...10th Anniversary Top Blog Countdown: Redemption and Resurrection

In honor of the 10 year anniversary of this blog, I am posting my top blogs of the past 10 years. Some of them were the most popular, and some of them, like today's, are personal favorites of mine.

Originally published...

Friday, March 29, 2013
Redemption and Resurrection

A lady recently asked me in passing if I was religious. And I knew exactly what she meant when she asked, so I answered, “No.” But to tell you the truth, it’s kind of been bugging me ever since.

What she meant was do I regularly go to services and partake in the rituals and traditions of the faith in which I was raised. She wanted to know if I was a “believer” in the way people use that word to align themselves with a particular sect, or as “a person of faith.”

The truth is I am both a person of faith as well as a believer in God, neither of which has anything to do with religion. And my desire to sift through the real answer to the nice lady’s question is not so much a need to justify as it is a desire to give voice to those of us whose journey has brought us to this place and time, appreciating where we came from, respecting those still choosing to remain there, while acknowledging where we are now.

There is, at our core, the place where we know. We know what is true. We know what aligns with our very being, what our soul recognizes as being a reflection of our Creator, our Source, God. We know. We may try to suppress, pretend, deny, ignore, or change it, but at the core of our being, we know what we know.

We are ever-evolving expressions of divinity. And to that end, I believe that life is a journey of becoming more and more ourselves, of who we are uniquely created to be, every day until our last in this form.

My belief system (for the nice lady who asked about my religiosity) can best be summed up in one word: love.

Use it as a noun. Use it as a verb. Use it as a dangling something or other. Take it as a suggestion, a directive, a commandment, whatever. It is not for the faint of heart. It requires bringing the best of ourselves to the playing field of our lives. It is both simple and complex simultaneously. It demands forgiveness. It requires courage. It exists in truth. It is bigger than our pettiness, accepts us just as we are. It cannot be won or lost. It is the eternal “enough.”

This is what I both know and believe. And so how do we go from that to redemption and resurrection?

This is a holy week, both for Christians and Jews the world over.

Jews are celebrating Passover, retelling the story of going from slavery to redemption. But what does that mean and how does it apply today?

To avoid grappling with those questions is to make the retelling just a nice story of days gone by. Never mind that the literal definition of slavery exists today in every corner of the globe, including our own, largely in the form of human trafficking. So let’s not pretend that slavery is a thing of the distant past just because it doesn’t happen to appear like it did in the movie The Ten Commandments.

Slavery is not just about people as chattel, though. I once heard a TV preacher say, “That which we make a God other than God, we become a slave to.” And we do that all the time with our careers and with every type of technology.

Short of a tornado touching down on your rooftop, what do you really need to know from a 24 hour news channel at 3am? What job outside of doctor, paramedic, fire, or police really requires the immediacy of our attention? What TV show or Facebook post trumps an actual conversation? (I mean, of course, with the exception of those posts with babies or puppies, because who doesn’t love a baby or a puppy? Sociopaths, that’s who. And I say that with all the love in my heart for sociopaths.)

We’re looking for validation as our form of redemption, but it will never be found in getting enough votes to survive the week on American Idol. Our redemption will never come from the criticism we exact upon each other. It will only come from how willing we are to liberate each other from the bonds of judgment in favor of tolerance and acceptance.

Wow, all of a sudden I feel like I’m giving a speech in D.C. instead of brushing off matzoh crumbs in New York.

So on to Easter, that holiday which celebrates the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It is no secret that I’m a big fan of Jesus, much as my Jewish family and friends are squirming right now, and making hissing sounds…or possibly waiting for that bolt of lightning to strike me dead. Hard to say which of these, really.

Jesus walked the earth as the embodiment of unconditional love. He was a Jew, yes, but he was an outcast among them, too. He knew his truth, he spoke his truth, and he lived his truth until the very end. He loved those who hated him, forgave those who betrayed him. What is there not to love about that?

That he was crucified and rose from the dead is more than just a telling of the story. The power and relevancy in that story for us today is what it symbolizes.

We crucify ourselves and each other in ways big and small every day. What is it we need to forgive ourselves for, and how would our lives be different if we did? What dreams do we need to resurrect? What parts of ourselves do we need to bring back from the dead? This is the season of rebirth. We must know that what is of real value is never lost, even to death. I think that is the point of the story.

So whatever your religion or your faith, I hope you celebrate it in the fullness of its beauty. I hope this season finds you surrounded by love, in the company of family and friends, and in gratitude for both that which you seek and that which you already know.

Thanks for stopping by. Peace and blessings to you always.
Ilene

...when the TV crew shows up at your house

The Mueller report is out and I’ve been in, what could best be described as, a massive funk. Frankly, I don’t know how this wasn’t over at “Russia, if you’re listening…”

Be that as it may, I’ve decided to address other things here today, like how a TV crew showed up at my house for a couple of days of mayhem.

Let’s start with the easy stuff. Show of hands, who’s had a TV crew show up at their house?

It all started when I saw all manner of trailers, trucks, equipment, and people dismantling the insides of a house a few blocks away. They were filming something, but I’m not that nosy as to have stopped driving and asked what.

Then the owner of our local diner said they asked him to close the diner and take over for a week and he declined. That’s when I asked how much they offered to pay, and mentally decided if, for some strange reason, they ever asked to use our house, I’d take the coin and say, “Thank you very much.”

