A New Year Is Not Just One Day!

The year 2014 is still new. It's only the tenth of 365 days to come this year.  Why is there value in think about that? 

It's certainly important that we salute the passing year and welcome the New Year with renewed aspirations and resolutions, that we gather in celebrations of family and friendship and a million or so people gather at New York's Times Square, even in frigid weather, to celebrate and cheer on the New Year to the very last second of the old, as megamillions more watch on television.  

I like that it's a good time to review how far we've come, or not, in the past year and to re-assess the direction our lives are taking with our eyes on hopeful plans to make the next twelve months better, productive.  Personally, I think about the fact that it takes everyone to bring about change for the better in our culture, in our society and our way of life.  More of us, I believe, must be the architects of change and improvement where it is needed not only to make our own place in the world better but to take help those who are not sharing the "successes", the joy and the means to have better lives.  It's also time to think about teaching everyone. One citizen at a time is the first step in bringing about meaninful societal change. 

This year, I remember those left behind many New Year's Eves through the years of my own life and I'm sure others did the same.  Some think of friendship, "success" and "progress" in life with goals of a whole variety of ideas about what we are searching for in life.  Myself?  I've reached the age and comfort to say, what about others?  

On January 6th millions celebrated the ending of the 12 Days of Christmas and celebrated the Feast of the (Three) Wise Men or (Three) Kings, the Epiphany. Millions, following the Christian tradition, open their hearts to an annually re-newed awareness of the Light of the Star of Bethlehem that guided the Magi, Casper, Melchior and Balthasar, to a stable in Bethlehem to pay homage and bring gifts of gold, frankincense and myrr to a New-Born King, a king of a realm we did not know, with a mission of saving us from the ravages of evil within us. I don't need to repeat the story here to make a simple point:

No matter who we are, what our heritage, what our religious beliefs and traditions, we are spiritually and physically binded together as a race of humans who need other humans in our lives.  Imagine the proposition of one of us being the only person on Earth!  We can't imagine it in any way that makes sense. 

Men and women need others of their own species to live with and to love as they love themselves. 

My new year's review for this year took this route.  It's not easy; it's hard mental, emotional and spiritual work to think about our purpose in life or the responsibility for what we leave behind us, too vague, with many doors in our minds that we are not comfortable opening. 

But, I started my assessment in appreciating my family, our home, a place in our community, and the spirit, (for me with a capital ‘S’), that guides us through each day and every day, using our talents and gifts to help others and make the world at least a little better place. 

We are so very grateful to live in Southington, Connecticut, a community so rich in the good will of its people in all walks of life, their genuine compassion, generosity and love for others, whether through a small kindness or sharing something more substantial. Our community’s spirit gives hope and lightens the burdens of others in need. 

We have so many groups by the dozens like Southington Community Services, Bread for Life, charities initiated in the activities of many faith congregations and our inter-faith community, civic, fraternal and service organizations and institutions in Southington. 

Beyond the reality of serving the essential human needs of our own people, our town’s unrecognized corps of volunteers are a shining paradigm for others. They light the way for others who realize that there but for the Grace of God, go you and I. . Thanks, Southington, for welcoming us here in our retirement during the past nineteen years and for opening us to the splendid folks we’ve met in our churches, temples, charities, community service, civic and fraternal organizations as well as in our outstanding educational, professional, business and municipal institutions of this town. Writing your stories have been as uplifting to me as I imagine writing music can be.

And that, my friends, is what I thought about this New Year's Eve and how I plan to remain proactivley involved in life as a card-carrying member of my community every day this year, God willing.  

Happy New Year! What are you going to do for the next ...

  

The Bread of Life

This just in, over the transom.   erf 1/8/2014

Why go to Church?

If you are spiritually alive, you're going to love this!
If you're spiritually dead, you won't want to read it.
If you're spiritually curious, there is still hope.

--------------------------------------------

A churchgoer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."

This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:

"I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this. They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today.

"Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!" When you are DOWN to nothing..... God is UP to something!

"Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible! Thank God for our physical AND our spiritual nourishment!"

The Bread of Life comes to us in more than one form.

A Veteran's Christmas Visit to D.C: A Mission of the Heart

By E. Richard Fortunato

Since his retirement as a police officer in Cheshire, John DeMello, Sr. puts a lot of time and energy into helping his community. He is a veteran of the time of the Vietnam War and a member of the American Legion, Kiltonic Post 72 in Southington, CT, where he is always ready to help veterans in need and those actively serving in the armed forces defending freedom and our country's interests. He often initiates missions of good will, faith and mercy with his wife, Jin, joining in many of his efforts.

