Iowa?

This is how it appeared on my pop-up calendar, as I opened my phone my first morning here.

Iowa?

Somehow it seemed a fitting title for a few observations of the place:

The esteemed Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa, arguably the most esteemed graduate program for writer's in the US, is where I find myself. Iowa City, Iowa that is.

1) You need alot of change in Iowa; for parking meters and soda machines. The implication is that you can still buy things with change in Iowa.

2) They have nice sinks. Kohler actually. As if when planning the new addition to the Dey House, home base for the workshop on the U.I campus someone thought; the writer's should have nice sinks. If they want to live in squalor, off campus, that's their business. Here, the student's will have nice sinks.

3) In town, you are sure you will run into your college boyfriend (or girlfriend). Headphones, backpack, awkward hello's and how have you been's. But you won't, because this is Iowa. And that person is probably in Austin, New York City, Chicago or wherever. You fill in the blank.

4) Iowans are nice. My brother's nice friend Ryan seemed particularly keen on this observation, as he is a native Iowan; polite, smart, nice. Sidenote: Ryan is a writer at the workshop, loves turbulence on airplanes, and spent the better part of 3 years in Iraq as a correspondent for AP.

5) The streets are literally paved with phrases from famous writer's, most of them graduates of the program. And famous writers haunt the bars and classrooms here: Kurt Vonnegut, John Cheever, Phillip Roth, Marilyn Robinson, Flannery O'Connor,Raymond Carver and my new friend Chris Offutt (A collection of short stories called- Kentucky Straight, The Good Brother, Episodes 7 & 10 of Season 1, true blood, ahem.)

That's all for now. Signing off for W-IOWA!

Russian sweet bread

Russian Sweetbread
A sweetbread that is a Pascha (Easter) tradition.
Makes three large or six small loaves; 24 servings

Ingredients

5 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 pkgs. dry yeast
1 tsp. salt
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup butter
2 eggs at room temp.
1/2 cup citron
3/4 cup chopped, toasted almonds





###


The bucolic journey, which started as a rare time of togetherness for me and my Texan husband, turned tension filled and stressed out when we took a wrong term at Kerrville.

"Did you read the directions?" I asked

"I know exactly where it is," he offered, "don't worry."

Attending this retreat, for free, was a minor miracle in itself. We'd gotten a babysitter for the weekend and were actually going to spend 3 uninterrupted days with artists and poets and musicians. And eachother. Amazing.

When we pulled over at a friendly looking restaurant so I could ask for directions (note: I was asking, not my husband), we were nearly to Bandera. The very wrong way on the road that didn't turn into 71 like we'd thought it would. It was getting dark.

The GPS on the iPhone found a windy little road through the hills that felt like mountains- with hair pin turns that demanded we slow to 10mph. What should've taken an hour from the interstate was taking more than two.

I was frustrated and tired and hungry, and noting all this, I thought to myself in a rare moment of maturity "maybe there's a reason we're lost and late. Maybe it's a God thing."

When we finally made our way to the river road that leads to the lodge I began to see the reason. We opened the sunroof and the sky was a silver dome with pin pricks of black between the stars. We opened the windows and the air was clean and cool and clear.

When we arrived, we immediately met Edwina (pronounced Ed- winna, not Ed-weena). Well into her 80s yet exuding joy and vitality,Edwina welcomed us with hugs (we'd never met her before this moment) and asked if we were hungry. Our grumbling stomachs gave us away. "Well I'm just so glad you kids made it, I was so worried". Kids? I thought. I exhaled. We'd called her at the front desk at least 4 times when we still had phone service, trying not to sound like neurotic city folk, and Edwina had patiently tried to talk us through the directions.

We followed her into the lodge's kitchen where she gently nudged us toward the table she had laid. Hot, fresh, bread, and cold iced tea beckoned. The site of it nearly made me cry. I was tired, hungry and raw from a long journey, and frankly, from too many years of ministry without a break. And I didn't grow up with this sort of thing, this sort of hospitality. My grandmother passed away when I was 6 and my mother worked, alot. So I work, alot. It's what I know how to do.

I considered asking Edwina to adopt me. Though I am an adult and I'd known her for five minutes, it seemed like a great idea at the time, and still does. I could learn a lot from her. She chatted to us, making us feel comfortable and less guilty for keeping her awake until 10:00pm. "Oh, I don't go up to bed until after 11!" she assured me, and though I thought she was just being polite, I knew she was telling the truth. Staying up late, and caring for road weary strangers, heating up food and making small talk, seemed like the exact thing she had been looking forward to all day. She served us dinner, and hovered, making sure we had everything we needed. Matt and I looked at eachother dumbfounded when she left the room for a moment. "Is she real?" I asked, thinking that it was altogether possible that Edwina was an angel.

