A somewhat sad, somewhat funny, discussion of death and faith, from the heart of a questioning mind. (WARNING: This post may be offensive to… well.. practically everyone.)

One of my favorite sayings has always been, “I have never questioned God, only what man teaches in his name.” The reason for this is pretty simple. I believe in something, but I find a huge amount of the dross and dreck that is tossed about by organized religion to be fairly offensive.

Sorry hubby, but I have no intention of obeying you, unless I agree with what you are telling me to do, and then, if you try and tell me in a way that requires obeying, well, frankly I may do the opposite simply out of contrariness. However, I will back you whole heartedly if you seek my concurrence in a respectful manner.

Also, I really don’t care what other people are doing in their houses/bedrooms/lives, so long as they aren’t beating their children/spouses/pets, or performing acts similar in harm to the aforementioned beatings. I have more important things to do than sit around wondering if my gay neighbor’s lifestyle is degrading the moral fiber of a nation fascinated by reality t.v. shows and bent on conspicuous consumption.

I am not pro-life, I am not pro-abortion. Having worked with abused and neglected children, I can never support a policy that would expose additional children to lives of abuse and neglect. I have also worked with the foster care system, and am aware of how many children there are without permanent homes. So if you are going to have children, please want them, provide for them, and love them! If not, I sympathize, it would suck to be faced with that decision and I send you a sincere hug. I don’t think it’s murder, because I am a lawyer, and frankly, it doesn’t fit the elements of murder. If I can analyze the intentional death of a full grown and birthed human being and say it doesn’t fit the elements of murder because it wasn’t premeditated, or it was self-defense, I am certainly not going to call an abortion murder. (I am not going to get into the legislating women’s bodies issue, but let’s just say… I have strong sentiments.)

Anyway, these are a few of the political reasons I am not a member of any organized religion. I would spend too much time in internal and/or external debate. Further, I don’t join well and I feel very private about my spirituality. I don’t feel the need to share weekly with others. I am usually quite content to enjoy my relationship with the powers that be entirely on my own. Anyway, back onto my long, drawn out, and meandering point.

I believe in something. I think I may believe in reincarnation, though I simply prefer to call it the great big ball of energy in the sky, and generally mean I believe the energy in our bodies becomes something else when we die.

I think I believe in the soul, I am sure I believe in some special nebulous spark that makes us unique and can’t be easily discovered by science, if it can be discovered at all.

Normally, I am content to be uncertain. There are so many things in the universe, I do not have the hubris necessary to believe I am capable of understanding all of them. I know I am not. Therefore, I normally find my uncertainty comforting because it helps me remember the sheer possibility around me.

Not right now, however.

This past year, while I have dealt with losing my dear friend far too young, and Lee’s mom, also too young, I have longed for a strong and simple belief in heaven.

I don’t want to sit here and wonder if Nick is in a good place, or if Nick is simply no more, or if Nick is the stray cat in my backyard begging to be the fourth cat in our family and the fifth in our house. I wonder if he is in the spirit realm, occasionally sending me advice in the form of inspiration and watching over those he left behind. (Sardonically, this thought occasionally comes to me while I am in the bathroom and has caused me to wonder if people in the spirit world are polite enough to give us living our privacy, or if they gleefully watch us in our most embarrassing moments and snicker.)

If Nick is reincarnated as the cat in my backyard, which cat is he? There are approximately five in my backyard alone. I can’t adopt another five cats and provide homes for them on the off chance one of them is the reincarnated spirit of my beloved friend. So instead I leave food outside, and hope they can find a warm place to be (other than the soft warm blanket under a tarp Lee and I set up for the worst nights, or the doghouse we may set out this weekend).

I don’t want to think he is no more, because it hurts too much, and the thought leaves me breathless and shaky, vulnerable to the vastness that is this universe and my very small, increasingly lonely place in it.

I would like to know he is in heaven, or a place akin to it, arguing with Aristotle, and Earl Warren, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and earnestly telling them why their legal theories were incomplete, or subtly wrong.

Sadly, I am not certain, because I am not built that way. So, I am left thinking the quasi comforting thought that if there is a heaven, he certainly deserves to be there, so hopefully he is.

Yeah, that one is keeping me warm at night, let me tell you.

I have a similar problem with Kate. I know she didn’t believe in heaven and I know she believed in reincarnation, and I know she took in stray animals. So I am back to adopting all the stray cats that come across my door. (There are thousands in Jersey, it is a veritable stray cat spawn point.) I would like to think she is happy somewhere, and not simply gone.

So, there it is. I will continue to wonder if they are here, a thin veil away from me, watching what I, and others, do. I will wonder if they are gone, and will feel the hole their parting left in my world. I will wonder if they are sitting in sunny spot on a cloud and reading a good book.

