{"id":91291,"date":"2026-01-22T10:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T15:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spiritualsparks.beehiiv.com\/p\/spiritual-sparks-a-gift-and-i-d-love-your-thoughts"},"modified":"2026-01-22T10:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T15:57:08","slug":"spiritual-sparks-a-gift-and-id-love-your-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/spiritual-sparks-a-gift-and-id-love-your-thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual Sparks: A Gift &#8230; and I&#8217;d Love Your Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n    <div class='beehiiv'><style>\n  .bh__table, .bh__table_header, .bh__table_cell { border: 1px solid #C0C0C0; }\n  .bh__table_cell { padding: 5px; background-color: #FFFFFF; }\n  .bh__table_cell p { color: #2D2D2D; font-family: 'Helvetica',Arial,sans-serif !important; overflow-wrap: break-word; }\n  .bh__table_header { padding: 5px; background-color:#F1F1F1; }\n  .bh__table_header p { color: #2A2A2A; font-family:'Trebuchet MS','Lucida Grande',Tahoma,sans-serif !important; overflow-wrap: break-word; }\n<\/style><div class='beehiiv__body'><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\"><i>Gift + request<\/i><\/p><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\">This week\u2019s newsletter will be brief. It has been six months since <i>Spiritual Sparks<\/i> began. I\u2019m incredibly grateful to each of you for embracing our weekly message of universally accessible spiritual wisdom. I\u2019m heartened by the many notes and messages I\u2019ve received, as well as by the growth of our subscriber list, which now exceeds 330 spiritual seekers. This week\u2019s message contains a gift, and a request. <\/p><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\">\u2728<b>A Gift and a Request<\/b><\/p><ol start=\"1\"><li><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\"><b>A Gift -- Five Steps to Awe: A Guide<\/b><\/p><\/li><\/ol><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\">I present to you an easily accessible piece I wrote titled, \u201cFive Steps to Awe: A Guide.\u201d Simply click on the following link and\u2026.voila! It is yours to peruse and to be inspired. <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/494fa38h?utm_source=spiritualsparks.beehiiv.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=spiritual-sparks-a-gift-and-i-d-love-your-thoughts\"  rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/494fa38h<\/a>\u00a0<\/p><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\">Creating this step-by-step guide was a journey of personal discovery and creativity, invaluably aided by a marvelously talented young woman named Melanie. Thank you, Melanie! <\/p><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\">To access this guide as a downloadable PDF or to print it, look above the blue-colored heading, \u201cFive Steps to Awe: A Guide.\u201d Just to the right, you will see three horizontal dots (\u2026). Click on that symbol, and you\u2019ll be presented with download and print options. <\/p><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\">And for those interested in obtaining a hard (printed) copy, please be in touch. While none have yet been printed, if the interest is strong, I\u2019ll do my best to make it happen.<\/p><ol start=\"2\"><li><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\"><b>A Request<\/b><\/p><\/li><\/ol><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\">In response to a recent <i>Spiritual Sparks<\/i> message on listening, a thoughtful reader shared the following insight: <\/p><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\">\u201cOne practice that helps me listen more deeply is reminding myself during a conversation not to respond with something about ME \u2026 because then I am focused on what they are telling me, and reminding myself that this is their time to talk, not mine.\u201d<\/p><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\">I\u2019m taking that message to heart. This is <i>your<\/i> time to talk, so please do.<\/p><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\">Are there any spiritually oriented topics you might like to see addressed in <i>Spiritual Sparks<\/i>? Are you interested in periodic newsletters that are a compendium of reader responses? Would you like to see more special pieces similar to \u201cFive Steps to Awe: A Guide\u201d? If so, on what topic(s)? <\/p><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\">My request: Please share your thoughts with me at <a class=\"link\" href=\"mailto:Spiritualsparksnewsletter@gmail.com\"  rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Spiritualsparksnewsletter@gmail.com<\/a> -- I\u2019m listening.<\/p><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\">Until next time,<br>May you be gifted with spiritual inspiration, and may your heartfelt requests be fulfilled in abundance,<\/p><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\"><b>Rabbi Ze&#39;ev Smason<\/b><\/p><p class=\"paragraph\" style=\"text-align:left;\">Enjoy this email? Please consider sharing it with a friend or <a class=\"link\" href=\"mailto:?subject=Thought%20you%E2%80%99d%20enjoy%20Spiritual%20Sparks&body=I%20get%20this%20newsletter%20each%20week%20and%20think%20you%E2%80%99ll%20really%20enjoy%20it%20too%3A%20https%3A\/\/spiritualsparks.beehiiv.com\/subscribe\"  rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" style=\"color: blue\">sending them a quick email<\/a><\/p><\/div><div class='beehiiv__footer'><br class='beehiiv__footer__break'><hr class='beehiiv__footer__line'><a  class=\"beehiiv__footer_link\" style=\"text-align: center;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beehiiv.com\/?utm_campaign=9156b360-ab85-41bb-9267-b123d76d844e&utm_medium=post_rss&utm_source=spiritual_sparks\">Powered by beehiiv<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gift + request<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14776],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91291"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91292,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91291\/revisions\/91292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}