Risk Is the Price You Pay

Risk is the Price you pay for Opportunity.

JJKR
2001

Within my Book of Memories
are special thoughts of you
and all the evidence of glorious things
which, because of you, came true.

As I turn back the pages of memories
and recall each single thought,
I realize the happiness and pleasure
that knowing you has brought.

There are memories of the times we’ve shared
both bright and gloomy days.
there are memories of your kindness
and your friendly, thoughtful ways.

There are memories of your laughter,
your gay and cheery smile
that added a bright note to each of us
and made life more worthwhile.

There are memories of the things we planned
each friendly little chat,
when we would get together
and just talk of this and that.

And when I recall these memories
as I move along life’s way
they grow more precious and blessed
with every passing day.

poem given to Bobby by Susan

“The goal of memory is to leave you with a coherent story of what happened …

[but] Memory isn’t just a record of external events, … [it is] also a record of our intrepretation of events.”

Mark Reinitz
University of Puget Sound,
reported in Discover Magazine,
October 2001, pg 22

If you believe that God is “all powerful” and “all knowing” and independent of man

then its pretty hard to believe that God appreciates our worship or praise … even as a gesture of respect and devotion … for if he is truly all knowing, then he knows the silent feelings in our hearts … irrespective of the outward manifestations of performing praise and worship.

He simply doesn’t need our approbation or our validation in worship and praise from us.

There may be some value for us, however, in worship and praise, because of what it does for those of us who offer it …

it might make us feel good …

and it might set an example for those who observe us doing it, which might make them feel better …

but, I don’t believe that God gets any Benefit from us out of praise and worship.

Robert Jorrie, 1994

Lord,

Make me an Instrument of Thy Peace,

Where there is Hatred,
let me Sow Love;

Where there is Injury,
Pardon;

Where there is Doubt,
Faith;

Where there is Despair,
Hope;

Where there is Darkness,
Light;

Where there is Sadness,
Joy.

O Divine Master,

Grant that I may not so much seek to be Consoled as to Console;
to be Understood, as to Understand;
to be Loved, as to Love;
for it is in Giving that we Receive,
in Pardoning, that we are Pardoned,
in Dying that we are Born to Eternal Life.

attributed to St Francis of Assisi,
who died 1226

Since the very beginning of his Existence, Man attributed the things that he saw, but could not understand to a number of gods. These gods, he supposed, ruled certain areas in the relations with men.

For example,

if a man needed food, he prayed to the god of the hunt to be “good” to him and to allow him to catch a fat deer. These gods became more and more numerous until it occurred to someone that there must be a God Who Ruled the Gods Who Ruled the People.

As time went on, it became apparent that one could get a “better harvest” on his prayers if he went to the headman instead of some middleman. The middle gods fell by the wayside and died.

From the need of man to have a feeling of being loved and protected by “someone” came the concept of God.

Now it is academically impossible to prove that there is a God.

No one has ever seen Him, or taken His picture, or been able to prove of a conversation with Him. However, if we first assume that there is no God, then it becomes immediately evident that there is a God, for if we look at our solar system, with its bodies moving with orderly and predictable motion, we knowthat this cannot be an accident … it couldn’t just “happen” … someone had to make it happen.

This someone is God.

I know this “God” well … many people are afraid of Him, others worship Him because they are afraid not to, but I look on God as sort of a brother-father combination. He is brother-like in His love for me and never dying faith in me. He is always encouraging me, and is perpetually getting me out of tight spots.

He is father-like in that He is forgiving. He has taught me to try to do what I think is Right. If, in trying to do Right, I make an honest mistake, He forgives me. But if I neglect to do what I know to be right, then He always punishes me in some way or the other.

He may not do it today or tomorrow, but I always get my Reward.

Another father-like quality is His guidance.

He never commands me, He suggests through my conscience, that I ought to do thus and so, and He has taught me to weigh one of His wishes against another and to pick the more important.

For Example,

whether or not to help someone who needs my help instead of going somewhere for my own pleasure. When I don’t follow His suggestions, my conscience usually bothers me until I wish I had.

A very interesting fact is, that when I ask God to do me a favor, I rarely get it … but when I ask Him to help me to do it myself, I always receive the help.

This is how I see God …

but what is His place in what we call Religion?

