I Pray for Grace

Do you know someone who thinks about God or religion or spirituality differently from you? How do you feel about that? Are you respectful toward their beliefs? Are they respectful toward yours?

Did you pray to Buddha? Someone asked me this today. I was sharing how I have been meditating and doing spiritual work to affirm and attract prosperity. I incorporate various precepts in my spiritual practice. I love the  Buddhist concepts of loving-kindness, that suffering ceases when we let go of our attachment to ideas, people, places, and things, and that we can increase our own peacefulness (thereby increasing the peacefulness in the world) by practicing mindfulness and allowing life to flow. For some reason, these precepts are threatening to my Christian friend and he often mocks me not so subtly as if to say “Do you think Buddha can hear you?”

Why do we do this? Isn’t there enough derision, separation, and I’m-better-than-you (and so is my religion) mentality in this world without mocking someone’s beliefs…and especially the beliefs of someone we’re close to? Each time I encounter this, I feel battered and feel a need to hunker down and redouble my meditation. I…and my brothers and sisters of the world…really need instead so much healing, understanding, acceptance, tolerance, love, kindness, and grace.

Here’s Michael Franti singing what I ask for right now. I pray for grace…for myself, for my friend, and for my brothers and sisters all over the world.

Thanks to Gerry Starnes for sending me the link to this wonderful video.

The Biology of Belief: Moving Beyond the Survival of the Fittest

The human body has over 50 trillion cells. The world population today is 6.8 billion. Our bodies have more than seven thousand times as many cells as there are people in the whole world! What can science teach us about how to survive, thrive, and co-exist and what spiritual implications can be found?

Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published November 24, 1859 and is considered the basis for the evolution theory of biology. His idea was that populations evolve over time through a process of natural selection or what has been dubbed “the survival of the fittest.” German political philosopher and co-creator of the theory of communism Friedrich Engels said in 1872 that:

Darwin did not know what a bitter satire he wrote on mankind when he showed that free competition, the struggle for existence, which the economists celebrate as the highest historical achievement, is the normal state of the animal kingdom.

Dr. Bruce H. Lipton, trained as a cell biologist and now bridging science and spirit, talks… in his thought-provoking and ground-breaking book The Biology of Belief …of two new biomedical research fields:

1. Signal transduction science, which “…recognizes that the fate and behavior of an organism is directly linked to its perception of the environment. In simple terms, the character of our life is based upon how we perceive it.”
2. Epigenetics, which “…is the science of how environmental signals select, modify, and regulate gene activity. This new awareness reveals that our genes are constantly being remodeled in response to life experiences.”

Dr. Lipton has demonstrated in his own research that the nucleus (where DNA is) of a cell can be removed and the cell can still function for a time…until it needs to repair itself…and then it breaks down and dies. He theorizes that the real “brain” of the cell is in the membrane, which interacts with the environment (this is the signal transduction mentioned above). He concludes that “the cell’s operations are primarily molded by its interaction with the environment, not its genetic code.”

Gaia: The World by Lisa Hunt

Based on this New Biology, Dr. Lipton suggests that we need to move beyond Darwinian theory…which focuses on the importance of individuals (or an individual cell’s DNA)…to one that stresses the importance of the community (or the connection and reference of the individual cell to its environment).

He talks of the Gaia Hypothesis, which was developed by independent research scientist Richard Lovelock in the 1960s as a result of his NASA work on methods to detect life on Mars. Lovelock postulated in his 1979 book (which was updated in 2000 with several additional sequels including one which came out in 2009) Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth that the earth and all its species constitute one interactive, living organism…a superorganism.

The implications of that are huge. As Dr. Lipton points out, the Newtonian version of the universe is linear. A -> B -> C -> D etc. This is the system that western doctors follow…that we have a universe that is just made up of ordered matter and they must prescribe a pill to act on that matter. Prescription drugs are used at one of these points to try and intercept and repair the defective element in our system.

The quantum universe…or Gaia…vision of the world is holistic, interconnected, and energetic. In the above example, a prescription drug used to treat point B not only treats that element, but also interacts with other elements in our body…thus, we get side effects. Eastern doctors, on the other hand, treat patients with a holistic view, recognizing that the universe…and the human body…is made up of energy. Acupuncture, for example, influences health by stimulating vital energy that may be blocked in the body.

Dr. Lipton says that an organism…and by implication the larger superorganism of our whole world…has two survival mechanisms: growth and protection. The organism can’t do both at the same time. If it uses all its energy in a fight-or-flight response, growth is inhibited.

Growth requires an open exchange between the organism and its environment; protection requires that the organism close down and wall itself off.  War, violence, depletion of environmental resources, close-mindedness, ideological control (by religions and governments), prejudice, illness, depression, and fear are all examples of what happens to individuals and larger organisms (like countries) that go into protective mode and close down.

What’s the take away from Dr. Lipton of this New Biology? That we must change our competitive, dog-eat-dog, one-up-manship, survival of the fittest paradigm to one that supports everyone and everything on this planet…a paradigm of interconnection, openness, growth, and survival of the most loving.

Thanks to Dr. Wayne Dyer for referring me and many others to this truly elucidating and ground-breaking book.

Through the Eyes of My Daughter’s Newborn Child

Circles of Blessing by Ishara de Garis

Awe. Delight. Ecstasy. Contentment. Pride. Gratitude. Joy. These are feelings I have at becoming a grandmother for the very first time and seeing my daughter Valerie become a mother to Sebastian, who entered the world at 1:29 a.m. PDT today.

I remember how awestruck I was to hold Valerie (and my first-born, her sister Julie) in my arms after giving birth. You can see a thousand tomorrows in the eyes of a newborn, but they remind you with their urgent cries for food and love that this moment is all that matters. A new baby doesn’t understand the concept of “Wait until I finish watching this TV show” or “I’m not feeling well so maybe some other time.” A baby knows now…and now…and now and calls to us to be present so we won’t miss the precious moments that so quickly pass.

A new baby is open…to love, to encouragement, to learning, to being. As a parent, you have the privilege and responsibility to influence who this child becomes. A new baby is trusting…that you’ll take care of him, keep him safe, meet his needs, teach him, and nurture him. You have the opportunity with a new baby to share with him the good in your life and the hope to shield him from the challenging.

One has a sense of wonder looking into the heart and soul of a newborn baby, who has no sense of prejudice, hatred, resentment, or ego. That baby is pure and innocent…the embodiment of all that is good and true in the world.

