the hidden blessing of brokenness
It should not come as a big surprise to those who know me that I have this dream of becoming a rabbi someday – you know, "when I grow up" – if I can ever find a way to attend rabbinical school. Every brick-and-mortar rabbinical school I know of is located far from Houston, most of them in the northeast (NYC, Philly, Boston, and Cincinnati), and while there is one distance-learning rabbinical ordination program that is the equivalent of a full five-year rabbinical education, it is run by a group ("ALEPH - Alliance for Jewish Renewal") about which I know very little and with which I have had no interaction – their nearest affiliated congregation appears to be in Albuquerque. But I digress. One of the things I enjoyed about the pre-pastoral life back in my Presbyterian Seminary days was the practice of sermon-writing: the effort to write one short (okay, not if you're Presbyterian), witty, and wise treatment of a religious subject each week felt like a good way