Playing Dominoes with Shevy

One of the Shabbat (Saturday) morning activities that Shevy (5) and I enjoy together is setting up long trains of dominoes and watching them fall. It’s a lot of work (and often frustration) for a couple of moments of “WOW” but it passes the time together and we have a laugh.

Is life like those domino trains? Does each moment knock into and automatically cause the next? Or is life more like when you space one domino a little too far from its neighbor and the domino just stands there, and falls. Nothing happens. Then there is another domino next to it and another, and another….Is each moment unique unto its own without a defined relationship to the next or the previous one?

I think it might be both. There is a connection, but the challenge is that the one MAKING the connection is YOU. And you and I will connect one moment to the next based on all the previous connections, the story we have been creating throughout our lives. If the storyteller has a defective or unlovable self at the heart of the story, well, guess how each moment is going to be linked to the next….

In order to unravel the story it can be helpful to begin seeing each moment as just that. A moment. Period.

Moment A – You knock over a glass of juice at the table.

Moment B – You feel a pain in your gut and your face begins to flush.

Moment C- You hurriedly get a napkin to wipe it up as you apologize profusely.

Is there really a connection between these events? If you were criticized and felt shame for being clumsy, etc. the story will say YES, they are connected.

But maybe they aren’t, maybe there is no real connection between knocking over a glass of liquid on the table and the emotion of shame..? Maybe knocking over a glass is just something that happens in this world sometimes?