Have you ever wondered whether or not Judiasm was the “true” religion … perhaps Catholicism is the “true” religion and we Jews just think that ours is the right one.

Does God just love Jews … or just Catholics?

Obviously not!

God loves all men … then all Religions must be the “true” Religion. From this we see that the God Jews see is the very same God that Catholics see, but seen through a different picture frame!

Religion, then, is not the Way we Worship,

but the way in which we lead our lives and conduct ourselves in the execution of what we see as God’s wishes.

Speech delivered to the Congregation of Temple Beth El
by Robert Jorrie
Dec. 23, 1960

My God,

the Soul you gave me is pure
You Created it,
You Sculpted it,
You Breathed it inside me,
You Protect it.

At some Future time
You will draw it forth from me
and give it back in the World to come.

But all the time it remains in me.

I shall give You Thanks, my God,

God of those who lived before me,
Author of all Works,
Protector of all Souls.

Author Unknown
contributed by
Rachel Jorrie, 1990

Rabbis or Leaders of other Faiths concerned with being able to attract the Congregation

With drawing crowds of “Customers”

Who say they are acting in the name of God … or Humanity … or Righteousness

Infuse their personal opinions,

And infer theological “correctness” of those Opinions by their delivering them to the Congregation.

Members caught up in

Buildings, budgets, boards, and committees

Fund raising

Seemliness in front of other religious communities

Retirement plans

Local and international politics

Attend services that are about the same from evening to the following morning (but for a change in sermon)

Which are redundant because of Tradition or because the writer of the Service thinks we need reinforcing

Or because he hopes to get 2 different sets of “customers” … one in the A.M. … one in the P.M.

For me,

God seems to have Little To Do with what I know to be modern day Organized Religion of any Faith.

Robert Jorrie

My Dad was a wonderful man in so many ways …

Intelligent, gutsy, a person that made great strides in the political reform of Bexar County, full of many talents … and as I got to be adult, always willing to protect me by teaching me to protect myself

But several times during my lifetime he did things to me that were simply unthinkable in their cruelty to me

things which hurt me so badly … things which caused me such super great pain

he lied to me, repeatedly cheated me out of money, committed me to accepting debt that I didn’t have to owe, used my wealth for his purposes as though it were his own, and caused me to lose quite a lot of it, paid me pitifully, fired me from Jorrie Furniture on 12/31/71 when I had no way to earn a living (so I went to law school).

He taught me not to trust him in business and many other things and always chose my sisters side when there was anything to be split between us … or any favor to be granted that could only be granted to one of us.

When he was dying, he and I got very much closer in the last 6 years of his life … I helped bathe him sometimes, shaved him almost every day whenever he was in the hospital and in his final illness (and he’d call and complain if I was late, it was wonderful!) or whenever I was at his house near shaving time, cut his toenails which Patricia hated doing so much and oversaw his care in addition to Patricia doing so.

And twice in his life, and then only, in his last few years he finally told me the words I had always wanted to hear and waited my whole life to hear:

“You are a Good Son, Bobby”.

Now he is dead and I miss him.

In Act III, Scene 2 of the play Julius Caeser, Shakespeare had Mark Antony say “The Evil that Men do, lives after them, the Good is oft interred with their bones.”

For me, it is the Reverse … perhaps because in death, he can no longer hurt me.

But for all the Bad that Sam did to me, still he made me into a Fine Man and while I too, have also made some terrible errors upon my kids … like Sam, I always meant well for them when I did those acts … even if I messed up in what those acts did to my kids

and I miss him so badly.

I regret that during the later years of his life, I wasn’t much closer to him after 12/31/71

for I thought I couldn’t trust him and so,

I simply stayed away from him in most ways in which trust was required.

I treated him like a rattlesnake in business and other things … and held him “where he couldn’t hurt me” … and I even wrote a text for my Book on Life about it to pass on the valuable part of the lesson.

Now I see that while I was properly defensive in the business arena, that I was the Big Loser in that Equation in the other areas …

for all the bad that he did to me, the Good he did FOR me, Far Outweighed the smaller, but ever so much more painful bad, that he did me.

It was my Mistake.

Now I believe that I should have risked more hurt and made myself to have accepted that risk … just to be closer to him.

And the loss is Mine.

Robert Jorrie

I’m an Old Man … and I’ve had Many Problems

most of which have Never Happened.

Albert Einstein