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November 14, 2013

A few years ago my cousins and my aunt sued me for medical malpractice to the tune of five million dollars.  The details of the grievance maybe of interest, but the outcome was lose-lose; the suit was deemed without merit, but my family was decimated. 


Growing up, my father fed us a tincture of the fantasy that ours was the perfect family.  It took medical school and hours of psychotherapy to realize the myth.  Who amongst us has not come to the painful realization that although blood is thicker than water, you can swim in water but drown in ketchup?  Our deepest stabs are at the hand of those closest to home.


As we grow into adulthood, our cherished relationships must be mutually earned, daily reborn out of love and respect.


Jacob’s life is our story, our personal journey.  He begins by fighting with his twin brother before exiting his previously barren mother’s womb.  He deceitfully steals his brother’s birthright taking advantage of his father’s poor sight.  He flees to another land to escape his brother’s wrath where he becomes the subject of his own wrongdoings.  He is tricked into bed with his beloved’s sister and labors yet another seven years to win the hand of his love. 


After a long metaphoric journey into himself, it is time for him return home.  On the way, he realizes he is not the same man that left years ago.  He questions his ego- that straight jacket which holds back our natural desire to give and receive love.  Love, like money, has no value in a vault, until spent; unlike money, love is unlimited in source, the more you spend the richer you become. Jacob sends his entourage and his newly acquired wealth ahead, staying behind alone in the desert to cleanse himself and figure out his approach to his physically stronger brother.  In the dark of the night a man attacks him, wounds him, yet Jacob “wins”  the same way I “won” my dispute.  With the clarity of the morn, his hip broken, Jacob limps “God was here and I didn't know it!” His ego has been pierced.

Within our challenges are lessons from God understood only as a blessed memory!  Although I have a cold today, I am not a sick person.  The virus blesses me with gratitude towards health.  Though part of us limps, we are not crippled.  One part fixes the other, another overcomes.  Our parts are twin brothers wrestling, though on surface we appear calm, deep down anxieties abide.

To reconcile we must embrace our schizophrenic self, our many parts.  There is good and bad in all of us which is not hypocrisy but the polarity of electrons and protons, positives and negatives, necessary for balance.  We are not of a single thread but a motley tapestry, in the image of all of God’s creation.  I constantly battle juggling a career, my passions and young children.  There are layers to the self.  There are also forces that oppose each other within our core, the largest being that annoying tug of war between the satisfaction with our current lot which can cause us to become stale and the reach for excellence which necessitates our dissatisfaction with the present!  

To further complicated things, as we are challenged by adversity, we leave behind layers that we no longer find useful while tending to ones that present higher joy and meaning.  Couples grow apart in some areas, at times far enough that their love snaps.  Our parts are fluid.  To those seeking marriage, I advise not to look for everything in one person. Lovers need only look in the same direction. There is a part of us that needs and cares for the spouse, but another that yearns for a connection to a mentor, yet another that shares the passion of a hobby. 

After years of seeking revenge, the twins meet with Esau's army of 400 ready to destroy Jacob. Yet instead Esau falls to his knees and begins to weep.  At that moment Esau sees the face of God in his brother.   Rabbi David Wolpe tells of his father's remarkable interpretation- that in those days there were no mirrors to reflect one's image. The two brothers had not seen each other for years.  Esau seeing his twin brother worn down by years, aged, ragged, sees his own reflection, suddenly realizing the wasted years lost in hatred, and then begins to sob.   Perhaps also for the first time he comes to love his brother as himself, his sworn enemy transformed into his own reflection, for once feeling the shared placenta, the matching DNA, the blood of their mother pulsating the same chord. And in that moment, what is left but Love? All walls of ego crumble. All thoughts of “me” dissipate. All wants evaporate. He becomes helpless, vulnerable. Powerless love. That is true love. That is what took over Rumi's verse when he met Shams. How naked, uncomfortable to stare at another's eyes, for we become one if we allow that moment to last. That is when the Face of God appears.  The Face of God is a mirror where the brothers see each other's courage and their own souls.
 
Recently, after watching Les Miserable, I reread parts of the masterpiece. The last line always brings me to tears- simple: to love another is to see the face of God. Have you ever loved that way? We are all made in the image of God, but we are too preoccupied with ourselves to see the other. Pure beauty is the rainbow at the end of ego.  We get a glimpse into that eternity at the birth of a child, or at that moment of passion- what the French call “a little death.” Moses saw God face to Face, he who loved God so much that his love set a non-consuming Flame to a bush. The only way to know God is to love, and to love many things and deeply as said van Gogh. As Hugo observed “To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.” Have you seen the Face of God lately? Have you looked? Have you loved?


There is tremendous guilt associated with walking away from family, heart breaks, and shattered parts of us splattered against the unforgiving floor of memory.  We are not bound to all who come in and out of our lives, but if we have faith in God, we will find the crumbs of those sparks which He has placed on our path to remind us of  our way back to Him.


Someday, if you love what is best in you, if you allow it, someone will embrace you so tight that all your broken pieces will be glued together anew.

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