A PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING

 

Thank you God for my Book Club

Where we discussed Tom Stoppard's Leopoldstadt 

About Jews who, like frogs in boiling water,

Were sent to gas chambers after years unaware of the tightening noose.

Thank you for my fellow knitters, not one under sixty,

who remember the protests that toppled a President and changed the course of a war.

Thank you for friends and family who demonstrate against and boycott

the totalitarian regime that now rules America. 

Thank you for our church, that ignores the prohibition on DEI,

Recognizing that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Is just another name for Civil Rights and Christian love.

Thank you for a Bible class that provides a safe place

For discussions of White Nationalism and brown persecution. 

Thank you for white people who protest when brown people can't. 

Thank you God for your word that helps us walk the line--

the line of resistance, the line of compassion, the line of fearlessness.

Help us protect the weak with our strength, 

Defeat the evil with our greater number, 

And keep us dedicated to your word and the world you want us to preserve.

AMEN 

 

 

 

SO MUCH TO PRAY FOR IN AMERICA

Under the Shelter of a Cedar Tree

 Diary of a Mindful Nature Lover :  What I want to do most is love God, spend my days in nature, care for my family and friends and care for myself.  Be mindful of all.  The basics, right?  We have such a beautiful country, parks and mountains and rivers.  Late afternoon I see circling hawks; at dusk deer tussling; evening, geese noisily passing overhead. We want to be there for those we love; to be tender with ourselves and others.    

What I have been doing instead is thinking about sin-- how can this be helpful in these times of crisis, I'm not sure. But that is where my mind is leading.  Sin is so much present.  The times are suffused with it. 

Pride is the original and worst of the Seven Deadly Sins.  C. S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity that pride is the "anti-God" state, the position in which the ego and the self are directly opposed to God.  He says it was through pride that Lucifer became wicked.  Pride blinds.  Through pride, or hubris, leaders with power become more and more irrationally self-confident.  They too become wicked. We've seen this in history and from afar. Now we see it up close.  

We began praying for the Ukrainians being shelled and dying on 24 February 2022 when Putin invaded.   We also, I do, pray for the young Russian soldiers sent to their slaughter, 1,108 per day since the beginning of the invasion, or about 103 deaths for each square kilometer of Ukrainian homeland taken. Then we began praying for the Israeli hostages taken on Oct 7, 2023, about 250 men, women and children.  Those prayers continue, but were soon joined by prayers for Palestinians in Gaza whose homeland continues to be destroyed by Israeli forces.  Over 46,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).  

There's so much to pray about, we could do nothing else.  I am praying now for the 100,000 United States Federal workers to date who have been fired or forced to resign.  One of them is our daughter-in-law, who had trained long for a job she loves.  She does not know what comes next.  What else?  We can pray for those with Alzheimers or cancer and the doctors who look for cures, and for the Courts who are charged with determining whether cancelling medical research grants is legal.   

We can pray for children like the transdaughter of a friend, that they not be denied medical care; we can pray for our schools that free school breakfasts and lunches continue for the hungry; we can pray for our churches that we can continue to be sanctuaries for refugees; we can pray for everyone poor or disabled or female or gender non-conforming or a person of color, that they be treated as well as those who are rich or male or white non-Hispanic.  Oh my.  

When our son was little he had Tourette's Syndrome and we prayed about that.  In our family, like yours, people have gotten sick and died.  But never have I prayed so much for our country and our democracy.  As a lawyer, I took the oath to support our constitution. I pray also for its survival.  Has there always been this much to pray about?  I don't know.  But it seems like facing sin head on leads one to prayer,  and that cannot be bad.  Prayer is always a good start.  It leads to hope and that leads to action.  Prayer, hope and action are what American needs right now.

Help us, Lord, to pray for, support, and do what's right.  Help us to take action in accordance with Your will.  Help us to work for and support freedom and justice for all. Help us to love our neighbor, on our street or on our border, as ourselves, and support those who do the same.  In so praying, we remember that might does not make right and that evil is as real as good.  AMEN

 

SIMPLE INSIGHTS

Follow your Heart

• While distractions waste energy, concentration restores energy.  Distractions leave us frazzled but concentration is calming.  Concentration is whole-hearted.  It restores us.  The qualities of concentration are presence, calm observation, willingness to start over, and gentleness.  These qualities help us at work and at home.  Never are they depleting.  

