{"id":1720,"date":"2016-04-23T12:07:17","date_gmt":"2016-04-23T18:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vegetatingwithleslie.org\/?p=1720"},"modified":"2016-04-23T12:07:17","modified_gmt":"2016-04-23T18:07:17","slug":"a-remembrance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vegetatingwithleslie.org\/?p=1720","title":{"rendered":"A Remembrance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dad<\/a><\/p>\n

My Dad’s Yahrzeit is today. He died on the first day of Passover. The\u00a0timing would have been richly symbolic and deeply meaningful to him, although he wasn’t Jewish but was, rather, a Methodist minister.<\/p>\n

That year was the first Seder I missed in 40 years. While others shared the Feast of Freedom at\u00a0the first Seder, I was\u00a0with my Dad, as I had been each evening since his birthday on March 7. Passover was March 26 that year, so the evening of March 25, Rafi and I were with him, Rafi snuggled up on his bed by his feet.<\/p>\n

I thought we\u00a0might spend the night, but hospice said, “Not yet.” They were wrong. My Dad died in the early hours of the morning, March 26. I spent that\u00a0first\u00a0day of Passover, after caring for my Dad, and the evening of the second Seder, in my home, thinking about him\u00a0and absorbing the loss.<\/p>\n

Last night at the Seder, I thought of him. He would have enjoyed the fun and the laughter, the wonderful food and our\u00a0playfulness with the most serious themes of life and death, the necessity and limits of human freedom, and God’s work in history.<\/p>\n

His\u00a0Yahrzeit candle kept me company through the hours at home after the Seder.<\/p>\n

Coincidentally yesterday I read about Dietrich Bonhoeffer as part of an online class I’m taking. I was so moved by this man’s thoughts and his life, by his commitment to embodying faith<\/em>. \u00a0His Christianity was completely counter to the prevailing religious winds in his native Germany in the 1930s and 40s.<\/p>\n

I remember seeing Bonhoeffer’s\u00a0books on my Dad’s shelves many years back. This morning I retrieved a book I received about him when I was working at a college of Jewish studies, a book published in 1986 in German, called Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Bilder aus seinem Leben<\/em>. I read through much of it\u00a0this morning, moved\u00a0again by Bonhoeffer’s powerful, humble, activist faith and by this\u00a0connection to my Dad.<\/p>\n

I also picked up a book of Robert Frost’s poetry to read, someone\u00a0whose books I\u00a0remember my Dad reading in his very last years. I feel deeply blessed that I can\u00a0do these things at this time in my life. This volume of Frost’s poetry has been on my shelves for years, but busy with my life, I didn’t pick it up. Today it was just the right thing.<\/p>\n

The first page drew me in, the simple language that touches on such depths and heights of meaning. In a few words, this prefacing poem is, perhaps, one of the best windows I have found to understanding what Christianity meant to my Dad, and it is something I can experience as meaningful. Interesting how it captures the idea Bonhoeffer also expressed, of embodied faith. I hope I’m not committing a copyright sin by sharing the poem here:<\/p>\n

But God’s own descent
\nInto flesh was meant
\nAs a demonstration
\nThat the supreme merit
\nLay in risking spirit
\nIn substantiation.
\nSpirit enters flesh
\nAnd for all it’s worth
\nCharges into earth
\nIn birth after birth
\nEver fresh and fresh.
\nWe may take the view
\nThat its derring-do
\nThought of in the large
\nIs one mighty charge
\nOn our human part
\nOf the soul’s ethereal
\nInto the material.<\/em><\/p>\n

And so you’re on my mind today, Dad. You’re with me every day, but the candle, the reading, being outside on this beautiful first day of Passover, the Feast of Freedom…it all connects me to you in such an intimate way.<\/p>\n

For more, visit my blog, vegetatingwithleslie.org<\/b><\/a>, \u201cLike\u201d me on FaceBook\/Vegetating with Leslie<\/b> or follow me on Twitter<\/b>, @vegwithleslie.\u00a0Read about my Dad here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Dad’s Yahrzeit is today. He died on the first day of Passover. The\u00a0timing would have been richly symbolic and deeply meaningful to him, although he wasn’t Jewish but was, rather, a Methodist minister. That year was the first Seder I missed <\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts"],"yoast_head":"\nA Remembrance - Vegetating with Leslie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/vegetatingwithleslie.org\/?p=1720\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Remembrance - Vegetating with Leslie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My Dad’s Yahrzeit is today. 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