Before leaving us with a tupperware full of deserts, Edwina asked if we'd like to try the Russian sweet bread. “Is that what it's called" she asked looking directly at me, "Russian sweet bread?" Edwina doesn't know this, but I am Russian, or at least half Russian. And there would be no way that I would hear "Russian sweet bread" coming from a tiny, elderly woman, in a remote canyon in the Texas Hill Country, and not look over my shoulder to see if some long lost relative was about to jump out the pantry and shout "Candid Camera!" She said "Russian sweet bread" and I heard "This is for you. Not the other 40 people at the lodge this weekend, not even Matt, but just for you. This kindness, this love, this food, is just for you." I knew it was a God thing. I'd been lost, literally, and now was found. And full. Yum.



Cameron Dezen Hammon © 2010
*recipe courtesy of Russian Life

Holy Magic

First, I checked their twitter feed, and their facebook page. Even though I knew I was going to go to the Easter Vigil service, regardless of their social media sites. But St. Andrew's Episcopal's twitter and facebook pages suggested I would be in the right place. Twitter followers- 11. Facebook fans- 53. Oh wait, that was before I joined. 52 then. No bells, no whistles, no Starbucks in the fellowship hall. Just right.

I've tried an Episcopal service once before. It was a bit of a comedy of errors. Well I was a comedy of errors, the service was lovely. It was me, Matt and my brother Alex in Austin on Christmas eve. We found an 11pm service in a close in suburb and filed in moments before it began. The sanctuary was empty, so we found a seat in the middle of a pew close to the front. Since it was empty I hadn't thought to get an "aisle seat" in the case I needed to slip out to the restroom. I was 6 weeks pregnant and little trips to the restroom were a frequent occurence. Seconds before 11pm hundreds of people made their way into the sanctuary, closing us into the front pew on either side.

Long story short I got up, thus getting the whole pew up 3 times before realizing that it probably wasn't going to work out between me and the Episcopal church. At least not that night. Not to mention the shared chalice communion thing. I was a bit of a germ-o-phobe, being pregnant and all.

My brother had felt compelled to announce at a hushed moment in the liturgy, that I was pregnant. Perhaps he felt he should explain why I kept running out of the service. The liturgy itself was confusing to me. I hadn't yet connected the read thread running between my history as a half Catholic half Jew and my present as an evangelical Christian. I hadn't yet seen the beauty of the ritual, as I seem to be starting to do now.

I have always, always wanted to go to midnight mass. All my life. Every Christmas eve my mother would promise to wake me up to take me to midnight mass. Her descriptions of the candlelight, and the singing, and the glamour of the late hour, especially for a kid; it all seemed magical. It never happened and I can't really blame her. Being a mother myself, I cannot imagine waking a child sleeping soundly on any night, let alone Christmas Eve. As an adult, and as a Christian, I have occasionally given thought again to midnight mass, but I have yet to go.

Last night I caught a glimpse of that magic. To steal a phrase from poet Luci Shaw, "holy magic." A time and a place where the veil between heaven and earth is particularly gossamer, and it if you pay attention you might catch a glimpse of an Archangel or two.

The Easter vigil service at St. Andrew's Episcopal started, for me, with a brisk walk through the musty back entrance adjoining the parking lot. I passed a tiny room with a beautiful stained glass window that appeared to be a children's Sunday school room. I encountered a cheerful woman in a pink pantsuit who loaded me up with a bell, a candle and a 20 page bulletin to take into the service. I followed a mother and her two middle schoolers along a short outdoor path to the front of the church where another sweet lady in a pantsuit welcomed us and held open the heavy, red wood doors. I nearly fell into a gaggle of white clad priests preparing in the foyer (foyer? probably not the right word) for the service.

I tried to blend. Looked straight ahead and followed the mom to a pew a few rows from the back. I immediately wished I had looked more closely at the priests.

The church was dark except for a few chandeliers on dimmers. The altar was completely dark. There was a bit of light coming into the stained glass windows from outside as dusk settled in. The church, meant to simulate Jesus' tomb, wasn't exactly tomb-like, but it was dark and it was somber. Just what I came for.

Just then the lead priest came to the front of the church and gave us a brief rundown on what to expect. She welcomed us to "this most holy of nights" and sang a little something, cantor-like, before gliding to the back of the church.