Sebastian's First Photo

One considers all the hopes and dreams you have for a child who extends your physical time on this earth by literally carrying part of you in him. You wonder if he’ll play football or oboe, be on the debate team or the chess team, be married and have children or have a gay partner. There are so many possibilities, so many doors that can open, so many forks in the road that can lead him down paths unimagined as you hold him in your arms.

You’ve yet to make the many inevitable mistakes you’ll make as a parent even as you give your very best to this child. You’ve yet to have a teenage child scream “I hate you!” or take the car without permission and wreck it or fall for someone who doesn’t love them back. You’ve yet to have your heart broken as they make mistakes that have difficult consequences and to feel your heart soar as they make choices that lead to unexpectedly good results. You’ve yet to have your child blame you for their lot in life, swallow your pride, and know in your heart you did the very best you could. And you’ve yet to have your child make countless homemade cards that say “You’re the best mom ever” and to ease your load when you’re tired by dressing as combination wait staff/cooks in your high heels and impossibly large (for them) clothes and welcome you to Mom’s Night Out Restaurant with a menu of everything they know how to cook.

At the very beginning there is love bigger than you ever imagined…and the desire to never let these moments and these feelings go.

Sebastian, welcome to the world. You have two loving, caring, accomplished, super intelligent, personable, independent, creative, kind, and grateful parents. May life always be as full of wonder, delight, and love for you as it is right now. Thanks for making me a grandma. I promise to be the very best grandma I can be and to be present to each of our precious moments together. This is going to be fun! I love you, Sebastian.

…Your Oma

Let It Go!

A couple of years ago I played the zany piano player (that’s me in the ridiculous blond wig) in the music theater production of The Full Monty. The plot…similar to that in the movie…is that a bunch of laid off, ragamuffin steel workers stage a production where they sing, dance, and strip to make money. They build confidence and decide to just go for it…to do the full monty. In the last number, they sing “Let it go, let it go, loosen up, yeah, let it go. Let it go, let it go, it’s all right.”

Tuesday, 7/21 was a pivotal day for me…I knew it was time to LET IT GO and change how I responded to an ongoing, difficult situation. I called Gerry…a very spiritual person who makes a living guiding people…and asked if I could see him that day. For 1.5 hours I told him my story on him…the one I’ve told so many times…the one that is WHO I AM. You know…we all have it…THAT story that we think defines us.

And yet it DOESN’T. Define us. UNLESS. WE. LET. IT. I’m just tired of letting it. I am tired of dragging around that story. It makes me feel low-energy, powerless, and helpless.

I decided that day to get rid of all the stuff I have been moving from place to place for years that tells the tale of that story. I looked up the definition on dictionary.com of what I wanted to do:

Purge: to rid of whatever is impure or undesirable; cleanse; purify

So for 2.5 weeks, all I did (well, almost anyway) was go through old stuff. I made a huge pile (the picture doesn’t do it justice) on a round stone table in my living room. The stuff consisted of journal pages of pain that I ripped out one by one (that felt good!), caretaker notes, work notes, cards (the ones I didn’t want to keep), many many notes about what I want to be when I grow up…wouldn’t that be NOW???…that were made during countless self-help seminars and readings of self-help books, image pages, and more.

In the process of going through years of papers, I also went through closets and drawers and took a backseat full of stuff to Goodwill.

I not only made this huge pile of papers to destroy, I also put the saved mementos in folders chronologically, going all the way back to when I was born. Now…if I get really ambitious…I can make scrapbooks!

It was hard to let go of all that stuff. I kept thinking “What if I want to refer back to this? What if I want to reread what I was thinking and what was happening on such and such day? What if I ever want to show a family member what I was going through to validate my reality?” But you know what? I decided I didn’t want to do any of that. Nada.

Thursday night I stayed up (with a lot of energy) until 5 a.m. in the morning destroying that mound of old papers, old pain, and old stories. That pile… an ever growing visualization of all the crap I’ve literally and figuratively been holding on to for years…is now gone. GONE. W-O-W.

So now that it’s all gone, I have space…space for new stories, new journal writings, new…well I don’t know what! But I do know that by being willing to let go of all that has burdened me for so long, I can…

Allow: to permit something to happen or exist

Who knows what new stories I will create, but I promise I’ll never let the pile…and the attachment to old stories that it represents…get that big again. From here on out, in each moment, I’ll remember the freedom those Full Monty guys felt and just  LET IT GO.

Childhood Summers in a Small East Tennessee Town

Me (the oldest and holding a cat) and my siblings in summer 1962

Ah, the summers of childhood. Those were about eating watermelons picked fresh out of Grandmother’s garden and competitive seed spitting with the cousins and siblings. They were about long days at the enormous city pool where huge throngs of people would come and they even had a 3-tier dive platform the heights of the ones used in the Olympics.

They were about taking picnics there or to the Smoky Mountains where we would build dams with large stones across the ice cold creeks, go for small hikes, and skip rocks. They were about playing outside all day long with the neighborhood kids, building forts out of logs from the giant oak tree that was felled by lightning, organizing and holding a 4th of July parade with decorated bicycles and the younger children pulled in wagons, walking to Kay’s Ice Cream or downtown to the movies, and just generally having freedom to go most anywhere our two legs could carry us.

They were about church and music camps and Girl Scout activities and still practicing the piano. They were about creating plays complete with ukuleles and singing and performing them for our parents. They were about long bicycle rides and lots of Kool-Aid and iced tea and marching band practice and living with no air conditioning. Every other summer they were about summer vacations to my Great Auntie Ann’s rented boarding house in St. Petersburg and frolicking on the beach and sunburns.

Those summers of old were about freedom and fun and being a kid. Ah!

And then there were those summer visits to the farm and staying with my grandmother and granddaddy. I don’t remember how long we stayed each time…a week? two?…but it was long enough to get comfortable and start feeling like a farmhand. We’d awake to incredible aromas of a big country breakfast that my grandmother cooked every morning. What a treat that was!

I’ve never had a breakfast since that could compare. Fluffy homemade biscuits, gravy, sausage patties and bacon, hash browns, scrambled eggs, grits, homemade strawberry jam, some kind of fruit, fresh orange juice, and that grainy coffee substitute Postem.

