As the title of today’s blog implies, I had an eventful weekend. On Saturday I attended the bat mitzvah of my dear friend’s daughter, and Sunday I attended another dear friend’s Arbor Day celebration; the former was rooted in time-honored tradition and the latter was my friend’s effort to create a new tradition of his own.
The bat mitzvah was a grand event, full of food and drink and music and family, both blood-relations and found family. My friend was beaming with pride, both for his daughter and for the community that had gathered to celebrate with them. It also featured a lengthy religious service, full of prayer and song and other pious rituals. I’m not a religious man myself, but I observed and participated in the proceedings with both curiosity and respect. Most importantly, I was beaming with pride for my friend and the community he forged.
The Arbor Day celebration my friend created was a much, much smaller event but in many other ways similar in spirit to the bat mitzvah, though instead of a coming-of-age celebration it was a more formal recognition of the importance of trees. There was food and drink and music and family, both blood and found. My friend was beaming with pride for the community that had gathered to celebrate with him. It also featured prayer and song and ritual, also on a much smaller scale (twenty minutes as opposed to two hours) but no less devoted to what it was celebrating. I’m not a spiritual man myself, but I respect the hell out of trees and observed and participated in the proceedings with both curiosity and respect. Most importantly, I was beaming with pride for my friend and the community he forged.
Though the scales and natures of the events were different, their spirit was the same; community, togetherness, and love. It made for a weekend that, while exhausting for my body, was revitalizing for my soul.