Love Your Neighbor - It's Universal

Click below to watch the video
Charter for Compassion

The Charter for Compassion springs from the dream of Karen Armstrong, well-known religious scholar. She is the current winner of the prestigious TED award (find out more about TED here) which calls on the recipient to create a dream for the world and then gives them funding and other support to help accomplish their dream. Armstrong's dream is for all the faith traditions of the world to return to their natural root of compassion. As a means to accomplish this goal the "Charter of Compassion" was created by Armstrong in dialogue with people from all over the world. It is to be unveiled November 12th. Please check it out and if possible do what you can to make this dream happen.

The Story of Stuff

click here to watch "The Story of Stuff"
This is the best economics lesson I have ever seen in my life! Can you imagine how things could change if this was taught in our schools? Please watch it if you can and then think of ways you could get it out to as many people as possible.

A recent New York Times article on the video and its creator Annie Leonard says,

"So far, six million people have viewed the film at its site, storyofstuff.com, and millions more have seen it on YouTube. More than 7,000 schools, churches and others have ordered a DVD version, and hundreds of teachers have written Ms. Leonard to say they have assigned students to view it on the Web.

It has also won support from independent groups that advise teachers on curriculum choices. Facing the Future, a curriculum developer for schools in all 50 states, is drafting lesson plans based on the video. And Ms. Leonard has a contract with Simon & Schuster to write a book based on the video.

The enthusiasm is not universal. In January, a school board in Missoula County, Mont., decided that screening the video treaded on academic freedom after a parent complained that its message was anticapitalist.

But many educators say the video is a boon to teachers as they struggle to address the gap in what textbooks say about the environment and what science has revealed in recent years."

(read the entire article here)

Today I started putting away my summer clothes and taking out the fall stuff. We are headed for a vacation to California in a couple of weeks, our first vacation in over ten years. So I started to think about how dowdy my Arkansas thrift store clothes might look in California. I started to wonder if I should go shopping for some new duds. I have plenty of clothes to keep me warm and dry of course. So maybe I will just "make due" now that I have been newly inspired by this great little video. I bet none of those chic Californians will even notice.

Let Us Be the Change We Want to See

Today I am posting an article from Truthdig.com by Robert Scheer. I wrote my own version of this article last week but then couldn't bring myself to post it. I was feeling too sorry for President Obama because of the vile attacks against him. But after reading Robert Scheer's article, I believe that this is something that has to be said. Its just another case of "The Emperor Has No Clothes". Everybody with a brain sees it. Now who is going to speak out and demand that this President serve the people? Its too important to let it all slide by because he is the first African-American president or because the right wing fundamentalist crazies are so out of control. We need Obama to step up to the plate and bat for the people not the corporations and powerful. That is not too much to ask. He wanted to serve us so let's tell him in no uncertain terms what we need. Just like every other politician I have encountered, he is not going to do the right thing just because he is a nice guy. There is too much pressure on him to go the way of the insurance companies or the bankers or the Wall Streeters or the arms merchants. We have to learn to put on our own pressure even if we would like it to be different.

I, like everyone I know who voted for Obama, want a president who is on our side, who works for us and for the people at the very bottom of the power pyramid. He talks like that and we love it. But of course as my mother told me maybe a million times, "actions speak louder than words." We have to look at the president's actions and not be fooled by his rhetoric. I hate to say it, but it is clear as day to me. We have to push this man to be the president we want him to be or it ain't gonna' happen.


Obama’s Presidency Isn’t Too Big to Fail

Posted on Sep 15, 2009
By Robert Scheer

A president has only so much capital to expend, both in tax dollars and public tolerance, and Barack Obama is dangerously overdrawn. He has tried to have it all on three fronts, and his administration is in serious danger of going bankrupt. He has blundered into a deepening quagmire in Afghanistan, has continued the Bush policy of buying off Wall Street hustlers instead of confronting them and is now on the cusp of bargaining away the so-called public option, the reform component of his health care program.

Those are not happy sentences to write for one who is still on the e-mail list of campaign supporters urged to back the president in the face of attacks that are stupidly small-minded. But to remain silent about his errors, just because most of his critics are so vile, is hardly an example of constructive concern for him or the country.

Yes, Obama was presented with a series of crises not of his making but for which he is now being held accountable. He is not a “socialist” who grew the federal budget to astronomical proportions. That is the legacy of George W. Bush, who raised the military budget to its highest level since World War II despite the end of the Cold War and the lack of a formidable military opponent— a legacy of debt compounded by Bush’s decision to first ignore the banking meltdown and then to engage in a welfare-for-Wall-Street bailout. And it was Bush who gave the pharmaceutical companies the gift of a very expensive government subsidy for seniors’ drugs.

