IS A WINNER A CHAMPION?

BY REV. DR. RACHELLE A. ZAZZU

It’s very hard not to like somebody these days.  The media makes a lot out of it and then there are apology tours and ridiculousness like that.  For instance, I don’t particularly like bell peppers, but if I announced it publically somewhere then the farm lobby would get mad and the next thing you know I’m standing in front of a high school auditorium somewhere in farmland apologizing for myself. Did I say peppers?  I meant peepers. I mean, really, who likes peepers....

Still, I’m a New Yorker and we tend towards the outspoken, the direct, and the well fed...but I digress.  This is not a story about growing up in New York City or my dislike of peppers. This is a story about Serena Williams winning the Sportswoman Of The Year award on the BET Awards Show a couple of days ago.

When I heard this my jaw dropped to the floor, my heart started racing and had to towel up the rivulets of sweat that poured down my body.

It is true that Serena has won many a tennis tournament.  I understand.  A sportswoman?  THE Sportswoman of the year? Yeah...not so much.

I don’t think telling a line woman’s that you are going to F***king shove the f***king ball down her throat is good sportsmanship.  I don’t think refusing to play at Indian Wells to punish people is good sportsmanship.  I don’t think.... I’ll think I’ll stop myself before I enter into an all out Dennis Miller rant.  And I could.  I could talk about the lack of graciousness she shows her opponents in press conferences, refusing to acknowledge their skills and abilities.

Now, to be sure, none of this makes her bad or wrong. Or in the same distasteful arena as peppers.  It just doesn’t make her Sportswoman of the year.   

Onto the next...

Andre Agassi is clearly a philanthropic man and his school has been a godsend for the youth it serves. I appreciate this with an ardor this is almost unspeakable.  This is what life is about.  If you can help, help, and I am proud that so many tennis players take this to heart. 

Andre has served the Las Vegas community with true generosity of spirit, with an open heart and an open purse and I am grateful.

But this year he is being inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame.  Not the Philanthropy Hall of fame.  This man who took drugs while on the tour and lied about it.  Then when he decided to come clean and admit his shortcomings he decided he would throw a couple of other people (who hadn’t decided to make it public) under the bus.  I’m pretty sure his trainer hasn’t written a story called “When I fed Andre drugs” in this month’s tennis journals.  How about the Committee that let him off the hook? The way he shows his gratitude is by outing them. Announcing how much he hated tennis. Not inspirational.

Again...not a bad person, in many ways a stellar person.  And perhaps you can put aside his gross tennis infractions.  Not me. 

I’m not vindictive and I’m not even angry or outraged.  I’m confused.  Doesn’t Sportswoman of the Year imply somehow that during the past year you were a good sport?  Doesn’t the Hall of Fame imply that your career is something inspirational and to be admired for the rest of eternity.  For the longer conversation on this subject please feel free to reference Pete Rose.  Not in the Hall of Fame...

As for me, I continue to admire the Fedexpress and Rafa.  Two winners who are true champions in my eyes.  They are honest and humble and philanthropic to boot.  I’m proud to have them represent my sport.

THE ART OF INTERNET DATING

Dear Spirit Man, I loved your description of yourself and laughed out loud at your story of you, your Ex-mother-in-law, and the veal.  Did you really need surgery?   I feel we have quite a bit in common, albeit I do not resemble any member of the Flintstones household, and the greater preponderance of my teeth are my own…Fondly, Tribal Babe

If you are looking on the Internet for your soul mate, you are not alone.  Over 25 million people are now using the web to search, and prescreen their potential mates. I am a 40 year old, white, divorced woman in the Holistic Health field and I have been playing in this milieu for the past year. I do not have the time or inclination to go cruising, and I would like to be in a new relationship.  Internet dating is fun and offers a huge playing field. After umpteen dates and a few hilarious experiences, I have some words of wisdom for you.  Following some simple guidelines can smooth the road towards romance, and help keep you from unnecessary pain, disappointment or even danger…

SIGNING ON

The best on-line dating services allow you to pick and choose characteristics like age, religion, location; ethnicity, etc. so you focus in on what you really want.  Many of them will let you choose a "“Key Word”, to further narrow your search.  For instance you can key in “Tall”, or “Spiritual” or “Monkey lover” if you really want to narrow down the playing field.  You limit your options quite a bit when you do that though.  Your computer can not read a dating profile and magically determine that 5’8” is tall enough for you.  When you add the specific criteria “tall”, the dating service chooses profiles that have that word in the body of the profile text. Almost all services are free; some charge a nominal fee.