When we were little, we could scoot off after breakfast to go explore. As we got older, we were expected to help wash dishes by hand and dry them. Then it was off to watch my uncle milk cows and even try our hand at it. Or we’d go up in the hayloft and find the eggs the hens had laid. Or go feed the pigs. Or run fast enough to jump over the fence when the big bull was chasing you. Or follow my grandmother out to the enormous, industrial-sized garden and pick home-grown tomatoes for lunch or a watermelon to share with the cousins later.

There was time to sit on the porch swing and look out at the gorgeous rolling hillside or time to walk up to my cousins’ house and follow them as they did their chores of feeding their latest 4H hopeful pig or calf. There was time to go down to the pond and go fishing or to climb in the trees and make what my grandmother called the “monkey tree” with all us young’uns hanging out of it.

There was time to play the heavy old beat-up piano with real ivory keys that was always out of tune. Or to watch my grandmother when she unpinned her perfectly brown hair that hung to her bottom when it was down and she brushed it. There was time to eat the sweet mulberries that fell from the trees or go running through the vineyards. There was always church on Sunday and potluck on Wednesday nights at the little Niles Ferry Baptist Church where my uncle and grandfather were deacons.

Those were times I always looked forward to…those times spent at my grandparents’ house in the country in Greenback, Tennessee and at my enormous two-story home with 12 foot ceilings…the outstanding home of 1910 in our area…in Maryville, Tennessee.

Land Me on the Moon

July 20, 2009 is the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing and walk. Neil Armstrong uttered those famous words “One small step for man, one giant

Buzz Aldrin on Moon 7/20/69 - NASA Photo by Neil Armstrong

leap for mankind” as he became the first person ever to set foot on the moon. Buzz Aldrin was right behind him…the second man to walk on the moon. I was out with friends and we rushed home to see what was one of the most exciting things that happened during my childhood.

I cried this morning as I remembered that day. As a nation we had lost our innocence and had been shaken by several traumas: the Vietnam War and the assassinations of President Kennedy in 1963 and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King in 1968. We needed hope and something to rally around and feel good about.

At 15, I was out on the streets of Knoxville, Tennessee shopping with my mother when we heard about Dr. King’s murder. Even though we were a 7-hour drive from Memphis, we went home immediately because she feared there could be rioting on the streets. I wept profusely as I watched Robert Kennedy’s funeral just about two months after Dr. King’s murder.

Even though I had experienced the collective pain of the nation, my life was relatively untouched personally by trauma at that age. I still had a youthful innocence and boundless energy and the whole world lay before me. In a way, the moon landing restored that kind of unjaded faith and energy to our country.

And now…40 years later…I find myself in personal need of that kind of restoration. Just as at that time our country had gone through many traumas, I…now 40 years later…have gone through many traumas. I long to be that 16-year-old girl again… to have boys chasing me, to be young and beautiful, to have so many opportunities, and to have utter confidence in myself. I…like our country in 1969… want to erase the stories from the past that have caused pain and sadness and heartbreak.

President Kennedy declared on May 25, 1961:

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.

When will I make such a radical declaration of an ambitious goal? What will that goal be? What steps do I need to take to engineer it? How can I rally others to support me to reach a seemingly unreachable goal? When will I experience a personal moon landing that will restore my enthusiasm and belief that anything is possible? Can you relate?

Happy 40th anniversary in remembrance of a remarkable achievement that lifted a country. As we raise a champagne glass to celebrate, here’s to us each discovering what will personally land us on the moon and lift us up individually and collectively.

Here’s that first moon landing:

Bruno and Sarah

I saw the movie Bruno today. It is not a movie I would’ve chosen to see, but my good friend Dave (who I laugh out loud with at funny movies) begged me to go with him to see it. We didn’t laugh out loud that much. Mostly we looked at each a lot during the movie as if to say “Can you believe he did that?!”

Sacha Baron Cohen (in the middle) at the UK premiere of Bruno Credit - Eamonn McCormack/WireImage

I have to hand it to Sacha Baron Cohen…he’s a self-promotion genius. He knows how to market himself. Even on television interviews like the one he recently did with Matt Lauer on the Today Show, he stays in character as the gay Austrian who just wants to be worldwide famous, the character he plays in Bruno. At the premieres of the movie, instead of a tuxedo, he wears a ridiculous outfit that his character would wear.

He is over the top, gutsy, loud, in your face, and politically incorrect. You wince, hide your eyes, and yet can’t avoid watching a person who gets attention by doing whatever he wants no matter what anyone else thinks.  Sound like someone we all know? Yep. Sarah Palin.

Sarah, too, has created a character and most of the time stays in character. She’s just the girl from Wasilla, the downhome girl who goes fishing and hunting, field dresses a moose, and is just like one of the blue collar men who drool over her. She’s the conservative Christian far right touting abstinence, family values, anti-abortion, laying on of hands, and a we’re-better-than-you evangelical zealous fervor. She’s the hard-working governor of Alaska who puts Alaskans first and is glad to be back in the state after her failed run at the vice-presidency.

Except, like Sacha Baron Cohen, she’s playing a character she wants us to believe. She only went fishing after her big announcement of quitting when she invited some big name press people along like Andrea Mitchell. People in Alaska made up “Where’s Sarah?” buttons to wear because she so rarely shows up to actually do her job…and this was before she was cast into the limelight. Her family values include a daughter who was having premarital sex and after having a baby out of wedlock now preaches that other girls shouldn’t do what she did. THEY should be abstinent. She still has a mysterious story of the birth of Trig that makes no sense for someone who says she loves her children. She uses her children like props in a play to show how into family she is.

Sarah Palin, like Sacha Baron Cohen, is all about promoting Sarah Palin. She…like the Bruno character…strives above all to be famous. She is narcissistic, likes the limelight, and will do anything to stay in it, including being snarky, combative, petulant, and middle-school-girlish in her response to anyone who points out the ridiculousness of her words and actions…just the way the Bruno character was in the movie.

The Bruno movie and Sacha Baron Cohen in it were…er…uh…interesting and mildly amusing. I could say the same about Sarah Palin. She is…er…uh…interesting and mildly amusing. But neither Sacha Baron Cohen nor his fictional character Bruno are being talked about seriously as a candidate for president of the United States. At least it’s obvious Cohen is all about self-promotion and making big money. Isn’t it just as obvious that is what Sarah Palin is about, too?

Celebrating Diversity at a Gay Pride Parade

Outlandish. Festive. Convivial. Celebratory. My first gay pride parade ever. My good friend (a gay guy) had invited me years before…this year I said yes. After a dinner of fine Mexican food downtown, we walked over to 4th and Colorado and staked our spot near the reviewing stand to watch the Austin gay pride parade last night.