But what is nerve-racking about Obama is that even though he campaigned against Bush’s follies he has now embraced them. He hasn’t yet managed to significantly reduce the U.S. obligation in Iraq and has committed to making a potentially costlier error by ratcheting up America’s “nation-building” role in Afghanistan.

Just as he was burdened with the Afghanistan situation, Obama was saddled with a banking crisis he didn’t cause, and the worst that can be said of his attempted solutions to the financial mess is that they were inherited from Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. But Obama, who raised questions before his election about the propriety of a plan that would rescue the banks but ignore the plight of ordinary folks, has adopted that very approach as president. He elevated Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner, the two Democrats most closely aligned with Paulson’s policy, to top positions in his government.

Obama’s proposed new regulations, while containing some kind words about better informing consumers, do not portend any breakup of the “too big to fail companies” whose problems were permitted to fester by previous deregulatory measures. His answer is to increase the regulatory capacities of the Federal Reserve, which failed to use its already existing and considerable powers to avoid the debacle.

The promise is that next time the Fed will behave better. As Obama put it Monday, “So our plan would put the cost of a firm’s failures on those who own its stock and loaned it money. And if taxpayers ever had to step in again to prevent a second Great Depression, the financial industry will have to pay the taxpayer back every cent.”
Why not now? And why has he accepted the Wall Street line that all this represents a “collective failure,” as if the con men and the conned had equal responsibility? According to Obama, “It was a failure of responsibility that led homebuyers and derivative traders alike to take reckless risks that they couldn’t afford to take. It was a collective failure of responsibility in Washington, on Wall Street, and across America that led to the near-collapse of our financial system one year ago.” Hogwash. The chicanery of the financial system, securitizing highly suspect mortgages, was codified into laws that made the hustle legal.

That insistence on equating the swindled with the swindlers is also what is wrong with the evolving health care reform plan. The assumption from the beginning, when Obama reached out to insurance companies to come up with a deal, was that they had the interest of their customers at heart. They don’t, and it is the purpose of government regulation in the area of health as well as banking to even the scales between the powerful corporations and the consumers from whom they profit. That is the purpose of a public option worth its name.

Without a government program as a check on medical costs, Obama will end up with a variant of the Massachusetts program, one that forces consumers to sign up with private insurers and costs 33 percent more than the national average. He will have furthered the Bush legacy of cultivating an ever more expensive big government without improving how the people are served.

August 29, Saturday - A Small Group of Citizens

Here is a photo from our little demo in Jasper, AR today in support of health care for all. There were eight of us, Jim of course was there but he is the photographer so I am holding both of our signs. You can click on the picture and enlarge if you want to read all the signs. Hopefully this is going on all over the nation. The reception in Jasper was cordial with about half the people driving by without looking, another half honking and giving the thumbs up. Just a couple of thumbs down and no other fingers that I saw. Do you think this is what Margaret Mead had in mind when she said:“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”? I hope she is right because this thing is getting really weird.

August 21 Plus ca change...

Sunrise Over Berlin photo by Hanson59

The other night I woke up in the middle of the night with the feeling of impending doom. I didn't go to bed with it, it came upon me in the night. It felt like a sudden serious case of depression complete with uncontrollable crying and hopelessness. I tried for a couple of hours to get back to sleep. But, as usual, my mind had other plans. It wanted to review in sordid detail the subject of my despair. This matter happens not to be personal but communal so to speak. I was utterly distraught over the state of discourse on national health care reform. This sounds funny, but it is not. If you have been alive in America for the last month you know the scene. The vitriolic, mean-spirited, contentious and down-right evil nature of the health care debate has unnerved me. I know that it is fueled by professional lobbyists, the hired guns of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies who want to keep their profits coming no matter what the cost to the American people. Their lies are spouted by Fox News, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbough, and especially on the Internet. But, excuse me, does that mean that so many people have to believe them? Why can't people choose to act in their own best interest? Are we as a nation really that stupid? These are of course rhetorical questions from the middle of the night.

I laid in bed and longed for a nation where we could have reasoned debate. There are plenty of real reasons to criticize the proposed health care bills. Why do we have to be side-tracked by ridiculous lies about the bill allowing the government to kill your grandmother, leave veterans without care, stand between you and your doctor and then get into your bank account? I might be extra sensitive to this craziness since I live in a place where my neighbors make copies of these lies from the Internet and pass them out to the community just in case we haven't heard them on Fox News or The Rush Limbaugh Show.