Dear Tribal babe, you sound quite interesting, and I found myself wondering where one goes to study the sexual proclivities of middle management VS upper management,… gotta go, the episode where J. Cousteau goes head to head with a manatee is on, and I don’t think I have this one on tape.

SELECTING A PROFILE

I signed up with AOL’s on-line service because there are pictures and a three-page, detailed member profile.  I entered my criteria and 804 screen names came up.  I eliminated all the profiles that had body parts in the screen name, i.e. Best Butt in Bakersfield, Killer Abs in Arcadia, etc. I deleted any profile that showed a man holding either babies or pets, and all pictures that were clearly cut in half with a female arm sporting a new wedding band visible on the man’s waist.  Perhaps these are just my peccadilloes but there you are. That left me with over 500 choices.  I scrolled through the pictures and eliminated all unlikely suitors. Too bald, too much back hair, hands too little, etc.  Down to 293 choices.  I removed all men searching for petit blondes, triathletes, or surrogate mothers to assist them with the healing process that their therapist recommended. I am a tall, Jewish, pushy woman from New York.  Down to 115 choices.  Now the serious work begins….

HOW TO READ THE PROFILE

I was struck immediately by the number of men who desire nothing more than to spoil me rotten, take moonlit walks along the ocean, travel the world and cook me the best dinner I have ever eaten.  After a while, I stopped reading what the ads said and I started observing how they said it. Upon close inspection I noticed that some of the ads had typos, abbreviations, slang, etc. I personally care about those things so I eliminated the men who “lik sunsets, and the inhabbitentes of the oceans” and who TGIF…LOL.  That left 16 men.  Good enough.

Spirit Man, These past two weeks have been incredible.  Reading your emails is like going home.  I feel that you must be the soul mate I have longed for. I never thought I would tell anyone about the fiasco in Marrakech, and I almost fainted to find out that you had a similar experience in Peru.   Would you like to come over and review my study materials Vis a Vis Sexual Performance in the Work Place?  Perhaps share a dinner of miso soup with baby veggies.  Bring dessert and a toothbrush.  Affectionately, Tribal Babe

COMMUNICATING

Out of the remaining 19 profiles, my first choice is Spirit Man and I respond to his ad with an email and a picture. If you do not have a scanner go to Kinko’s with a photo and they will scan it onto a disc for you for $9.95.  Remember to send a picture that really looks like you.  People tend to be unhappy when they feel deceived or betrayed by a 10 year-old picture of you at the beach before you had the kids.

 Spirit Man writes back and we are on our way. I had to be careful of being too intimate right away. There is something about writing a letter to a total stranger in the safety of my home that creates a false sense of intimacy.  When I first started going on-line I sent a pretty racy email to an Internet prospect and inadvertently sent it to the wrong person.  I had to call up my friend and beg him not to read it, and then make him promise that if he DID read it he would: A) Know that I do not want to lick food off his body, and B) never talk to me about it. The problem with being intimate so early is that if Spirit Man is not for me, do I really want him to know my favorite sexual fantasy?  Also, he is still a stranger and I don’t want to tell him anything that would allow him to show up at my work, or worse, my house. 

Dear Tribal Babe, We MUST meet.  During my weekly ritual dance at the ocean the image of a dolphin came to me and spoke of you. A DOLPHIN!  Wisdom, kindness, and loving incarnate.  Let’s try to meet before the next high tide. Spirit Man

MEETING

I decide Spirit Man just may be my mate and we decide to meet. By now I have learned to follow these simple rules. 1. MEET IN A PUBLIC PLACE.  I don’t care how nice he sounds, and how good he is to his dog, I don’t know him and I do not want to put myself at risk. 2. Plan how long we will be together in advance.  The nice thing about meeting for a drink is that I can graciously leave in an hour if Mr. Wonderful picks his teeth with a leaf from a nearby plant.  If he turns out to really be Mr. Wonderful, I can always stay for dinner, or have a second date. 3. I do not have sex on my first date. Besides a personal value system that won’t allow it, and the age of AIDS, I found out that many people use the net as a way to meet women just for sex and I want to take myself out of that category. 4. Even though we have emailed each other and probably spoken on the phone it is the first time we are meeting so we treat it like any other first date, with the caution and excitement that comes with it.

