The Jewel of Life is Multi-Hued.
There is a clue in it.
All is one. One is all. Food.
The sky overlooks with a starry-eyed gaze.
Flipping over does not turn its page.
Once there is Fire and Water, Earth, and Air
There's no reason to turn in despair.
So beautiful. Given and received forever.
Well, that was kind of interesting. I started out looking for a picture of a jewel to be phonic representative of a Jewish person (me), which led me to a sapphire sky, which led me to the Jewel of Consciousness, which has now led me back to the story I intended to tell of a time when being Jewish got me 'in trouble,' and yet led to a discovery of strength.
I was waiting at a bus stop in Seattle with a lovely gentleman of another ethnic minority. We had a lively discussion, and then the bus came. I sat in the front vertical seats, he in the rows beyond. The bus driver had a break, so we all just sat there, until a loud-voiced alcohol-fumed person came aboard.
For a while he just talked in exaggerated tones to himself, and then he caught sight of me.
Shouting across half the length of the bus, he challenged me - "Hey, you a Jew?" I immediately tensed up, but in the next couple of seconds I could feel a zone of protection lovingly surround me. On and on he continued to rant and rail at me, threateningly, but I began to ease into the public humiliation like a warm bath. I really couldn't hear his slurs anymore. They didn't matter to me. If anything, I felt sad for the man I was so friendly with at the bus stop, moments before, who looked anxiously away from meeting my eyes, in fear that he might become a target as well.