#77 - Going Home
1 Family Photo, 1 Dad-Joke, Many Highlights
1 Family Photo: Going Home
From Brazil to the US takes a 2-hour van ride from Tres Rios to the airport, a flight to Houston, an extended scan through customs and TSA, a longer than anticipated layover (thanks TSA), a flight to LA, and a 5-hour van ride home.
The trip was easier for Lawrence. He saw it as adventure. Calvin has more memories now, so he's more aware of what we're leaving behind. I don't like seeing him sad, but it's beautiful to see how connected he is to the people and places that shaped us in Brazil.
In the van Calvin asked repeatedly, through bleary eyes, "But why do we have to leave?"
"Because that's where we live."
"But why?" Calvin responded.
Echoed again and again, I found my answer wanting. Another version of, "Because I said so."
We can live anywhere, can't we? Isn't wherever we are where we live?
This nomadic magical thinking came to an abrupt halt in Houston, when the customs agent asked, "Where do you live? Here or there? Why were you out of the country for so long?" This is a precise legal question with immigration implications.
"We live in the US. We were outside the country for 5 1/2 months, which we are allowed to do, for family reasons. Please put the appropriate stamps to our travel documents."
Welcome home.
Good news! Calvin and Lawrence are thrilled to be here. They're making up for months away playing endlessly with their American grandparents.
1 Dad Joke: Tired
Why did the wheel stop working?
He retired.
Highlights: Home
The Agnostic’s Guide to Jewish Prayer by Russ Roberts
Sometimes I think people presume that prayer is for the pious — for the people whose faith is unshakeable, who have all the answers, who know with certainty that God exists and runs the universe and that every story has a happy ending.
…
But for me it’s the opposite. My faith is imperfect. Some of the time, I’m agnostic in the sense that I just don’t know. I pray anyway. Prayer is my way of savoring the most fundamental mysteries and letting them fill me with wonder. Why the heart starts beating when we’re in the womb. Why we all long for home. The joy and sorrow we feel on an autumn day when the sunlight falls on golden leaves but we know that winter is coming. Our yearning to be part of something larger than ourselves. And why, in this world, the one you and I live in that appears at least to be some kind of objective reality, happy endings are not to be presumed.
Prayer is for those parts of our lives and our existence where there are no answers, only mystery and humility. If you’re anything like me, you have plenty of doubts about the point of prayer and Who or What might be listening when you pray, and what such prayer can accomplish. I pray anyway.
Russ is the president of Shalem College in Jerusalem. Keep him, and all people in that region, in your prayers.
The Power of Religion by Will Durant
Religion brings subtle and pervasive gifts to society and the state. Traditional rituals soothe the spirit and bind the generations. The parish church becomes a collective home, weaving individuals into a community. The cathedral rises as the product and pride of the unified municipality. Life is embellished with sacred art, and religious music pours its mollifying harmony into the soul and the group.
...
Protestantism, in time, helped to regenerate the moral life of Europe, and the Church purified herself into an organization politically weaker but morally stronger than before. One lesson emerges above the smoke of the battle: a religion is at its best when it must live with competition; it tends to intolerance when and where it is unchallenged and supreme.
The greatest gift of the Reformation was to provide Europe and America with that competition of faiths which puts each on its own mettle, cautions it to tolerance, and gives to our frail minds the zest and test of freedom.
Does My Son Know You by Jonathan Tjarks
The lie that society tells us is that our friends can be our family. That’s the premise of TV shows like Friends, Seinfeld, and How I Met Your Mother. We can all leave our hometowns behind and have exciting adventures in the big city with people that we meet. And those people will love us and take care of us and be there for us.
But life is more like what happened to the actual actors on Friends...
...
I didn’t need my dad’s money, but I could have used some of his friends.
I don’t want Jackson to have the same childhood that I did. I want him to wonder why his dad’s friends always come over and shoot hoops with him. Why they always invite him to their houses. Why there are so many of them at his games. I hope that he gets sick of them.
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