Harold Kushner on Pain and Goodness

Two of the most powerful books I’ve read in a long time have been “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” and “How Good Do We Have to Be.” Both were written by the Jewish rabbi and highly successful writer, Dr. Harold S. Kushner.

The first book I mentioned was about the dreadful disease Progeria, which had caused Kushner’s son’s death when he was just a teenager. I was inspired by that book to write not only about Kushner’s son but about others around the world whom he also described as they suffered from Progeria and died young.

His second book, “How Good Do We Have to Be” has been equally profound for me and makes me want to suggest that my readers read both books.

Kushner writes many times in this book about how good we need to be, but he also says just as many times that none of us is perfect. As he also puts it, “The challenge of being human is so great that no one gets it right every time.”

It’s downright sad, he emphasizes, that many people seem to insist that their parents, their spouses, their children and their friends be perfect. This kind of outlook on others is never even realistic, and it can sadly result in lifelong “guilt, anger, depression and disappointment.”

For Kushner, the story of Adam and Eve is not a story of condemnation but rather what he calls “an inspiring, even liberating story, a story of what a wonderful, complicated, painful, and rewarding thing it is to be a human being.”

He even goes on to say that perhaps “God wanted Adam and Even to eat the fruit, though He knew it would make their lives painful and complicated.” As he also puts it, “God didn’t want to be the only One in the world who knew the difference between Good and Evil.”

Because of Adam and Eve eating forbidden fruit, humans began to have “sexual intimacy, parenthood, a sense of mortality, [and] the knowledge of good and evil.” Kushner goes on to say that some on of the new life “may be painful, but it is the sort of pain that leads to growth.”

It’s amusing that Charles Darwin, when asked what was unique about human beings, said, “Man is the only animal that blushes.” As Kushner put it less humorously but more clearly, “Human beings are the only creatures capable of recognizing the gap between what they are and what they can be expected to be.”

I especially liked two quotes which Dr. Kushner used in his last chapter about that gap. “As the folk saying puts it, ‘I’m not much, Lord, but I’m all I‘ve got.’” And, as Mother Teresa said, “We are not here to be successful; we are here to be faithful.”

Dr. Kushner also explained that a Duke University study indicated that “honest, cheerful, generous people tended to be healthier than suspicious, selfish, hostile ones.” That finding alone should make us want to be positive, forgiving people.

I especially love his paragraph at the end of this book: “At the end, if we are brave enough to love, if we are strong enough to forgive, if we are generous enough to rejoice in another’s happiness, and if we are wise enough to know that there is enough love to go around for us all, then we can achieve a fulfillment that no other live creature will ever know. We can re-enter Paradise.”

The Skeleton in the Fish Pond

When my Bellevue friends Amy and Eric Witzke decided to make a small fish pond in their yard, they were surprised to unearth some large bones.

Eric and his friend Danny LaPointe originally intended to dig only about a 200 square foot area, but after they discovered a few of the bones, they kept digging, and eventually expanded the hole to the size of a high-school gymnasium. As they carefully dug up more and more of the ground they found almost 40 huge bones, including ribs, pelvis, vertebrae and scapula.

It turned out that these were the bones of a mastodon, animals which were in existence for over two million years. Though they didn’t date back as far as dinosaurs, they were nevertheless ancient and lived up to the end of the last Ice Age, approximately 11,000 years ago. They were about seven and a half feet tall at the shoulders, and weighed as much as five tons. They were therefore some of the largest of all land mammals.

Mastodons were so called because the name means “nipple teeth” and refers to the cusps on their molars or grinding teeth. Amazingly, unlike our human teeth, the mastodon’s teeth could replace themselves up to seven or eight times. New ones would develop in the back of their mouths and then would gradually move forward to replace old teeth. The mastodon’s tusks, which are modified incisor teeth, like those of modern elephants, were among the largest in the animal kingdom, 14 feet or more. The longest was found in Greece in 2007, and was over 16 feet.

The Witzkes were most fortunate to make contact with Professor Dan Fisher of the University of Michigan, for Dr. Fisher is a renowned expert on extinct animals and has traveled to such a faraway place as Siberia in order to study such creatures. When he heard about what the Witzkes had found, he gladly came out to their property and was truly impressed with what they had found.

