in with the old

np: howard jones, like to get to know you well.

had a big urge to hear howard jones today. needed something positive after feeling sick, and just feeling... cast out? dislocated? after deciding to quit my congregation. howard's still at it, and a new album is supposed to be out this year according to his website. he has a blog on it, in which he writes about performances and recording. i wish he'd write about his inner life a little. one thing i appreciated about howard when i was growing up is that his music never got into to morbidness-for-morbidness's sake that several of his peers wallowed in. (not that i didn't wallow myself, my high school-era walls were covered in morrissey.)

tonight is the first night of passover. i'm gonna eat a bigass bowl of pasta when i'm off. most years i've struggled through the whole eight days on matzah matzah potato matzah, and this year, besides still being sick, i feel so hollow. the final straw on my congregation was two shabbats ago, when i brought a blind woman and her guide dog to services, and my 4-yr-old son. we sat in the back, the dog was perfect, my kid sat next to me or on my lap. he talked, but quietly, and was reasonably behaved for a 4-yr-old who knows there's a table full of cookies in the next room for after the service. certainly, i've seen other kids wandering around the temple during services. normally, if i have my kid with me, i take him to the kids' room - which is pointless, because then i can look through a window at the service but that's it. so i typically stay home unless my hubster can get home in time for me to go solo - rare rare rare. but, with a blind person new to the building and potentially needing my help, i stayed with her and therefore my kid stayed with me.

somebody decided to complain to the temple president about my kid. he tells me this, without saying who (and i truly don't want to know), during the oneg after service. it doesn't hit me until i try to sleep that night.

i have asked, for 2 years, for a babysitting schedule with parents of youngsters rotating duty. or the youth groups sitting. have been told, for 2 years, that it won't work. meanwhile, tot shabbats are not designed for tots, they're designed for kids already in temple school. i take on this role and that role, hoping that by contributing there will be some spirit of cooperation. (this list includes: providing and serving meals at shelters, serving on rabbinic search committee despite feeling that the board had screwed the previous rabbi and getting no accounting for their action, getting involved with a social justice cause that the new rabbi was too chicken to associate her name with, preparing a member's corpse for funeral, trying to start a reader's group - in vain, editing the newsletter, organizing blood drives - in vain, tutoring kids for bar/bat mitzvah and then having the family turn around and screw me out of payment.) but no, last straw was whoever this member was complaining and the president not responding with, "her kid wasn't disruptive, there's nothing to be concerned about" or even "we tolerate children in this temple."

so i told the pres to find a new editor, i'm done. he kicked himself, verbally, and the rabbi wants to talk it over with me. but i truly feel that if i stay, i will be walked on again. i need to go.

woah woah woah, woah woah woah woah woah. things can only get better.