Behind me the white robed priests were gathered around a low fire, smoldering in some sort of bowl. They were adding what looked like sticks of incense to kindle a fire that would light the candles for the processional.

The number of celebrants, or priests and singers, about matched the number of congregants. But instead of feeling sad that there weren't more people there, I felt grateful that I was getting this gorgeous service in this gorgeous little church, almost all to myself.

Seeing them leaning around the flame, lighting candles, I was struck by how druid it all seemed. The bunch of them, men and women, young and old, looked otherworldly in the darkened church. I knew I was in the right place. I almost wanted to text my husband "this is awesome" but I refrained. It felt as though my phone must have not been invented yet, as I'd traveled back in time to an underground church in some distant country, in a long ago era. The magic and mystery of what we're keeping watch for, the resurrection of the One whose "pronouns we capitalize" in the words of Lauren Winner, is powerfully evident in this place.

In Mark 16 we read the account of Mary Magdelene, Salome (rhymes with Shalom) and Mary, Mother of James bringing spices and herbs to anoint the body of Jesus on Sunday morning, once the Sabbath had ended. "Who's gonna roll this stone away?" they asked one another. You can imagine the exhaustion and frustration. I love when bible characters really sound like the Jewish people they were. Like in Exodus when Moses is trying to lead the Israelites into the wilderness. "Are there no graves in Egypt?" they ask rhetorically, "that we have to die in the wilderness?" A hint of chutzpah and some sarcasm to balance the grief- a time honored tradition. In the case of the three women at the tomb, it's no different. Another rhetorical question. There wasn't anyone to roll away the stone.

When they arrived, the stone had been moved, seemingly by magic. When they dared to scuttle into the cave to prepare the body of their Lord for the grave, they found, you know the story, just the grave clothes and no Jesus. But they also found a man in a "dazzling white robe". An angel whose power and beauty and presence took their breath away. In my imagination the angels robe looked sort of like the billboards for Westheimer Lakes, a suburban home site boasting waterfront properties. Westheimer Lakes is luring Houstonians out to the 'burbs with promises of tranquil water views. This claim alone would be enough to draw the attention of landlocked Texans, but hundreds of tiny reflective disks decorated the sign, simulating, I guess sunlight on a lake. As they caught the sunlight just so, the whole billboard shimmered wildly. And it was almost blinding, but I couldn't look away.Cheesy? Maybe. But magical nonetheless. The extra effort to make those billboards shimmer got my attention. God being the Creator of the Universe is the original designer of 'shimmer' and He has it in spades. He chose to dazzle the bedraggled women, he didn't have to, but He did, giving them a taste of the dazzle that was yet to come. The dreamy angel simply told them "He is Risen!"

Today, Christians around the world will answer that revolutionary proclamation with "He is Risen indeed!" Some will really believe it, having experienced the extravagant dazzling of God in a sickness healed, a relationship mended, or a crime pardoned.

"Holy magic!" said Luci Shaw to a room full of attentive Christian artists. "Is that theologically correct?" she asked, half joking. Nothing could be more theologically correct, I think.

Happy Easter.

Kate

I wanted to simply share our about our brief visit with the McRae's last night. It's a strange tightrope I must admit. The feeling I have is a strange cross between fierce protectiveness and a desperation to communicate. I want you to know all about it because I want you to pray and to tell others to pray for Kate, and for all those battling brain cancer. But then I want to protect her from the eyes of the world. I want her to be safe like I want Sydney to be safe. Kate McRae is simply a precious six year old girl, with two great parents. She and her parents are like so many of our friends. Chatting with them on the sidewalk outside their temporary home was as easy as it is with the Mann's or Kuykendall's. Couples our age, working in the church, having kids, doing life. My relief at this easy feeling was peppered with the sadness that we aren't meeting under better circumstances because I know that if we did, we'd be friends.

We met outside because Kate is still immune compromised from the stem cell transplant and Sydney- being in preschool- is probably a bit of a petri dish as far as germs go. But the two of them had a great little visit. It's so funny how kids hunt out other kids. It's like some kind of "play" instinct. We'd kept Syd in her carseat as we got the goodies and dinner out the car and she was going bonkers because she wanted to meet "Little Kate" as she calls her. Kate wanted to get a look at Syd and before long they were digging through her gift basket (an incredible blessing from the Home Improvement Sunday School class at Grace Pres and the amazing Amy French.)

