The Spiral keeps on spinning …

This past Sunday, specifically Reformation Sunday in the Protestant Church, Janet and I became members of Emmaus Lutheran Church. This turn in the ever evolving quest that I think of as my spiritual journey effectively marks the end of my sojourn in the realm of Judaism and a return to my Christian roots. I can honestly say that I feel at peace with the decision to recommit to the faith of my upbringing and the majority of my adult life. To be sure, there are a few mixed emotions (e.g., like the gut punch that followed the recent announcement of a choir being formed at the synagogue … always wanted to be part of something like that), but it feels right and, in retrospect, the inevitable outcome of several factors.

The beginning of the end of my time at Temple Beth Israel (TBI) definitely has its origin in the great COVID 19 crisis. The same thing can be said of my career as a librarian at the University of Oregon as the world retreated and morphed into what seemed like an endless series of online activities, hastily set up in some cases, to allow everyone to maintain safe distance from each other. In my case, the relative isolation of remote interactions began to erode the human connections that I most valued in my work, worship and personal relationships. With the fallout from the epidemic lasting several years, the return to pre-COVID routines proved to be a difficult challenge of unwinding what became new routines and habits. My in-person attendance at TBI never regained momentum.

At the beginning of the crisis, circa spring/summer 2020, my mother Shirley, Janet and I sold our duplex home on Blanton Ridge and moved across town (Shirley to Willamette Oaks; Janet and I to a north Gilliam neighborhood). What had been a fairly quick trip down the hill to TBI was now a drive back across Eugene to the southside. The distance and traveling time now seemed more formidable, especially in the dark and often rainy nights during Pacific Standard Time. Together with the growing reliance on remote access, the physical distance to TBI make it a lot easier to rationalize staying away.

In addition to lifestyle changes flowing out of the response to COVID and the greater physical distance to the synagogue, another factor leading me away from participation at TBI was my retirement in June of 2021. Instead of spending the bulk of my productive time at the UO, I was freed up to discover new ways to spend it, and looking back over the past four and a half years, I see how profound these changes have been. Essentially, my waking hours involve a suite of activities that I share with my wife Janet and my dog Petey. Meals, walks, traveling, helping to support aging parents, following our sports teams, streaming entertainment, dabbling in home improvement and enjoying the company of family and friends comprise a partial list of things creating a “togetherness” that has been growing and deepening as we get older and live more fully into retirement. In this context, it gradually became less and less tenable to continue living on separate religious paths. A choice to pursue Judaism, that once seemed more viable when our lives existed on more separate but intersecting vectors, now seemed to be more of an anomaly, detracting from the growing closeness and mutuality that retirement opened up to us.

Hence, I began attending more and more Sunday morning services with Janet at Emmaus Lutheran Church. Our dear friends, the wife and husband pastors, welcomed us with love and enthusiasm, totally respecting that we had chosen different religious paths; however, bit by bit, I came to realize that worshipping and serving together is a vital part of our marriage, one that is becoming more and more important and meaningful to both of us as our relationship matures toward the mid-century mark.

I stumbled onto the path of Judaism over a decade ago, during a time of personal and spiritual upheaval in my life. It would be selling those ten plus years short to say that I should have anticipated an eventual reawakening and return to Christianity, that my foray was somehow a mistake or misguided attempt to fix problems in my life that have otherwise resolved themselves. On the contrary, I experienced a deep sense of community and belonging at TBI and grew to genuinely love and appreciate my fellow Jews. I will always treasure the knowledge that I gained and the opportunities to serve that came my way. But, I have also come to understand, the spiral of life continues to turn and pull in new and old directions. I am grateful that this retirement twist has brought me closer to my heart and the love that gives my life the most meaning.