The morning after my sleepless night I read the Daily Lectionary from the Episcopal Church as has been my practice for the last six months or so. These are daily Bible readings chosen for each day of the year. Since I have never been a Bible reader, I am learning a lot. On that bleary eyed morning after my sleepless night the designated Old Testament reading was Psalm 140. It was supposedly prayed by King David. But don't you think it would be a perfect prayer for Barack Obama right now?

Psalm 140
To the leader. A Psalm of David.

1 Deliver me, O Lord, from evildoers;
protect me from those who are violent,
2 who plan evil things in their minds
and stir up wars continually.
3 They make their tongue sharp as a snake’s,
and under their lips is the venom of vipers.
Selah

4 Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked;
protect me from the violent
who have planned my downfall.
5 The arrogant have hidden a trap for me,
and with cords they have spread a net;*
along the road they have set snares for me.
Selah

6 I say to the Lord, ‘You are my God;
give ear, O Lord, to the voice of my supplications.’
7 O Lord, my Lord, my strong deliverer,
you have covered my head in the day of battle.
8 Do not grant, O Lord, the desires of the wicked;
do not further their evil plot.*
Selah

9 Those who surround me lift up their heads;*
let the mischief of their lips overwhelm them!
10 Let burning coals fall on them!
Let them be flung into pits, no more to rise!
11 Do not let the slanderer be established in the land;
let evil speedily hunt down the violent!

12 I know that the Lord maintains the cause of the needy,
and executes justice for the poor.
13 Surely the righteous shall give thanks to your name;
the upright shall live in your presence.

New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), copyright 1989

Maybe we could leave out the part about "Let burning coals fall on them! Let them be flung into pits, no more to rise!", but it is a satisfying mental image, I must admit. The French have a saying that seems to apply to this health care reform fiasco as well as to many other situations especially in politics, "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose" (The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same.) We could just leave it at that. Just say along with at least half the country, "Whatever". Right now the debate on health care is so vicious and mean that I feel like giving up. That seems like the sanest response. However, not being completely sane, I just wrote another letter to the editor and I am planning to go to one more rally in support of the public option for health care, carry my sign, "Do the Right Thing, Health Care for Everyone!", and hope that someone doesn't hit me.

Acknowledging the light of a new day, I have started to think about alternatives to the contentiousness that has infected our country. Perhaps teaching young people the arts of mediation and listening to others might be the most radical thing we can do right now. There are already some good people doing this and lots of helpful resources. Check out one great program here. God knows it is needed. I can begin to see a glimmer of hope for civil decision making in the US in the future. If we worked really hard maybe we could even prove the French wrong for once. That would be satisfying. Just say No! to "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose" we could say. America finally joined the rest of the developed world and found a way to provide health care for all her people! It's amazing how things look a little brighter after the sun comes up.

August 13. Thursday - Lest We Forget

artwork by Hiroshima bombing survivor

For the last week I have been thinking about what I might do to remember the 64th anniversary of the nuclear bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US military, that occurred on Aug 6 and Aug 9, 1945, the year before I was born. When I lived in Colorado I often helped to organize a memorial gathering in honor of the victims of the bombing. That had a kind of soothing effect on my grief. What can you do but be a witness to the atrocity of war and especially this kind of unthinkable mass destruction of innocent life in all of its holy manifestation? Now that I live in the deep woods, I can't really organize a gathering. So I thought I would dedicate this essay to the memory of the 200,000 people who died and the equal number of survivors of those August days in 1945 when life on this planet was changed forever.

This morning when I was doing the research for this essay, I watched one of those old black and white news shorts that they used to show before the main feature in movie theaters. This one was created just days after the bombing. The camera pans the razed cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the narrator extols the obvious immense power of America’s bomb. Cement buildings were turned to dust and steel girders were “twisted and bent like pipe cleaners”. As the camera moves past the site of a former factory in Hiroshima the narrator mentions, almost as an aside, that 20,000 people had worked in this factory. Other than this there is no mention of victims. As banal as most of the narration is, surprisingly at the end very end it asks a profound question. With rising ominous orchestral drama in the background, a man in US military uniform traces with chalk the outline of a human body which had been incinerated into the sidewalk, and the narrator booms in his deep voice, “Unparalleled progress or unparalleled destruction, atomic power puts the question squarely to mankind!”