Barbies, dress up clothes, movies, games and a big 'ol pink cowgirl hat. Kate wanted to try it on so Syd gave it over to Holly. As Kate reached for her own knit hat to remove it, she paused and looked at her mom. "Is she going to laugh at me?" she asked. The world stopped in that moment and the reality of this disease hit us like a freight train. My heart broke. "No, she's not going to laugh at you" we both said, and then Holly proceeded to gently explain to Sydney that Kate doesn't have any hair because of her medicine. And that when it grows back it will be blonde, like Sydney's but lighter. Kate's question to her mother was simple, practical. Obviously she is speaking from experience.

As she took off her hat I watched my sweet 3 yr old's face go from giggles to shock then right back to giggles. She didn't miss a beat. She didn't stare, she didn't laugh, she acted like it was the most normal thing in the world to not have hair. They went right back to playing, balancing on one foot, trapsing up and down the sidewalk in their hats.

Two observations: No child, no person should have to go through this. It is very hard to reconcile a just, loving God in the face of a child's suffering. Yet somehow, the mercy and the suffering of God himself, is so real and palpable here. Our only comfort I guess is that God himself is nearer than we know. And he doesn't waste our suffering.

My little child is being changed just by her proximity to Kate and her understanding- though limited- of her illness. She is becoming compassionate. The compassion of one child for another is beautiful. It is stunningly beautiful. God is making something beautiful out of this pain.

Pray like your life depended on it. For Kate.

Thoughts on parenting and post partum

As the title suggests, what you will find here are some observations on parenting. I do not now, nor have I ever claimed to be a parenting expert. I have one child, with whom I have 3 years and change in this game. So stick with me. The second bit I am sure I am an expert. Or at least a survivor. So it’s from that perspective I will offer some thoughts.

Disclaimer:
These are shark -infested water. And the sharks may turn out to be dear friends or even family members. Say what you think about parenting, and if what you think is outside the accepted theories of the sub-culture (read: James Dobson, the Super Nanny, your pastor any given Sunday, etc.,) you risk the alienating hush of your friends at lunch. You’ll hear “Bless your heart!” A polite Southern way of saying ‘Wow, you’ve really gone off the deep end’ or ‘You’ve become so liberal’/ (the very worst of all possible fates) and the like.

So here are my radical, not- so- radical reflections on parenting.


Kid's are not stereo's, and there are no instruction manuals:

Do you remember in the hospital with your first child when the nurse (doctor, midwife, whatever) said "They all come out with their own little personalities”. Maybe you were too euphoric, depressed or exhausted to pay attention, but the comment stuck with you. This may have been their way of explaining why your baby was fussy, sleepy, goofy, or whatever he or she was upon initial descent to earth. But it was true. Your baby did things other babies didn't. Her knowing eyes, her projectile, er…, well you know- whatever it was, you recognized that it was true. She was unique.

Then the moment they released you from the hospital and the care of professionals, you set about looking for just the right instruction manual to make her exactly like your best friend’s baby. You know the baby; the one who slept through the night at two weeks old, took naturally to breast feeding and never had colic. The one whose "behavior" - a word which should never be used when talking about a child under 1, possibly 2 years old- was just perfect for her parents schedules, egos and needs. They could beam with pride when their child napped without a fight, ate all her strained peas or didn't puke at the dinner table, because this of course was "proof" that they were doing something right.


Ok, back to you and me. Let's retrace our steps. First we got into the attachment parenting thing, because it just seemed nicer. Digging through the stack of baby books at 1 in the morning, the picture on the cover of the “attachment” book seemed to sooth our fried nerves. “No cry method” sounded great to us who’d been up for three days and couldn’t quit crying ourselves.

Or maybe we tried the cry-it-out method first. Babywise. Because that's what our Christian friends swore by (wait aren't we not supposed to swear?) and their kid slept like 10 hours straight the first night home from the hospital. And besides, the book warned, if we didn’t follow their method our kids would grow up to be self-centered social deviants. All because we caved and gave them a bottle at 3am.

Whichever way we gravitated, we read and re-read the "instructions." We surfed baby blogs late into the night. But our little guy wasn't following the “instructions,” was he?

Mine didn’t. Not only did none of the many, many books help, but they were the cherry on top of my self pity Sundae. "See, I am not cut out for this." "Why can't I do this right?" "Why isn't my baby like all the other babies in this book?" I was determined that I would get it right, and my Christian baby books and prayer groups, Mom's groups and websites would be enough to guide me through. And granted, if my self -pity had been just the baby blues, the standard two to four weeks of weepiness, they may have.

