Meditation

"Remember that your Mindfulness Meditation takes effort, especially at the beginning. But as the practice grows and deepens, it becomes more and more beneficial to you and supports your efforts in whatever you do in your life. You might think of the practice as planting a tree which requires a lot of care as a small plant, but which will, because of your efforts as the gardener, grow into a large, strong tree, no longer needing any service, but instead offering shade, bearing fruit and giving to you and those around you for the rest of its life."

From my meditation teacher and friend.

Healthcare Pains

I have been following the latest American media circus--the newly written healthcare legislation which no one has read, it seems, but which is going up before Congress this weekend (who will be there to vote, by the way on a weekend?). And it is discouraging, to say the least. After listening to the President, I felt as uninformed about the ramifications of the trillion dollar bill for our children's futures and frustrated with a political system that is so opaque in its legislation. Who will read the darn thing? How can we live in such an affluent society that does not take care of its aging and poor populations? And I don't mean the government. . . we are as individuals ultimately responsible for those who live around us. The Book of Mormon cautions us against neglecting the vulnerable in our society. Hmm . . . I suppose that I am fired up while I am reading "Education Denied" by Katarina Tomasevski, about what it really means to uphold human rights, and hope that someday people will want to do random acts of social kindness every day. What a difference it would make.