New post. First paragraph. Something about how this still somehow scares me. Mostly because I'm really not sure who you all are out there, potentially reading whatever may follow.

New paragraph, trying to brush of caring about my possible audience. Life is full right now--busy, but that's not really quite the right word. "Full" is a much better word, because I am so intrigued right now by what I'm doing--and "busy" seems so... frivolous, like I'm running around doing a million insignificant things. It's more like I'm running around doing two or three big, important things, and all the tiny things involved therewith. Well, they feel important to me. Teaching music and establishing a choir. And being a leader in an already-established choir--well, that is, stressing about being a leader. I haven't done a great deal of actual leading yet.

So that's what I'm doing, but that's boring. Let's talk about what I'm thinking about. I picked up a book at the bookstore a few days ago called "Living a Life That Matters" by a Jewish rabbi, can't remember his name. It was one of those serendipitous encounters, mine with this book, that happens sometimes to me, that lets me know God loves me and guides me. I was in the bookstore picking up materials for a French diction class I'm accompanying (I incidentally want to learn to speak French, so I'm treating it like I'm a student in the class). I was tired and out of it, and sort of staring mindlessly at the bookshelf (the Music books were right across the aisle from the Organizational Behavior books) and saw this title. "Living a Life That Matters", and thought: hm, that concerns me. Picked it up and started reading, and have yet to put it down, really.

He's got so many interesting ideas, the main one being the conflict that we all feel between our need to be good, moral people, and our need to matter, or be important, somehow receive recognition for what we've done. Now, my first thought was that these two things aren't mutually exclusive, are they? Can't a person find a way to matter and still be good and moral? But the Rabbi/author cites so many examples where these two needs create conflict, for instance when the pursuit of perfection or recognition or attainment causes causes us to violate our moral code. I find it interesting that he believes these needs (the need to think of ourselves as good, and the need to matter) are nearly as basic as our need for love, food, shelter, etc.

He also talks about mother-love vs. father-love. We need both. Mother-love is the sort of love that tells us "No matter how often you fail, how low you fall, who you kill, etc., I will always love you because you are my inherently lovable child." Father-love is a little different: father-love must be earned by our attainment. Father love says: "I love you because you have done such and such, overcome such and such obstacles, accomplished great things, etc." Of course we need to be loved unconditionally, but we also need to feel that we have earned and deserved love, that we have done well enough to make our Father proud. The idea of course being that our God embodies both of these kinds of love, the kind that pulls us out of, and validates us in the midst of, our deepest failures, as well as the kind that pushes us to work hard and attain great things. What a let-down it would be to work so hard to be good, either morally good, or good at something and then feel only that God is putting up with us or that He only loves us in spite of ourselves.

So I like these ideas. But one idea that makes me squirm a little is a definition of sin: to sin is to cut oneself off from relationships that require give and take. Yes, there is actually a Rabbi out there who, irrespective of the complicated nature of such a huge word as "sin," sums it up entirely in the context of relationships. I squirm because I find myself doing that, over and over, in such a variety of ways.... Obviously I don't have to accept his definition, but I have to say, I feel the truth in it.

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More on this later.