May 2, 1984

We meet here today, O Lord, in celebration of two events: Mother’s Day and the 8^th anniversary of the founding of our Emanuel Seniors.

For all the original members who, by Your Grace, are still with us, and all who have joined since, we offer up our thanks and appreciation.

We hope it is Your will that we Emanuel Seniors keep meeting in mutual friendship and interest for many anniversaries yet to come.

June 6, 1984

In these years of our life, O Lord, when all is not as it was, and those we know grow fewer in number, we are ever more aware of our need for the sound of a friendly voice, and the touch of a friendly hand.

And just as we need, so do others.

With bowed head we ask Your help, O Lord, to keep our mind and heart free of ill-will and ill-thought, so we may be ever ready to extend a friendly hand and a friendly word to those around us, and to our own self.

Both of these invocations, written a roughly a month apart, have the same themes: Friendship, appreciation, and the ability to offer solace. My grandmother was 77 years old when she wrote them. She would live another thirteen years, passing away less than a month after her 90^th birthday.

As one ages, they naturally lean towards strong, mutual friendships that can offer a kind voice, loving touch, and warm thoughts when it becomes challenging to do daily activities, and little aches and pains become more bothersome.

My grandmother, however, never seemed to outwardly need the support of others. While a tiny woman, she was emotional and physically strong, and the one to offer rather than ask for help.

In 1954, at the age of 47, she wrote in a journal, “Some children believe in an equal division of the family – the “givers” (the parents naturally) and the “takers.” My mother, her daughter, would have been 21 at the time, either living at home or with a man named Herbert Ross.

Recently, I was told my grandmother was mortified my mother was living with a man. She would try to cover up the scandal, making up stories as to why my mother wasn’t home. Ironically, after my father passed away, when I was nine and my brother eleven, my mother reignited her affair with Herbert. My brother and I were asked to lie about her liaisons

For nine years, we feigned ignorance about the cars in the driveways, man in the house, trips to Mammoth (where he had a summer and ski camp), mid-week escapades, why my mother couldn’t come to the phone, and much more.

In 1965, at the age of 56, my grandmother wrote, “Gratitude to the parents for past favors is not passed back to the parents, but on to the new children. But the ingratitude comes roosting home to mama and papa. So for your own peace of mind, expect no gratitude from your children, and try to overlook and not make an issue of their ingratitude.”

My mother was 35 at the time, and no doubt, wrapped up in her own life with two children, and a husband who worked six-days a week at his garment factory in downtown Los Angeles.

Even though my grandmother wrote “expect no gratitude from children,” she’s wrong. A person’s role, whether a child, parent, grandparent or friend, isn’t what determines their ability to express gratitude. It is the person.

And while my mother seemed to have little gratitude towards her mother, as a granddaughter, I’m deeply appreciative to my grandmother for having given of herself, asking little of me except to listen, learn, and one day, put my writing to good use.

Some days ago, O Lord, we celebrated the festival of Purim, which commemorates the participation of Queen Esther in foiling the plans of the wicked Haman to crush our people of Persia under the heel of hatred and prejudice.

Though today we are blessed to live in a country that guarantees religious freedom to all its peoples, we must never let down our guard for always another Haman looms on the horizon.

So let it be, O Lord, that we ourselves never allow hatred and prejudice to taint our feelings towards our fellow beings, and that our country remain ever true to its own precepts; that we the people be free to practice a faith of our own choosing, and each in our own way.

It’s astonishing how twenty-eight years after my grandmother wrote these invocations, circumstances are the same or worse. After September 11, 2001, questions about religious freedoms, prejudice, and hatred multiplied, focused primarily on Muslims. Like any faith, however, what was preached by pockets of radicals wasn’t indicative of all followers.

Most recently, religious freedom was elevated when President Obama requested health insurance plans provide contraceptive coverage for employees who work for Catholic hospitals, universities, and service agencies. Although, it’s confusing to me as to how supporting birth control for these employees, who undoubtedly represent the breadth of religious beliefs, is considered an “infringement on religious liberties and conscience of Catholics.”

Just because someone works for an organization doesn’t mean they should be forced to subscribe to beliefs and behaviors that are counter to their own. No one is telling a bishop to go out and reproduce! And neither should a bishop order a teacher at a Catholic school to be abstinent!

The religious freedoms my grandmother was undoubtedly referring to was Judaism. Unfortunately, anti-Semitism is on the rise, fueled by deniers who claim the Holocaust never happened, hate speech on the Internet, and continuing turmoil in the Middle East.

Even though there might be tumult in various community and cities throughout America, which test the bounds of religious freedoms, the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

This amendment serves as American’s Queen Esther against the temporary uprising of another Haman.

We thank you, O Lord, for the tranquility of this day.

In a world beset by strife and turmoil, we as individuals in our own little worlds, make every effort to live in peace and harmony with our neighbors, friends and family.

And when of an afternoon, we come to meet with our fellow members, we bring with us goodwill and friendship, and on parting, wish each other well.

Please, O Lord, let it ever be so.

Reading this invocation, I paused at the word “tranquility.” It’s aspiring, but difficult to achieve in today’s topsy-turvy, taxing, tumultuous society with ringing phones, beeping computers, blaring ads, screeching traffic, and endless demands from parenting to driving, working, shopping, tidying, gardening, cooking, accounting, responding, and recreating, which if you’re tired from your countless other obligations can be equally exhausting.

Tranquility in 2012? Maybe not.

Reading my grandmother’s letters, written long before I was born, I got a glimpse into what she may have considered tranquility. With five sisters and two brothers, and seven sisters on her husband’s side, her weekends were often filled with visiting, car rides, dinners and lunches.

Telephones were new-fangled and not a good replacement for letter writing. Walking to the store, typically several times a week, was common. Driving was for pleasure, often to the beach or other southern California site. Parks were sprinkled with picnic baskets, teaming with kids, barking dogs, and teens hanging out within eyeshot of watchful parents.

Times were simpler. Tranquility more attainable.

For Charlotte Bronte, author of Jane Eyre, tranquility wasn’t a desirable state. She wrote, “It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth.

Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, to absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.”

If Charlotte Bronte lived today, she probably would have yearned for the opportunity to do little more than play the piano, knit a pair of socks, or “stagnate” for a few minutes!

We thank you, O Lord, for this day and the tomorrow that is to come. The start of a new year with its unrevealed destiny for the world, is fast approaching.

In earnest longing, and from the depths of our being, we offer up this prayer for the year 1984:

May it be a year of peace between nations;
A year of goodwill between all peoples;
A year of building; no more destroying;
A year of sharing, between all peoples, the riches and fruitful abundance of Your earth;
A year when the human spirit of decency, honor and justice will prevail above all.
Hear our prayer, O Lord, and let it so be.

While driving home from work this evening, it occurred to me I haven’t commented on and posted my grandmother’s invocations in many months. I found it ironic, when I looked at the next invocation in her series, it was dated December 21, 1983… exactly twenty-seven years ago!

Sadly, this past year hasn’t been one of peace between nations, goodwill between people, and decency, honor, and justice for all. It’s been the opposite. Even worse, equality, tolerance, and benevolence are now more of an utopian fantasy than it was in the early 1980’s.

The rise of the super wealthy in concert with increases in poverty levels, uprising on every continent, famine and droughts, economic instability, and hatred prorogated by fringe factions paints a grim picture, which is shaping the world’s destiny in 2012.

Our hope for a better future hinges not only on prayer, but recognizing we aren’t powerless to change the status quo. While 2011 has been a year of tremendous upheaval, it might have set the stage for constructive, and beneficial change.