I was chatting with my Love earlier today and he said he did not blog, because nobody would read it. I explained to him that I write this blog only because of selfish reasons and not for the people out there. Finishing the day with some writing helps me to clear my mind and organize my thoughts. It is like swimming. When I swim, especially long distance, my mind is empty. It is an amazing experience. It is like meditation.

It seems today is about spiritual expreiences. Except the time I spent at the gym I was at home all day trying to fix my Mac, the Mail application was playing up. I love computer technology and especially love my fairly new Mac and therefore I hate when they are not running smoothly. I am not a computer geek though, so whenever I try to fix the problem, I make a mess. However, I have learnt through the years fighting with computers (mostly PCs with Windows) that the most important two words were 'back up'. So I was focusing on the problem and suddenly the doorbell rang. Delivery. Wow, I completly forgot that I had ordered books online a few days ago. Two books from the Dummies series. Judaism for Dummies and Buddhism for Dummies... One can ask why those. Well, I used to learn Kung-Fu when I was 17 and this martial art is strongly connected to Buddhism, so I had the interest from that time. Judaism is something different. Let me explain this a bit. I have had this feeling for a long time. If I have to specify, it started when I met my third boyfriend seven years ago. Without details now, he was Jewish. Certainly not orthodox, more likely reform jew. While we were together, I met a guy on the Internet and started to chat. He was not my type at all, but he was a decent, nice guy and I enjoyed talking to him as he was intelligent and open minded. We also met face to face and I introduced him to my boyfriend as well. As the time went we developed a strong friendship. He lived (and still lives) on the countryside in Hungary with his wife, so we visited them often. They don't have children, so we were kind of a substitution for them, but in a good and honest way. Surprise, surprise, he is Jewish as well and in addition he has a strong bond to Israel, he used to live and work there and he still visits regularly. He invited us to go with him and his wife to Israel for holiday. We have been there twice and it was an amazing experience. The average people have a concept about Israel based on what they see, hear and read in the media. I had one as well. I was scared of bombs and guns. Again, as quite often in life, the reality was different. We had a round trip from the southest point, Eilat to up north reaching the border of Lebanon. We saw Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, the Dead Sea and Masadah, the Sea of Galilee and much more. Certainly we have seen no violence, no bombs or anything like that. We have seen soldiers and metal detectors everywhere though, but there they were part of the everyday life. The most shocking experience was that I did not feel as a foreigner. I know it sounds exaggeration, but I felt kinda like at home.

So let's see... I had a Jewish boyfriend, I met and became friend with a Jewish guy and I visited Israel twice and felt like at home. I do not believe in coincidence. I do believe that everything happens in this world for reason. After we came home my Mum told me something which kinda affirmed my feelings. She said that there was a secret in the family about someone who was married, but sleeping around and got pregnant and this way there might be Jewish blood in the family, particulary on her side. I couldn't speak. From that moment I started to read about Judaism, the history, culture and religion.

Back to the present, today I got these books and I started to read the one about Judaism right away, it seems to be a good one. This would not be so interesting, but something happened again.

As usual I chated with my boyfriend this evening and he said that he has been asked to be present at a Bat Mitzvah... He told me that without knowing that I have had these books. I know one would say it is a coincidence, but I still do not believe in that.

I told him about all of this and mentioned that I had been thinking about becoming converted for a long time. He laughed at me. Laughed out loud. I was shocked by that. He thought I was only joking. Bless him. He apologized when I told him I was serious. I am. It is not definite, but I am thinking about it.

We are living in a fast world. Everything is fast around us. Fast food, fast broadband, fast delivery, quick sex. I am part of it, I am not complaining. What I am trying to say is that I am missing something. I am missing the rituals. The moments when you slow down and spend some time with your loved ones and think about important questions. The christianity I know does not appeal to me. Certainly I have only experienced a small portion of the whole religion, but I don't like the idea of Jesus as the son of God and the Messiah. I do believe a power which drives this whole thing around and inside us. One can call it God or Allah or Jehova... I just use the word Power. So the Catholic Church and the whole death on the cross are not for me. Buddhism could be the choice as I already had some experience. My problem with Buddhism is that it is so far fetched for the western civilization (or just for me) that I found it difficult to apply it to my life. Probably it is my fault and not the phylosophy though. Apart from these two I only know something about Judaism and what I know about this one is very close to my ideology and moral. Obviously I still don't know enough to understand the complexity of Judaism, but the rituals they practice today as their ancestors did in the past are deeply rooted in their past and the sacred book, the Torah. It seems to me that these rituals are there not because of political or financial reasons (collecting money for the Church) opposite to a lot of catholic one. Circumcision, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Sabbath, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Chanukkah, etc. So everybody can laugh at me, but I am serious.

Finally here is a funny story, well, at least it was funny for me when it happened. I was at the gym this evening and just started my workout on a machine used by an other guy. He was a fit guy, a bit older than me I guessed and very friendly despite the fact we have never bumped into each other at the gym. I did not care to much, I was politely smiling and doing my workout. A few minutes had passed and he asked me whether I used other gyms from the same franchise. I told him that occasionaly when I was in London I used the one in Covent Garden. He laughed and pointed out that I was familiar for him, but he did not know why. It turned out that he lived in London and went to that gym often. So he was gay, I told myself. He was a chatterbox. Usually I don't like to chat in the gym, I prefer to focus on my workout, so I continued the polite smiling. He seemed to be very happy to meet his kind (i.e. gay folks) and tried to invite me discussing the guys at the gym. He did that quite markedly. I am out and have no problem with my gay identity, but this is Birmingham and not Covent Garden where all the members of the gym are gay and the gym and especially the showers are considered as a cruising area. He obviously did not notice this fact.