Greg Leake emails: Hi Luke,
I haven’t completely gotten through your synopsis for your one act play. I looked at part of your story-telling revelation youtube, and of course many of these issues are subjects you have addressed often over the years.
Now that you are turning all of it into a one act play, you may not be looking for solutions, but a successful theatrical production. However, a few things leapt out at me that I might mention.
1) Luke, there simply is no disconnect between religion and spirituality. I guess there is a semantic definition of the word “spirituality” that you find challenging.
But, in fact, religion and spirituality go together like a hand and glove, Martin and Lewis, Luke and Rabbs, peas and carrots. There is simply no basis whatsoever to find a distinction between religion and spirituality.
In fact, one of the purposes of religion is to foster spirituality. And when it is successful, spirituality can lead to religion.
So the difficulty that you make in respect to these two words is simply in your own mind. I’m sure that there are Orthodox Jews who have a rich spiritual life as occurs in all other religions. Not long ago, my wife had occasion to be part of an opening prayer for a business meeting, and she could feel the black Baptist girl’s prayer life reflecting in her nephesh.
If your religious experience is not helping you to grow in spirituality, then you are probably in the wrong religion.
2) In your sex addiction youtube performance you listed many of the things that did not bring you transformation.
My friend, at 46 the only things that bring 99.9% of the people to transformation are being shot, being run over by a car, going blind, finding out you need dialysis, etc., etc. And, in fact, you have been undergoing transformation. Your view of life has apparently been very gradually getting worse. Maybe I am incorrect in this latter assessment; perhaps it is staying the same. At 46, you have now matured beyond most of the early developmental tasks, and so transformation such as going, for example, from prepubescence to sexuality, is not in the cards. I am 20 years older than you, and my transformation is on course — I’m getting older, less capable, less astute, all while managing to maintain a fairly robust and happy life.
Mostly spirituality and transformation are not “convergent experiences” that William James wrote about. They are slow, steady, intuitive realizations in respect to one’s inner development. It’s rarely splashy. And on some occasions the few that are splashy turn out to be psychosis, schizophrenia, and a host of other disorders that suddenly cause one to wake up and see the entire universe in a different light.
3) From reading your oft-published psych report, I better understand your condition that causes you to find your identity by mirroring outward circumstances. This explains one of the requirements of Orthodox Judaism that would be appealing. When you don’t know who you are, you can look in the mirror and see the yarmulke, the fringes; you can sit around on the Sabbath like Rabbs and eat tuna fish. You can say, “I know who I am. Just look at all these requirements I’m juggling.” Many people join biker gangs for the same reason. They do not know who they are, and now suddenly they have a jacket emblazoned with emblems; they ride with a pack that has a lot of regrettable codes of conduct and behavior, and there is a comfort in feeling that at last they know their identity. Some of Louis Ferrakahn’s followers are the same with the high-collar suits and the bow ties. Some people even get this out of military service and requirements.
But these enthusiasms that you have for this sort of token reinforcement are simply embracing the symptoms. Somewhere there is an actual Luke Ford, whether Luke Ford realizes it or not. In finding identity for that Luke Ford (which, coincidentally, shakes hands with Luke Ford’s spirituality) is the answer, rather than the embrace of yet another demand for costuming and rigid conduct.
Needless to say, my reference to Judaism is not intended to speak of people born into the Orthodox community and who have grown up with Orthodox Judaism as the completely normal way in which they live life.
4) If you want to find a compatible woman, stop limiting yourself to some girl who wants to embrace a frum lifestyle. There are millions of fine, decent, lovely, wonderful girls out there that are excluded from your search when you insist on finding one in this small, insular community. Out in the rest of the world, the majority of them expect to work and contribute to the family’s income. One of the reasons that many of us are in the middle and upper middle class is because we have capitalized on two paychecks speeding us on to savings and investment. Were you to subtract dual paychecks, suddenly the large number of affluent people would shrink to a very small number.
5) If the Sabbath makes you feel unhappy, then remove the token reinforcement and drive to another part of town and spend the day in their library writing and reading. And have maybe a couple of kosher dishes to eat in the car. If you don’t like the holidays, do something else. At 46, you’re no longer a kid in proverbial short pants. You’re a grown man and you can make a few decisions when they improve your life. If you prefer compliance to freedom on these matters, then you are in hock to your image of respectability. You can do a couple of things off the grid without diminishing your integrity or honor or devotion to G-d.
Well, forgive me if this is all seems to be criticism. It could be that these days you’re beyond looking for solutions, and you’re trying to find material for your play: in which case, I would simply say forget everything I’ve said and break a leg!