As he told them, these animals existed in both North and Central America. Though there were over 350 sites containing these remains in our state, only four had been found so far in Eaton County. He also explained that these animals originally had 280 bones, so the Witzkes might well find more bones if they continue to dig in their yard.

It was fun for me to learn that unlike mastodons, we humans have only 220 bones in our bodies. It was interesting, too, that the bones had been quite dark when they were first found, but when the Witzkes put them in their dry, warm barn, they turned much lighter in color.

Dr. Fisher even estimated that this animal had been about 38 years old when it died, figuring this out at least partly because of its teeth. Perhaps it had been killed by early humans for food, Dr. Fisher guessed. As he explained, the skull may have been broken because those ancient folks would often eat both brains and sinuses.

Eric Witzke and Daniel LaPoint took the bones to Olivet Middle School classes and allowed the children to touch and admire the various bones. 

Eventually these bones may be taken to the University of Michigan Paleontology Lab where Dr. Fisher and his team will continue to study them to learn more about mastodons in general.

There can be harmony between religions

“If there is beauty in the person There will be harmony in the house. If there is harmony in the house, There will be order in the nation If there is order in the nation, There will be peace in the world.”

- A Chinese proverb

I’m sad that many Americans categorically dislike Islamic, Hindu and Sikh folks and assume that they are aggressive and even dangerous.

I have never visited any of the Asian countries where millions of people of those three faiths live, but I have known some truly wonderful, loving Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs right here in America.

In this column I want to tell you about the ones I met to assure you that though it is true there are definitely some reprehensible people who claim to be of various faiths, they are only a small and totally irreligious group.

Some years ago, for example, I met a very nice single Muslim named Abdur Rehman, who came here from Pakistan. He got a graduate degree in engineering at the University of Michigan and worked at Eaton Corporation. Rehman shared an apartment in Marshall not with a fellow Muslim but with yet another very nice fellow, Brijesh Kumar, who was a Hindu from India. Kumar also had a degree in engineering, and they seemed to be close friends and worked together.

Because I was doing an article about the two of them, I felt free to ask if there were any religious controversies between them. “Not at all,” said Kumar. “I respect the Muslim religion, and I admire Rehman He is a true Muslim who worships five times per day.” And Rehman said he respected his friend Kumar greatly and felt he had learned valuable facts about Hinduism values from him. Of course there were differences between them. For example Kumar didn’t eat beef, and Rehman didn’t eat pork, but even though they sometimes ordered those meats in a restaurant together, they simply didn’t share their food.

In addition, though both Rehman and Kumar worked full time, they spent many hours helping their friends, Azhar and Yasmeen Pervaiz, a Muslim couple who owned a gas station there in Marshall. I had already gotten to know the Pervaizes and also did an article about them. Though they didn’t know each other at all until the day of their arranged marriage, and though both had been married before, they seemed to be very happy together and had two very cute young children whom they loved dearly. The Pervaizes were also extremely friendly and invited me to have a meal with them in their home near their gas station.

Yet another valuable experience happened when I was visiting my son and his family in Cleveland. While there I happened to stop to see a beautiful Sikh temple. It was just 8:00 in the morning, but as soon as I knocked on the door, a very kind man named Bhai Sahib Suba Singh greeted me warmly and asked if I would like a cup of sweet, milky tea. I ended up staying there for a couple of hours and later wrote a column about their faith.

This man and his wife had two very nice teenaged sons who were studying with their father to become priests and planned to go back to India for official training.

Have you met any kind, loving Muslims, Hindus or Sikhs? I feel most fortunate to have met such jewels, and my life has certainly been enriched by each of them.

Inspiration from Anna Quindlen

Anna Quindlen is a wonderful writer, and I find that I agree with her on many of her beliefs and preferences. I’ll tell you about a couple of them which she elaborates upon in her autobiographical book, “Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake.”

The first one is about women. Though she is happily married to a fine and loving husband and has two fine sons whom she loves dearly, Anna says, “I think women are superior to men. There, I've said it. It's my dirty little secret.”

I must admit that even though I have a wonderful fiance named Andrew, whom I will happily marry on my 100th birthday and I also have two loving sons and some fine male friends, most of my friends from throughout the years are women. Andrew agrees with me, saying most of his friends, too, are women. As Anna says, “The older we get, the more we understand that the women who know and love us--and love us despite what they know about us--are the joists that hold up the house of our existence. Everything depends on them.”

