Whats your connection?

For 25 years I’ve been going to Dolphin games with my dad.  Through good seasons and bad (and there have been plenty) it’s a connection we developed through the years.  So when he asked me to join him for services today on the High Holidays I of course said I will be by his side.  You see, my father lost his mother this past month after suffering for years with Alzheimer's disease and severe Dementia.   I’m sure it has been gut wrenching for my father to witness the slow detrition of the Matriarch of our family. So I sat with my father in Temple today looking back at the years of history we shared for the past 39 years of my life and I wondered what connections he shared with his mother and father. 

I’ve all but given up with going to Temple as I rarely feel ‘connected’ when I’m there.  I have of recent years felt it is more about seeing and being seen than a search for who we are and who we hope to be.  More about the politics and the business of a Temple rather than the spiritual search and connection we hope to find in a place of worship.  I recalled a sermon given several years ago about this very topic.  The Rabbi agreed it is about seeing and being seen and challenges us to flip the paradigm of thought.  Instead of judging the lack of a tie being worn, or he jeans that the 20 something is wearing or length of the woman’s skirt of the height of the high heels, look at who they are with this year.  Is their elderly mother or father still with them? Is there a new addition to the family? Is that 20 something year old alone or with a family? How about the fact that he/she is even there.  Look at all the new babies and ones who are no longer with you.  In other words finds the connection between those you are surrounded by.  Look in between the people, in the spaces where the vibration of energy lies.   I bet if you sit quietly, you’ll find that connection comes right back to you.

 A childhood friend of mine and one who’s words and opinions I respect very much just happened to be sitting behind me in Shul.  After watching me count my mala beads as I recited the Om mani padme hum recitation (the six-syllabled Sanskrit mantra particularly associated with the bodhisattva of compassion) she asked “what’s your connection?”  I tried to explain that I had little connection to the place as to where I was sitting and she asked simply “could your connection just be sitting here with your dad?”  Simple enough, just sitting with family, as he did with his mother and father and they did with theirs a generation before. 

Gabe Berman writes in his book Live Like a Fruit Fly (which I highly recommend), we’re dying.  From the moment you’re born, you begin the process of dying.  However, if you pay attention to the things that matter, you live the moments and hopefully long years of your life to the fullest.  I sat there with my father on one side and my wife on the other.  In that short time, I connected. Nice!!!