The crowd of several thousand grew as the 8:30 starting time approached. The streets blocked to traffic, this was people watching at its finest. Lean young men in black briefs wearing white feathery angel wings with a five foot span. Lots of tattoos. Women who looked more like men than some of the men did. Bleached blond…and even green… spiked hair.

Tranvestites…men dressed as women…with full makeup, hair, and dresses. Men with bare chests and tight leather pants. Androgynous women. Men holding hands with men. Women holding hands with women. Lots of dogs on leashes. Children. Rainbow flags and leis. A rowdy but controlled crowd of people of all ages, sizes, and looks.

And then there were the usual Saturday night Austin club hoppers…the 20-something women in 5-inch heels, short tight skirts, skin-tight tops, and tons of makeup. Their male dates in sloppy shorts, Birkenstocks, and shirts that hung over their beltless pants. And of course the rest of the hetero crowd that came down to check out the action, but wasn’t out to find “love” for the evening. A lot of these people stared blankly as they walked by, not comprehending what they were seeing.

The crowd roared when the parade wound its way through the streets of downtown to where we were standing and sitting. As for every gay pride parade (per my friends), it was kicked off by the “dykes on bikes.” What followed was a 1.5 hour procession of people from church groups, clubs, arts groups, bands, restaurants, bars, retail stores, and miscellaneous organizations. Some marched, some rode in cars or trucks, and some rode on cheesy (and definitely not Rose Parade material) floats.

Particularly impressive was the sight of Austin Chief of Police Art Acevedo marching with his gay police men and women and Austin Fire Chief Rhoda Mae Kerr, one of only 30 women fire chiefs in the nation, marching with her gay fire men and women.

The non-uniformed marchers were in various states of dress and undress…with men in speedos seductively dancing getting the most cat calls. Some people dressed in costumes…the most memorable being two women in wedding dresses who held hands and walked together to make a point about gay marriage. In the spirit of a mardi gras parade, marchers flung cheap yet colorful beads into the crowd as well as t-shirts and condoms.

It was a fun evening, but in the midst of the hilarity and raucousness, the seriousness of the occasion was not lost. Many of the marchers held signs that proclaimed messages of equality, which reminded us in a quiet way why we were all even attending a gay pride parade.

I feel proud to live in a town (Austin) that is accepting of the diversity of people who came out for the parade. I think I’ll go back next year. Gay or straight, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Note: All photos are from the Austin American-Statesman’s online website www.statesman.com.

We Can’t Afford To Turn Away

We pay a high price for refusing to look at the atrocities being committed all over the world. The atrocities continue…bodies, minds, and hearts are destroyed…and we bear a collective responsibility and guilt for allowing them to continue.
 

My family members and friends rarely visit my blog and read my posts. Most never have. They don’t want to read about what I write about…particularly the abuse and injustice toward women and children all over the world. I try and talk with them about it and they don’t want to hear.

To refuse to see and acknowledge what is going on winds up hurting all of us at a very deep level. We deny the humanity of others who have less opportunity and more injustice than we do. How can we live with that? By staying incredibly busy and tuning out the inconvenient and raw truth? How authentic are our lives when we constantly do that? How authentic is our humanity?
 
Here’s an excellent New York Times op-ed column on this posted May 30. What are your thoughts?

“Holding On to Our Humanity” by Bob Herbert

Overload is a real problem. There is a danger that even the most decent of people can grow numb to the unending reports of atrocities occurring all around the globe. Mass rape. Mass murder. Torture. The institutionalized oppression of women.

There are other things in the world: a ballgame, your daughter’s graduation, the ballet. The tendency to draw an impenetrable psychic curtain across the worst that the world has to offer is understandable. But it’s a tendency, as Elie Wiesel has cautioned, that must be fought.

We have an obligation to listen, for example, when a woman from a culture foreign to our own recalls the moment when time stopped for her, when she was among a group of women attacked by soldiers:

“They said to us: ‘If you have a baby on your back, let us see it.’ The soldiers looked at the babies and if it was a boy, they killed it on the spot [by shooting him]. If it was a girl, they dropped or threw it on the ground. If the girl died, she died. If she didn’t die, the mothers were allowed to pick it up and keep it.”

The woman recalled that in that moment, the kind of throbbing moment when time is not just stopped but lost, when it ceases to have any meaning, her grandmother had a boy on her back. The grandmother refused to show the child to the soldiers, so both she and the boy were shot.

A team of female researchers, three of them physicians, traveled to Chad last fall to interview women who were refugees from the nightmare in Darfur. No one has written more compellingly about that horror than my colleague on this page, Nick Kristof. When I was alerted to the report that the team had compiled for Physicians for Human Rights, my first thought was, “What more is there to say?”

And then I thought about Mr. Wiesel, who has warned us so eloquently about the dangers inherent in indifference to the suffering of others. Stories of atrocities on the scale of those coming out of Darfur cannot be told too often.

The conflict has gone on for more than six years, and while the murders and mass rapes have diminished, this enormous human catastrophe is still very much with us. For one thing, Sudan has expelled humanitarian aid groups from Darfur, a move that Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, recently told Mr. Kristof “may well amount to genocide by other means.”

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict and the systematic sexual attacks on Darfuri women have been widely reported. Millions have been displaced and perhaps a quarter of a million Darfuris are living in conditions of the barest subsistence in refugee camps along the Chad-Sudan border.

The report by Physicians for Human Rights, to be released officially on Sunday (available at darfuriwomen.org), focuses on several dozen women in the Farchana refugee camp in Chad. The report pays special attention to the humanity of the women.

“These are real people with children, with lives that may have been quite simple, but were really rich before they were displaced,” said Susannah Sirkin, a deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights.

The conditions in the refugee camps are grim, made worse by the traumas that still grip the women, many of whom were witnesses — or the victims — of the most extreme violence.

“I don’t think I was prepared for the level of just palpable suffering that they are continuing to endure,” said Dr. Sondra Crosby, one of the four interviewers. “Women were telling me they were starving. They’re eating sorghum and oil and salt and sugar.”

Dr. Crosby and her colleagues had a few crackers or cookies on hand for the women during the interviews. “I don’t think I saw even one woman eat the crackers, even though they were hungry,” she said. “They all would hide them in their dresses so they could take them back to their children.”