Whereas male friendships generally involve doing things together and talking about sports and politics, women’s friendships depend much more upon deep, honest discussion of feelings.

The second belief of Anna is about aging. As she puts it, people who are older “feel as if they’ve settled into their own skin, even if that skin has sun damage.” In addition, for older folks, “stress, anger and sadness have all declined.” She refers to a Gallup Poll of 340,000 people which “shows unequivocally that we get more content as we age.”

As part of Anna’s comments on aging, she says, “There was a time when I behaved as though I was the center of the universe. It was a good time, when I was young, and arrogant, and foolish, and eager, and terribly insecure and horribly insensible to others and not beholden to anyone else, without responsibility for houses or children or dogs or the clean up after a disaster. I just like this time better.”

Another aspect of all of this is that people feel younger than their parents and grandparents did. I especially like a quote she uses from the Pew study which says, “Most adults over fifty feel at least ten years younger than their actual age.”

I’m 75, now, and I agree completely with Anna. As I said earlier, I have a wonderful, loving boyfriend who is a much better match than either of my two husbands ever were. Also, instead of teaching college students, I get to teach older people who want to learn, through the Institute for Learning in Retirement. I therefore don’t need to grade any papers or evaluate their work in my class. We simply have fun learning together.

Instead of playing in the symphony, which I did for 31 years and for which I had to practice a lot, I now simply play favorite songs by ear for older folks many times each month. I also love getting to write these columns each week these days on any subject I wish to pursue.

And, finally, I noticed at my 50th high school and college reunions, that people were more relaxed and fun. They didn’t seem to need to brag about their careers any more. They were just happy to be alive and getting to gather once again with old friends.

Anna has definitely inspired me, and I hope my column will have the same effect on some of my older readers, too.

Allen Borton, Inspiring Survivor

Dr. Allen Borton, a dear friend of mine and a former music professor at Olivet College, has been through more pain and loss of his wonderful skills than most anyone I know.

It all happened on Saturday, May 22, 1993 when he was coming home to Olivet from a vacation. He was driving alone on the US 127, near Jackson, when a driver forced his small car to flip off the highway.

Though Allen still has no memory of any of it, he has learned that he was ejected from the window of the car. He says that he always wore his seatbelt, but he learned, unfortunately after the statute of limitations had expired, that his small car had been on a recall list for defective seat belts.

When his head struck the pavement, he incurred a closed-head traumatic brain Injury and went into a coma which lasted for over two months. He was engaged to a very musical young lady named Michelle Rabey at that point. They had to postpone their wedding for six months while Allen began to recover. He sadly learned that though his brain was fine, he could no longer communicate vocally, either by speech or song. But he was thankful every moment that Michelle still wanted to be his wife.

By December of that year, though Allen was of course still extremely weak, they were married and have been very happy together now for 21 years.

Naturally Allen wished he could go back to teaching singing and conducting various choirs. Some of his non-musical friends have thought that since his arms and hands were not damaged, surely he could go back to his music career. He knew better, however, saying “a majority of the work takes place in the rehearsal, both by explanation and by demonstration, and without this ability, continuing as a choral conductor was impossible.”

Allen and Michelle have been living in Ann Arbor since their marriage, and Michelle teaches music there at a private school. Despite his lingering serious problems with speech and with various body difficulties, Allen has been able to find work with Firestone, where he drives errands and does paperwork for the store. It is not the work he wishes he could do, but every day he has made the best of life and thanked God that he is alive and happy.

Though he cannot sing or conduct or play the piano nearly as well as he did before, Allen has become a fine composer of music. At this point he has created over 600 pieces, most of them original, but also some arrangements of already written works. Over the years he has had a number of them performed by numerous soloists and choirs, Michelle’s ringers when she was directing the church handbell choir, the string orchestra members at Michelle’s school and members of the Olivet College music group. I have felt honored to  get to play some of his work on my violin, as well, during concerts at Olivet College and in Ann Arbor at his and Michelle’s church.

My sweetheart Andrew and I have played Scrabble numerous times with Allen, and we’ve found that he’s still very good at words, as well.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect of Allen is his positive, loving nature. Many people would be so depressed after going through what he did that they would not even want to try to communicate with friends--much less love them.

But Allen makes the most of life every day and provides a wonderfully positive example for us all.

