Natural moosemanship!
I have been AWOL .... Sorry:(
Things have been crazy, but not as crazy as this!
I think I might take up a new hobby!
http://www.freewebs.com/truenorthmeese/naturalmoosemanship.htm
Saturday, October 18, 2008 Common Rotation behind the cut
October 18th 2008 Newsletter
Do you know how Osama Bin Laden's Father died? Most American's don't know much about him. Mohammed Bin Laden was the contractor who renovated the New Mecca and built all the highways in Saudi Arabia . Osama would often go with his father to work. From 1962 till 1966, according to the work site log books, he watched his father demolish 768 houses along with 928 shops and stores. They would simply blow them up with dynamite.
Mohammed loved aviation and owned dozens of private jets. He hired blond-haired, blue-eyed former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot Gerald Aurbach,(pronounced Jerry Orbach) to be his chief personal pilot. Gerald eventually trained all of Mohammed's new pilots, including his last one, Jim Harrington, who was also a blond-haired blue-eyed former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot. While taking Mohammed to one of his work sites, on what was his third or fourth flight for him, instead of landing on the airstrip next to where Osama was waiting for his father, Jim missed and crashed the plane into the side of the mountain right behind it, crushing the cockpit and killing the both of them instantly. They gave Osama his father's pocket watch. They keep the wreckage of the plane on display in the lobby of The Bin Laden Aviation building. It's open to the public. You can check it out the next time you're in Saudi Arabia.
After his father's death, Osama devotes his life to Islamic Fundamentalism, denouncing his own family and their Western ties. Up until this point, no one in the Bin Laden family, not any of his 54 brothers and sisters, had been particularly religious. It was widely known that Mohammed only dragged himself and his family to Mosque because that was where all the big government contracts were handed out.
George H. W. Bush had a similar move. He lived in Massachusetts and was never religious or "church going" until he brought the whole family to Texas to get into the oil game. He quickly learned that the church is where the big oil deals were being made so he forced his family there every Sunday. After a series of failures in being himself, his son, George, Jr., felt obliged to try and excell in the few areas that his father had not. He became a devout, born again evangelical Christian. And a Cowboy. He felt this call on July 6th, 1987. It was his 40th birthday.
I don't want my child's course to be set by the mistakes I've made. I'd like them to have a healthy relationship with God and for religion to be an option available. But I don't know how. I am agnostic. I felt this call on July 6th, 2008. It was my 30th birthday.
My grandfather Jack was not a practicing Jew at all, but he forced himself and his family across town to the Kew Gardens Orthodox Jewish Center instead of the reform temple that was much closer to their house. He did this every Saturday because, in his words: "it was where all the rich people went". It would be good for his business. My grandfather was a rubber man in the foam business. Or is it a foam man in the rubber business? Either way he worked for a company that made ladies brassiers. The joke was on him, though, because men and women didn't sit together at the Kew Gardens Orthodox Jewish Center. At home he didn't even celebrate Hanukkah. So, of course, the first chance my father got he ran away and went off to rabbinical school to become a Rabbi.
I don't know what the term "culturally Jewish" means, but I do remember being in my teens and going to a cousin's house with my family for a seder and getting upset that we weren't taking it seriously enough. It made no sense to me to go through the motions of anything. I felt that we should either do it for real or not at all. That we were mocking God by doing it without heart and effort. That surely this couldn't be pleasing to Him?
So how do you do it? How do you raise a child to have a healthy relationship with God? If you try and do it half-assed, for business purposes, they will see through you and blow up buildings and wage wars to get back at you. If you go all out and force it, trying to save them every Friday, Saturday or Sunday then you end up with the Son of Sam who lived in the same apartment complex in Queens as my grandmother, or Lindsey Lohan, who is from the same part of Long Island that I am. She now lives in Hollywood. Down the block from me.
So I've decided, for the sake of my child, to become a Hasidim. I'm going to devote my entire life to Judaism. I'm going to lead a wholly religious life, but I'm not going to share it. I'm not going to circumcise them or throw a bar or bat mitzvah. I'm not going to take them to temple even though I will be there every Friday and Saturday. I'm not going to demand that they use a different knife and fork for cheese and meat, though I will. It will be my own private and personal lifestyle choice. It will be one that is available to them, but not forced upon them. They'll be free to run around on a Friday night, catching junebugs and folding up baseball cards to put in the spokes of their bicycle wheels so they make that motor sound.
Meanwhile, I'll be busy celebrating: The Ten days of Repentance, Yom Kippur, Sukkoth, Simchat Torah, Hanukkah,Tenth of Tevet, New Year of The Trees ,Purim, New Year for Kings, Passover, Sefirahz-Counting of the Omer, Lag Ba'Omer, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Memorial Day, Yom Yerushalaimz-Jerusalem Day, Shavuot, Seventeenth of Tammuz, The Three Weeks and the Nine Days, Tisha B'av and The Shabbat every Friday and Saturday.
So, if my kid grows up to blow up a building, or wage a war on the wrong country, it won't be because of God or Religion. It will be because I didn't spend any time with them. Amen.