The women also live with the ongoing fear of sexual assault. According to the report, rape is a pervasive problem around the refugee camps, with the women especially vulnerable when they are foraging for firewood or food.

“It is so much easier to look away from victims,” said Mr. Wiesel, in a speech at the White House in 1999. “It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes.”

But indifference to the suffering of others “is what makes the human being inhuman,” he said, adding: “The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees — not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.”

Stand By Me

Who do you stand by? Today. Right now. A child? Spouse or significant other? Best friend?  Maybe yourself? Is that about it? Hmmm. Too busy, too frazzled, or just don’t give a damn to stand by anyone else? Do you even think about others outside your primary relationships? Of course you do…right?

You are like a cell in the total of the human(ity) body. For this every-human-on-the-planet body to be healthy and functioning, each cell needs to be healthy. Think those women being children and women being raped in the Democratic Republic of the Congo don’t affect your life? You have a deadly cancer…good luck. Think Chinese women being forced to abort 9-month-old fetuses to comply with the one-child law doesn’t affect you? You lost your sight…how does that feel?

Especially in the U.S. we have had this notion that we are independent and not connected to the rest of the world…that global body. Look what happened with the economic crisis here…it brought down economies around the world. Our greed, self-centeredness, and narcissim infected others and caused the global body harm.

Now look at the power of what one person can do. President Obama has such a positive, calm, comforting, reassuring, thoughtful, and attentive demeanor and he is lifting us all up. Our global cells are starting to hum and vibrate with hope again.

We are all interconnected. It starts with one person…and then another…and then another…and then another… Who do you stand by? Who do you stand with? Who do you connect with? The answer to that last question? EVERYONE.

 We all need each other. Stand by me. I stand by you.

 From the award-winning documentary “Playing for Change: Peace Through Music”…enjoy!

Tomb Time

Christian or not, the resurrection story is metaphorical and instructional. Years ago I heard a progressive minister give a talk on “tomb time.” It really stuck with me. She talked of the darkness and uncertainty of the time when Jesus was in the tomb and presumed dead after he had been taken down off the cross.

We’ve all had tomb time. We’ve been through a trauma or a lifetime of trauma. We feel depressed and discouraged and down-and-out. It seems like nothing is happening. We can’t see the light. We see no way out. We think we are doomed. We feel alone. We feel persecuted and cut off from others.

We feel misunderstood. We have no answers. We are in darkness. It is uncomfortable. We hate it. We want out.

Instead of struggling to roll away the heavy stone and screaming for help, we can benefit by sitting with ourselves and being in tomb time. Be still. Be quiet. Be open. Be humble. Be present. Listen. Accept.

Time passes. Quiet and acceptance of things as they are lead to a more peaceful mind. The stone rolls away and the light shines in. We were not doomed, we were not done, we were not dead. We are born anew. We arise from the darkness, a resurrected being.

We see with clarity and with fresh eyes. We appreciate the beauty of life…a beauty that we could not see when we were in the darkness.

If you are in tomb time, realize that it won’t last forever. Cherish the gifts of tomb time. Know that you can come out of it and with a renewed clarity and vision. Every moment is an opportunity to allow the stone to roll away, step forward into the light, and live a new life.

Passing it Forward with Thanks

An attitude of gratitude is so important. Especially when there’s such a feeling of lack in the world right now. And I am really grateful for my readers. I started this blog in September 2008 as a political blog.

Since then I changed the focus of my blog to be (usually) on human rights. I’ve connected with some amazing people with similar points of view and some with a different take on things…I love them all. Many of my readers are bloggers themselves and their words enrich my life.

I’ve recently been chosen by two of my blogger friends to receive the Kreativ Blogger award. Thanks so much to these two bloggers for the award. Check them out…their blogs are must reads.

• Skyewriter at November 5th blog 
• Sidhe at Musings of a Wandering Elf blog

In accepting this award, I’m asked to list seven things I love and pass the award forward to seven blogs I love. Here goes. 

Seven things I love:

1. My two beautiful adult daughters Julie and Valerie (I know…that’s really two)
2. My adorable Shih Tzu dog and companion Tashi
3. Barack Obama being our president and Michelle being our first lady
4. The beautiful view from every room of my townhouse
5. Dancing in NIA class
6. Reading a good book (preferably non-fiction)
7. Having a stimulating, intellectual conversation

And I pass on this award to seven blogs I love (in addition to Skyewriter’s and Sidhe’s):

1. A Time for Change (thoughtful and caring commentary)
2. The Mudflats (the best scoop on Alaskan politics from an Alaskan)
3. True Blue Texan (straight talk from a blue Texan)
4. Margaret and Helen (two best friends of 60 years with a great sense of humor and a lot of wisdom)
5. Maryanncp’s Weblog (a heart of gold and working to make a difference in people’s lives…especially women)
6. Best of the Blogs (several featured progressive blogs)
7. The FreeGirl Foundation (empowering women and raising awareness about gender violence)

After seven months of writing, my little blog is starting to take wings and I thank you, dear readers, for that. Thank you also to all the bloggers who share their knowledge, opinions, passion, and hearts. You’re the best!

Full of Live and Living Life Fully at 77

Often seniors suffer a loss of support, safety, choice, income, dignity, physical health, mental health, and value in society and their lives contract as they experience more depression, more health issues, and more invisibility. My mother doesn’t fit that mold at all; she is an example of someone who lives life fully and today I honor her as she celebrates her 77th birthday on Sunday.

It’s always challenging to think of what to get someone who has one or more of everything they could possibly want and can get it if they don’t have it. Just how many crystal vases, knick knacks, bottles of body lotion, framed photos, nightgowns, or magazine subscriptions does one person need? How often do we sit down and write a tribute to that person who has everything? Okay…so here goes, Mom.

My Mom is like a playful teenager when she gets together with her friends at the retirement center for lunch. They giggle, tell stories on each other, and you’d swear you were back in junior high or high school. It’s just adorable and fun.

My Mom has such an active life it makes my head swim when I get her emails about all her activities. She may be playing the piano for four events over the next week and has to learn a whole new program of music to play by Tuesday. Her men’s chorus may be singing at a luncheon on Friday and have another engagement next Wednesday. They rehearse at her place every week. They have been featured in the local newspaper, include a movie star’s father, and are in constant demand for performances. And let’s not forget the church activities, going to the symphony, community activities (she was President of the community board for two years), four children, grandchildren…and much more.