The Gershwin Brothers, George and Ira

George and Ira Gershwin were two extremely talented brothers who were born in New York city in the late 1890s of Jewish parents from Russia and Lithuania. The family had to move about 28 times during George and Ira’s childhood, and all of that change probably brought the two brothers closer together, even though they were extremely different.

Though George was a genius at composing music he didn’t even become interested in it until he was 10. Once he started to love it, however, he spent the rest of his life constantly learning and composing. He was very much of an extrovert who loved playing his works for thousands of fans.

Ira, who was George’s older brother, was a word person and an introvert who loved reading books and writing poems and was not at all a performer or musician. He was extremely modest, and said "I always felt that if George hadn't been my brother and pushed me, I'd have been contented to be a bookkeeper."

Though Ira has never been as famous as George, he wrote wonderful words for hundreds of George’s songs and should be more appreciated for his equally amazing talent. The two brothers’ private lives were extremely different, as well. Ira went to college for two years whereas George left school at age 15.

George never married though he certainly cared for women and is said to have seduced quite a few. He had a lover named Kay Swift for ten years. Perhaps he didn’t marry her because she was not Jewish, or maybe it was simply because he was so busy. After all he composed over a thousand songs, longer works for orchestras and five operas--as well as doing a lot of painting. And it’s especially amazing because he died from a brain tumor at just 38.

Ira, on the other hand, married a woman named Leonore Strunsky, and they were together for almost 60 years.

Despite all of these differences, George and Ira lived either together or close to each other during most of their lives and got along amazingly well. Sometimes George would write a melody, and then Ira would create words to go with it. But other times, Ira would come up with a poem, and George would set it to music. As Ira put it, “We worked best under deadlines and we worked mostly at night.”

As for his lyrics, Ira said “They should be simple, colloquial, rhymed conversation,   . . . and capture the way people spoke to each other, their slang, their cliches, the catchphrases.”

Some of the most famous songs they created together were “The Man I Love,” “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “I Got Rhythm,”  “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” “Nice Work if You Can Get It,” “Love Is Here to Stay,” “Lady Be Good,” “Strike Up the Band,” “Funny Face,” and “‘S Wonderful.”

The “folk opera” “Porgy and Bess,” was George’s most famous creation. Ira composed some of the lyrics, but many were created by DuBose Heyward who first wrote the novel and then the subsequent play which George later converted into an opera.

After George died, it took Ira at least three years to get beyond his sadness and back into creating words for songs. He did eventually create more lyrics, however, for many more songs by such famous composers as Aaron Copland, Jerome Kern and Kurt Weill.

How fortunate we are that these two very different geniuses worked together so brilliantly.

On Reaching 75

This was Linda Jo's column for Friday, December 12, 2014.

Nine days ago I turned 75 and thus began my fourth quarter. Just before my birthday, I was introduced to a long essay by Ezekiel Emanuel, a prominent clinical bioethicist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and head of the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

Emanuel is not 75 yet, but though he seems to be extremely bright, active and successful, he insists in his essay that he wants to live only to age 75.

As he puts it, “living too long is a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world.

It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.”

Unlike  Emanuel, however, I’m definitely not ready to die. Life can be difficult for older folks, that’s for sure. My memory has become much worse since open heart surgery and a stroke, but life is still extremely satisfying and enjoyable for me.

Besides, I seem to be appreciated by my family, my friends, and the folks I work for, including my bosses at the Enquirer, folks in charge of Meals on Wheels, faculty at Olivet College who know that I have volunteered at the Oak Chest since I retired 16 years ago, and my older students in the Institute for Learning in Retirement here in Battle Creek. I’ve taught over 30 classes for them through the Kellogg Community College.

I also play my violin many times each month, mostly for older folks who seem to be especially appreciative.

One very musical violin playing friend, Carole Merrick Ringer, was born on the same day as I was, back in 1939. We’ve been friends ever since we went to kindergarten together in Wilmette, Illinois, 70 years ago. Over the years she served as a paid professional with various symphonies in Illinois and still does a lot of volunteering these days with various organizations in the arts.

I would certainly admit that Emanuel is right in saying that after 75 people tend to accomplish less. I used to love to sew, for example, but these days I repair clothes only if really needed.

I used to love travel a lot, not only in our country but also spending three years teaching English in France. I spoke French quite well and could read books easily.