On December 21st, John and his wife left for Washington, D.C. They were going to celebrate Christmas with their son, John, Jr. who is an Air Force Captain stationed at the Pentagon, and his fiancée, Nikki. They were also celebrating the forthcoming marriage of John, Jr. and Nikki who would be departing for Thailand late on Christmas Day after a joyful visit with his parents. Nikki and John, Jr. are to be married in Thailand on January 8th, after a tour of that beautiful country.
Meanwhile, John, Sr. and Jin had another mission in mind. On past visits to D.C., they had seen many veterans living in clusters on the streets of Washington.  With a note of sadness and hope in his mind's eye, John told his friends at the American Legion about the homeless vets in our nation’s capital. They encouraged and helped John reach out within the community of Southington for support of a collection of donated new or clean used clothing.

Executive Director of Southington Community Services, Janet Mellon, got wind of John’s project and her team responded immediately with bags of winter clothing donated by the people of Southington for the homeless and threadbare.

With astonishing speed, the generosity of the people of Southington abounded with donated blankets, gloves, coats, gloves, scarves, hats and warm socks and more. Energized by the community's spirit of giving, John and Jin laboriously sorted and packed  large bags of clothing in their home and garage, loading it all into their pickup for the trip to Washington.

On Christmas Day, we received an email from John:

“Today was a great day for us, very humbling. Jin and I met so many homeless veterans and other homeless individuals. We don't know how lucky we are. I met a homeless vet named Harrison, he did not want anything. He said his hope is just to be out of the homeless shelter one day and once again lead a productive life. What an outstanding person who you could quickly see was intelligent. Though he had clearly had his share of pain in life, he did not talk about it in specifics”.

“It was deeply moving ...sad ... to see homeless men and women living in the parks, sleeping on the grass with no place to go but a shelter for the homeless. The shelters allow individuals to come in at 7:00 pm but they have to be out at 7:00 am.”

“My wife and I are grateful to the American Legion Post#72, Southington Community Services, Janet Mellon, and so many great people of Southington that made this Christmas special for the homeless vets in D.C. None of this would have transpired were it not for all of you. God Bless you all.” 

On his return to Southington, John told me much more about the experience. He could not get the scene out of his mind of the homeless people surrounding the pickup truck for anything that might help them keep warm: a blanket, a hat, a pair of gloves. Jin was standing in the truck dispensing clothing as fast as she could to meet the outstretched hands and then began throwing some items out beyond the immediate human circle surrounding the truck to reach others while John moved among them handing clothing to all he could reach to be sure everyone got something.

As the crowd grew, John saw a truck parking just in front of theirs on the street. It was a truck with volunteers handing out hot cups of soup to the cold and hungry, many of them clutching their new Christmas gifts of clothing.

"Seeing homeless Americans in the parks and streets of Washington, is as sad as it gets", John said.  He thought a while and said to me that he remembers standing there, wondering how the people of Southington who had gathered and donated these articles of winter clothing would react to the scene... a sea of humans, many of whom have served our country, with outstretched hands, clinging to the hope of a gift of mercy to help them stave off the pain of the bitter cold.

In God's mercy, many of us are spared the sight of these everyday situations of human suffering.

But a few pictures speak volumes...    Click on each photo to enlarge.

John DeMello, Sr. and his wife, Jin, (left), stop at our home on December 18th to pick up clothing we donated and collected for their trip to Washington, D.C. Grace Fortunato is on the right helping as best she can with heavy bundles of clothes.

Jin DeMello, on Christmas Day, distributing clothes to homeless veterans gathering around their pickup truck on a street adjoining a park in Washington, D.C.

Crowd of homeless grows, many anxious, unsure if they'll receive some of the clothing being dispensed.

As the word spreads and homeless in the park see a crowd gathering they come over to the pick up truck, (could have been Santa's sleigh), bringing them articles of clothing to relieve them of the long cold days outdoors.

Another view of the park which is day time homeground for many homeless veterans.

Southington Town Manager Announces Plans to Meet Expected Severe Weather, Heavy Snow and Bitter Cold

Be informed as Local Weather Condition Bulletins are Announced by Southington Town Manager, Garry Brumback who made the following annoucement at 3:15 pm today, January 2, 2014. -- E. Richard Fortunato

During the next 48 hours we are expecting severe weather with heavy snow and bitter cold.  The following are the actions we are taking to prepare:

Garry Brumback on Plans to
Meet Blizzard Head On

1) Highway staff is on duty and will remain so until the snow storm has passed. They have pretreated most of the roads and all are passable.  They will start to plow when conditions warrant it and will bring the contractors in when the heavy snow begins to fall.

2) Calendar House and the Library will be open and serve as “warming shelters” during normal duty hours tomorrow.  We don’t expect power outages so there are no plans to provide food or off hours shelter.

