I like Abraham

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I like Abraham. He knows a thing or two about getting what he wants. This much is true. Abraham is the man who was the star of a viral video that showed how he desperately trying to escape from Polin. He tried to race away on a leash while the nazi raised his right arm. The video went viral, garnering millions of views and spawning internet memes. Abraham safely escaped to Belgium. And in this case, Abraham is smart as a whip.. Abraham was a true alpha male. He was powerful, had a sense of his own power and resourcefulness and was never afraid to use that power and resourcefulness when necessary. A nickname “Attila” or “Stalin” .” It’s goofy, because it’s a nickname. I like Abraham. But the true story is that just like Abraham, I have something powerful inside me I used to feel embarrassed to talk about. Now I am ready to use that power, that smart, strong muscle inside me. But I can’t without saying my big brotherly Shlomo because he and his wife are both kibbutz members. How will those of us who have historically tried to hide our power of self-worth and self-esteem learn to reveal it? Will we stop pretending that we are not, you know, powerful as zeroes and cells? Will we stop saying the cute men don’t know who they are? Could we hold out for a time that is still not here? The time when we can be ourselves, when we can be the present, the full human being, instead of a persona representing something before us and some other highly flawed character we were raised to be?

 

Churches and religious denominations have had a long history of engaging in internal struggles to expand our wings and come into being as full humans, as whole people and members of the human family instead of smoke signals doing just enough to honor God’s appointment with us. A quick scan of Twitter, a couple of Biblical texts, an annual study about an African baobab tree in the church loft. Our religions’ origins are growing less interesting to explore, as they lose their focus and we have lost our way. I don’t know how to start talking about my abilities, just as I don’t know how to talk about my love. It scares me, but I am making progress. I will call my capabilities “nature,” which means I have got incredible power in me. And if you don’t think I am powerful, my biological ancestors ruled this planet.Abraham life wasn’t short. He was an actor and a star. But we often need to play out the roles he played on the stage of our own lives before we see that each of us is an undeniable performer in the act of God or not. Like any performer, we have to invest a lot of energy to feel powerful. We need to invest in ourselves. And we need to find our audience, our audience’s audience. I am going to do that. It scares me a little, but I choose to trust in myself to let go. I trust that I am a powerful teacher. That I teach so much, Picasso cannot teach anything better. But when I cannot teach, I will relinquish my teaching. I will lower my own billfold because I am no longer going to spend all of my time filling that bill. That’s when I’ll ask you to get better at teaching, which is when I will learn how to be more vulnerable. I have no magic, but I have power. And that’s one of the reasons why I like Abraham.