Month: March 2016

Most Jewish holidays have a similar basis: They tried to wipe us out, we survived, let’s eat! That’s certainly the case on Purim, a one-day merrymaking holiday beginning Wednesday evening. The most iconic food for Purim is hamantashen – cookies in a triangular shape like the hat of the villain of the story, Haman, filled with prunes or poppyseed butter or chocolate and other confections.

I’ve already got a head start on the eating part. This morning at the Jewish Community Centre I picked up two dozen baked as a fundraiser by Na’amat Canada, which has been enhancing the lives of women and children in Israel and Canada since 1925. In the photo, Ruth is displaying a box of hamantashen.

I sent a dozen to a close family member back East so they’ll arrive by Wednesday. Then I came home, made a fresh cup of coffee and began munching. There must be something soporific about hamantashen, because I dozed off a few times for a good part of the day.

Purim is different from other holidays in a couple ways. One is that the story as told in the Scroll of Esther never mentions God. It commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian Empire from destruction in the wake of a plot by Haman. The good guy in the story is Mordechai. The other thing that makes Purim different is that in celebration people drink until they almost can’t tell the difference between the good guy and the bad guy.

I got a bit of a head start on that too this evening when Heather invited her cohousing neighbours to come over for wine to help her celebrate her new job. Two cups were enough. I got drunk a few times in my 20s, ending up with my head over the toilet, and never want to go through that again.

It was our first monthly community meeting onsite at Vancouver Cohousing. After four years of driving across town or travelling from as far away as Vernon and the Sunshine Coast to meet, we could simply stroll out of our new homes to the common house.

Before getting down to the business of the meeting, we spent a full hour checking in one by one on what is bringing us joy and calling for our patience as we settle in.

It was emotional for many of us, especially some of the parents whose kids can now so easily get together with other kids without all the organizing that usually involves. We heard vignettes of folks encountering friendly faces and fresh-baked scones in the courtyard, playing hilarious games of Pictionary in the common house, and the simple pleasures of watching children having fun.

What has called for patience includes excessive exterior lighting, noise from busy 33rd Avenue, massive amounts of cohousing email and the time it’s taking to unpack boxes and really get settled.

The business of the meeting included an explanation from the finance committee about the extent of construction cost overruns and our options for paying for them as shareholders in our development company.

Noah talks about our construction budget issues.

We broke into the teams we’re on for keeping our community running smoothly. We looked at who is on each team, when we’ll next meet and what our priorities are. I’m on the external relations team, focusing on our relationships with our neighbours and the wider world.

The external relations team sets our next team meeting.

While adults meet, kids hang out in their spacious common house playroom.

At 9:30 pm PDT in the midst of Dances of Universal Peace, Amir’s cell phone alarm heralded the arrival of spring. We stopped and hugged, because it also marks Nawruz, the New Year celebrated by the Persians, Kurds, Baha’is, Zoroastrians and others.

These spiritual dances were a wonderful way to bring in the new season. With beautiful melodies and simple movements that even I can do, I love attending these events. There’s another one Sunday evening at 7 at Presentation House in North Vancouver. The common denominator in both events is Alloudin (at left in the photo below), who is helping lead them.

The Vernal or Spring Equinox refers to a day at this time of year when daytime and nighttime are of approximately equal duration. We’ve been in spring mode in Vancouver for several weeks. The Cherry Blossom Festival that starts March 24 is hoping that at least some of the 50 varieties of flowering cherry trees here will still be in bloom.

My favourite memory of cherry blossoms was one spring in Kyoto, Japan, when the fallen petals formed piles like snow drifts that I could run through and kick into the air.

• • • • • •

After Shabbat morning services, I invited my rabbi, Hannah, and her husband Ross to visit me at Vancouver Cohousing. They were amazed at the mountain view when they entered. The last few days I’ve taken advantage of the clear skies to capture some images.

The Lions taken with a telephoto lens set at 280 mm. The Lions refer to what looks like mountain lion ears.

Taken at 130 mm.

With no telephoto.

Shabbat Shalom. In Jewish tradition, on Friday night we sing the song “Shalom Aleichem” to welcome the Shabbat angels with words that mean “Peace unto you . . .  angels of the Most High.”

