Our church shares space with a Muslim community, so it happens that I often see Muslims coming to pray. During the school year, preschool pickup coincides with mid-day prayers and the parking lot is a mix of parents emerging from minivans and Muslim men wearing a mix of Western clothing and kurtas and thobes.

I always make an effort to smile at these men and say hello in an effort to try to make them feel welcome. I always think about saying “salaam alaikum,” but I never do. Somehow I am always afraid I will pronounce it wrong, or not know what to say next, or that I will come across as inauthentic. When I articulate my hesitations, they seem absurd. But still I’m nervous and I just say, “hello.” They always smile back and say hello to me.

Right now it is Ramadan. This is a holiday I might have previously been unaware of, but the Muslim community at our church gathers at night to break their fast. Sometimes when I am leaving an evening meeting at church, Muslims are arriving to pray and eat.

My friend D was waiting outside for her ride and I heard her say, “Ramadan mubarak,” which means “blessed Ramadan.” All the way home I practiced pronouncing it correctly.

The next time I was leaving an evening meeting, I worked up my courage and said it to a couple individuals walking up the path. I said it out the window of my car to a man in the parking lot. They all looked pleasantly surprised and thanked me.

Today I had to get a routine blood test at the doctor’s office. The phlebotomist was wearing a hijab. I took a deep breath and wished her “Ramadan mubarak.” She said it was going to be Eid Mubarak, the celebration marking the end of the month of Ramadan, in a week. I wanted to ask her about it–what exactly Ramadan represents and what happens on Eid, but I didn’t. Partly because I was focused on making sure my vein and blood were cooperating, but also because I was embarrassed that I don’t know what Ramadan is about. Now I looked it up, and I know. She asked me if I was fasting, because I was supposed to in advance of the blood test, and I said yes. I wanted to ask her if she was fasting for Ramadan, but I didn’t. I thought it might be disrespectful to not assume she was because that’s what healthy adults are supposed to do. I wanted to ask her if she had any personal connection to the 17-year-old Muslim girl who was beaten to death with a baseball bat in Sterling. I refrained, realizing it was ridiculous to assume they would know each other and not knowing how such a conversation would proceed. I was reminded of stories about my Jewish paternal grandmother spotting a Christian church in her travels near my mother’s hometown, snapping a photo, and asking my mom if that were her church.

I ask everyone I meet all kinds of questions all the time. It’s what I do. But for all kinds of reasons, none particularly good, I was reluctant to ask this phlebotomist about her religion.

I am still working up my courage every day to make these connections and have these conversations. It is absolutely necessary.

Ramadan mubarak. You can say it too.

It turns out I do ask a lot of questions, or at least I ask five questions to a lot of people, in my new podcast, aptly named Five Questions.

I ask questions such as:

• If you could switch places with someone for a day, who would it be and why?

• If you could witness a moment in history, what would it be?

• What do you believe in?
• What is your favorite smell and why?
• If you had a museum, what would you put in it?

I invite you to listen to it here: http://betsyrosso.podbean.com. I’ve published five episodes so far, and more are in the works. Look for a new one every Sunday.

If you would like to be the next person to answer my five questions, let me know! Interview spots are in demand, but I will always make room for you.

ONE

M: “You need to take your medicine so your ear infection doesn’t come back.”

Z: “No, I’m scared of this medicine. It’s disgusting!”

M: “Well you need to take it anyway, to stay healthy.”

Z: “I can’t take it, it’s disgusting.”

M: “You can chase it with any kind of juice you want.”

Z: “No, it’s too disgusting.” [curls into ball and hides face in the couch]

[repeat 10-20 times]

M: “You can have an Oreo afterward.”

Z: “OK.” [downs medicine in one gulp]

TWO

Z: “What’s for dinner in the crockpot?”

M: “Chicken with potatoes and carrots and green beans.”

Z: “That sounds disgusting.”

M: “Zeke, that’s really rude. The dinner I made is not disgusting. Those are all ingredients you like. You’ll like it. The dinner I made does not taste like your medicine.”

