My Foolish Notion

Getting ready for school today Miles told me that his school plays part of a song everyday during announcements...each day its a different song. He decided he would put in a request: George Michael's "faith".

It instantly brought back a memory of my childhood, as songs often do for me. (I'm so grateful there was a lot of music in my childhood, my most vivid memories are made possible by their attachment to songs ) It was early winter of 1987 and I was 11 years old. This song was a number one hit on Casey Kasems Top 40 so naturally every kid my age in the nation was singing it. I was in my grandmothers living room with my cousin Tracy who is only a year older than me. We were likely there to celebrate  Hanukkah that mid December of 1987  with our small family which was always the same crowd. Grandparents, my aunt Linda and two cousins, my mom, sister and I. My mom, aunt, sister and other cousin were probably still sitting in the dining room talking and laughing  or playing a card game after a meal that most certainly would have included matzoh ball soup and Gefilte fish and my grandparents were probably watching something on tv in the den adjacent to the living room Tracy and I were in. The cousins and I had passed the age of being entertained by spinning dradles and barbie dolls, and top 40 hits would have consumed our thoughts by this stage of development.

Now, we loved this song and would take turns singing it so we could rate each other on  singing abilities which neither off us were frankly blessed with. How sad for a family who loves music so much to come into this world with impaired vocal chords....such is life. I remember Tracy complimenting me on one particular high note I could really nail in that song..."my foolish notion", somehow there was a break in my vocal chord disparity and i could hit that particular chord with divine falsetto ability....and she noticed. My confidence ascending in that moment  with my new talent, my cousins flattering compliments on my capacity to sing "my foolish notion" resulted in us singing the same song over and over to give me the chance to display my miraculous new and short lived ability while it lasted. It was the only time I can remember in my life where i knew I could sing well...even if it only was  on three words of a single song. 

So on this morning as my 16 year old son was singing "Faith" in the kitchen before school commencing with  "well I guess it would be nice" and then murmuring through the next few lines once he realized the awkwardness of singing those dreaded lyrics in front of his own mother, suddenly  "If i could touch your body" sounded more like "mmhmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm". When I pointed it out we both had a good laugh.

For the rest of the morning I started to ponder like I often do the lyric itself that set me apart from the singing capability of the rest of my family for that brief moment in time..."My foolish notion" curiosity led me to look up the textbook definition of course of each word:

Notion: an individual's conception or impression of something known, experienced, or imagined,

an inclusive general concept a theory or belief held by a person or group; a personal inclination

Foolish: having or showing a lack of good sense or judgment

As a first generation and souled out believer of the Jewish Messiah raised in a secular Jewish family who does not believe of seek our Messiah spoken about in the scriptures, it is fair assessment to say my family would call my piety a "foolish notion". Fool is a term I've actually become quite endeared to as a believer knowing that as Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." I often will quip that "once I was a fool, and am now only and gladly a fool for Christ.

Ive attempted over the last nearly decade to have intellectual conversations with family members over the probabilities of Jesus being the Messiah;  citing current events and our own Jewish scriptures as a foundation. But they would prefer if I would never discuss Jesus ever..period. No one wants to think about it or discuss it and it causes great distress and anger not only if I would speak about Jesus to them, but just knowing that I speak about Jesus in general in my own life.  I once learned when my cousin Lisa declared at a recent bagel and pastry gathering around the grandparents table what really offended her was me talking about Jesus, citing my public social media thoughts on the topic which I wasn't even aware she ever looked at...my social media that she has never engaged in about Jesus  actually was offensive to  her. My own grandmother whom I love can confidently declare with zero research or reading of the Jewish scriptures that "Jesus was a nice Jewish boy and that's all he ever was". So "my foolish notion" pretty much eloquently sums up the divide I have with the family I love so much.

Then it occurred to me that I was probably overthinking the whole thing, there wasn't any symbolism at all and I was likely "reaching". I have a knack to ponder and wonder and philosophize about even the simplest things in life. The reason precisely why my husband jokingly calls me "the wondering Jew" a play on words of course from the infamous idiom "wandering Jew". As I started to shake off  what initially seemed a profound insight as nothing more than mere coincidence, the next thought I had was...what was the name of that song again? and it hit me: "Faith"

Believe it or not I still shrugged it off after more doubting and decided that instead of writing a blog post about it which i was strongly convicted to do, Id just run through my usual post kids school sendoff morning routine of catching up on both the daily mainstream and social media news of the day. I wasn't five minutes into my Facebook scrolling trying to shake off the nagging conviction to write down my trivial ponderings of the morning when I came across a post from Stevie wonder that told me to "Check out Stevie's new song "faith" featuring Ariana Grande from the upcoming movie "sing""(posted November 7, 2016). So Thanks Stevie For your timely song and advertisement that inspired me to write today.