Richard W. shared a post on December 25, 2022
Ho, Ho, Ho Miracles Are Real

Ho, Ho, Ho Miracles Are Real

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 38 seconds

Jan and Richard

Jan and I volunteered with the Montrose Volunteer Ambulance Squad in East Williamsburg when we first married.

Christmas Eve, especially in 1976, was the most challenging day to staff a crew.

I had grown up celebrating the holiday, but Jan had not. We volunteered for the overnight shift.

We started at 7 pm on Friday. Fortunately, we only had a few calls.

Sleeping in our clothes in the bunk beds in the basement was not ideal for a restful night.

As we left in the morning, snow flurries fluttered across Graham Avenue.

Across the street, we heard some chanting, “Ho, ho, ho, and a Merry Christmas!

Simultaneously, we saw a glimpse of a man with a red hat carrying a cloth bag filled with toys over his shoulders.

As our exhausted bodies floated across the empty streets to our apartment, it felt like miracles were possible.

Many may have waited for Santa Claus this morning or celebrated the birth of their savior.

Jan and I celebrated that day, and every day, we celebrated the miracle of life and the need to repair the world.

That night in the ambulance squad, we had been a light for those in need, not unlike the early morning Santa Claus.

Jan has been gone for almost twenty months. I miss her more than ever, but the memory from 1976 reminds me that I must light the candle not only on Chanukah but every day to be a light for others.

That is the miracle that gives life meaning and purpose.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Jon Brown Bar Mitzvah January 15, 1994

What About the Kids?

“How will you raise your children,” the Rabbi asked. Jan said we would decide when we had kids.
Richard W. Brown May 12, 2022

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Ho, Ho, Ho Miracles Are Real
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You Are Here: A Novel

Read: May 2024

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You Are Here: A Novel

by David Nicholls

I began reading “You Are Here: A Novel” by David Nicholls today. The book, written by the internationally bestselling and Booker Prize-longlisted author of One Day, is an uplifting love story about second chances. It revolves around the idea I learned from grief: sometimes, one must get lost to find their way. The main character, Michael, struggles to cope with the aftermath of his wife’s departure.

He seeks comfort in solitary walks across the English countryside and becomes increasingly reclusive, trying to escape the emptiness of his home.

Meanwhile, Marnie is feeling stuck. She isolates herself in her London flat, avoiding old friends and reminders of her selfish ex-husband. She spends her time with books, battling the feeling that life is passing her by.

A mutual friend and some unpredictable weather bring Michael and Marnie together on a ten-day hike, which both are not thrilled about. However, they find exactly what they’ve been searching for during the journey.

As they stand at the threshold of a promising future, Michael and Marnie’s journey becomes a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

By bestselling author David Nicholls, “You Are Here” is a hilarious, hopeful, and heartwarming love story. It is a bittersweet and hopeful tale of first encounters, second chances, and finding the way home.

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The Days of Abandonment

Read: July 2024

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The Days of Abandonment

by Elena Ferrante

I’ve just started reading The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante after finishing My Brilliant Friend. This book is among the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. I chose to read it after watching An Undoing, a documentary about healing from an abusive 20-year marriage using unstitching wedding garments, one stitch at a time.

The film was part of the first night of the International Women’s Film Festival in Cranford. Although, except for one brief moment, I have never been in the same situation as the woman in the short video or Olga, the protagonist in the novel, I choose this as my next book to read. Of course, Ferrante’s writing is known for rich character development and powerful prose.

The Days of Abandonment follows the gripping story of an Italian woman named Olga, whose husband suddenly leaves after fifteen years of marriage. With two young children to care for, Olga finds it increasingly difficult to maintain her previous lifestyle of keeping a spotless house, cooking creative meals, and controlling her temper. After encountering her husband with his much younger lover in public, she even resorts to physically assaulting him.

In a “raging, torrential voice,” according to The New York Times, Olga describes her journey from denial to devastating emptiness. Trapped within the four walls of their high-rise apartment, she confronts her ghosts, the potential loss of her identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal.

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What's Mine and Yours

Read: February 2022

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What’s Mine and Yours

by Naima Coster

What’s Mine and Yours by Naima Coster is one of the best books I have read in the last few years. At this moment in my life, family means more than ever. This book explores how families can collapse and find ways to reunite. Although my life circumstances are the polar opposite of the protagonists, the book’s central themes resonated with me.

The focus on integration in this Millenium is a subject that needs to be discussed openly and honestly. The racist response of some of the parents is told in a way that clarifies the pain that that can cause.

Even the parents who favor integration have their flaws, which are passed on to their children.

The children, especially Noelle and Gee, oppose their parent’s actions. The sins of their parents are sowed upon them as well.

I have placed this book on my list of novels for reading later this year or n 2023. Its themes are so strong that a second reading is required to engage with its multiple levels fully.

This is a Goodreads summary.

A community in the Piedmont of North Carolina rises in outrage as a county initiative draws students from the primarily Black east side of town into predominantly white high schools on the west. For two students, Gee and Noelle, the integration sets off a chain of events that will tie their two families together in unexpected ways over the next twenty years.

