Get Out There!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you for joining me. I'm Rabbi David Lyon from
Congregation Methy Israel in Houston, Texas. Each week I often
imagine what you need to hear, what you'd like to
learn about. But today I'd like to share with you
what I've been experiencing and hearing around me. Because the
news is filled with so much static, so much information.

(00:24):
I have had more people reach me lately than ever before.
What to do, how to react, how to say something
to other people? Very smart, intelligent, prepared people. Adults and
older young adults too have been perplexed lately, where in

(00:44):
the past they fell prepared to address the world as
it is, to learn more about it as they should,
and then to do something about it. So as I've
reflected on these questions that I've been given and had
to take time to prepare my answers to them, I
received an email not too long ago, a long email

(01:07):
filled with personal frustrations and aggravations because of the world
that they're experiencing, and wanted me to respond. I wrote
back first and simply said, thank you for sharing your
personal feelings with me, but give me a couple of
days because your words deserve the time that I will

(01:28):
need to respond properly because this is the time of
our lives when so much is happening all at once, everywhere,
that we need to take more personal control to respond
properly and to control our temperament and our responses. So

(01:49):
offering that I respect the words and the email that
I received, but also respecting the time that they deserved,
allowed that writer to know that he had something important
to say and that I needed time to respond, because
today we tend to respond with a knee jerk reaction.

(02:10):
It doesn't settle well, it doesn't land well, and it
isn't received well either. I have been sharing with people
that we are like a cat chasing a laser pointer
in a game that is fun for the person holding
the laser, but frustrating, aggravating, and not too playful for

(02:30):
the cat. And if we are the cat, then we're
running around constantly chasing after something that we will never catch,
we will never find, and will never completely understand. The
news is scattered, the news is frantic, and while one
day it's this way and another day it's that way,

(02:51):
we're trying to use the same methods and procedures that
we use in the past to address those headlines and
those stories beneath the headlines. But our tactic and our
strategy isn't working very well because the news is so distracting,
so unusual, that while it may not appeal to us

(03:14):
or give us an opportunity to respond as we have
in the moment, if we give it a little time,
a couple of days, maybe even more than a couple
of days, we find that it changes again and might
resolve itself in a way that is more predictable than
we thought, or at least it might be where it is,

(03:34):
and then we're more prepared to respond to it as
we should. So when someone comes to me and says
I can't take it anymore, the news is making me
anxious and upset, I tell them stop being the cat
chasing the laser pointer around the room, turn off the television,

(03:55):
turn off the internet, and wait until the end of
the day to see how the news lands, or look
another day and see how the morning begins. Because the
news changes constantly on the direction of any person in
power today is not as predictable or as consistent as

(04:16):
it used to be. My tactic personally is to give
time for the news to settle wait for the headlines
to land, because the most urgent headline, which every news
source is eager to produce and to publish, is not
the last word, is not even the middle word. And
so if we allow ourselves the calmness, the temperament that

(04:41):
we're accustomed to, will discover that we're really not as
anxious as we need to be, and we still are
the same people we thought we were. We can still
bring to all the news of the day a sensible,
adult like, mature perspective that allows us to respond to
the news and to have conversations with others about the

(05:01):
news that could be more productive and generative. But the
other response that I get from people is an overwhelming
sense of grief and foreboding. They feel that the world
that they knew, especially if they're in their fifties, sixties,
or seventies, is a world that is so different from

(05:22):
them than what they knew in the past that they
feel that they have to grieve what is lost or
gone forever, and they wonder what it's been all about
because in the past they participated in demonstrations or voted
for certain issues and felt that they had made a
productive difference in a world that everybody had access to enjoy,

(05:44):
and today all of those efforts seem for naught. So
again I've urged them to get busy with other people
like them to make a positive difference. What it means
is that while the world's news in this global world
and economy is right there available to us every time

(06:06):
we open the newspaper, turn on the internet, or begin
to scroll on social media, the most important place where
we can make a difference and be productive again is
in our local community, right here where we know people.
The organizations in our neighborhood and community, our houses of
worship are doing good work to make a difference right

(06:28):
where we live, and that's where we need the difference
to be. In my synagogue, every month, people gather for
probe and call Kids Meals. It's a program that engages
congregants and friends of the congregation to come and pack
lunches a thousand lunches each month for hungry young children

(06:51):
in Houston. It really makes a difference because we're also
not the only house of worship doing it, and the
meals that young children are able to eat helps all
of us feel like we've taken from the good that
we have and given it to others too. Kids meals
is just one small example of local issues that help
us feel more in control because of the difference that

(07:13):
we're making here. I also urge people to take time
for themselves because it's productive, It isn't selfish, it isn't narcissistic.
Meditation works for some, but not for everybody. I personally
love prayer, but I'm not a meditator. But a good
walk can be relieving. It can be enlarging in the

(07:36):
sense that it helps to quiet the mind and focus
on nature and gives us time to reflect. Maybe even
walking with a friend or two is nice. You don't
have to have thirty friends. You don't have to have ten.
Two or three makes a nice walking group, or even
a nice conversation around coffee or tea or a small meal.