For me, Shabbat is a time to reflect on what I’m grateful for. I want to honour an anonymous angel who quickly responded to my appeal on Wednesday to help Miriam Nankwanga (photo) with a donation so she can switch to a school where she can boost her science results, and go on to become a teacher. Miriam is one of the five Abayudaya Jewish orphans in Uganda – where I lived 2009-2020 – supported through my chant and Shabbat dinner events. Now 18, Miriam lost both her parents to AIDS in 2007.

“Don’t we all know some angels?” Rabbi Elaine Rose Glickman asks in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles. “The preschool teacher who carries our toddler around all morning when he’s having trouble separating from us. The pediatrician who stays late when our child is sick, or who calls after hours to see how she’s doing. The coach who sees our tween not just as a player, but as a unique and special individual. And when we’re exhausted after a long day, but take the time to eat dinner with our children, to look them in the eye and ask about their day, to snuggle with their favorite book and a blanket instead of retreating to Facebook and Instagram . . . well, just maybe we are angels as well.”

Soon I’ll be launching a crowdfunding campaign to raise about $700 for bicycles for the other four of our students who walk many miles to and from school. I hope more angels will find their wings.

The aluminum front gate has closed with a great clang since we moved in. Because my home is near the entrance, it jars me every time. It especially rattles Nicole, since her bed in her unit is only a few feet away. There was some improvement once I sent a plea to members to close the gate gently and a small sign was placed there. But it was easy for people to forget to use their hand to close it.

Today a hydraulic closer was installed and, Halleluyah, the gate shuts quite quietly now. In the photo, I’m celebrating with Nicole and her sons Emiliano and Alejandro.

It’s a little thing, but it means a lot to the quiet enjoyment of our new homes. Much more noise than I ever experienced in Kerrisdale is the new normal, but I’m getting used to the sounds of children playing and cohousing neighbours laughing when they meet.

A little sunshine after days of rain also helped brighten our day. The mountains are amazing when we can see them.

Vancouverites’ collective amnesia is also amazing. We can have two weeks of rain, and then, once the sun comes out, we’re asking, “Rain? What rain? I don’t remember rain.”

I love being moved to tears at movies, especially when they celebrate the triumph of the human spirit. Tonight my buddy Roni and I saw Eddie the Eagle, which recounts the story of Michael “Eddie the Eagle” Edwards who fulfills a lifelong ambition of becoming an Olympian.

It’s a very good feel-good movie. Some of my favourites sure to open the tear ducts include The Shawshank Redemption, The Lunchbox, The Full Monty, Chef, Sister Act and so many more.

Eddie was a fair English skier who switched to ski jumping because Great Britain had never competed in the Olympics in that sport and it was easier to qualify for the 1988 Calgary Winter Games. He faced many obstacles but won a place on the British team and became the darling of the Games for his unorthodox style and boundless joy at being there. History records that he came dead last.

Taron Egerton plays Eddie and Hugh Jackman his fictinal American coach Bronson Peary. Jim Broadbent plays a British broadcaster who coins the nickname “Eddie the Eagle” for the way Eddie flapped his arms in celebration, and Christopher Walken has a cameo as the coach for Bronson back when he was a troubled golden boy.

I remember working on the newsdesk at Vancouver’s Province daily newspaper during the 1988 Games. Eddie was the human interest story of the Olympics and transcended the sports pages.

Ironically, while Canadian locations often stand in for places in the U.S. and elsewhere in movie shoots, in this British production Oberstdorf, in Bavaria, Germany, stands in for Calgary’s ski jumping centre.

The real Eddie at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics.

This evening I rushed to the parkade to head downtown for a talk and book signing by Natalie Goldberg, Zen teacher, writing coach and author of her 14th book, The Great Spring. But as soon as I got to my car, I turned around. I realized I was going largely to have something to blog about, but what I really wanted to do was concentrate on setting up our shared office space in the common house. Kind of mundane, but that’s what I’m writing about.

This morning, I rode with Cam – whose lovely courtyard night scene is today’s featured photo – in his van to Mark L’s place, where we had stored table tops and legs donated by Taryn’s company when they moved offices last year. When we got back to Vancouver Cohousing, Mark B., a heavy-lifter who regularly hauls around his double bass, helped us move the tables up stairs to the second floor.

While Cam trimmed some sawhorse legs, I ran off to Ikea for a height-adjustable leg we needed for the bar-height counter by the skylights where we have a view of the North Shore mountains. Brenda helped me put together some of the tables and place them around the room.

