Not being heard, but the Lord is my shepherd

Can’t sleep, still counting white and black sheep

Trying to cry, as I keep asking why

Is this our Father’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven

Christchurch – 50, Charleston – 9, Pittsburgh – 11

Was God in the houses where those poor souls went to pray

What does your holy book say

“…in this holy place or in any other place

may there come abundant peace

grace, lovingkindness and compassion, long life

ample sustenance and salvation

from the Father who is in heaven (and earth)

and say, Amen”

Lord hear our prayer

Four people I loved have died in four months. I will miss them for the rest of my life.

Bill proved that there is a difference between dads and fathers. Pat loved without judgement and made it okay to be outrageous. Yael had a timeless, elegant style that mattered. Armen proved that bringing joy to the lives of the people around us is worth more than money and having lots of stuff.

I will carry the laughter and love we shared in my heart.

They are now part of me.

When we part, what do you want me to remember?

Were we predestined to be born into our religions? What if we discovered that we aren’t who we think we are?

Through DNA testing, a Turkish man learns his grandmother wasn’t who he thought she was, and he discovers he is ethnically Armenian. Does this new fact automatically change him from a Muslim to a Christian? An elderly devote Catholic learns her grandfather converted to Catholicism from Judaism to marry his sweetheart. Does she stop going to church every day? What would you do?

Questions about our religious upbringing and identity have fascinated me for as long as I can remember. But, mostly, I appreciate wisdom and learning the teachings of different traditions.

“For Priest Turned Professor, ‘Holy Envy’ Is Key To Appreciating World Religions” is a refreshing conversation about religion. Terry Gross interviewed Professor Barbara Brown Taylor, an ordained Episcopal priest for NPR’s Fresh Air podcast. Professor Taylor wrote a memoir about how she exposed her college students to different religions — taking them to different houses of worship — and what happened. Listen to the podcast or read the article and share your thoughts here.

The other day my godson and I were talking about Facebook. We agreed we both feel worse after spending time on it.

So why don’t I just quit it? Because Facebook keeps me connected to friends and family I care about. Why not unfriend the ones who give me tsuris? Because I would rather have them in my life.

Ideally, I would like us all to:

• Remember why we became friends in the first place
• Focus on what we have in common
• Show respect for each other and our differences

You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

Long ago, in a far away place, Julfa was a thriving Armenian city. And then it was not.

What do you know about Julfa? I can tell you that there was an Old Julfa and a New Julfa.

During the Middle Ages, Old Julfa was on the Silk Road at the crossroads of great empires. A few hundred thousand Armenians called the ancient city home — a population about the equivalent of the number of Armenians living in the United States today. As their silk worms were spinning silk into gold, Julfa’s Armenian merchants were welcomed across Europe and the Far East. But, Julfa and its inhabitants were also in the crosshairs of warring kings.

After one particularly brutal turf battle won by Ottoman Sultan Ahmed I, Persian Shah Abbas I set fire to everything he could burn as he retreated. It was on this scorched earth that the Shah attempted to bring all of Julfa’s Armenians back with him. At first, they didn’t want to go, but he persuaded them to take his deal: deportation or death. Many thousands died on the journey. Those who survived, settled in Isfahan and established Nor (New) Julfa. Three of my grandparents descended from the Old Julfa Armenians. My father was born in New Julfa, in present-day Iran. He immigrated to America with his parents and sisters in 1948.

Today, Old Julfa is simply Julfa, a city in Azerbaijan. If you believe the Azeri government, the Armenians were never there. To put an end to the question of why there was an Armenian cemetery with thousands of graves in Old Julfa, Azerbaijan destroyed it.

Read Hyperallergic.com’s post, “A Regime Conceals Its Erasure of Indigenous Armenian Culture – A groundbreaking forensic report tracks Azerbaijan’s recent destruction of 89 medieval churches, 5,840 intricate cross-stones, and 22,000 tombstones.”

[Photo credit: Copyright Argam Ayvazyan archives, 1970-1981; posted February 17, 2019, Hyperallergic.com]

Sheri Jordan has been writing for a long time. She thinks it started in Mrs. Claire Otto’s second grade class. Mrs. Otto set up a writing corner behind a tall, three-paneled screen. The private space was furnished with a small desk and chair, just the right size for a seven-year-old.

It was stocked with sheets of lined notepaper, pencils, and a glass jar filled with candy. Sour, hard, fruit-flavored candies, individually wrapped in a crisp and clear plastic (the kind that makes an extraordinary amount of noise when a child tries to sneak some, or when an audience member of any age attempts to unwrap it discreetly, during a live theater performance of an Ibsen play). But I digress.

Sheri would regularly avail herself of this writing room of one’s own after she completed all of her assignments, per Mrs. Otto’s rules. Writers who filled a page with a story could help themselves to one candy from the jar. Based on the number of teeth she also filled, her dentist can tell you Sheri liked writing and the candy.

Today it takes more than candy for Sheri to write. She also needs coffee. As a business writer and technicaI editor, Sheri explains highly technical concepts in words one can enjoy reading without the benefit of a dictionary or caffeine. She writes emails, articles, presentations, training materials, social media and web content, and technical documents.

She is currently a Business Ethics & Compliance writer for Con Edison of New York. Her portfolio includes writing projects for several Fortune 500 clients, including: American Express, Cigna, Food Network, Metlife, Novartis, Oracle, Prudential, and Verisk Analytics. Sheri is also proud of the technical writing projects she completed for the South Florida Water Management District and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

After passing Mrs. Otto’s class, Sheri went on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree from St. John’s University and an M.B.A. from Florida Atlantic University. She is currently writing a book about the immigrant journeys of her grandfather and several of his friends.

Follow Sheri on LinkedIn.