God Hold Me

By Xlibris US

God Hold Me is the story of a personal healing, born of the courage to embrace ones own deepest fears. Raised as a secular Jew, Joshua Chasan grew from being unable to relate to traditional religion to depending upon a personal relationship with the spiritual source of his being. His story is not for Jews only but for all who seek integrity in their personal identity.

God Hold Me is both a narrative of a spiritual journey and a source book of short poetic meditations that offer help in the personal struggle for integrity which is a hallmark of our time. These spiritual exercises, which appear in sans-serif type, were developed by Rabbi Joshua over the years of his own seeking, and he has taught them over the course of the past twenty years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499026498

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Joshua Chasan.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2014909639

ISBN:      Hardcover            978-1-4990-2652-8

                 Softcover            978-1-4990-2653-5

                 eBook                  978-1-4990-2649-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Front cover photograph by Cavan Chasan

Citations from Hebrew Scriptures are largely the author’s translations, though in some cases they are taken from secondary sources within which the translations appeared. Editions of Hebrew Scriptures that the author commonly consults are those of Old Jewish Publication Society, New Jewish Publication Society, and Koren Publishers Jerusalem.

Rev. date: 06/17/2014

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

625680

CONTENTS

PREFACE

BEING SOWN

SEPARATING

SINKING DOWN

PRACTICING

LEARNING TO WAIT

GOD TALK

STRIPPING AWAY THE SILVER

ABIDING AUTHORITY

MUST THE WORLD GROW COLD?

STRIKING ROOTS

BEING STILL

POSTSCRIPT

SOURCES

In memory of

Evelyn Schulman Chasan

and

William Chasan

Every heart

to love will come

but like a refugee

Leonard Cohen

PREFACE

Though we sense more about life than what’s physical, many of us continue to question the reality of a spiritual source of our being. We abide such cruelty. It’s difficult for us to imagine being sustained by an invisible, inexhaustible reservoir of affection. Still, we want such love.

This is a story about summoning the courage to recognize the loving source of who you are. Such love has many names. Over the last twenty-five years I’ve begun to trust and depend on the God of Israel. Even as I do, I delight in the many ways of addressing the fount of creation. There is no one language of divine liberation. However we call upon love, our love is the same.

My grandfather taught me to be cautious about religious belief. As a young man living in Kurinitz, Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century, Samuel Schulman yearned to be free of a world he associated with talk about God. When he discovered that a rabbi had colluded with the tzar’s police in conscripting him during the Russo-Japanese War, my grandfather rejected traditional religious practice completely. The first thing he did in New York City after leaving Ellis Island was to flout the authority of the rabbis by eating pigs’ knuckles.

Schulman (as he was known affectionately by almost everyone) was a gentle man who wasn’t afraid of going to hell. He experienced this life as bad enough. His understanding remains very much a part of mine, though I’ve no doubt that, were he alive today, my grandfather would fear that I’d fallen prey to an old world illusion.

My father, too, had difficulty with religion. Born in America, he was raised with a wariness of hucksters of any kind. Yet his counsel is as wise as ever. When I began talking about God, he warned me about the dangers of preaching: At best you’re asking me to believe something that I want to believe but can’t. At worst you’re insisting that I embrace your idea of love, an idea I have no interest in. Show me the love instead.

I hope that I’ve taken to heart my father’s concern, and that people with a range of attitudes about God find their way to these words. They are intended to address an interest in healing, in any way that healing is understood. For those so inclined, the

Reviews for God Hold Me

[menshevixen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The trippiest part of this book isn't Brother Power. It's seeing Tampa get blown up by a falling satellite.

[linyarai · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A collection of creepy stories, I couldn't get into it and didn't enjoy it.

[manipledmutineer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Superb, especially "Hold Me" and "Sandman Midnight Theatre"

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A selection of stories from a variety of eras and stages of Gaiman's writings, interesting look at his work and it's evolution.

[ferrisscottr · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Disappointed
Not disappointed in the work but disappointed at how much I didn't care for it.

Let me clarify that I am a fanatic for Neil Gaiman as an novelist, as a short story writer, as a narrator, as a YA author, as a speaker BUT I don't care too much for his comic book writing (I know, I know, start throwing rocks now).

I understand just how great he is and what he did for the industry - it's just not my thing. I'm more of a Spiderman or Calvin & Hobbes comic guy.

So I enjoyed it but not a great deal.
If you like his comic book writing then this is a 5 star book and you must get it but if you prefer his other work (Graveyard Book, Wolves in the Walls, American Gods) then you should wait a while because he has a new novel coming out in a few months.

[xicanti_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A collection of some of Neil Gaiman's early stories for DC.I've been a fan of Gaiman's for quite a while now, and I almost always find his work interesting and engaging. These stories proved no exception, though I do think I'd have enjoyed the Swamp Thing tales a whole lot more if I knew even a little bit about that particular series. As it stands, I could appreciate the storytelling but found myself a little lost in the stories themselves.The other offerings, however, were both very enjoyable. I wouldn't say that you need to have read much, (or any), Hellblazer to appreciate the John Constantine story, and the semi-Sandman story is far enough distanced from both the modern series and the original that I don't think it would present many problems for first-timers.If you do find yourself a bit lost, just do what I did: focus on the pacing, the use of the panels and the grasp of just what the comics medium can do. These are Gaiman's strengths, and the book shows them off to good effect.