Friday links: 22 April, 2022

It’s Friday! Always nice to have the weekend juuuuuuuuuust about here. This has been a pretty good week so far, so I’m not desperate for a break like I have been some weeks! Yesterday was amazing; almost 70 degrees, full sun (enough for me to slightly toast my right arm, whoops), it was gorgeous out there and we did a bunch of our afternoon school sitting outside, plus we went on a really nice walk afterwards. Saturday’s supposed to be hot as well, but then back down to chilly. Ah well. Can’t have it all at once, I guess!

I haven’t been online all that much this week, but what I did find was at least both interesting and useful. Here we go!

 

Illinois Officials Recommend Residents Take Down Bird Feeders, Baths Due to Avian Flu

Ours will be coming down either later today or tomorrow (we’ve got some thunderstorms rolling in, so it depends on when we can sneak out there). I know this is a problem in multiple states, so if you’ve got bird feeders or baths, heavily consider taking them down until May 31^st to stop the spread of the EA H5N1 strain of Avian flu, which is hitting both wild and domestic birds. We love our birds; they provide us so much joy and entertainment at the feeder right outside our living room window, and that’s why we want to do everything we can to keep them safe and healthy.

 

Covid: Woman caught virus twice within record 20 days

If where you live is like where I live, you’re seeing way more of people’s faces than you’re comfortable with these days. Sometimes I’m the only one in the store wearing a mask. It doesn’t bother me; I’ve never had any problem with standing out or being different. But cases ARE going up. The wastewater data doesn’t lie, and it’s up, up, up. And now we’ve got evidence of people being reinfected within a three-week time frame? Not good news. Wear your masks, friends. Be careful about large gatherings, especially indoor ones. Multiple infections do our bodies no favors.

 

God Is Not a Consumerist

This is an article about Hanukkah (just a little bit), but it’s truly applicable for all holidays. Why are we so driven by stuff, and what does it mean? Is there any way out of this cycle? It’s hard: hard to explain why and follow through with our children, hard to make our extended family understand that we appreciate their generosity, but we don’t need anything (I’m thinking particularly of my mom here, who is wonderful, but whose love language is gifts). How can we better celebrate holidays in ways that don’t involve consumerism? Definitely something to ponder.

 

Simplicity as a Jewish Path

What a great article. One of the many, many things I love about Judaism is its demand for constant self-reflection: what are you doing with your life to help others, how are you living out these principles, are you helping the arc of the universe bend toward justice? It forces me to constantly reconsider what kind of person I am and want to be, and I love that so much. There’s a tradition of voluntary simplicity in Judaism, known as histapkut b’me’ut, and this article goes into what that means (and how the trauma of Jewish history has affected the way many Jews have struggled with this concept, which is entirely understandable). This article is giving me a lot of joy today, and you definitely don’t have to be Jewish in order to find inspiration in it.  

 

That’s it for today! There are a few places on the list for some scary weather this weekend, so if that’s you, take care and stay safe. Wishing you all a wonderful, peaceful weekend. Shalom, friends. : )