Z: “Oh. OK. Sorry!” [smiling sweetly]

THREE

Z: [sees dinner on plate] “I don’t like this food, I’ve tried it before and I don’t like it.”

Zoe: “Zeke, it’s delicious! Try it! It’s tofu and spinach and peanut butter! You like all those things! Try it!”

Z: [leaves table to play with fire station] “I’ve tried it before and I don’t like it.”

M: “You know when I was little I didn’t like certain things, like tomatoes, and chicken salad, and then I tried them a few more times and realized I loved them!”

Z: [plays with fire station]

Zoe: “Zeke, it’s delicious! Try it! It’s tofu and spinach and peanut butter! You like all those things! Try it! Just try a bite! Try it! Come on! Try it! If you don’t eat it you won’t get dessert!”

Z: [tries one bite, looks as if he’s going to throw up, makes horrible noise.]

M: “Are you ok? Are you going to throw up? Can you swallow?”

Z: [almost in tears] “Yes I can swallow it. But I don’t like it!”

M: “OK, at least you tried it. Thank you for trying it. Do you want some soup?”

Z: “Yes.”

M: “Minestrone or lentil?”

Z: “Minestrone, please!” [eats entire can of minestrone soup]

FOUR

Z: “What’s for dinner in the crockpot?”

M: “Beef with broccoli and carrots and peanuts. Served with rice.”

Z: “YAY!

Z: [sees dinner on plate] “This is the best food EVER!”

Z: [eats one bite of beef, one spoonful of rice, one peanut, all broccoli and carrots] “Can I have more carrots?”

D: “Eat the other food on your plate, then you can have more carrots.”

Z: “But I don’t like the other food.”

D: “Just eat a little more of the other food.”

Z: [eats one more bite of other food] “Can I have more carrots?” [eats carrots, repeats 10 times]

D: “I’m cutting you off before you turn the color of a carrot.”

FIVE

Scene: our bed, Saturday, 9am.

Z: [in the bed between us] “Get up! It’s morning time! Get up! Wake up! Get out of bed!”

M: [grunts]

Z: “Get up! It’s morning time! Get up! Wake up! Get out of bed! Get down and walk on the floor!” [repeats 10-20 times]

M: “I’m going to get up in a few minutes. I’m not ready to get up yet.” [wonders why Zeke always asks her to get up instead of Daddy]

Z: [pokes M in the nose]

M: “Zeke, please don’t poke my nose. I’ve told you I don’t like it when you put your fingers in my face.”

Z: [pokes M in the nose again] “But Mommy I actually like doing that.”

Like the daffodils and cherry blossoms this winter

sometimes we bloom unexpectedly

And it’s lovely

And then it snows

and buries us

knocks us flat on the ground

forces our fragile petals off the branch

Sometimes we open ourselves up to the world

and we are warmly welcomed

Other times we are frozen out

We risk showing ourselves

Hoping someone will shine on us

But sometimes

we emerge

to a dark and unforgiving world

Even so

like the undaunted daffodil

we push ourselves up through the earth

again and again

Method Daily Shower Cleaner, ylang ylang scent, smells just like my Nana’s Aqua Net hairspray. This provides the best ever incentive for me to clean my bathroom. When I spray this stuff on the sink or floor or toilet (why confine it to the shower?) I am transported back to my Nana’s bathroom in the house on Chestnut Street in High Point where I watched her get ready for church.

At the time I did not think her hairspray smelled particularly good, or particularly bad. I just ducked out of the way to avoid being caught in the aerosol draft. She was not using the hairspray to create any kind of fancy ‘do, but rather to cement in place the curls she had created the night before with those little pink foam rollers and bobby pins in a ritual that I did not quite understand but enjoyed observing.

I did not even know what ylang ylang was until I happened to buy this shower spray, and I’m positive my Nana didn’t know her hair spray was scented as such. Ylang ylang is apparently prized for its aphrodisiac properties, among other virtues. An obvious choice for a bathroom cleaning product, right?