3) Janet (Mellon) is coordinating with a local hotel to make sure we have a few rooms available if needed for homeless needing shelter. The Police and Fire departments have been alerted to be on the lookout for those needing assistance.

4) Schools released early today and are planning to discuss how to respond tonight but will probably make the call in the morning.

5) If the roads are really bad for the morning commute I will delay opening Town offices until 10:00 am.

I will keep you posted as information is updated.

Thanks,

Garry Brumback, ICMA-CM
Town Manager
(860) 276-6200
www.southington.org

A Community of Faith, Sharing Religious Beliefs and Traditions

The Quest for Common Ground is pleased to present a series of posts this month during this joyful holiday season in the hope of providing our community of Southington, Connecticut, and other communities of people greater understanding of the diversity of relgious beliefs rooted in their rich heritage and traditional creeds. Freedom of religion is a cornerstone of the American credo that extends beyong tolerance and reaches out to understanding so that we may love one another as we love God.  It is, our faith, after all, which offers us the values of our most cherished beliefs and religious traditions which enrich our lives in this great country.  

Rabbi Shelley Kovar Becker
Gishrei Shalom Jewish
Congregation, Southington, CT

We begin today with a joyful reflection by Rabbi Shelley Kovar Becker of the Gishrei Shalom Jewish Congregation in Southington, CT.  Please feel free to share your comments with our community.                                                                                                    

By the time you read this, Chanukah, the 8-night Jewish holiday known as the Festival of Lights, will be over.  I am fortunate to celebrate with family and congregants, lighting the chanukiah (Chanukah menorah) and enjoying potato pancakes, known as latkes.  They are a traditional food of the holiday but jelly donuts may be consumed as well.  It is all about the oil so any fried food will do!

As a rabbi I have been asked many times this year about Thanksgiving and Chanukah falling so close together.  I am sure you have read about it and a search of the Internet will bring up the particular calendrical computations that produced the phenomenon. But in musing on the overlap of these two days, I offer this: Thanksgiving was the feast of gratitude the early settlers of America offered for the bounty of this new land that marked their survival over the hardship of their migration to the unknown and their appreciation for religious freedom.

Chanukah Menorah

For Jews, Chanukah, is a holiday that celebrates our surmounting the oppression of the Syrian-Greeks in the second century Before the Common Era.  Chanukah represents the few overcoming the many, the fight for self-determination over subjugation.

This year however, I am more focused both personally and professionally, on the resultant separation of the Jewish holiday from Christmas. For you see, Chanukah is not the Jewish Christmas and so I have an opportunity to teach that two great faith traditions celebrate joyous events both very different and very meaningful to each of us. I hope the understanding and compassion that can come from each holiday having its own fullness of time for observance signifies a wonderful new year to come.

- Rabbi Shelley Kovar Becker, Gishrei Shalom Jewish Congregation, Southington..

An Exciting Thanksgiving Journey

I received this very special Thanksgiving Story in e-letter form from a professional colleague of mine from Seiko Corporation of America of twenty years ago.  Lynn Dansker was always the consummate professional in her work, but there's much more than that in this simple story of love and giving.  -  ERF

Lynn, Cole and Joe Dansker

Dear Friends and Family,

Joe, Cole and I would like to wish you all a safe and joyful Thanksgiving.

We will not be sharing the holiday this year with our family, instead we are embarking on an exciting journey. We would like to share this story.

A little more than 3 years ago we looked into sponsoring a child through the Adoption Agency I used to bring Cole into our lives. They offer a Sponsorship program that offers children in several countries the opportunity to attend school. In many countries in order to attend school you have to be able to purchase a school uniform and shoes. Thousands and thousands of children (maybe more) do not attend school in these countries because they do not have the means to make such a purchase. We decided we wanted to sponsor a child and give him/her the gift of education.  

We chose Guatemala because the native language is Spanish and Cole has been attending a Spanish immersion school for the past 4 years. Cole always wanted a little brother or sister and we thought it would be a great opportunity for him to feel like a big brother and a way to practice his Spanish writing skills. The little boy that we have been matched with is named Selvin. He is the youngest of 4 children and to the best of our knowledge, no one in his family has attended school. He turned 8 years old last month, and lives in a hut with no floor and no refrigerator. Our annual donation pays for his uniform and shoes. To our great joy, Selvin has completed 3 years in the sponsorship program; beginning his 4th year in January when the children return from a 2 month Holiday break.

Selvin not only has to keep his grades to a high standard, he is only allowed to miss a few days of school each year and his parents must remain engaged in the program. If these 3 qualifications are not met, he would not be able to continue in the program. The fact that he has remained in the program for 3 full years is an anomaly. Most children do not, mostly because there are so many stresses on the family that it does not remain a priority.