A few years later I also taught English for one year in South Korea. And still later, I spent three weeks with my dear pianist friends, Emily and Dan Byrens, in the Philippines, teaching and playing my violin with them.

These days, however, I truly don’t want to travel to any far-away place. I just appreciate staying home pursuing my various enjoyable activities here.  

Whereas I used to write poems a lot and even taught poetry writing, I never write them anymore.

Another sad aspect of getting old is losing one’s friends. A lady I knew who was in her mid 96s cried often, for most all of her long-time friends had died. But, as she wisely said, “The older you get, the more important it is to make younger friends.”

So far, therefore, I’m hoping to live longer. Besides, Emanuel is only 57 now, and it will be interesting to see how he’ll feel about death in 18 years, when he reaches 75.

Malnutrition, a column from July 2013

Last week there was the Battle Creek Enquirer preempted Linda Jo's
column, so here's an extra one from the archives.

I just read a most depressing article about the terrible effects of 
malnutrition, stating that it causes 45% of the deaths of young
children all over the world. These dreadful problems begin with
conception--or even before, if the mother is malnourished before
becoming pregnant.

“An estimated 900,000 lives could be saved in 34 countries if 10
proven nutritional interventions were scaled-up to 90% of the world,”
according to Helen Briggs, British broadcaster and member of BBC
News. She goes on to say that “Poor nutrition leads to the deaths of
about 3.1 million under-fives annually.”

I realize that other countries have worse problems of malnutrition
than ours, but even here in America, many families are suffering every
day from not having adequate and appropriate food to eat. And sad to
say, whatever the reason for their poverty, it’s their young children
who suffer the most.

The effects of all of this are incredibly tragic--and they are also,
according to Briggs, very expensive. As she puts it, “According to a
recent United Nations report, malnutrition is estimated to cost the
world $3.5 trillion dollars (£2.3 trillion in English terms)--or $500
for every person in the world in healthcare and lost productivity.”

A team led by Prof Robert Black, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
of Public Health, Baltimore, US, which has studied this terrible problem
ever since 2008, says that though there has been some recent
improvement, more than 165 million children had their height as well
as their general health--and even their minds--affected negatively in
2011 alone. And of that number, approximately 50 million have been
negatively affected by low weight and who knows how many have
been affected mentally.

One of the most depressing factors in all of this is that as the
population grows and people have to move into cities to find work,
inevitably farms will become less worked or will disappear altogether.
As a result, it will become even more difficult to feed millions
nourishing, fresh vegetables, especially in countries such as China
and India.

I surely wish America could do more to help this problem, but our
House and Senate seem to have trouble agreeing on anything. As a
result, they don’t seem to concern themselves sufficiently with
suffering in other countries--or even in our country.

I hate to sound excessively negative in my columns. It’s much more
enjoyable to talk about unselfish, productive, loving people and
concepts, and I try to emphasize the positive whenever I can, but this
whole world-wide problem of extreme malnutrition is a situation of
gravest concern.

I know that many conservatives feel that our government is handing
out food and money far too much, but in reality less than 1% of our
federal budget is given to other countries in foreign aid - see
http://borgenproject.org/foreign-aid-2/  I wish they would realize
just how great the needs are these days and how extremely harmful it
can all be to the young and hungry.

I just learned that the Methodist Church here in Bellevue has rented a
downtown building to use for free food for those who need it. That
church has been generous for many years, providing food from
downstairs of the church, but now they are expanding their program.
It seems to me that our country--our world--needs a lot more of this
kind of generosity.

The Joy of Playing the Violin

There’s something truly joyful about playing music, and I’m so glad my instrument is a violin. For one thing, it’s easier to get into an orchestra, for they generally have 30 or more violinists, whereas they only have a half dozen or so viola, cello and bass players, and even fewer individuals on each woodwind, brass and percussion instrument.

In addition, the violin is easy to carry so that the player doesn’t have to do what cellists and double bass players traveling on airplanes must do and pay for extra seats for their instruments. Things are even more complicated for  pianists or organists for they constantly have to adapt to a different instrument wherever they play.

I have been playing the violin for 66 years now, and I surely hope I’ll get more years in the future. I especially loved playing in the Battle Creek Symphony for 31 years and finally retired only four years ago. I still write program notes for each concert, and my sweetheart, my son and I help out by taking tickets and passing out programs.