The debate is Jade, Gee’s steely, ambitious mother, on one side of the integration. In the aftermath of a severe loss, she is determined to give her son the tools he’ll need to survive in America as a sensitive, anxious, young Black man. On the other side is Noelle’s headstrong mother, Lacey May, a white woman who refuses to see her half-Latina daughters as anything but white. She strives to protect them as she couldn’t protect herself from the influence of their charming but unreliable father, Robbie.

When Gee and Noelle join the school play meant to bridge the divide between new and old students, their paths collide, and their two seemingly disconnected families begin to form deeply knotted, messy ties that will shape the trajectory of their adult lives. And their mothers-each determined to see her child inherit a better life-will make choices that will haunt them for decades to come.

As love is built and lost, and the past never too far behind, What’s Mine and Yours is an expansive, vibrant tapestry that moves between the years, from the foothills of North Carolina to Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Paris. It explores every family’s unique organism: what breaks them apart and how they come back together.

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The Unfolding

Read: October 2022

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The Unfolding: A Novel

by A.M. Homes

The Unfolding by A.M. Homes is a darkly comic political parable braided with a Bildungsroman that takes us inside the heart of a divided country. The Unfolding is an alternative history that is terrifyingly prescient, profoundly tender, and devastatingly funny. Will this novel help me to understand how we became a nation that no longer shares the same definitions of truth, freedom, and democracy, much less a shared vision of the future?

Although I understand more clearly the crisis facing the US, I highly recommend this novel.

Ms. Homes has written a must-read book that compliments the January 6th Committee report and should make us all more vigilant.

The characters are so well defined that at the end of the novel, I wanted to continue to read about them, especially Meghan.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

The Big Guy loves his family, money, and country. Undone by the 2008 presidential election results, he taps a group of like-minded men to reclaim their version of the American Dream. As they build a scheme to disturb and disrupt, the Big Guy also faces turbulence within his family. His wife, Charlotte, grieves a life not lived, while his 18-year-old daughter, Meghan, realizes that her favorite subject–history–is not exactly what her father taught her.

In a story that is as much about the dynamics within a family as it is about the desire for those in power to remain in force, Homes presciently unpacks a dangerous rift in American identity, prompting a reconsideration of the definition of truth, freedom, and democracy–and exploring the explosive consequences of what happens when the exact words mean such different things to people living together under one roof.

In her first novel since the Women’s Prize award-winning May We Be Forgiven, A.M. Homes delivers us back to ourselves in this stunning alternative history that is both terrifyingly prescient, deeply tender, and devastatingly funny.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

Subscribe

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love.

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Judaism Is About Love

Read: October 2024

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Judaism Is About Love

by Rabbi Shai Held

Today, I embarked on a transformative journey with Rabbi Shai Held‘s book, “Judaism Is About Love.” Rav Uri‘s mention of this book during this year’s Yom Kippur service at Temple Sha’arey Shalom sparked a profound connection to the Divine, as echoed in my writings “Love Can Conquer Even Death” and “High Holiday Meditation Cleanses My Soul.” Rabbi Held‘s book, which focuses on love, meaning, purpose, and faith, has guided my quest to become the best version of myself.

“Judaism Is About Love” is a beacon of understanding, offering a profound and groundbreaking perspective on Jewish life. It challenges a long-standing misinterpretation that has shaped the Western narrative: Christianity is the religion of love, while Judaism is the religion of law. Rabbi Shai Held, a leading Jewish thinker in America, passionately argues for correcting this misconception. He asserts that love is not just a part of Judaism but a fundamental aspect, thus reclaiming the heart of the Jewish tradition.

With a unique blend of intellectual rigor, respect for tradition, and a vibrant Judaism, Held‘s aim is clear: to reclaim Judaism in its authentic form. He illustrates that love is the foundation of the true Jewish faith, influencing our unique perspectives on injustice, protest, grace, family life, responsibilities toward neighbors and enemies, and chosenness.

“Judaism Is About Love” is a work of ambition and revelation. It serves as a beacon, illuminating the true essence of Judaism. More than just a book, it is an act of restoration from within, reclaiming the authentic form of Judaism.

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Monkey Grip: A Novel

Read: February 2024

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Monkey Grip: A Novel

by Helen Garner

Today, I began reading Monkey Grip: A Novel by Helen Garner. It’s a book that launched the career of one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. The story follows the infatuations of a young, single mother fascinated by the excesses of Melbourne’s late-70s counterculture. Monkey Grip is a seminal novel about Australia’s turbulent 1970s, including communal households, music, friendships, children, love, drugs, and sex.

Helen Garner is a renowned novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. She’s best known for her frank, unsparing, and intricate portrayals of Australian life, often drawn from the pages of her journals and diaries. A new US edition of her debut novel, which establishes Garner’s masterful and quietly radical literary voice, is now available.

The novel is set in Australia during the late 1970s and tells the story of Nora, a single mother and writer. Nora navigates Melbourne’s bohemian underground with her young daughter, Gracie, in tow. Nora falls in love with Javo, a flighty man trapped in his addiction. As their relationship disintegrates, Nora struggles to wean off a love that feels impossible to live without.

When Monkey Grip was first published in 1977, it caused a sensation. Critics praised Garner for her craft, but many criticized her gritty depictions of the human body, frankness about sex and drugs, the mess of motherhood, and her unabashed use of her own life as inspiration. Today, such criticism feels old-fashioned and glaringly gendered, and Monkey Grip is considered a modern masterpiece.

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