My Mom had been widowed for seven years, remarried last fall, and is now back to traveling and planning a cruise. It gives me hope!

My Mom fell and broke her hip last June and despite her immediate declarations that she’d never make it out of the nursing home alive, she recovered fully and is as active as ever. You just can’t keep a live wire like her down! She was one determined and persistent patient in physical therapy and amazed them all.

My Mom always has time to talk no matter what she might be in the middle of doing (if she’s home). And just like when I was a teenager and would start a multi-hour conversation at 11 p.m. about something that was troubling me, she still takes the time to listen and be empathetic and caring. There are four of us children who have certainly lived interesting lives…the woman is a saint for listening.

My Mom has lived a lifetime of stepping outside her comfort zone to do things that required a lot of courage and chutzpah. She’s been the organist for  commencements for a large university. She’s served on boards, written newsletters, and served in other capacities for technical and scientific organizations even though she had no formal training in those areas. She once was a band director and even taught high school game night drills to the marching band. She’s taken extensive trips all over the world and even spent a month in China when it was not a tourist location. And let’s not forget that she had four children by the time she was 25 years old and the considerable patience it took to raise us included enduring listening to us all playing the piano, a stringed instrument, a band instrument, and singing in choirs. It was one noisy house! She just joined in the fun.

My Mom is compassionate to others even in the face of her own loss. She lost her father to a heart attack when she was 26 and her mother a year later to a stroke. At age 27 and with children ages 6, 4, 3, and 2, she faced the challenges of motherhood and the loss of her own parents to guide her. She spent over two years by the side of her ailing second husband who died shortly after 9/11. She spent several weeks helping my cousin who was hospitalized in another state with cancer and made my cousin feel loved and helped her recover. She was there when I had both of my children and has stood by each one of her four children as we suffered losses and cheered us as we achieved successes.

My Mom is well liked in her senior community as evidenced by the exclamatory comments I hear when I visit her. They see her as the special person she is.

So Mom, on your 77th birthday, I couldn’t think of a thing to give you because you seem to have it all. The one thing I can give you is a big THANKS for being you and for all the love you’ve shown me and others through the years. Happy birthday, Mom. I love you.

Opportunity in the Economic Crisis

Credit: Ishara de Garis

If you’re like me, this economic crisis is playing havoc with your confidence and has you wondering if you are on the right path in life. The good news? We have the opportunity in every moment to rebirth ourselves…to start anew and become new. I’m awake late on my birthday (the 10th) and reflecting. What do I need to give birth to?

I feel I have been carrying for a very long time a new life that is ready to push through into existence and yet it hesitates, stays put, and grows ever larger within me in the form of discontent, frustration, a gnawing, and at times a sense of futility.

I’m reminded of the quote from Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

Indeed. The world needs all of our talents, our love, our kindness, our peacefulness, our being positive, our giving, and our caring toward others. We are in crisis all over the world and if you think about it, it is wonderful.

Wonderful? Yes. We are being called to stop being greedy, to be humble, to be grateful for what we have, to let go of the fear that is gripping the financial markets and employers, to care for our fellow man, and to realize that everything we do has a ripple effect all over the world…we are all interconnected.

 So here we are in this wonderful chaos…the Chinese symbol for chaos means danger and opportunity. Do we as a country and we as individuals sit frozen in fear of pending danger and gloom or do we seize this incredible moment as opportunity? How do we let go of the fear? How do we move into opportunity?

We do it by refusing to accept that things are “bad” and hopeless. All of the negative talking heads such as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter want our country to fail and they spew vitriol and hatred. We cannot afford to listen to these people. They are poisoning our airwaves and the very air we breathe. We must rise up and give birth to a new vision for ourselves, our country, and our world. Even if things look hopeless, we must see with fresh eyes.

Really wake up. Look at the beauty around you. Look into the eyes of your child and see the wonder there. Consider all the people throughout the world…including the ever increasing numbers in the U.S. who are refugees, homeless, have nothing, and live in constant danger and fear. These are our brothers and sisters and they need us to be “…powerful beyond measure.” See what is, but see it through the eyes of a beautiful being that is being rebirthed and awakened to a new way of living and being in the world.

Will you join me in releasing all that is holding ourselves back and in embracing and welcoming into the world our rebirthed selves and nation?

Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to you. May we remember that every moment is an opportunity to celebrate our birth anew.

Put a Little Love in Your Heart

Feel cheated? Resentful? Not happy with your life? Put a little loving-kindness in your heart.

Credit: Eileen Downes

I’m reading the book “The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness” by American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron and she says loving-kindness is “…about befriending who we already are.” She tells us to come as we are and says “Our life’s work is to use what we have been given to wake up.”

I love that. If you’re like me, you think “Why did that have to happen to me?” We resist what is. Pema says that “Hell is just resistance to life.” I love that too. I have been fighting against myself…resisting…being overweight for years. I started meditating and found that I could calm my thoughts and begin to accept myself just where I am…right now. I started thinking loving thoughts toward myself and have cut out a lot of the negative self-talk…and guess what? I’ve lost 37 pounds (and counting). I (mostly) don’t eat emotionally any more, either.

Pema says this about meditation (and I love this too):

Meditation is a process of lightening up, of trusting the basic goodness of what we have and who we are, and of realizing that any wisdom that exists, exists in what we already have.

I went to see the movie “Frost/Nixon” today and most people were there as part of a couple. The ticket taker asked me “Where’s your better half?” I told her that I’m a whole already and don’t have to have another half to make me whole. I wonder in our frenetic search for otherness…an object of love…a person or a thing to make us feel better… if we do this as a substitute for getting in touch with our own inner wisdom.

I also wonder if this fear of being okay with who we are and what is going on in our lives…even if it’s losing a lot of money in the stock market slide or of not having a lover on Valentine’s Day…is just too much for so many of us. We eat or drink or do drugs or have sex with inappropriate people…anything to tune out.

This tuning out…and not listening to or observing or befriending ourselves is costly. Our lives go by in a blur and maybe one day in our 50s we wake up and ask ourselves what happened? What happened to the last 20 or 30 years?

