever so slightly in my year working for Jericho Road, but I know that there will always be so much more to come as this community is brought closer together and works towards their collective dreams.