A thing called Karma

Sometimes it takes a life time to understand why we did the things we did. Sometimes we get paid back in spades.

What was I thinking?
Part of getting on in years is dealing with the wrong things we've done to our kids. After so many years, most denial goes away--ours and theirs (the ones we've wronged). That passage in life is very, very painful and needs real discipline, honesty and introspection to get through to the other side. There's the adjustment to what is as opposed to how it was supposed to be.

Meanwhile, that introspection can seem interminable. With each revelation, a new mourning and adjustment period sets in, then more guilt, more anger because more fantasy is thrown out about who you thought you were, more...and more. Will I ever be forgiven, will I ever forgive myself? The time passes too quickly not to be reconciled, it would seem. Isn't that the point of working through these problems with your family? Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, we can't change their minds. They're bitter and have the right to be. Nothing you say will change that now. Maybe never.

Sadly, relationships between parents and children change dramatically when these realizations become too great to keep from each other. That's when the results of your past catch up with you demonstrated by standoffishness, loss of intimacy and fun and even more importantly, being cut off.

My mother was a very complex person--brilliant and accomplished-- ahead of her time when it came to human relations...I thought. She told me on her deathbed that she had held on to the wrongs she'd allegedly done to me. It was then she came clean about some of the more unfortunate times between us. It's funny. When a person loses one parent as I had eleven years before, you become very aware of how special that last one is. I couldn't hold it against her...and she did say she was sorry. Saying sorry was something my mother never said in her life to me. In fact, when I had done something wrong as a little kid, I'd say I'm sorry. She'd respond, don't say you're sorry, say you'll never do it again.

She also told me I was like her emotionally. I'm still working on that reality.

Forgiveness of one's self sometimes is held up by the lack of forgiveness of others. Maybe that's backwards. And the rest takes care of itself. Wishful thinking gets you through the day sometimes.

Thanks for the read.

The Jewish problem

I feel an affinity to Jews. Maybe the moment a Jewish soul left its body at Auschwitz was the time I was conceived and infused with that soul.

But, I'm a Christian, not really a believer in reincarnation. Who knows? Maybe God just gave me a gift.

My fascination with anti-Semites and other racists, bigots, et Al.
I have had dreams of concentration camps and Kristalnacht in which I felt I was a participant. When I was a kid I watched every movie and documentary I could about the Holocaust and Hitler. Every "Victory at Sea" episode caused me distress. I read book after book of Jewish history and the Third Reich's hatred of it all. Although not an obsession, anti-Semitism has had an effect on me. I've always felt there's something I should be doing to help people understand the horrors of anti-Semitism.

The man I was married to for three months is a Czech who grew up under Soviet rule. At age 18, he took a train to Sweden to see the Beatles, decided never to return to his homeland, then bounced around western Europe until he somehow finally ended up in Canada. The longer we were together the more I realized his deep anti-Semitism. Soon I found out more: although his father was a Czech underground fighter against the Nazis, and later settled into a career as a high level Communist state bureaucrat, he was still secretly a supporter of Hitler. Many Europeans had the same attitude, he told me proudly. I still couldn't believe it.

I recall another time I was shocked at what seemed to be the pervasive hatred in Europe. An Austrian neighbor, I'll call her Petra, showed her bigotry openly. I was introduced to many Europeans through her, and again their subtle hatred became more obvious with each cocktail.

Similar observations made me even more interested in historical back stories. Why were the Jews so hated? Why were they treated like second class citizens? Why were such a fantastically bright group of people so belittled? I was sheltered as an American child, I couldn't have known the reality of such blind hatred unless someone taught it to me or I read about it. Understanding the hatred was out of the question. I just needed to see how it was demonstrated.

I sought out fictional accounts of the Exodus (the mass migration to "Palestine," now the State of Israel) by Leon Uris and others. Their characterizations display the Jews' courage and adaptability. One of the most meaningful quotes comes from one of the Uris chapters (paraphrased): I can make into a home where ever I can plant and grow flowers in a window box, spoken by an early Palestine/Israeli housewife upon seeing the Negev Desert for the first time. The woman had just finished planting her window boxes in the faraway Jewish Ghetto of Warsaw, saying the exact same thing.

With prayer, devotion to God and daily watering, her flower boxes soon were overflowing with blooms, as green grass and orange groves covered the desert surrounding her.

This story in no way trivializes the plight of the modern Jew. In fact, it indicates to many that although they live in an impossible situation, they have become a proud people by virute of hard work and their pragmatic response to those who wish them dead.

My grandmother traveled to the Holy Land in the early sixties. She was struck at the difference in cultures, then worried about the 1948 Jewish promise to "take care" (her words) of the many displaced Arabs. Today, that small group has grown into more than Isrhandle.

God's plan
Christians are taught that the Jews are God's chosen people and that they are in His hands and are open to salvation as well through Christ.

Meanwhile, I pray for the modern day Palestinians' acceptance of solutions that are equitable and manageable. It doesn't look promising, however.

Thanks for the read.