This afternoon, I met with Tom Esakin, an interfaith spiritual director who comes to my chant evenings and wanted to discuss some interspiritual retreats he’s helping spearhead. We had planned to meet at Chau Veggie Express on Victoria Drive, but it’s closed Mondays. So we went a few doors down the street at 5022 to a new place, Panzveggie, run by Sheila Panz, and the latest example of the changing face of Victoria Drive. We sipped on double roasted coffee and munched delicious homemade Taiwanese vegetarian dumplings.

Once I turned back from my car this evening, I asked Fabrice, also in our office room group, to help arrange where the tables should go. He came up with the bright idea of forming an L with the big tables on sawhorses, which now work in the space. Then I installed the adjustable legs on the bar-height counter and moved in the swivel bar stools I bought off Craigslist. I like the look of the room now, but it’s a work in progress and I’m asking the rest of the office group to check it out and see what they think.

Today we enjoyed our first all-community sitdown potluck in the common house, marking the birthdays of both Vesanto and J-M, as well as exactly three years since Vancouver City Council approved our rezoning, a major milestone in the progress of Vancouver Cohousing. That called for serious cake – three of them, in fact.

J-M and Vesanto cut the cake that she and Cam baked (J-M’s cake-loving son Xavier is right at eye level with the cake), while Stacey slices the gluten-free cake she baked while partner Noah and son Dash look on in eager anticipation. There was a yummy chocolate cake too. (Cam Dore photo)

During the dinner, I got to know Wade and Barry better. In cohousing it seems to me we seldom talk about our work lives. I learned more about Wade as a minister at a North Shore United church, and found out that Barry does surveys for private clubs from the command centre with three computer monitors in his studio apartment.

Barry told me he wants to join our new external relations committee, which met at midday and planned some initiatives. I’m also on the recycling committee, and common house groups for the yoga studio and shared office space. We all participate in committee work, as well as the future preparation of community meals that haven’t begun yet.

Chatting with Wade, Joanne and Barry. (Becks photo)

Or Shalom ready to receive four refugee families

Earlier this afternoon I attended a meeting at Or Shalom where we are sponsoring three Syrian Kurdish families and a gay couple from Iraq. About 75 people from the synagogue and other communities came out on a stormy, wet day to get an update. We are ready to receive the refugees but they are being held up by the lack of processing resources. Two families fled to Iraqi Kurdish territory and are unable to get to processing centres in Lebanon and Turkey.

We heard from Kurdish Canadians and others involved in helping bring and resettle refugees.

Vancouver East MP Jenny Kwan, the NDP critic for immigration, refugees and citizenship, reported on meeting last week with the federal minister, John McCallum. She was disappointed to learn that no additional personnel will be sent to speed things up. But she was heartened to hear McCallum respond with an open mind to her suggestions: let the UN’s International Organization for Migration process the refugees’ applications from their office in Iraqi Kurdistan, and in the case of family reunification, let the relatives here apply on behalf on their family members and send the papers to the refugees to sign. We’ll be writing to MPs and the minister urging these changes.

Sunday’s meeting on refugees at Or Shalom.

After missing three weeks of Saturday morning services due to the move, today I was back in the bosom of Or Shalom, my spiritual community at 10th and Fraser, much closer to my new East Side home. It was such a joy to walk into the sanctuary and hear Rabbi Hannah Dresner singing a lovely niggun (wordless melody). The photo here, showing Hannah in the foreground, was taken on a Sunday because we don’t use cameras in the synagogue on Shabbat.

After Hannah guided us through Pesukei d’Zimra (verses of praise), Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan and Charles Kaplan led Shacharit (morning prayers) – all very beautiful and soulful. It was so good to be in my spiritual home once again. Here are some of the faces of Or Shalom.

I lingered on at the potluck lunch catching up with friends, and making a time on Tuesday to get together with Pat, who I’m teaming up with to produce the Passover issue of Keren Or, Or Shalom’s newsletter. Kind of déjà vu all over again – I edited the newsletter for eight years from 1994-2002.

This past week’s Torah portion is particularly relevant to me because it recounts the completion of construction and the dedication of the sanctuary in the desert where the freed Israelites wandered for 40 years. A perfect week to have dedicated my own newly constructed home. It got me searching my photo archive for mezuzah hangings from the past.

This goes back to the mid-’80s when Rabbi Hillel Goelman helped us dedicate the home we built in Vancouver’s Point Grey.

Hanging a mezuzah on the doorpost of my home in Kampala, Uganda.

Using all three hands to put up a mezuzah at my home in the Vancouver neighbourhood of Kerrisdale.