June 5, 2008

• Practice Makes Perfect

  B"H

   

  “He, being merciful, forgives iniquity,

  and does not destroy; frequently He

  turns His anger away, and does not

  stir up all His wrath. O LORD, save us;

  may the King answer us when we call.”

   

  With these words from Psalms 78:38 and Ps 20:10 so opens the Evening Service in the Birnbaum Daily Siddur. I have thought of writing a little something on this prayer for several weeks, but never has there been a better time than now. I believe that by the practice of frequently giving thanks we develop an attitude of gratitude and also by the regular exercise of extending forgiveness so we then become gracious. The LORD has purposed for His people to develop a “culture of grace.” The outworking of this principle of grace and forgiveness is like “life out of death.” It pains us and we need to consider the needs of the other rather than ourselves. As we allow ourselves to be diminished and die, so then do we cause others to grow and prosper.

  After several months of planning and dreaming I received a rejection notice yesterday regarding the upcoming PAPA Fest. I knew it was possible that I might not be accepted, but I must admit that I did allow myself to get excited and start to believe that I would be included. I don’t believe that I was purposefully rejected, although that might be the case. Rather, I think that the desire to escape the perils of centralization and top-down control, led the PAPA Fest planners to an inevitable situation of conflict and pain. Because they chose two individuals to recruit the session presenters, it turned out that the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing. As one might easily guess, the result was confusion and some hurt feelings. I started inquiring about the possibility of teaching a session back in Feb. It seems that nobody was receiving my e-mails although they didn’t come back, as is usually the case when there is an error with an address. Finally I was directed to the right person, and I wrote a fairly detailed outline and waited and waited, but there was no response due to other pressing events, and my request was put on hold.  Last week on Thursday, I received a personal phone call from one of the planners. Surely this raised my hopes and I felt that things were looking up. I forwarded my outlines, since I had originally hoped to present two sessions, and then waited through the weekend. I was told that there were only going to be around 30 + sessions so I understood that doing two sessions was not possible. I mentioned in my forwarded e-mail that I would probably merge the two proposed topics into one and could send an amended outline if they so desired. Needless to say, I was quite crestfallen last evening when I opened my e-mail to find a non-personal rejection notice from the other planner. I called the planner who called me this afternoon, in the odd case that because I had received a form letter, maybe there was a mistake. No such happenings. Oh well. I forgive the planners for the way this has made me feel. I truly believe that they had good intentions, although somewhat naively formed.

   

  Blessings,

   

  Shlomo

  ---

  It is now Saturday night and a lot has happened since my previous entry. On Thursday evening I received another personal phone call from one of the PAPA Fest planners. It seems that there has been a cancellation and therefore a teaching session has openned up. In conferring over the phone the two planners also realized that there was a confusion about me since I had used both my Hebrew name as I am known here by and my "official" English name. As things stand now, I'm back on track to teach a 90 minute session on Friday morning, June 20th.

  I had a semi in-depth conversation with one of the planners on Friday afternoon. We plan to speak again in a few days and finalize my topic. While it is agreed that what I want to present is important, there are two concerns right now. First, I need to introduce the topic in a way that is not off-putting or confusing. CIP - If we used the original title I chose, Introduction to Proleptic Theology, most people would read that and say, "So, what else is available?" The other concern is a matter of reducing the amount of presented material and leaving more time for group discussion. Once the topic and title is settled I'll give you all a preview by posting the outline here so you all can feel free to make any suggestions either positive or negative.

  Peace,

  Shlomo

  • 4:09 pm
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