It has been a long day. A very long day.

Today was the day I decided to convert.

This did not come upon me all at once. He nattered at me for a long time about it. We talked a lot about ethics and beliefs, profession versus reality, accepting what is versus what should be versus what will be versus what must be until I lost track of where I was.

In the end, it came down to a need for stability, peace, association, belonging, posterity, discipline, new challenges long overdue, and a lot of other things I can't even begin to enumerate without spilling this blog into the middle of next Tuesday.

So, today, the decision was made and my path chosen. It was not easy. First, I had to recognize something that has always irked me and that is the tendency of mankind to look for an ultimate, a final, a cheat sheet, an argument winner, a deal closer, a perfect everything. I hate that in me and others, yet understand it and its place at the same time. We're afraid that any choice we make will be less than perfect and thinking about it, tossing the moral potato back and forth, scares us. It also feels like trying to play a game of catch with a wrecking ball. Altogether intimidating and laborious.

Well I'd rather not be a faithless fence sitter, not that I am calling others this. I merely say this is what I would be if I acknowledge the reason for that weak desire for a convenient shortcut to enlightenment and yet keep on practicing it openly and deliberately unless it were for illustrative purposes to teach some lesson. That being said, no fence sitter I, the decision is made to not only pursue an actual path, but pursue MY path.

In realizing that the strong and wise do no t pray for release from their burdens but the wisdom and strength to transform them into something else until all burdens become something else automatically, I realized that to chase THE path would forever lead me away from it. It reminded me of a loosed house cat.

If a house cat gets out, do you chase it? No, for chasing it makes certain it will run from you. Do you ignore it? No, you must remember that you want the cat back. What do you do? You unite the opposites and leave the door open. Then the cat will think you are ignoring it and when it has come in to make itself at home, you quietly close the door behind it.

In pursuing THE path, I would forever be denied it, and in doing, lose out on MY path as well. So instead, I've asked Him to be my copilot on MY path and He assures me that all who walk THEIR path do most closely come to His path no matter how it seems, for that is where He needs us, where He wants us.

I did of course also ask for someone else's path to cross mine and for that insolence was given my wish. I've been married ever since.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have time before sundown to complete the next piece of this story. If I don't see you, shabbat shalom. Be good. I'm trying to be myself. It isn't easy, but at least He keeps tabs on me.