Spirit Man, what can I say…last night’s dinner overlooking the ocean was a new experience for me.   I had no idea that anyone could know so much about algae and the ocean plates.  I want to apologize again for asking if that sculpture was for sale.  I had no idea that removing coral was a “rape of the world’s oceans”.  I wish you luck finding a woman who knows the mating rituals of otters.  Best regards…Tribal Babe….

Lastly, have fun…dating this way opens the door to men who are actively looking.  There are lots of men in the Internet sea, happy hunting.

what is the value of writing when I am still raw? I thought I had finally caught the golden ring and when I looked in my hand there was nothing. Only my own illusions and the story I made myself believe. Do you do that? Do you think you are in a relationship or a partnership only to find out it was only real for you. I tell my patients over and over...suffering is caused when your illusions hit on reality and something has to give.

I often describe myself as a dork and you were looking for proof I could have a sizeable bundl

not for the first time in my life

I don't think that I am so very different from most people in what I want and what I go for. I think I am different in that I have no shame about admitting it out loud. I want to be loved. Very much. I want to be known. And I want someone who doesn't want me to change...I want someone who sees me and thinks...I want THAT in my life.

Truth be told...I thought I had found it. Turns out I was the only one in that party. Can you believe it? Think of a tired, trite, banal cliche.....Yep...I fell for them. I thought that all the thing I was hearing

death and dying

Tonight David and I talked about standing with, loving, supporting and caring for those who are dying. I have had many opportunities to be in that privileged position and I consider it a blessing from God. It always asks me to be the best that I can be. To surrender all the ideas I have about how life will go and when death should happen. To let go of everything that I think and feel so that I can be there for someone else and to be present with how they think and feel. I realize that my self identification comes from repeatedly coming present with my loving, my acceptance, my compassion, my extraordinary strength and my tender heart during these periods of service.

Once, when Anson was pretty close to passing over I was lying in bed with him, silently chanting...asking inwardly for the ministerial body of my church to be present and to assist Anson in his passing. Inwardly I heard them chanting their support along with me. Anson motioned for me to come closer so he could whisper in my ear...he said, "it's pretty...but too loud. Chant softer." As if I needed confirmation about what is real and what is the maya of this world. I should have expected this from Anson because when his wife and I and a couple of friends did prayer communion with him, he told us he could see something working with him....and then he asked for ice cream..he was so cool-a-rama...but anyway......

I am not sure how I came to this ministry but I bring my strength and love to it. What became clear to me tonight when David and I were talking is how much healing it has brought me. It was only in talking about that I became consciously aware for the first time that I am no longer angry at God for stealing my father on my 10th birthday. I can bring myself to that day and to that exact moment without grief.

The impact of that really didn't hit me so much in the moment, but I was driving home along PCH tonight when Linda Ronstadt reminded me that "Love Has No Pride"...a song that has the potential to bring me to my knees and I had this moment that went like this...you know what. I'm ok. Life is ok. I'm happy.

There have been too many who have passed for me to name them all, but each one has left their mark on me. To a man they have revealed their hearts and their souls to me and healed me so profoundly in ways I could never have been smart enough to ask God for.

I used to define myself by my drug induced, lack-filled behavior in the days when lack and drugs were a regular part of my existance. Now I define myself by the depth of my loving, by my willingness to serve and by the acceptance, calm and strength I bring to that service. Thank you everyone of you who have allowed me to heal my fragile heart and to know myself as a soul and a minister.

God bless us all

Rachelle

but...but....but.....this is LA

I was out of town for a couple of days....Rancho Santa Fe...go if you haven't. Old world beauty and verdant land...fresh air.

Anyway..I digress. The point is I am back in town and I came back with THE HUNGER. The, "oh my god, I have to eat right now or I will chew through my own fist" kind of hunger. So..I go, innocently enough, to Chin Chin's in Brentwood. I start out the conversation with my server in my usual way.

Me: "I am highly allergic to sugar. What can I have?"

Server: "Nothing. Every single sauce has sugar"

Me: " Every SINGLE sauce?!"

Server: (with great distain) "Yes...it is a chinese restaurant"

It turns out I can eat nothing at Chin Chin's. I also do not eat garlic and without exception every sauce has both sugar and garlic in it. The chefs are (according to said server) completely incapable of making me a sauce that does not contain those two ingredients, which they must seriously believe to be the secret of their success.

Starving and not a little upset, I cross the street to Whole Foods. Keep in mind that when I once accidentally strayed into a K-Mart on a sale day..also a Sunday....I spent an hour in the Fairfax Whole Foods walking up and down the aisles at a museum pace to heal myself from the frenzy I had just left...