We have kept in touch with Selvin and his family through the Agency and have shared letters, drawings, photos over the years. We are been allowed to send him books, pencils, crayons, paper, markers (anything that is considered a school supply) but no toys or clothes or anything that his family may need.

Cole turns 9 on Sunday and next Wed is the first night of Hanukah so Joe and I decided to give Cole a birthday/Hanukah gift that he will never forget. We have surprised him with a trip  to Guatemala to meet his “little brother” and his family. We leave this Saturday Nov 23rd and return on Nov 30th. We will be sightseeing for 2 ½ days and then we have plans to spend the next few days with Selvin taking him to the zoo, swimming at the hotel pool and other activities that he probably has never been exposed to. We will meet his family as well and will be escorted by the woman who runs the Sponsorship Program in Guatemala throughout our stay. Thank goodness she is Bilingual as my college Spanish is rusty at best!!! Cole will also serve as our translator on this journey. How exciting it will be to hear him converse with Selvin in Spanish!

We are THRILLED (and a bit nervous) about our adventure,  however we are looking forward to meeting our extended family in Guatemala!!

We look forward to sharing our journey with you through stories and photographs when we return.

On behalf of Joe, Cole and myself have a great Thanksgiving holiday! Be safe!

Lynn Dansker

Remembering Alfred George Fortunato

Alfred George Fortunato, September 6, 1931 - October 2, 2013

Yesterday was the first anniversary of the passing of Alfred George Fortunato, my brother, my life-long best friend and trusted confidant.  

Al was born when I was only two. My memories of every phase of our lives has spanned a long lifetime for both of us. Growing up together as third generation Americans in a family culture that reflected our Italian-American heritage, alongside of neighbors, school and team mates, many of whom became lifetime friends, we were part of the early twentieth century products of the largest melting pot of diverse heritages, essentially European.  

Close in age, we and our late youngest brother, Vinnie, (aka Jimmy), served in the U.S. Army simultaneously and with pride during the Korean War in the 1950's.  Returning to civilian life each of us raised families, between us and our younger sister, Ann Marie Rumpke, presenting seventeen grandchildren to our parents, Mafalda and Jimmy Fortunato. 

It was not unusual in those times to have close sibling relationships even in our mature years. Now, through the lens of a lifetime, I see the uniquely special bond in a relationship beyond comparison in our lifetimes. Today, I treasure Al's and Jimmy's memory. Ann Marie refers to we two surviving siblings as the bookends of a family that grew up in an environment that cultivated great interest in the arts, music and in the literary world. 

Just a few year's ago, I realized that Al and I never had a personal quarrel. If, as in a few instances, we had differences in our thinking concerning public policy, it never, never became personal or affected our fundamentally sound relationship.  In fact, our approach to differences strengthened our mutual esteem and we always kept in sight that we had the same fundamental aspirations for humankind. That played a great part in our shared mutual respect, esteem and love for one another that never wavered.  

The last decade of my brother's life was filled with health issues. His discomfort and anxiety stretched the limits of pain in his final year, but he never gave up. Nor did he ever stop caring and loving his family, his friends and the joy of his work in his chosen profession of publishing serious non-fiction using skills that spanned the gamut of historian, researcher, editor, wordsmith, author and profound thinker.   

With a firm but gentle voice, Al's words were always spoken and written with an ever-mindful focus on compassion, especially for those who seemed to be left out in the pledge of 'liberty and justice for all'.

His greatest assets were his fine mind, his integrity and his empathy with all living things. Al's gift of intellect, insightful logic and simpatico nature were core components of the elegance of his character. 

Al Fortunato, Captain and Center Fielder
Erasmus Hall H.S. Brooklyn, NY c 1947

His departure was shattering for all of us: his loving wife, children and grandchildren, siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins and a legion of friends and associates in the literary world and his younger days of baseball.   

After a year, sorrow and mourning have given way to a personal healing process for me.  I describe it as having lived through an increasing personal propensity for quiet periods of contemplative spiritual time, reading and study which came to reflect on my thinking and writing. Consequently,  I find myself filled with a spiritual energy has renewed a sense of gratitude for the joy and love we've had in our lifetimes.  

One step beyond, I have witnessed an increasing sensory phenomenon in the past six months. My meditative reflections of past interactions with Al, and recently with my brother, Jimmy, as well, present a spiritual connection or communion with them of a nature previously unknown to me. 

For the doubtful, I am not asserting that I talk to them or to the Holy Spirit in a physical vocal sense. I hear no 'voices'. But my heart is filled and my spirit is warmed by a new sense of the presence of each of them as I reminisce to our relationships in the past. 
   
Closing thoughts: Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is not here yet.  I live and love with both feet solidly grounded in the present while holding onto the wonderful memories and love of the past and my Christian beliefs in the future.

In His Spirit,

Ephraim Richard Fortunato