(07:58):
Join a reader's grip where you're reading a book of
the day or even a good old fashioned classic, and
use the book as an opportunity to bring comments and
questions and reflections. And if there's a tangent that takes
you into modern day politics, if it's helpful, go there.
But if it isn't, avoid it and go back to

(08:19):
the book and its theme and its thesis, so that
you can feel that you've grown and nourished yourself intellectually
and socially. Online conversations can be helpful and helpful because
if you can't get out of the house or be
as mobile as you'd like to be, there are places
where you can gather with like minded people online that

(08:41):
can be generative too. Not too much time, but a
little time here and there is what social media at
its best can be for us, because it creates community
where we can't gain it for ourselves at home. I
used to sit on the United Way of Greater Houston
board of trustees years ago before I termed limited and

(09:06):
moved on to other roles in the community and nationally too.
But I'll never forget that United Way of Greater Houston
had a slogan and it said, simply do something about it.
It was a quick, short and urgent message that in
the thick of challenges that were common in the past,

(09:28):
no differently than today, even if today's feel more intense
and pressured. Doing something about it is important because we
are human beings who know how to make a difference,
and the community is waiting for us. There is no
time like the present to make a difference, do something
about it is the urgent message that all of us

(09:50):
can respond to, just as we learn from our classic texts.
The Book of Ecclesiastes begins with the words vanity of vanities,
all isanity. Maybe it all does mean nothing, But that's
not what the rabbis of old said, they said, But
now that we're here, despite it all, it's our obligation

(10:10):
and duty to make a positive difference. And Elieuisel of
Blessed Memory, a Holocaust survivor who found through faith and
action a way to contribute to the well being of
the world, said, the opposite of love is not hate,
it's indifference. Now you and I can work on deepening love.

(10:32):
We get love, we are loved, We give love, We
understand it, and so that isn't the problem. We can
even work on transforming hate because hate is a human emotion.
It's a feeling, and if we identify it in others
or even in a cause, we know that we can
apply pressure, education, information, and embrace and maybe if not immediately,

(10:56):
then later hate will be transformed into like friendship and
maybe even love. But Elie Weisel was right when he
said that the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference,
because indifference is inhuman to feel nothing for another person,
to feel absolutely nothing about a crisis or a cause,

(11:18):
and to say it has nothing to do with me
is to deny the real reason why you were created.
It's to set aside the purpose of our being human beings.
Because only human beings, unlike animals, we understand from where
we came. We appreciate and acknowledge consciously our creator and

(11:40):
give thanks to our creator for our act of creation. Therefore,
to be indifferent is to disable our understanding of the
whole purpose of this mechanism that we see operating the
world around us. And though it might not be operating
the way we'd like or correctly at all, as might surmise,

(12:01):
our role is to apply ourselves and to make a difference,
to transform hate into love, and to transform anything negative
into something more positive. Our goal is not to get
into a rut and not to fail our own humanity,
and the way we begin is by aiming and applying

(12:22):
ourselves to make a positive difference where we are. I'm
Rabbi David Lyon from Congregation Beth Israel in Houston. To
listen again or to share this message, please find it
at my podcast called Heart to Heart with Rabbi David Lyon.
You can find it at Sunny ninety nine dot com
on the iHeartRadio app. And so as many young people

(12:47):
are returning from spring break or heading out on spring break,
but certainly looking forward to warmer, beautiful weather outside, it
is time to do what many people have told us
in the past, to get out there, not to be
in a rut, and to appreciate that while the world
may be hectic, it isn't the first time that the

(13:07):
world has been this way. It's just that we got
a little spoiled, maybe even a little complacent, because the
normal challenges of the past seem to pale by comparison
to the ones that we feel challenged by today. But
it doesn't change who we are, or what we are,
or our obligations to other human beings to be sure

(13:28):
that locally at home, in the larger community around us,
and ultimately in the world around us, we can make
a difference and bend the arc towards justice, so that
one day we can say to our children and our
grandchildren that I was able to contribute and to leave

(13:49):
to you a world better than the way I found it.
So let's not lament or be too grievous or be
foreboding about what can be. It begins and continues with us.
And if we can't do it alone, then find at
least one other person to hold hands with, to embrace,
and to partner in making a difference where you are.

(14:11):
And if you don't know where to begin, go online,
look at the United Way, or your house of worship
or other local non profit organization, and see what you
could do today for the sake of tomorrow. I know
that as we come and go from a house of worship, too,
listen not for the political point of view or even

(14:33):
the challenging social issues, look for the themes of values,
of sacred texts of God's purpose of hope in humanity,
and those will lift you up and give you creative
thoughts and ideas about the difference you can make today
and tomorrow. Thank you for joining me today. I look
forward to being with you again next time.