Damned Hard

I travel back to school today, to pick up classes again tomorrow.  As well as taking classes and doing the homework, I must also apply for summer jobs and internships, as well as considering summer courses as a way to make up the credits I dropped for my medical leave last fall.  It's going to be a big job.

On top of that, I have again realized on a deep, emotional level that I am a homosexual Jew, and that is hard.  As a matter of fact, it is damned hard to be a homosexual Jew.  I am a minority in two ways, and also a minority within a minority, and the minority within which I am a minority doesn't fully accept me.  That's a hard truth to handle.

Moreover, I can talk about God deliberately creating me the way I am until I am blue in the face, but it's hard to keep that faith alive when I have no evidence.  I am aware that by definition faith implies a lack of evidence, but I guess I got spoiled by my visions and other supernatural experiences I let myself have before we knew they were dangerous: I like evidence.

With no evidence for acceptability or decency of who I am, I sometimes just feel malformed.  It is damned hard to be a homosexual Jew.  Damned hard.

Erev Pesach

Today is erev Pesach, the day before Passover.  Tonight, Jews everywhere will hold Passover seders (big ritual meals) in celebration of freedom and remembrance of the exodus from Egypt.  I will have so much to think about this year.

In the first place, this year the Gregorian and Hebrew dates both line up as the seventieth anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.  I don't know what to make of this, but I decided that it's certainly worth mentioning.

Then, of course, there is all the stuff that has been swirling around in my head the past couple of days, and my new-found freedom from self-imposed restrictions.  I celebrate my recognition of myself as fully human, and my determination to have equal religious rights despite--or perhaps because of--the way God made me.

And, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I cannot forget Reece's Rainbow and the children literally tied to their cribs in Eastern European orphanages.  I cannot forget "Rheann" nor stop wondering what is happening to her.  I pray for her personal "exodus" this Passover as well.

Growth and Struggle

If I were a heterosexual man, I would be an Orthodox Jew.  I would have easy access to a community of committed Jews, both spiritually and practically.  I'd never have to explain myself in the Jewish world; I would have peers and a place.

I am not a heterosexual man.  I am a homosexual woman.  Whenever an Orthodox Jew asks me why I am not Orthodox, I usually start with, "I can read Torah as well as the next guy over, and you won't let me."

I believe that I was made the way I am, deliberately by God, so that I could struggle and grow.  I don't believe my soul was meant to have an easy life this time around.  I believe I was meant to learn life lessons that can only be learned by living life, and I can't wait to find out what they are.

Side note: I believe that this is the same reason Reece's Rainbow assigned me a child in Russia for whom to pray.  I do not believe that God moved the Russians or that Russia banning American adoptions was God's work.  I do not believe that Reece's Rainbow taking down its listings of Russian children so that it could focus its efforts on children more likely to get homes was God's work.  I do believe that God knew all this would happen and, knowing I could handle the challenge, gave me "Rheann."

Growth and struggle, always.

A New Place

I am in a new place religiously.

Up until now, despite the fact that I am very open about my lesbianism, I was against homosexual religious marriages and even more so against homosexual Rabbis.  And then!

I was in the shower one evening when I realized that the main reason I am a Conservative (aka not an Orthodox) Jew has little to do with beliefs about the origins of the Torah and even less to do with dietary or sabbath laws.  The issue over which I break with the Orthodox movement is women's rights.  As a woman, I simply cannot stomach a Judaism that denies me certain rights in the synangogue because of part of who I am.

And then that little voice inside me whispered, "Being lesbian is also part of who you are."

So.  If I am to demand equal rights as a woman, I must also demand them as a lesbian.  I am a FEMALE, LESBIAN JEW.  I demand equal opportunities and rights for all parts of me, all at once.  Pure and simple.

Done.  My journey has taken a new turn.  I am excited.

World Down Syndrome Day (sorry a day late)

Yesterday was World Down Syndrome Day, and I feel that I should post about it.  Honestly, however, I'm not sure what to say.  Ask you all to do something? But what? 

The only thing that I can do is remind you of "Rheann," for whom I continue to pray.  I do not see her picture on the Reece's Rainbow site anymore; unless she found a family and I missed it (please, God!) she is literally lost in the system.  "Rheann" has Down Syndrome, but she should be remembered, not forgotten...found, not lost.

And no, I feel no shame in tying a public event like World Down Syndrome Day to "personal" matters like "Rheann."  She needs all the help she can get.

Life

So it seems as if I am overdue for a blog post, but truthfully I am not sure what to write.  I have just recently emerged from the month-long, dark tunnel of the worst bipolar episode I have ever experienced.  Were this a year or so ago, I would probably post all the gory details, but that just doesn't feel right anymore.

I no longer want to post every little detail of my life to this blog.  I have real-life friends now--very good, dear, precious ones--and that may be part of it, but I also believe that as we grow up we come to have more of a need for privacy.  Or not.  Could be that I just don't know what I'm talking about.

School is going as well as I could ask for given current circumstances.  I cannot say I am doing what I consider well, but I am pulling low As and Bs instead of Bs and Cs, so that is something.  I have three really good school friends, my roommates, and three more friends, so I consider myself well set in that department.

About chronic pain: Prior to the aforementioned bipolar episode, I was completing a pain management routine that took approximately an hour and a half almost every day.  For a variety of reasons, the episode made that so difficult that I just stopped.  I do plan to get back into that over Spring break--pray for me that I can!

If you so happen to want the gory details (and fair warning: they are not pleasant) of my episode, let me know, and I can tell you privately via email or something like that.

In sum total, coming out of last month, I am glad to be alive.  That is all.