Whoops..sorry...another digression.

I enter Whole Foods. I can not eat the tuna salad, chicken salad, potato salad or cole slaw. I can not eat the Nori wrapped Halibut or ANY of the sushi. I can not eat the Teriyaki chicken breasts or salmon. Likewise the pot roast or the sliced roast turkey. Hot dogs...sugar, chicken dogs...sugar. Shall I go on....Pasta dishes, cold and hot salads, luncheon stuffings...SUGAR, SUGAR, SUGAR. Don't get me started on the breads or the frozen foods. Let's not even go into the areas of potato chips and crunchy snacks. More than half, MORE THAN half of the potato chip items had sugar. Salad dressings...sugar. Pasta sauces..sugar again.

If I listed all the items that had sugar this article would have enough entries to cover the whole front page of the New York Times. In case you are looking at some food item and are thinking of arguing with me. Let me give you the list. Sugar is no longer called sugar. The food brokers out there are smart and this is LA. Now sugar is called:

Sugar, sucrose, fructose, cane juice and her sister..organic cane juice, maple crystals, honey, corn syrup. On the healthier side, but still sugar we have: fruit juice, barley malt, brown rice syrup, manitol, sorbitol, stevia and the always popular...naturally sweetened. SUGAR SUGAR SUGAR.


And in the same breathe we worry that we are raising a nation of obese children.

Go into your restaurants..ask if your tempura batter has sugar (it does). Since you can't have that, how about some sushi. No luck...sushi rice has sugar. Ask if your pasta sauce has sugar. Ask about your salad dressings. Go to the deli section of your supermarket. See what you can get if you have no sugar at all. I got naked tuna and some salad fixings. It fed my hunger but not my soul.

I expected more from this town.

Rachelle

seriously...isn't it enough?

I love it when Christmas and Chanukah happen around the same time. Same with Easter and Passover. To me it just says that there are more people focused on the finer things in life. For me, the finest thing in life is gratitude and Easter and Passover just REEK of them.

The Passover Seder has always stood out in my heart and mind as a most profound and pure expression of gratitude. If God had led us out of bondage, but not out of Egypt..dianyu...out of Egypt but not to the Red Sea...dianyu....it goes on like this for some time, with all members of the Seder intoning in unison....dianyu.

Here is what dianyu means as I understand it. It means this: if God had given us this one thing and then nothing again ever again it would have been enough to sustain our gratitude for the rest of our lives.

Same with Easter. Christ died for our sins and we have been made pure. Our sins are forgiven forever. I don't know about you but that does it for me. I'm grateful. Darn grateful.

What is dianyu in your life? What have you already received that keeps you out of lack and in gratitude in perpetuity? If you are reading this the chances are good that you live in America. The land of free education, libraries, pet parks, double-stuff Oreos and soft toilet paper. You are not in bondage, God has forgiven you in advance and you have a computer to read this on. What more could you need?

It does turn out that I am not as stupid as I look, well maybe I am but that is really not the point here is it? The point is I know that life gives us many, oh so many whining opportunities. I have taken advantage of quite a number of them myself. I have privately beat my chest and keened at God and the moon for the position I have found myself in on more than one occasion. I have railed and raised my fists at extremely well attended church events when I felt it simply wasn't possible to let enough people know exactly how unhappy I was with God and his apparent lack of concern for me at worst and his tardiness at best. Always...always...always...I come back to gratitude.

What a blessing and a privilege it is to be able to express my unhappiness at my landlord. It means that I am not foraging in the freaking desert trying to feed my newborn. What delight and extravagance to confess my anger and upset at someone I thought was a friend. It means that I have the time and the audience to express this....usually over an organic cup of hand-dripped coffee, accompanied by a little snack treat.

What do you think of this? I do not care who you are, or what position you find yourself in right now. God, life, family, friends have already given you enough to be grateful for for the rest of your life. I believe this is true. I also believe that the aformentioned group has given you pause to stop and redefine your blessings and your perspective on them. I know you have felt hurt, suffering, pain and loneliness before. You probably will again but there is an energy on this planet that can lift you beyond the emotion and the thoughts and it is real and it is sustainable and it is dependable and it can save your life.

It saved mine.


In my church we say..Baruch bashan...it means the blessings already are

Happy Pasach
Happy Easter
God bless us all...everyone of us.


Rachelle