Sixty some years later we still have not faced this question and its consequences. The generation of people who lived through the experience of the bomb is passing. For the most part we have failed to listen to their story. In 1995 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the bombings, the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC planned an educational exhibit about the 1945 bombings of Japan. After months of planning, the exhibit was scrapped due to controversy over graphic photos of victims, a school girl’s charred lunch box and the mention of scholarly historical studies some of which suggest that the bombings may not have been necessary to end the war. Americans are not yet ready to take a hard look at what our country did and why, and the unthinkable consequences of these acts. Yet, this very failure to face the truth, this national cowardliness or lack of stomach for the truth, may also be keeping us from seeing the truth of our current situation in regard to the ominous threat to our world posed by nuclear weapons.

According to Nuclearfiles.org a project of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, the, there are approximately 31,000 nuclear warheads in the world today. Of these 13,000 are deployed and 4,600 are on high alert, meaning they can be launched within minutes. Each of these warheads has the destructive power of 100,000 to 400,000 tons of TNT. In comparison, the bombs dropped in 1945 had the force of 15,000 tons of TNT. There are eight nuclear armed countries in the world including, the US, Russia, Britain, France, Israel, China, Pakistan and India. Ninety-five percent of the nuclear warheads are in the US and Russia. In addition, according to the International Panel on Fissile Materials, substantial quantities of highly enriched uranium used to make the bombs, remain in more than 40 non-weapon states. There are varying accounts of how much enriched plutonium is actually missing. Most likely, non-state terrorists have access to some of this missing plutonium, if not the means to manufacture a nuclear weapon. The state of the world in terms of the risk of nuclear holocaust is dire. In fact,there is a doomsday clock, maintained by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and used to symbolize our proximity to global annihilation. Currently this symbolic clock is set at 5 minutes to midnight.

Any day is a good day to start to look this beast in the eye, but August seems particularly appropriate. It is incredibly difficult work. I think that the only way we can do this is to gather the necessary courage from each other. The issue is not only about how many thousands of nuclear warheads are aimed at us, and at our perceived enemies. It is about the hopes and dreams we each have for our children and their children and for the future of human life on this planet. We must learn to tell our stories and above all to listen. Surely, we will come to find mutual benefit in nuclear disarmament, ending forever the nightmare of nuclear weapons. Governments and corporations will not then be able to convince us that we need these weapons of mass destruction for our safety. We will together see the lie.

Toward this end, an enlightening documentary film has been released by HBO, “White Light, Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” directed by Japanese American, Steven Ozakazi. It premiered on television on Aug 6, the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and will run throughout August. This film tells the stories of 14 of the 200,000 survivors of the bombs. In an interview on YouTube Okazaki said that he has been trying to produce this film for ten years. Neither US or Japanese movie companies wanted to get involved, saying that the people were not ready for this. Then last year, to his relief and surprise, the proposal was accepted by HBO and he was given free reign to tell the story through the eyes of the survivors. He says, “The conversation is never about people’s lives. It is about just strategy, as if war is just strategy and battles won or lost. The point of the show is to put a human face on it and to show the real tragedy of it.”

After watching the trailer and the interview of Mr. Okazaki, I feel that these survivors have something important to tell us. I don’t have HBO so I will have to wait to get it from NetFlix. I am sure that in a way it won’t be easy to watch. But in another way, it will be so beautiful, a story of human courage. Here is a site that shows some of the art work of survivors. You can see immediately the pain they experienced and also the beauty of the human spirit. We do not get this kind of opportunity very often so if you are able, please watch this movie and encourage your friends and family to watch it also.

White Light/Black Rain airs August 13 at 11:30 a.m. and 11 p.m.; August 19 at 3 p.m. and August 22 at 4 p.m.. It also plays on HBO2 August 16 at 12:30 a.m. and August 20 at 8 p.m. All times are Eastern Standard Time. You can of course also purchase the video from Amazon or HBO or rent it from NetFlix and maybe your local video store.

Although the situation is dire, it is not hopeless. After their meeting in July Presidents Obama and Putin announced a preliminary agreement to reduce each of their respective country's nuclear stockpiles by thirty percent. This is a pretty big deal.
Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a Washington foundation focused on nuclear-weapons reduction and nonproliferation said, “They’ve hit the sweet spot in finding numbers that will be a significant reduction and likely to get the necessary support in their respective parliaments,” In fact, the numbers announced Monday, Mr. Cirincione notes, “amount to a 30 percent reduction in the nuclear arsenals of the two countries that possess 95 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.”