For Hanukkah last year Zeke received a Paw Patrol washcloth that was mysteriously scrunched into a tiny block that you drop in water and watch expand. It was packaged with a little bar of handmade green soap that smells just like my Papa. I have no idea what the scent is. The soap wasn’t labeled and it was made by a small business whose name I don’t remember. But I love washing my hands with it. I also have a little bottle of English Leather cologne that belonged to my Papa. When I need a fix I uncap the wooden stopper and put a few drops on my fingertips. 

Coming across these smells unexpectedly is like when Harry Potter sees his long-dead parents in the mirror of erised. They’re right there, smiling, waving, with their hands on his shoulders, but no more alive than they have been for a decade. But it feels like they are right there. Tantalizingly, reassuringly present, however fleeting. For me it’s an olfactory comfort fix.

Now excuse me while I go scrub the sink and wash my hands. 

MAKING 
Every time you press record,

Lay yourself bare

Wide-eyed heart exposed

Without saying a word

Or singing a note

Send your soul into the world in a small plastic box

That’s likely to crack 
LISTENING 
Sliding the tape into the car stereo

Driving to your destination along a new musical route

Carefully mapped out for you

The soundtrack defining a moment

Serendipity when song matches sky
Read into each lyric what you want to hear 

Or wonder what it all means 

Or if it even means anything at all
Unspooling of a feeling, of a story, 

Of a shared past or hopeful future
The surprise of an old favorite 

Curiosity of a fresh find 

Comfort of the perfect tune

Ease of the right flow

Joy of a good beat

Energy of a track you rewind and repeat 

and turn up and up and up

This is the text from my reflection today at church, in a service led by my friends D and Diane, called Self-Fulfilling Prophecies.

When my daughter Zoe was in second grade, her friends all started reading Harry Potter. I was thrilled, because I am a serious fan. I was one of those people who would go to the bookstore at midnight to get my hands on each of the seven books as soon as it was released. So when Zoe decided she wanted to read the books aloud with us, I was even more excited. For the past few years, we have read Harry Potter at bedtime almost every night and we have had so much fun exploring the wizarding world together.

This past summer, in the midst of the sixth book–Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince–I rediscovered Felix Felicis. Also known as liquid luck, Felix Felicis is famously tricky to concoct. It is banned from use before athletic or academic competitions. During the first potions class of the school year, Professor Slughorn offers a vial of Felix Felicis to the student who can correctly brew that day’s assignment in his or her cauldron. With the help of notes written in the margin of his secondhand textbook, Harry unexpectedly succeeds and wins the prize.

It turns out that Felix Felicis conveys to its user something closer to courage than simply luck. The first time Harry almost uses it is when his best friend Ron is plagued by self-doubt before a big quidditch match in which he’s supposed to play keeper. Harry only pretends to pour some of the potion in Ron’s pumpkin juice at breakfast, but that’s all that’s required for Ron to gain the confidence he needs to play the best match of his life.

Harry actually drinks some of the Felix Felicis to help him convince Professor Slughorn to reveal a memory that will enable Harry to make progress toward his defeat of Lord Voldemort, who, if you haven’t read Harry Potter or seen the movies, is the bad guy.

As soon as the potion hits his bloodstream, Harry heads out to accomplish his mission. What he immediately decides to do seems completely counterintuitive, but he feels certain it’s the right thing to do. “I have a good feeling about this,” he says to his incredulous friends, and of course it turns out he’s right.

Reading these books a second time, this time as a parent and most recently in such a fractious political climate, I was struck by the appeal of not just having a bottle of Felix Felicis at my disposal (and it’s hard to come by—the potion takes six months to brew) but wondered what it would be like to live my life every day as if someone had poured a few drops of Felix Felicis into my juice in the morning.

What would it be like to be assured that whatever decisions I made would turn out to be good ones? I’m not asking for the kind of luck that turns up a winning lottery ticket or makes me famous. I mean Felix Felicis that guarantees courage and confidence in the small moments—the ability to live what you believe and not shrink back from your values because it’s a little scary or inconvenient or unpopular.

