B"H
It's been a while since my last update. I keep wanting to write more stuff here, but I put it off and then forget whatever was previously on my mind.
Right now there's a bunch of things pending. I hope I'm successful with at least half of them.
- A rare personal note. Not a personal look at my present life as much as a reflection, from my perspective, of who I am and why some things turned out the way they did.
- "And these two shall become one." A brief report on a wonderful wedding we attended this weekend.
- One massive burden relieved. A few months ago I made a terrible mistake of judgement. I cut off a great e-mail correspondence for no real good reason.
- There are other things to add to this list for sure, but I think this is quite enough to hold you for a while.
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1) Sometime around the Fall of 2000 I think, or maybe it was 2001, I happened upon the website www.Classmates.com . I checked out my HS and sure enough there was an active community of former classmates who were now scattered all over the globe. I spent untold hours there, lurking and laughing and crying. I read stories that described teachers I knew and some I didn't know. I read about events I was familiar with and others which were new to me. I also read nostalgic reflections about the town - Glen Cove, NY.
Since I graduated 35 years ago, a lot of changes have taken place since then. Stores we used to frequent every day are now being run by new faces and some no long exist. At this point I transitioned from a lurker to a participant. I know my old home town fairly well on several levels. Because I lived there for over 40 years, excepting three years in the South when I was in the Service, I knew a lot about the current events of the place. I also possessed a thorough knowledge of the local geography. From 1979 - 81 I had a job delivering newspapers. I knew every street in Glen Cove and the immediate towns adjacent to it.
It's funny to look back on how things have changed in my life. I thought that I would always live there and remain a vital part of the local scene. I ran a tutoring program through a non-profit agency at one point and thus had access to people in the high school. It was very empowering to sit in a conference room in my former high school and go through records of students who failed the BCT (Basic Compentency Test). I was given this privilege because I was then able to contact the students and their parents and explain the services we offered through our agency.
I was a board member of another non-profit organization for nearly 15 years. This group was involved in providing 2 - 4 bedroom apartments to middle and low income level renters. I was a regular member for several years before becoming vice Pres. and then Pres. Although I truly was the "President" of the board, it was really a figure-head position. The real President was Mary, a much older woman who was actually a peer of my Mother. Mary wanted me to take the official title because she felt that the organization needed to be fronted by a man. Besides attending monthly meetings and participating in the general discussions, my primary responsibility was to sign checks on a weekly basis for payroll and other expenses. The project had 27 duplex units or 54 apartments. The initial underwriting was done by HUD so this was a federal program which was run by local individuals. I liked a lot of the aspects of my involvement there and this too made me think that I would always be there.
When I met a bunch of believers in the late Fall of 1976 another chapter in my life in Glen Cove unfolded. I became BA (born again) in 1973 while I was in Texas in the US Army (Ft. Hood). When my time of enlistment ended (Nov 1975) I came back to Glen Cove and started looking for a group of real believers. At first, my Mother wanted me to attend her congregation where I grew up, and get involved there. I didn't think this was a good idea because all the years I had attended Sunday School there I never learned anything about the LORD or the gospel message. Sure enough, I went to a few of their Bible studies held during the mid-week and after the third visit I had created enough of a stir to be no longer welcome there. I started attending a local CMA (Christian and Missionary Alliance) congregation around the Spring of 1976. I was always a bit uneasy there because the CMA denomination has a strange policy towards the practice of spiritual gifts. I once read a brief summary of their position in a little pamphlet by the founder A. B. Simpson. It was entitled, "Seek Not, Forbid Not." Sort of a Don't Ask, Don't Tell kind of thing in a theological setting. In regards to spiritual gifts and their modern expression, I'm sort of a mild charismatic, as opposed to a flaming pentecostal, for those who know the difference or even care about such distinctions. Anyway, I had a rocky time at the CMA congregation, to put it mildly. In the Fall of 1976 I met a girl in my Calculus II class and she was always telling me about her sister and brother-in-law (Denise and Tom) who also seemed to believe the same way I did. She arranged for me to meet them and it turned out that they were living in one of the adjacent towns. Through Tom and Denise I met two other couples, David and Elaine and Dan and Lisa. They were meeting every week for praise and worship and also to pray for Tom's Mother was very ill and eventually passed away. These 6 folks all knew each other from a previous experience in a house church in Queens, NY. When I met them I was sort of the odd man out. I was single and they didn't really know or trust me.
As I mentioned earlier, this was the late Fall of 1976. Over the next several weeks as we spent time in worship and many long lengthy discussions, slowly we started to get to know each other. Some time around Jan or Feb 1977 I think, our little group made a commitment to receive our primary spiritual covering from one another. Although the numbers who came to our meetings every week varied, only 7 people made that initial decision and commitment, the 3 couples -Tom and Denise, David and Elaine, Dan and Lisa, and myself. New Covenant Community has weathered many storms over the years and the LORD has blessed and preserved them through various trials and struggles. Of those original 7 members, the only one not still there is this writer. I don't have any official figures to cite, but I think that the congregation numbers at present somewhere around 100 members.
Our lives are interconnected in lots of ways now though. In 1981 I left the newspaper delivery business and learned about telephone installation from Dan. At first I was his employee and then became his junior partner from 1982 until I left to form my own company in 1984. Tom and Denise are the GOD-parents to both Mim and Ezra (aka Joe Blough) and have been his host family in NY since last August. David, who became the Pastor of the congregation, was my unofficial and unknown mentor for several years. I sat under his teaching, week in and week out, sometimes even twice a week, for nearly 12 years. He preformed our wedding ceremony (1984) and the dedication to the LORD for Ezra (1987).
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Hmm, that was a lot more involved than I intended at first. I hope that I haven't lost too many readers due to the sheer length of it all.
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3) Somewhere in that reandering drift I mentioned www.classmates.com . Ha ha, I intended to tell how I ran into an old classmate, Mickie, through that site. We graduated together from High School, but I don't remember her from there. Instead, I recall her although somewhat vaguely, from grade school. Anyway, we reconnected via Classmates.com and were quite regular in corresponding for nearly 4 1/2 years. Then, all of a sudden, out of the blue, I told her that I was done and wouldn't be writing anymore. There wasn't any good reason for this. I was a bit overwhelmed by various pressures in staying current with several different people, but why oh why did I take that action??
Well, ever since January when I made that fateful move, not a week went by when I didn't think of it and feel regrets. Finally, two weeks ago, I wrote to her again and expressed my extreme sorrow and asked her to forgive me. Whew! She wrote back and said that she was surprised and pleased to hear from me. My note came to her at a bad time (death in the family), but at least we are back on track and soon we shall catch up with all the news between then and now.
Good friends are hard to find, even cyber friends and pen pals. I hope not to ever take such gifts for granted in the future.
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2) This story will have to wait until a little later. My time here for now is up. I hope to return and write more this evening. Until that time I bid you all a good day.
Walk with GOD and be a blessing,
Shlomo
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