Don’t Sweat The Small Things

[struggle4progress]

Tue, 10/15/2013
David Wolpe

After more than 15 years as a pulpit rabbi, perhaps the wisest comment I have seen about synagogue life comes from a monastery. In her lovely memoir, “The Cloister Walk,” about her time in a Benedictine monastery in Minnesota, Kathleen Norris writes:

“One monk, asked about diversity in his small community, said that there were people who can meditate all day and others who can’t sit still for five minutes; monks who are scholars and those who are semiliterate; chatterboxes and those who emulate Calvin Coolidge with regard to speech. ‘But,’ he said, ‘our biggest problem is that each man here had a mother who fried potatoes in a different way’”

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http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial-opinion/musings/dont-sweat-small-things