But it wasn't, it didn't, and here we are. And the only reason I can imagine that God let me go through what I did, is simply so I can share it with you.

Here’s how it came down.

My brother’s band was in town to play at a huge arena when my daughter was about 5 months old. I had planned the outing for weeks. Though my nerves were fried from five months of anxiety and sleeplessness, I was determined to go to the gig, even get up on stage and sing backing vocals on a handful of songs. My adrenaline was in overdrive. I did my best to recapture some of my pre-pregnancy confidence. After a great night I returned home to Matt and Sydney asleep on the couch. She wasn't in her crib, it was midnight. The slight deviation from our schedule sent me into an anxious downward spiral of guilt and panic. I barely slept a wink. Maybe 30-40 minutes. The whole house was snoring and I was staring at the ceiling, punishing myself for having had a night out. Trouble is I had no idea that my sadness- about my body, my perceived daily failures at home, my fizzling career and creativity- was due - at least in some significant part to the hormones that were still raging through me. It had a name, and my brother named it. “You have post partum depression,” he said, a little frazzled by my sudden explosion of tears as he readied himself to leave town the next morning. “There’s medication for it. It’s not a big deal. Just talk to someone.” What I had feared, what I refused to utter, what seemed to be lurking just around each corner had finally come into the light.

That declaration by my brother in the kitchen of our rented house started me on the road back to wellness. In that moment, I had clarity. I had a to-do list. Talk to somebody. Get help. Put one foot in front of the other. I could handle that. Wandering around the desert of woe had just about done me in.


I’m a little bit disappointed that it took my rock star brother, who is not exactly an expert on women’s issues, to tell me to get help. I had prayer partners. Sisters in Christ. Family members who knew what I was going through but couldn’t, or wouldn’t name it. Maybe they were as terrified of this unknown monster as I was. Maybe the name alone, “post partum depression” conjured horrifying images of deranged women and defenseless babies. Maybe they did tell me to get help but I wouldn’t listen.

I was so certain that God's healing for me would come through prayer, bible study and white knuckle discipline. For some reason I perceived my depression and anxiety as my own fault. Something I could "kick" if I just worked harder at it.

But this is not how God works. He wants us to trust deeper, not work harder. He taught me something huge about himself through all this. First, that He and He alone determines how healing will come. He knows me. And He loves me. And wouldn't you know, His way of healing me was utterly simple. It could have come months earlier if during one of my many pleading prayer times I had stopped to listen. I would have had more crazy-free time to enjoy my baby girl if I'd had my antenna up a bit higher.

These days I am the post partum police. Whenever a good friend has a baby I give her a week or two before sitting her down, making eye contact (this is nearly impossible to do with the mother of a two week old) and ask how she’s doing. Not how the baby is doing, not how her mother-in-law, husband, best friend, boss or sister is doing. How she is doing. And I try to get a straight answer. Most of the time, my friends are doing fine. Even better than fine. Which reminds me of the statistics that insist that almost all women get about two weeks of blues, but very few get the full blown crazies like I did. And even fewer will experience the kind that lands their story on the evening news. Devastating as those stories are they are very, very rare.

But once in a while, when talking to my friend, I will hear the nervous quiver in her voice. The obsession with feeding schedules, sleep schedules or bowel movements. I will hear hopelessness in her voice. And that’s my cue.

If I know you well, I’ll just tell you flat out- there is a medication and counseling that can re-teach you how to be you. You shouldn’t suffer like this. It’s easily treatable. I will remind you, as my husband so kindly reminded me, that all healing comes from the hand of God. If I don’t know you well, I will try to get to know you better. But I will try, if you let me, to help.

the worst Jew ever

In an attempt to shake off the above title, not so kindly bestowed on me by my brother via Twitter when I mis-spelled mohel, I will say a few words about Passover.


As a child I had two sets of friends. My Jewish friends and my Catholic friends. My Jewish friends were closer friends, having nothing to do with their religion, but simply for the reason one chooses friends at 6 or 7; cool toys, nice Mom, and later, at maybe 11 or 12, cute older brother.

Having a regular Friday night sleepover at Rachel R.'s house guaranteed me a trip to Shul- Synagogue on Saturday morning. "Bring a dress", Rachel's Swedish convert mother would tell me, "something nice, but not too fancy." When we arrived at the Temple the kids would run to the coat closet where we would find lace doilies and bobby pins for the girls, and mini prayer shawls for the boys. The lace always seemed so elegant and precious in my hands. We would hastily pin the doily to our braids or ponytails and file into the sanctuary.

