Recipes for a Sacred Life: True Stories and a Few Miracles by Rivvy Neshama (best books to read for young adults TXT) 📕

to really see each other and your shared humanity, and both giver and receiver end up feeling good. I feel especially good if I give with a smile and wish them good luck.

Maimonides also writes, “Even a poor person who lives entirely on tzedakah must give tzedakah to another.” Which reminds me of our friend Julia Dean.

Julia teaches photography around the world, but this story happened when she was a struggling artist in New York. It was a snowy winter day with a biting wind. Julia still remembers it because she walked home forty blocks in the cold, not having enough money for a bus.

“I was ten blocks from my apartment,” she says, “when a man huddled in a doorway held out a can filled with change and said, ‘Lady, you got any money?’ It hit me that I didn’t, I didn’t have any money, and I started to cry. He looked at me and then held out the can again and said, ‘Lady, you need some money?’”

THE BALLAD OF PAM AND RENATO

Pam and Renato fell in love. It happened in Mexico, where they then built a home, Casa de Pamela y Renato. Each of them came from a troubled past and had lived their share of sadness. Pam was about ten years older than Renato, but their souls were similarly young and old, and they were both, above all, free spirits. Having finally found each other, they felt, well, ecstatic.

It was hard not to feel a little envious around them. Their love and passion were palpable, their joy in life boundless. They did cartwheels and headstands on the nude beach near their village and took photographs to capture it all. That’s what they wanted most: to capture it all.

So they made a list of a hundred things they would do together before they died. Far-off adventures. Spiritual journeys. Ways to express their love: prosaic things like learning acceptance, and poetic things like studying the Kama Sutra’s sixty-four arts of love, which include magic, mimicry, and practice with bow and arrow (along with more erotic pursuits, such as slowly feeding your lover grapes).

The last time we saw them together was when they returned from a year in India, visiting all the places tourists are warned away from and finding gurus who drove taxis on the side. We were in Mexico on vacation, renting a casa next to theirs.

Some months later, Pam drove Renato to the Puerto Vallarta airport. He was flying to San Francisco, where he worked as a firefighter. He took the Alaska Airlines flight, the one that crashed into the Pacific Ocean. There were no survivors. He was thirty-nine.

I later wondered how many things on their list they had managed to do before he died. But then I decided it didn’t matter. Just making the list together was a blessing of their love.

BUDDIES ON THE PATH

When I was a kid and went to camp, we had a buddy system when we swam in the lake. Every five minutes the lifeguard would blow her whistle and you would find your buddy, grab her hand tight, and hold your hands up together. It was a way to make sure no one drowned.

Well, it helps to have a buddy on the spiritual path too, and mine is Ellie. I call her when life seems too dark or too much, and she reminds me of the wisdom that can save me from drowning. We try to meet every Friday at four, and if we’re at Ellie’s, we sit on Indian blankets in her Spanish-style home, light candles on the altar, and make room for Tashi, her black Labrador mutt.

Sometimes we play music together—Ellie on dulcimer, me on guitar—and then meditate. Sometimes we talk about problems we’re having with our family or mate and then help each other see the other side and act from a higher perspective. And sometimes we pray.

Recently, we skipped a Friday when Ellie and her partner, Annie, went to New Mexico on a Quaker retreat. Before they left, they were wondering, Did they really want to spend their vacation meditating, praying, and discussing their spiritual life in small groups? As opposed to, say, swimming in Cozumel and drinking margaritas?

But the next time we met, Ellie said the retreat was great, just what they needed, individually and as a couple. And it had strengthened her will to maintain a daily practice, now that she saw how good that made her feel.

That said, we lit a candle and sat down for meditation. Ellie set a timer for twenty minutes, and our session began.

My thoughts were scattered—a little this, a little that. Watch your breath, I told myself: in, out.

After more distractions, I tried a mantra: “Hum sa. I am that.” Hum (inhale). Sa (exhale). Hum (in). Sa (out).

Then I began planning what I’d make for dinner. Sarah and Paul were coming. Copper River salmon. Yes! And Sarah likes black olives. Lots of black olives.

Don’t think about dinner. You’re supposed to be meditating.

But the dinner’s for Sarah, who’s having brain surgery. I felt good doing something nice for Sarah. Then I felt good about being good. Aargh! Spiritual pride!

Hum. Sa. Hum. Sa. HumSaHumSaHumSa.

We’ll have spinach with the salmon, fresh spinach simply steamed. And goat cheese and crackers for starters. With drinks. I think I’ll have tequila. Yeah, I really want tequila, with lime and salt and that nice floaty feeling. Ahhh.

Rivvy, cut the tequila and watch your breath: in, out, in, out—

And that’s when the timer went off. Ellie hit the chime and our meditation was over.

“Oh amiga,” Ellie said, “I feel so glad. Not just for our friendship and the good times we have, but that we’re spiritual buddies too.”

“Well,” I responded, thinking of my dinner meditation (and some unkind words I had said the day before), “I’m glad I can also tell you when I’m feeling unspiritual!”

“Right,” she said. “That’s part of it.” Then she told me about the last day of her retreat. She was sitting