And this being unaccepting of ourselves and not knowing who we are not only takes a toll on us…it also takes a toll on the world. If we can’t accept and love ourselves, we can’t accept and love others. The world needs each and every one of us to show some loving-kindness toward ourselves. Start there…where you are…with yourself.  As the song says:

Think of your fellow man
Lend him a helping hand
Put a little love in your heart

You see it’s getting late
Oh please don’t hesitate
Put a little love in your heart

And the world will be a better place
And the world will be a better place
For you and me
You just wait and see

Another day goes by
And still the children cry
Put a little love in you heart
If you want the world to know
We won’t let hatred grow
Put a little love in your heart

And the world will be a better place
And the world will be a better place
For you and me
You just wait and see
Wait and see

Take a good look around
And if you’re lookin’ down
Put a little love in your heart

I hope when you decide
Kindness will be your guide
Put a little love in your heart

And the world will be a better place
And the world will be a better place
For you and me
You just wait and see

Put a little love in your heart
Put a little love in your heart
Put a little love in your heart…

And here’s the wonderful Al Green singing it…guaranteed to make you feel joy! Happy Valentine’s Day today and every day.

 

Say What You Need to Say

John Mayer’s “Say” won Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the Grammy Awards tonight. The song is featured in the movie “The Bucket List,” and in it he sings “Say what you need to say…even if your hands are shakin’ and your faith is broken, even as the eyes are closin’, do it with a heart wide open…say what you need to say.”

Is there something you need to say to someone? Join the wave of courage, authenticity and integrity, which begins now with the inauguration of President Obama, the end of the George Bush monarchy, and the exposure of Wall Street fat cats and others who have built a house of cards at our expense.

Authenticity is about saying what you need to say even when it is hard to do. It is about President Obama telling us that the road to healing our nation is going to be rocky and we will all have to make sacrifices. It is about speaking out about torture and child abuse even when people don’t want to think those things exist in the world and don’t want to hear about them. It is about telling a troubled family member their actions are hurtful and yet you are there to help.

I think a lot about women and children all over the world who live in fear, who are physically, emotionally, and sexually abused, who are refugees, who are treated as property and/or slaves, who are forced into marriages with men they don’t love, who are hungry, who have no money or means to support themselves, who have AIDS, and who have no hope for a better future.

Living in such conditions and just trying to survive, do they even think about life being precious, being understood, feeling a connection with others, being comforted, and treating others with integrity and love? How do we help people who have been so afflicted to rise above the trauma of the affliction and begin to trust, love, and connect with others?

The thing is that we don’t have to go to Darfur or the Congo or Somalia or any number of other places to find women and children who are suffering. Look around. Perhaps you have or know a child who is suffering, or a cousin, a friend, a parent, an acquaintance. Maybe you don’t know they are suffering, but you sense that something is wrong. These could be women or children who live with the shame of having been sexually abused, who live in poverty, who live in physically violent homes, or who are so desperate that they are considering committing suicide.

What do you need to say? Are you holding something back?  Reach out to that person. Be courageous. Step up. Perhaps what you have to say could make a difference in someone else’s life and could even save their life. Say what you need to say.

Here’s John Mayer singing the song as featured in “The Bucket List.”

Bush Damaged Us Enough. Does the Media Have to Make it Worse?

I am WORN OUT. Every pundit or newscaster is talking doom and gloom. We might as well hang it up, let our banks and all of our businesses fail, go into a financial and emotional depression, be unemployed, lose all of our money, lose our house, have no medical insurance, see our social security benefits melt away, go on food stamps, and have no hope for our future or for our children’s future. If you listen to enough of all this talk, it would seem that is where we are all headed…if we’re not there already.

Bush led our country on such a downward spiral that we are still stuck in all of the negativism that his policies created. We feel hopeless, angry, personally invaded, robbed, and devalued. We have not yet adjusted to and synthesized the idea and reality of hope, inclusiveness, intelligent leaders who actually listen to us, and our leaders being adults and even taking responsibility when they make mistakes.

We for so long lost hope with Bush after he and his administration took away our freedom and rights, assumed the roles of dictators, dragged us into a hopeless and expensive war, and practiced a laissez-faire and neglectful attitude toward the financial markets, the environment, women’s rights, the needs of children, our country’s infrastructure, education, health care, and so much more. Bush and his administration left us with a broken country and broken spirits, but now the destructive Bush era is over.

After a horribly failed presidency of one of their own, Republicans now have the audacity to say the honeymoon is over with Obama and act as if his presidency is already failed. It is as if they just cannot stand the thought that he really might be bringing hope and change to our country and the world. It is as if they are fighting him with everything they have to make sure he does not succeed. Rush Limbaugh even said he hopes Obama fails! Why would anyone listen to someone who says things like that? We need our president and our other leaders to SUCCEED.

President Obama has assured us that we will pull out of all the challenges we face as a country and individually. Why don’t we all (including Republicans) give President Obama and his administration an opportunity to actually set us on a right course and begin to undo all the harm that the Bush Administration did? Of course it’s difficult to trust after what Bush and Cheney did to us, but we must start somewhere.

My spirit needs healing and I believe the collective spirit of our country does, too. It is time for us to tune out the negative and begin to live in a reality of hope and trust. What can we do? Turn off the television or change the channel when the newscasters start the doom-and-gloom talk. Focus our minds and thoughts on what is good and on the positive reality we want to create.

It is time for us to let go of Bush and all the harm he caused in the world, in our country, and in our own lives and spirits. Let the courts deal with him. We can take President Obama’s lead, look forward, and create a new world that is a better place to live.

Want to Be Uplifted? Check This Out!

Straight No Chaser a cappella group has over 9 million YouTube hits for their fun rendition of “Twelve Days of Christmas”. These ten guys were a big hit at Indiana University in the late 1990s and after graduation, went their separate ways, pursuing musical and non-musical careers. They were “discovered” on YouTube by Atlantic Records and signed a recording deal. They have a fabulous new “Holiday Spirits” CD out…check it out!

Here they are singing “Twelve Days of Christmas.” Enjoy!

Unwrapped Gifts Mean the Most

Are you giddy thinking about the gifts you’ll get for Christmas? When was the last time you thought about the gifts you have already received and continue to receive every day?

I made a CD of me playing Christmas carols on the piano (I recorded on a keyboard) for each person in my Artist’s Way group. I have played the piano since I was five years old (many, many years ago). Although the notes don’t stream from my fingers without practice (and 17 years of lessons), I sometimes forget what a gift it is to be able to play the piano. Even I enjoy listening to my own CD.

I remember dating a man years ago who had not grown up in a household where lessons of any kind were a possibility, where attending cultural events was unheard of. He was so astounded as I showed him my scrapbook of all the things I had done growing up. My family was not rich, but my mother was intent on all four of her children having music lessons, singing in choirs, and having rich life experiences.