I, of course, was not Jewish. Though my father is Jewish and in some, more liberal circles I might be accepted, in this Conservative temple I was about as Jewish as pork tenderloin. I tried to blend in with Rachel's family. We whispered a hushed plan to tell the Rabbi I was a cousin visiting from a nearby town. Because I knew, somehow, that if I was outed I wouldn't be able to participate in the rituals I was growing to love and look forward to.

One of the best parts of the service is when the Rabbi, surrounded by a handful of lucky kids, processes into the Sanctuary carrying the Torah scrolls, high above his head. Because the Torah is sacred, I was told, it can never touch the ground. So the job of helping to carry the giant, sacred book, was an important one. Even if our part was merely symbolic, it was an honor to be called on for this job.

Christians also love to process. In some circles at least. It's dramatic and powerful. I remember being particularly moved by seeing a handful of Episcopal priests file past me on a Sunday night as I sat daydreaming in a garden beside St. Martin's Church. Robed and focused, one cheerful looking teenaged girl- arms outstretched balancing a Medieval looking banner- smiled at me as our eyes met.

Back to being Jewish.

One Saturday, I suppose my regular attendance and the "cousin" story had worked because I found myself at the top of the aisle behind a curtain, nervously standing beside the Rabbi as we were about to make our way to the front of the Synagogue with the Torah. I avoided eye contact with him. I repeated the story in my head, "I'm the cousin from Ft. Lee," I thought, hoping my lie would go undetected if I was called upon to identify myself before taking part in this holy errand.

Though this is not my favorite Jewish memory, for some reason it's the first that comes to mind. It wasn't Passover, it wasn't a high holiday of any sort. It was just a regular old Sabbath day, but yet, it was important. The work of God's people was as important on this morning as it was on any night of Hannukah, or Purim, or Passover for that matter. At least it was to me. And it was important for the children to be involved, to have ownership in this glorious, everyday activity.

It certainly was important to the Rabbi. My goy hands never touched the Torah. I watched teary eyed from behind the curtain, exposed, sort of, as the non Jew I was. But I get it. I understand now. I had no idea, except for the crumbs of Hebrew, culture and tradition that I gobbled up at every opportunity; I had no idea what it all really meant.

Passover memories are better. More inclusive, more encouraging. A myriad of seder dinners were attended by our family, one resulting in my little brother getting a cauldron of matzoh ball soup accidentally dumped on his head, but generally they were undramatic, regular sorts of events.

My friend Leah, another one whose family occasionally let me tag along to Shul, had a grandfather who was in the Jewish mafia in Pennsylvania. I learned of this years later when her parents got divorced and all the family secrets came spilling out, as they tend to do. But my memories of spending Passover at her mafia don grandfather's house are some of the happiest of my childhood.

They had a huge, gorgeous house surrounded by manicured gardens and 12 foot high hedges sculpted into a labrinyth. I remember the cool, pre-Spring evenings we would run around the backyard, waiting for the ritual to begin. As the sun began to set we would all take our places at the giant dining room table. Each place was set with a pocket sized prayer book, the prayers in both Hebrew and English. "Now this is something I can do," I thought. When it was my turn to read a prayer someone kindly suggested I read in English, acknowledging that I knew no Hebrew. My heart was pounding and my palms were sweating. I proudly and carefully read aloud the designated prayer, to smiles and nods of encouragement from Leah's family. To them, at least in that moment, I was Jewish enough.

Later we would all hunt for the Afikomen, slip sliding on the polished mahogany floors in our socks. We would be given mesh bags of chocolate money, whether or not we were lucky enough to find the hidden matzoh.

St. Leonard

Seth: You have such vivid Christian imagery in many of your songs, and much of it is contrasted with the selfishness of the "modern" individual. I was wondering what's your take on the state of Christianity today?

Leonard Cohen: Dear Seth, I don't really have a 'take on the state of Christianity.' But when I read your question, this answer came to mind: As I understand it, into the heart of every Christian, Christ comes, and Christ goes. When, by his Grace, the landscape of the heart becomes vast and deep and limitless, then Christ makes His abode in that graceful heart, and His Will prevails. The experience is recognized as Peace. In the absence of this experience much activity arises, divisions of ever sort. Outside of the organizational enterprise, which some applaud and some mistrust, stands the figure of Jesus, nailed to a human predicament, summoning the heart to comprehend its own suffering by dissolving itself in a radical confession of hospitality.