Even on this hot August day there is reason for hope, while at the same time being aware that if these cuts are made, there will still be enough nuclear weapons in the world to destroy all life on the planet many times over. It seems to be the gift of our times to live with this kind of paradox. Just exactly what is hope in the face of the kinds of issues which face us? A thirty percent reduction sounds good for today, and we will work for total nuclear disarmament as we celebrate. We have examples of courage to guide us. Even when their loved ones and entire world disintegrated before their eyes, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not give up. Their lives give us courage. Isn't that part of what it means when we call ourselves the human “family”? We take our courage and support from each other especially in the things that are too big to look at alone. I am grateful that even a few of these people were able to speak to the world before their voices are gone forever.

Thursday July 30 - Looking Deeply into our National Health

Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh


National health care is very much in the news right now. I hope that congress can come up with a workable system that gives all Americans access to excellent health care. Our present system is, like almost every enterprise in this country, geared more to profit than to service. It is not so much broken as it is wrong. I think most Americans agree that something must be done to provide good health care for all the people.

In looking at the health care dilemma as with so many tough situations, I find it very helpful to follow the advise of Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh and look more deeply into the problem, to really sit with it quietly and contemplate. It seems to me the first thing we must see in this deeper look is that what we really want and need is not so much national health care as national health. The health of our people is poor and I do not believe that a national health care system as proposed in any of the versions before congress even begins to address our ill-health. Prevention of illness or maintaining health needs to be a top priority in each person's life and it should be the top priority of any national health care plan.

So why aren't we healthy or more bluntly why are we so sick? Let's just take one common disease, type II diabetes which is reaching epidemic proportions in this country. The Center for Disease Control says that 20.8 million people which is 7% of the US population has been diagnosed with type II diabetes. WOW! As a nurse I would bet that nearly every one of those 20.8 million people received some education with their diagnosis even if it wasn't optimum. They did hear, "eat less and exercise more". You even hear that on TV almost daily. For many people with this disease the cure is really that simple. Yet we all continue to overeat and sit around even when we know how bad it is for us. I want to point out that I certainly include myself in this "we" who struggle with over-eating and weight problems. My weight has yo-yoed for the last 20 years as I gain weight, then diet to lose the extra pounds and then gain them back again. As most of us, I love all kinds of food and tastes and experiences of eating. Let's just say that today I am on top of my addiction but tomorrow or even this afternoon is a still up for grabs. I know first hand how hard it is to keep up a healthy lifestyle. It is work and it takes a lot of support and intention. You could say, just like it takes a community to raise a child, it takes a community to live healthily. Almost universally I would say we do not have that kind of community in this country.

Two thirds of US adults are overweight with a BMI over 25 and one-third of those is obese with a BMI over 30. That means that less than one third of Americans is in the range of healthy weight, BMI of 18.5 to 24.9. Thus we suffer the health consequences of heart and kidney disease and diabetes. These statistics come from WIN - Weight Control Information Network which is from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Since I was a nurse for twenty-six years and just retired a few months ago, I would like to share just one of my many experiences with this problem. For the last five years I worked as a home care nurse in one of the poorest counties in one of the poorest states in the US. Still many people here have health care provided through either Medicare or Medicaid programs. I don't think that a national health care system modeled on the present system of health care would change things very much here. I saw many, many people suffering the consequences of obesity and poor nutrition. So that I do not violate any one's confidentiality I will use a compilation of situations. But this story even though it doesn't represent one individual is not an exaggeration of what kinds of things happen frequently.

This man was relatively young by my standards these days, about 50 years old. He weighed over 300 pounds. When I saw him he had already had diabetes for 10 years which caused kidney failure requiring dialysis treatments three times a week at our local hospital 25 miles from his home. The usual cost estimate for dialysis is about $150.00 per session. Home care nurses like myself came to his home daily to do dressing changes on a foot ulcer that was refusing to heal. Some of the creams that were used on his wound cost over $100.00 an ounce. We continued to see him daily for over a year. Each nursing visit cost Medicare about $150.00. Since the foot ulcer was not healing he was started on hyperbaric chamber treatments weekly at a hospital 100 miles away. These treatments cost about $1000.00 each time.