At the beginning of this service I read my statement of belief. I wrote it not long after the election, in the covenant group that D and I facilitate together. She had suggested that articulating what where we stand, especially in the face of bigotry, homophobia, xenophobia, and just plain meanness, would help us stand up to those oppressive forces. I was surprised at how empowering it felt to write, and speak, what I believe.

Where my desired dose of Felix Felicis comes in is embodying those beliefs every day.

For example, extending generosity without condition or expectation of reciprocity. Not wondering what will happen with my contribution or whether a person or cause is going to do the right thing with what I have freely given. Not concerned with whether I get a thank you.

For example, showing kindness not just to people I love, but to strangers. A couple weeks ago I was sitting in this sanctuary during our standing outside the season service, seated behind someone who was weeping. I had seen this person at church before, but I didn’t know her. I didn’t even know her name, but I really wanted to put my hand on her shoulder or rub her back. But I didn’t. I worried maybe she wanted to be left alone, maybe she would jump back in alarm when a complete stranger tried to touch her. I agonized about whether or not to try to comfort her. In the end, she turned around to comfort my friend with whom I was sitting, who was also quietly crying. I immediately saw from her smile and her action that she would have welcomed my touch.

For example, turning to wonder instead of accusation when I don’t understand a person or situation. It’s a hard world out there right now, but it doesn’t get any softer if I vilify people whose beliefs and actions I don’t understand. Especially if I’m accusing those people of doing the exact same thing.

When my husband and I got married, in his toast to us, my dad talked about my husband’s and my commitment to tikkun olam, the Jewish concept of repairing the world. We are both still at it, with a far greater sense of urgency now.

It is easy to wonder if I am doing enough. When this worry bubbles up to the surface, I have to remind myself that tikkun olam for me is also raising two children to be kind and generous. Tikkun olam is creating and giving myself to the many communities of which I am a part. Tikkun olam is doing something nice for myself so I have the energy to care for others. Tikkun olam is being able to laugh with my husband when things are not going well.

My bottle of Felix Felicis would help me brave and openhearted in my efforts to heal the world. I know I will make mistakes, I will question my decisions, I will fall short. But just a shot of Felix Felicis could remind me, in the face of what seems like utter powerlessness, that I do have the power of my beliefs, and the strength to live them. What would a few drops of Felix Felicis do for you?

Always We Hope
~ Lao Tzu

Always we hope
someone else has the answer,
some other place will be better,
some other time,
it will turn out.

This is it.

No one else has the answer,
no other place will be better,
and it has already turned out.

At the center of your being,
you have the answer:
you know who you are and
you know what you want.

There is no need to run outside
for better seeing,
nor to peer from a window.
Rather abide at the center of your being:
for the more you leave it,
the less you learn.

Search your heart and see
the way to do is to be.

Reprinted with permission. After George Ella Lyon. 

Where I’m From

By Zoe Rosso

I am from chocolate bars.

From Trident gum and Izze.

I am from the Legos on the floor. Small, big, and painful when stepped on.

I am from the rosebushes,

And the big trees we can’t climb at school.

I am from unwrapping Christmas presents at the Winterblatts’ house,

And not noticing the milk two inches away from my nose.

From Rosenblatts and Jennings

And Winters.

I am from the naps on the sofa,

And forgetting things till the day before they’re due.

From; ‘Just have two bites!’ and, ‘settle down!’

I am from lighting the menorah for eight days and shrieking 50 times when I go downstairs on the 25^th.

I’m from Arlington, and Scotland, and Italy.

From large diet cokes and Frosties.

From the time Zeke ate a plastic baby and the time Zeke pulled down my pants in front of my family.

I am from millions of pictures on the walls reminding me of when I was little, flooding me with happiness and the want to relive that moment.

November 2016

What is possibly my favorite Twitter meme of all time is #TrumpBookReport, which took hold online after someone observed that Trump’s answers to questions during the Presidential campaign often sound like a kid who didn’t read the book trying to give a book report. I read a few (see examples here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/10/20/donald-trump-twitter-trumpbookreport/92464476/) and was inspired to write my own.