Daddy's Acknowledgement of Tara on the Occasion of Her Bat Mitzvah (Jan 2009)

My sweet Tara. You have just accomplished something truly wonderful and your family and friends are here to celebrate with you.

I want to share some thoughts with you. A few paragraphs that I am unreasonable enough to presume you will internalize and live by. Little do they know, out there in the audience, that this is already you…

It turns out that there are four tools that, when practiced, reliably give access to the realm of happenings that we cannot explain with our current way of understanding reality and force us to reinterpret life. These tools give us access to the miraculous. You have already demonstrated your familiarity with of them on numerous occasions and I will memorialize them now:

1) Live a life of integrity. Integrity is not being good, not being admirable, not meaning what you say and not even always keeping your word. Integrity is honoring your word. Honoring your word means treating your words with deep respect. Nobody can give you integrity. With integrity, you can make promises you don’t know how to keep. This will give you access to the miraculous.

2 ) Be “not deserving.” This does not mean unworthy; it’s simply being neither deserving nor un-deserving but rather a space where miracles can happen and deserving plays no role at all.

3) The future you are living into gives you being in the present. What you know about yourself and your life comes solely from the past and is useful for survival - but is worthless for miracles. The past is not where you are; the past has nothing to do with who you are. Who you are in the present is given by the future you are living into.

4) The future exists as anything is possible. Even what you are sure (or absolutely certain) is impossible, is possible. The future exists as pure possibility – a blank canvas, a realm of possibility in which you can create a possibility. There is no such thing as a right possibility or a wrong possibility. Create a possibility, a future that asks you to be a bigger person than you think you are. Create a future that moves you, touches you, and inspires you. In fact, look for a future – a possibility – that wants you! Create that and take a stand the future that you create.

Mom and I created this weekend as a possibility almost 14 years ago. It was worth the wait!

Love, Daddy