As I think of all the gifts I have, I think about those who have little. I wonder how many children of rape in the Congo ever even get any education. I wonder how many children in Darfur have ever heard a poem or read a book. I wonder how many children living in Haiti ever heard someone play the piano. I wonder how many innocent suspected terrorist detainees live a day without being tortured. I wonder how many Rwandan refugees have ever slept in a bed or felt safe. I wonder how many women who are victims of sexual violence as a tool of war believe they will ever feel a day of joy in their lives. I wonder how many children who are victims of sexual and/or physical and emotional abuse live in fear every day. I wonder if people held in slavery cry themselves to sleep at nights and feel dead inside.

The wrapped gifts are nice, but pale in comparison to the real gifts of life. Those of us who live free, in relative comfort, and in safety often forget what gifts freedom, comfort, and safety are. I don’t have to fear being attacked and raped when I venture out of my home to get food as women in the Congo do. If I decide to have sex with a man before marrying him, I don’t have to fear that my father might kill me to save the family honor. I have running water and indoor toilets. I have transportation, warmth, and a home to live in.

I am blessed with a good education and an ability to think and research and read and understand things. Even though I am often alone, I’m not really alone. There are people who care about me. I have good health. I have a faith in a power greater than myself.

As you go through this season of gift giving, consider the gifts you already have…the ones that are the most meaningful. Share those gifts with others and accept the personal gifts of love, care, kindness, and even a smile that others give to you. Tis the season.

Alone…with 6.7 Billion Other People

Alone, but feeling my 6.7 billion brothers and sisters. Colored Christmas tree lights in a dark room. Listening to my breathing and patter on the laptop keys. Warm. Safe. Fed. Thinking about refugees and those fleeing or in constant danger in the Congo, Darfur, and so many other places. Thinking about all those who are tortured all over the world and how my country’s leaders have authorized so much torture. Thinking about the failing economy and how it personally affects me and millions of people all over the world. Thinking about all the women and children who are abused and violated and live in fear.

Alone. Thinking about the millions of other people sitting in their homes alone. Knowing that none of us are really alone. That instead of a-lone, we are really al(l)-one: all one. Each of us is important on this planet at this time. Each of us has a place. We are all connected to each other.

I’m feeling the pain of my brothers and sisters…in Mumbai and in the Congo of the late 19th and early 20th century where railroads were built and rubber was harvested through the slave labor, torture, and murder of native Africans. I am stunned at the inhumanity, the greed, and the self-aggrandizement of people like Leopold II of Belgium who did those unspeakable things in the Congo to build an empire… and Idi Amin, human traffickers, child molesters, and many others. So many innocent people have paid a price for their egomaniacal self-centeredness.

Wondering what my place is in the world is. I, with the sensitive nature who feels the pain of individuals and groups in this world. I, who is reading and learning the history and presence of so much violence and degradation in this world. I, who cares deeply for others and their plight. I, who feels a divine connection. I, who is…

Alone in the dark with the Christmas tree lights. Reflecting. Wondering. Aware. Open. All one with so many others.

Giving Thanks in the Midst of Terrorism

It’s 11 p.m. CT and terror is exploding all over the world.

• A suicide bomb exploded at the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan tonight and at least one person is dead.
• More than 100 are dead and nearly 300 injured in Mombai terrorist attacks today.
• 3,000 refugees in Congo have fled into Uganda in the last 24 hours joining 16,500 who fled there since August to escape rebel attacks in what Newsweek calls “the deadliest battleground in the world today.”
• 5 million people have been killed and countless women tortured and raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1996 despite 20,000 UN troops (3,000 just recently added) – its largest peacekeeping force in the world. It is what Newsweek calls “Africa’s other holocaust”, worse currently than Darfur.
• Somali pirates are seizing ships and demanding multi-million dollar ransom booty and more than 65,000 Somali refugees have fled to Kenya due to the violence there.
• And on and on and on.

Add to all that a worldwide economic crisis, AIDS decimating Africa, violence against women, so many other huge issues, and our own personal challenges and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, sad, frightened, and depressed.

And yet, on this eve of Thanksgiving, let us take the time to be thankful for what we have in this moment. If you’re reading this now, then one could assume that:

• You are safe.
• You have a computer or access to a computer and thus have a whole world open to you.
• You have the intelligence to be able to read, the intellect to be curious about what others have to say, and the skill to have found blogs on WordPress.
• You have the time to read.
• You most likely have shelter as most computers aren’t sitting outside.
• You have the ability to be connected to others, at least through the Internet.
• You have electricity.

Even if you have nothing else to be grateful for, if you have those things, that’s more than a big percent of the world has. When I lived in Saudi Arabia years ago, many mornings we would wake up and have no water. It’s such a simple thing to take for granted, but it wasn’t there. Or, as a woman, I couldn’t drive myself or go anywhere without a man accompanying me. Again, we assume those privileges in the U.S.

I have a very close family member who is going through a really rough patch right now. My heart is heavy. I pray she is being protected. And I know that women, children, and men all over the world who are living daily nightmares are all our brothers and sisters and they need our prayers for protection – and actual, physical protection.

We are all a part of a world collective consciousness and what happens to one of us affects all of us. Neale Donald Walsch, in his new book “Happier than God,” says that:

…the powerful energy of collective consciousness – which is perhaps the most powerful creative force of all – places in all our lives unhappy experiences and tragic outcomes…outcomes to which individuals fall prey even though they obviously do not consciously choose to.

…The way to raise the collective consciousness of humanity is, of course, to raise the individual consciousness of human beings.

So in the midst of all these tragedies, consider doing your part by being peace, being love, being grateful, being kind, being a light. One by one, we can begin to lift up our brothers and sisters, whereever they may be and whatever they may be suffering.

Take a Moment

In the midst of the economic meltdown, fear, and uncertainty, take a time out. Breathe deeply. Realize that you have this moment, no matter what else happens and you can handle and be present in this moment.

Think of something you have to be grateful for – a hot cup of coffee, a job, a beautiful view from your patio, a loving partner, children who are doing well, your health. Focus on what you have to be grateful for and remember that what you focus on expands. All that chaos that swirls around you is just stuff.

You do not have to contribute to the chaos and fear. Breathe. Focus on what you want in your life. Smile. Relax. It’s all good.