ALONG OUR TRAIN RIDE OF LIFE ,SEPTEMBER, 2023

Are you finding this train ride quite bumpy and shaky in this time period? As I look around me, I find that many of my friends and acquaintances, are spending more and more time in their own homes, apartments, dwellings. We, the senior citizens, are confronted with our own bodies’ decline and/or slowing down, and with fear of the unknown; we also are confronted with of our country’s surging, disturbing actions within all of our inhabitants’ homes and our country, and of the world at large. I feel our sense of loneliness, of fear, of worry for the future of our country, our people, for the world at large.

As I have mentioned often to you, I am always trying to live up to the words of ‘FEEL THE FEAR BUT DO IT ANYWAYS’, that I learned long ago by the author Susan Jeffers.

Do it anyways? We like to think that we are in control of our bodies, our time spending in this world, and we see that in reality, we need to bend through the storms of life, and somehow find meaning in life! Victor Frankl said “YES TO LIFE IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING. “

Many of us have turned to more time with family members via telephone, via spending Shabat together.

Some of us have turned to joining group activities such as Scrabble or card games on line, some of us have joined several on-line book clubs, others turn to learning a new language, watching movies, listening to music-the world of the chances are many. Such activities give us companionship of a different kind, but do lead to the feeling that we are NOT ALONE if only we seek ways to accept WHAT IS.

As our Jewish  New year is close approaching, G. willing, many of us are studying and preparing for our holy days. There are many sources on line to connect us to Torah/Bible studies and preparation. It is trust that we build as we repeat twice daily in l’David Ori in Tehillim 27:1: “G. is my light and my salvation: whom shall I fear?”

Our train ride may feel much bumpier and uncertainty frightens and worries many,  but I pray for all of us that we can weather this stormy time, and/of feeling the fear, for ourselves personally, for our world and brethren around us, but trying to ‘keep our chin up’,  and smile when we cheer another person up as a friend, an acquaintance, as a family member, as another of G.’s people in this world.

Until we meet again, G. willing, in October, CHW