The likelihood of this happening was, in my estimation, ridiculously small. They were shooting on a wider block with nicer houses, frankly. So I did the ol’ “put it out there and let it go” thing.

When I came home the next night, my father said, “Let me tell you what’s going to be happening here tomorrow.”

Wait, what?

According to my father, a man knocked on the door and asked to see our house and use the basement…for Craft Services for the crew. (Craft Services is the caterer.)

My house is 60 plus years old and that basement has flooded more times in the past few years than I care to relive here now, for you fine people. It is not the party central room it once was in its 70’s heyday. The orange and brown shag carpeting succumbed to the first of the more recent floods. But if the production people thought it would suffice, I wasn’t going to argue.

As far as I knew, people would be in and out of the basement and that was it. End of story.

I think we all know that’s not how this story ended. Not even close.

The production guy rang the doorbell early the next morning and informed us that no food would be served in our basement. Instead, they wanted the basement for the crew to warm up and use the bathroom. And because the class system is alive and well in Hollywood, the crew would use the downstairs basement, but the actors and other assorted, more important (?) production people would be housed upstairs, in my living room. That would be the same living room where my keyboard was set up to rehearse with my band later that day. Same day as Michael Cohen was testifying before Congress, but that’s neither here nor there.

I told the production guy I would relocate band rehearsal to someone else’s house, and I promptly…wait, why are they hanging Christmas lights on our bushes outside?

I asked if I could be a fan and get a picture with the actors in the show, Mr. Robot. The star is Rami Malek, who just won the Best Actor Oscar, but I also heard that Brian Stokes Mitchell was in the show. And if he was there, though he did not know it, he would be singing “The Impossible Dream” in my living room, while I died a blissful death.

I was quickly told that neither actor was in these scenes, so they weren’t there. I had my doubts about that.

I left my elderly father with countless strangers roaming in and out of the house, while I went to band practice for a few hours. I mean what could possibly happen in a few hours?

I returned home later, to a house lit up for Christmas in February and a sign on the front door, saying “Green Room.” All manner of knickknacks had been removed from all surface areas in the living room where the actors were. My keyboard had also shifted location.

Actors began wandering in and out, and my father, now an expert in such matters, gave a thumbs down to the Craft Services meal they provided him while I was gone.

Before I knew it, we were chatting with extras, I had regaled them with song, and I had strolled up the block with one of the actors to peruse the houses where they were actually shooting.

By around 2a.m., I had entertained cast and crew so much, they encouraged me to go to Central Casting and get work. It turns out I'm very funny when I'm sleep deprived and overstimulated.

As if on cue from Santa himself, it started snowing and Christmas was complete. Everyone left by 3a.m. Yes, 3a.m. And we were told they were behind schedule and would be back in the morning. I wasn’t sure dad and I had another day like this left in us. But what the hell, why not?

Midday, our doorbell rang again and the production guy said they were using a different house down the block. By late afternoon, they had cleared out everything, Christmas lights were down and sadly, no one had sung “The Impossible Dream” in my living room.

Once the crew vacated our street, it was as if we had dreamed the entire experience. Except I took pictures. And looked up Central Casting. And now had several new Facebook friends.

It was fun, it was chaotic, and I don’t imagine it will ever happen again. Of course, I didn’t imagine it would happen the first time.

I assume the episode will air in December, on accounta the Christmas paraphernalia. I look forward to having our street immortalized on the little screen.

At the very least, I finally got to have my house decorated for Christmas. It might confuse the neighbors when the menorah resurfaces, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Thanks for stopping by and spending some time with me. Please tell your friends. The 10th Anniversary festivities are going to be starting soon and you won't want to miss it!!

...as the 10th Anniversary approaches

This little blog, In Search of…, is ten years old this month. When I started it, I wasn’t certain what a blog was, and I could never have foreseen the incredible adventures writing it would take me on.

I began this sweet gem because a publisher told me I should in order to get a book deal and gain a following.

In 2009, blogs were a relatively new thing, and Facebook hadn’t begun limiting who could see posts with links, so gaining a growing audience was not the daunting task that it is today.

The book I was shopping was my first, In Search of George Stephanopoulous – a True Story of Life, Love and the Pursuit of a Short Greek Guy.

It was a quirky memoir about trying to find Mr. Right while struggling to succeed in the music business in Nashville. Because it focused on a political commentator, I felt free to write unabashedly about politics. And because it felt like I was typing into the ether, I also felt free to let ‘er rip no matter what I was writing about.

Lately, I’ve been feeling stifled, shut down, and those are reactive places to be. I blame Trump for it, well that and my constant heartburn. The beauty of this 10^th anniversary occurring now is that it has afforded me the opportunity not just to revisit past writing and share some of the more pivotal and funny pieces with you, but also to regroup and begin anew for me. And I have a lot to talk about.

So in the spirit of authenticity, I am looking forward to writing some new entries about how a TV crew showed up at my house one day, why I’m pissed off at the Methodists, and how my life actually changes, if it does, when I do the Marie Kondo uncluttering thing.

If that isn’t enough, I am toying with the idea of posting my top 5 most popular blogs from the ten years and letting you choose your favorite. Or, because I may not agree with the most viewed blogs being the best of them, I might post my own top 5 picks and have you choose your favorite. I’ll get back to you on that.

Thank you for stopping by and spending some time with me.

Get ready for the look back and the reboot!!

Xo

Ilene