Things have been crazy, but not as crazy as this!
I think I might take up a new hobby!
http://www.freewebs.com/truenorthmeese/naturalmoosemanship.htm
Saturday, October 18, 2008 Common Rotation behind the cut
October 18th 2008 Newsletter
Do you know how Osama Bin Laden's Father died? Most American's don't know much about him. Mohammed Bin Laden was the contractor who renovated the New Mecca and built all the highways in Saudi Arabia . Osama would often go with his father to work. From 1962 till 1966, according to the work site log books, he watched his father demolish 768 houses along with 928 shops and stores. They would simply blow them up with dynamite.
Mohammed loved aviation and owned dozens of private jets. He hired blond-haired, blue-eyed former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot Gerald Aurbach,(pronounced Jerry Orbach) to be his chief personal pilot. Gerald eventually trained all of Mohammed's new pilots, including his last one, Jim Harrington, who was also a blond-haired blue-eyed former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot. While taking Mohammed to one of his work sites, on what was his third or fourth flight for him, instead of landing on the airstrip next to where Osama was waiting for his father, Jim missed and crashed the plane into the side of the mountain right behind it, crushing the cockpit and killing the both of them instantly. They gave Osama his father's pocket watch. They keep the wreckage of the plane on display in the lobby of The Bin Laden Aviation building. It's open to the public. You can check it out the next time you're in Saudi Arabia.
After his father's death, Osama devotes his life to Islamic Fundamentalism, denouncing his own family and their Western ties. Up until this point, no one in the Bin Laden family, not any of his 54 brothers and sisters, had been particularly religious. It was widely known that Mohammed only dragged himself and his family to Mosque because that was where all the big government contracts were handed out.
George H. W. Bush had a similar move. He lived in Massachusetts and was never religious or "church going" until he brought the whole family to Texas to get into the oil game. He quickly learned that the church is where the big oil deals were being made so he forced his family there every Sunday. After a series of failures in being himself, his son, George, Jr., felt obliged to try and excell in the few areas that his father had not. He became a devout, born again evangelical Christian. And a Cowboy. He felt this call on July 6th, 1987. It was his 40th birthday.
I don't want my child's course to be set by the mistakes I've made. I'd like them to have a healthy relationship with God and for religion to be an option available. But I don't know how. I am agnostic. I felt this call on July 6th, 2008. It was my 30th birthday.
My grandfather Jack was not a practicing Jew at all, but he forced himself and his family across town to the Kew Gardens Orthodox Jewish Center instead of the reform temple that was much closer to their house. He did this every Saturday because, in his words: "it was where all the rich people went". It would be good for his business. My grandfather was a rubber man in the foam business. Or is it a foam man in the rubber business? Either way he worked for a company that made ladies brassiers. The joke was on him, though, because men and women didn't sit together at the Kew Gardens Orthodox Jewish Center. At home he didn't even celebrate Hanukkah. So, of course, the first chance my father got he ran away and went off to rabbinical school to become a Rabbi.
I don't know what the term "culturally Jewish" means, but I do remember being in my teens and going to a cousin's house with my family for a seder and getting upset that we weren't taking it seriously enough. It made no sense to me to go through the motions of anything. I felt that we should either do it for real or not at all. That we were mocking God by doing it without heart and effort. That surely this couldn't be pleasing to Him?
So how do you do it? How do you raise a child to have a healthy relationship with God? If you try and do it half-assed, for business purposes, they will see through you and blow up buildings and wage wars to get back at you. If you go all out and force it, trying to save them every Friday, Saturday or Sunday then you end up with the Son of Sam who lived in the same apartment complex in Queens as my grandmother, or Lindsey Lohan, who is from the same part of Long Island that I am. She now lives in Hollywood. Down the block from me.
So I've decided, for the sake of my child, to become a Hasidim. I'm going to devote my entire life to Judaism. I'm going to lead a wholly religious life, but I'm not going to share it. I'm not going to circumcise them or throw a bar or bat mitzvah. I'm not going to take them to temple even though I will be there every Friday and Saturday. I'm not going to demand that they use a different knife and fork for cheese and meat, though I will. It will be my own private and personal lifestyle choice. It will be one that is available to them, but not forced upon them. They'll be free to run around on a Friday night, catching junebugs and folding up baseball cards to put in the spokes of their bicycle wheels so they make that motor sound.
Meanwhile, I'll be busy celebrating: The Ten days of Repentance, Yom Kippur, Sukkoth, Simchat Torah, Hanukkah,Tenth of Tevet, New Year of The Trees ,Purim, New Year for Kings, Passover, Sefirahz-Counting of the Omer, Lag Ba'Omer, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Memorial Day, Yom Yerushalaimz-Jerusalem Day, Shavuot, Seventeenth of Tammuz, The Three Weeks and the Nine Days, Tisha B'av and The Shabbat every Friday and Saturday.
So, if my kid grows up to blow up a building, or wage a war on the wrong country, it won't be because of God or Religion. It will be because I didn't spend any time with them. Amen.