I will continue to vacillate between the possibilities I am aware of, will continue to feel the mix of feelings they bring with them, and sometimes, will wish I simply believed.

Wow. Once again a year has passed and I sit here thinking “Really!? Already?”

This year was an interesting one. We moved to a new house in a new township, we lost a dear friend and a mother, we gained a son and a roommate. I started my own practice, Lee got promoted, Monkey started a new school. The house is filled with sounds of Monkey playing piano, and Otter talking his baby talk. I made new friends, joined a Mom’s Club, and got a new grown up camera.

We took trips back home to Denver and trips to Virginia Beach. We drove and flew. I am dizzy with the amount of traveling we did. Whew!

I can’t believe how quickly the time flies! I remember when summer felt like it lasted 50% of forever, and now an entire year feels as though it passes in a week. I am getting old.

Well, on to the New Year’s Resolutions, I tried to make realistic resolutions that I would actually me motivated to keep, as opposed to life changing sweeping resolutions that I will discard with the first appearance of a brownie.

1. I am going to do a 5-10 minute workout routine each morning to get my blood flowing and a 5-10 minute yoga routine each evening.

2. I am going to spend more time snuggling my husband and children.

3. I am going to learn how to crochet something hard, like gloves.

4. I am going to energize my career and get it going in earnest.

5. I am going to go to the Hunger Site everyday and click all six buttons.

6. I am going to donate 1000 grains of Free Rice a week.

7. I am going to fix my sewing machine and find a use for the piles of fabric I have hoarded over the years.

8. I am going to get rid of a lot of stuff.

9. I am going to get out of the house more with the baby, walk a bit, whatever.

10. I am going to spend more quality time with my friends.

There you go! Will a new me emerge from all this resolve? Hardly, but if I can stick to it I should be more energetic, happier, and making a small difference in the greater world each day. Who can really expect more from themselves?

In the coming year I wish joy and happiness for all of you, and as much love as you can handle. Happy 2008!

It began with a desire to furnish handmade gifts to my family. I made a purse for my mom, a socktopus, book, and ball for baby, new stockings for both kids, a Princess Leia pillow case for Big Sis, and a hat for hubby. Then I watched my dad head off to work in the cold wintery morn and thought, he needs a hat!

Of course, I had journeyed from the east to get to christmas with my parents, so my lovely collection of interesting and cool yarns was many, many, many miles away. All I had was a crochet needle, and the vague promise of a (most likely burnt orange) ball of yarn tucked away in my mother’s study closet.

It was time for more yarn. It was a yarn emergency, one might say. The other problem? The only yarn place I could remember was Hobby Lobby, far away and bound to be insane this time of year. Mom and I left big sis with hubby and dashed off with baby in tow to South Pearl to see if there was store there with yarn.

Then we decided to try south Gaylord first, but the store we thought was there had moved. The woman at the store we desperately entered for inspiration and direction sent us to Lamb Shoppe. It was back the way we came, and with much giggling we realized we could have driven to Hobby Lobby and back before we hit the new store, but “it was an adventure!!” we chanted in chorus!

We tore off to the store the shop clerk thought she remembered being around 12th and Madison. We tried to remember if the presidential streets were west or east of Colorado Blvd. We drove through holiday traffic and went far out of our away to avoid holiday hot spots like Cherry Creek.

Then we saw it. Lamb Shoppe. Of course, the baby was asleep, so I left Mom in the car to guard his slumber and I entered the store.

It was wall to wall yarn. No, it was wall to wall, floor to ceiling yarn. With racks and shelves of yarn in the middle. Wool yarn, cashmere yarn, silk yarn. Knobby yarn, smooth yarn. Yarn earrings, yarn sweaters, yarn ornaments and socks. Anything and everything yarn was in that store.

It was a crochet-a-holic’s dream. It was Yarn Mecca! My fingers itched with possibility (and the wool I had been fondling), as I wandered in search of a gray tweedy yarn for Dad’s hat. Finally I found one, and managed to restrain myself from buying anything else.

While I waited in line, the clerk recognized me. She was the mother of a girl I had been in school with from elementary through highschool. She was sweet enough to tell me I hadn’t changed a bit. (Of course, she couldn’t see the vast knowledge and maturity I had acquired in the decade and a half since she had last seen me, so I assumed she meant I still looked the same. I do not, but I appreciated the kindness.)

Triumphantly I returned to the car and my mother with a bag full of yarn. I shared the stories of my encounters in Yarn Mecca and we drove a cozy sleeping boy home and tucked him in. Then it was coffee, conversation, and crochet as I whipped my Dad’s hat into being.

On christmas morn he opened his hat, popped it on his head, and thanked me. I think he looked quite dapper in it.

Now I am charged with finding a similar store out east, or else, I will have to make the long journey back west to Yarn Mecca when my next creative frenzy strikes.