True enough, my career was completely English in nature, teaching British and American literature and writing articles and columns. But I’ve loved playing violin for even longer. And these days it’s even more of a predominant passion, for though my memory for words slips, I still remember music just fine.

I certainly don’t claim any comparison with Albert Einstein and his brilliance -or, for that matter, his musical talents - but we both loved the violin for many years. As he put it, “If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”

I’ve had that same kind of enthusiasm, too, ever since 1946, at age six, when my musical mother decided that I should have proper piano lessons. She took me to a music school in Winnetka, north of Chicago, and the piano teacher there sat me down at a huge grand piano and asked me to play for him. After I played some simple little pieces, he said I should close my eyes and tell him what note he played. I obeyed and was immediately able to identify each note. When he realized that I had what he called “perfect pitch,” he said to my mother, “She’s a string player.”

He did recommend that I first take a couple of years of piano, for that would teach me more about the base notes and chords, but then when I was about eight, he said I should start violin. If you have heard beginning violinists, you know that it’s a very difficult instrument to make sound good. My mother was extremely tolerant, however, and  immediately began playing accompaniments with me.

We played together every day and eventually began playing for our family, for Sunday School, and for old folks’ homes. Most of time time we both played by ear, for, as my Mom always said, “Paper just gets in the way of having fun.”

These days I play many times each month with the Olde Tyme Music Group here in town as well as for special solo or accompanied programs at various churches and old-folks’ homes. December is an especially full month with dozens of invitations to play Christmas music.

I’ll close simply with another great quote from Einstein, a man I admire tremendously, and whom I surely agree with: “I get most joy in life out of music.”

These are finding strength from a terrible disease

Chances are you have never known anyone suffering with Progeria, for there are only just over 100 known victims in this country.

I first learned of this disease when reading an excellent, best-selling book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” by the Jewish rabbi, Harold S. Kushner. He wrote the book in 1981, not long after his poor 14-year-old son Aaron died after suffering from Progeria.

I was really sad reading about little Aaron, for he was an extremely bright, loving boy, but he stopped gaining much weight at eight months and lost all of his hair by age three. In addition, he had a thin but disproportionately large head and a small jaw and dry and scaly skin. Sad to say, he never grew much taller than three feet high.

I looked up Progeria online and found some excellent accounts of this terrible disease. One especially sad one, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzyJyCZqumw), tells the story of a poor family in India who had five of their seven children suffering from this disease.

Another one, (http://www.progeriaresearch.org/meet_the_kids/), published in May of this year includes a map of the world, showing that this disease is found mostly in eastern America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, India, Korea and Japan. It’s interesting that no victims have been reported in either Australia or Russia.

This site also features pictures and information about 16 amazing and bright children who suffered--and in some cases have already died--from this terrible disease.

For example, a teenage girl named Hayley from England, won the prestigious Children of Courage Award and has appeared in several documentaries and stories about Progeria. She and her mother even wrote a book about living with Progeria called “Old Before My Time.”

Quite amazingly she said, “My life with progeria is full of happiness and good memories.  Deep inside I am no different from anyone. We are all human.” Another victim, a 17-year old fellow named Sam, has received highest honors at his high school in Massachusetts, has served as a percussion section leader in his band and is an Eagle Scout. He has even been interviewed on national television about his condition and his accomplishments.

And a six-year-old girl named Adalia, from Texas has over ten million followers on Facebook.

Rabbi Kushner and his wife were of course extremely sad to lose their loving son. As he explained, however, after his son’s death, he began to understand God in a much deeper sense and therefore became a much better rabbi and human being.  

God has given us free will, he points out, and therefore He does not control our lives. “Because our tragedy is not God’s will, we need not feel hurt or betrayed when tragedy strikes. We can turn to Him for help in overcoming it, precisely because we can tell ourselves that God is as outraged by it as we are.”

Elsewhere he says, “No one ever promised us a life free from pain and disappointment. The most anyone promised us was that we would not be alone in our pain, and that we would be able to draw upon a source outside ourselves for the strength and courage we would need to survive life’s tragedies and life’s unfairness.”

I truly recommend Kushner’s book, for though I’ve had polio (suspected), cancer, open heart surgery and a stroke, I’m certainly not blaming God. I’m simply very thankful to be alive and doing well.