During all of this time this man continued to overeat and disregard his elevated blood sugars, often stopping to have hamburgers, french fries and shake at a fast food restaurant on his way home from treatment. Due to his poorly controlled diabetes he also had significant heart disease and was hospitalized several times for heart problems. He finally had to have a foot amputation which again did not heal, so eventually they had to amputate his leg. He spent some months in a nursing home and then again returned home. Obviously by this time he was very ill. Yet he and his family continued to believe that if he could just get the right medical treatment he could get back to being active in his community. Eventually he ended up back in the hospital with pneumonia. He was put on a ventilator when he could not breathe for himself. Even after weeks his family did not want to disconnect the ventilator because of his wishes to have everything possible done for him. It was months before he finally died. A very sad story. Sadly also a very expensive story for the "health care system". The family's finances were used up early in his disease. Essentially his entire bill was paid for publicly. If this is the kind of health care Americans are expecting, I believe any national health care program will fail.

Since 1990 there has been a 76% increase in type II diabetes in the age group of 30 to 40 year olds. So how many more people are there each day who live out a variation of the above story? And why? The most obvious answer to me is that we have become a nation of addicts. We are addicted to over-eating and unhealthy food. This is one of the big problems that I believe a true national health care program would address. How can we get back to health? In the quote below from his book Living Buddha, Living Christ Thich Nhat Hanh is speaking about drug addiction but I think his words apply to the problem of any addiction that is causing us harm.

"Drug users know how destructive their habit is, but they cannot stop. There is so much pain and loneliness inside them, and the use of alcohol and drugs helps them to forget for a while... trying to stop the drug traffic is not the best use of our resources. Offering education, wholesome alternatives, and hope, and encouraging people to practice the Fifth Precept ( this is a precept on mindful consumption) are much better solutions. To restore our balance and transform the pain and loneliness that are already in us, we have to study and practice the art of touching and ingesting the refreshing, nourishing, and healing elements that are already available. We have to practice together as a family, a community, and a nation. The practice of mindful consuming should become part of our national health policy. Making it so should be a top priority..."

At first glance like most of this gentle teachers words, they seem too simple, almost child-like. But on deeper consideration, I believe there is much here for us to consider. What would it mean to have a health care system that offered "education, wholesome alternatives, hope and encouragement" to practice a precept of mindful consumption? What would it mean to make mindful consuming a "top nation health priority"? How can we learn to practice "the art of touching and ingesting the refreshing, nourishing and healing elements that are already available."? These are discussions that our communities need to have. We can not just leave it to our congress people. It is clear that they are influenced by corporations with their zeal for greater profits. This is another case where that old bumper sticker hits the mark, "If the people lead the leaders will follow." We each need to take responsibility for our health and make a contribution to the health of our community. Maybe the politicians will see the light some day but we can't count on it. We have to start creating the health we want for yourselves and our communities.

Of course I clearly understand that we cannot prevent all illness and we are not guilty for getting sick. Poverty and violence in one's life take a tremendous toll on a person's health. We don't have complete control over the quality of our air, water or our food or the predispositions of our genetics. But we do need to take some personal responsibility for those many aspects of our health and our nations health over which we have some control. In our society it seems like blasphemy to suggest that our body is not our own. Individualism is one of our gods. But just listen to a little bit different view again from Thich Nhat Hanh in his book The World We Have.

In modern life people think that their bodies belong to them, and they can do anything they want to themselves. "We have the right to live our own lives", they say. The law supports such a declaration; that is one of the manifestations of individualism. But according to the teachings of the Buddha, your body is not yours. Your body belongs to your ancestors, your parents and future generations. It also belongs to society and to the other living beings. All of them have come together - the trees, the clouds, the soil, everything to bring about the presence of this body....Keeping your body healthy is a way of expressing gratitude and loyalty to the whole cosmos, to all ancestors and to future generations. If we are healthy everyone can benefit from it...

You may not agree that your body is not our own. But I think everyone can agree that if we are healthy everyone can benefit from it. As I think about this new way of approaching health, I realize how many of the essential questions and issues are not individual but are questions for the whole community. Should we let corporations profit from selling soda and candy in our schools or serving our children milk laden with growth hormones and antibiotics? How can we support our local growers and farmer's markets which provide us with healthy food? What should we serve at our community gatherings? How can we support people who need to make changes in their lives to get more healthy? I would like to see real health taught in our schools, in our hospitals and clinics, our churches and community centers. Obviously the questions and issues are far-reaching and many, but we need to start talking and making some changes. Since our president is pushing for national health care reform maybe we can also talk about real lasting reform and the deep questions we need to address in order to achieve an acceptable level of national health.