• Anger contains other emotions, like sadness, fear, disappointment or regret.  We need to tackle the underlying emotion.  Why are you angry at your child?  Is it because you fear for her safety?  Why are you angry at yourself?  Do you regret something you said or failed to say?  Why are you angry at your friend or partner?  Did they disappoint you?  And isn't it easier to address each of these without the anger?  Experts say that it is. 

• Accomplishments should increase our peace of mind, but too often don't. Often the first question we're asked after an accomplishment is, "what's next?"  Let's work to "rest on our laurels" for the moment and savor what we achieve.  Let's work to be happy with ourselves and our accomplishments.  Let's stretch that happiness.  We can strive without always having to reach a new goal.  We can revise or even abandon our goals.  Peace of mind in what we have accomplished will then follow.    

• Possessions bring only temporary satisfaction. Has this ever failed to be true for you?  I don't mean your home, where you retreat from the world.  Or your grandfather's watch or your mother's earrings.  But things.  If we remember this, we will save money, effort and time, all more valuable than things.  

• Meditation creates a sense of ease within and can help us withstand sorrow and loss.  Prayer and meditation bring us in close to ourselves, to a comforting place where sorrow can reside peaceably, where loss can be cradled. My meditation mantra is "Help, save, comfort and defend me, Gracious Lord."  Amazingly, it does help.  I have been saved and comforted when I thought that all was lost. This is an assurance for the future as well.  

• We can't decree what emotions will arise, only our responses to them. Every emotion should be recognized, named and accepted.  Feelings aren't bad.  Sometimes we are unhappy, with or without reason.  We can live with that.  If we couldn't live with sadness, change, loss or death, how could we possibly survive day to day, year to year?  Our emotions deserve our respect and tenderness.  

• Meditation teaches us how to begin again, and again.  Prayer too.  Prayer never tires us.  There is always more for which to pray.  Let's not exhaust ourselves running away from difficult thoughts, keeping them hidden or criticizing ourselves for having them.  Always to yourself be kind.  When we can forgive ourselves we can forgive others.  In that way we imitate God. 

In love, Nina Naomi

WHY WE PRAY (OR WHY WE DON'T)

Lately I haven't been praying as often.  Usually my mind is flooded with prayer.  The least thing.  I don't understand my daughter:  "Help me God."  I'm standing at the waters' edge at sunset, heels sinking with the tide's gentle outflow:  "Thank you Lord."  The Ukrainians are dying:  "Save them Lord."  "The test came back normal:  "Thank you God."  

 

But lately not so much.  So, it seems, instead of actually praying, I've been thinking about prayer.  I don't know if others do this. 

The first thought is, why do we pray? To be closer to God surely.  To claim God as our center.  To admit that we are not alone and don't want to be.  To lay our very selves before the one who made us and whom we know will be there no matter how deep we sink.  To prostrate ourselves and be lifted.  To seek respite.  To give our burdens away.  To say, "Help me please."  That's on a bad day. 

On a good day we pray to give thanks.  On those days we worship with joy and sing God's praise.  We pray because we are grateful for every season, every blossom and seed, every lizard and spider and chipmunk.  We are grateful that our children are better, our lives have been spared, the floods have receded.  We give thanks for our best self, the self that cares for others, that loves with abandon, that lies on our back and feels the rain. 

We can pray to feel better, or we can pray to live better with how we're feeling.  Doing the latter often results in the former. We learned as children not to set an agenda for God.  After all, the words of the Lord's Prayer are "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done," not ours.  Hopefully we use prayer to be more open, receptive and present to God and not to tangle with our emotional life, our history, and the thoughts in our mind. 

Prayer is not a clever way to be happier, that we know.  Although turning over the unsolvable on earth to God--really letting it go--does help our stress and anxiety and maybe even depression.  

 

It's been said that a lack of prayer means a lack of faith and a lack of trust in God's word.  I actually read that.  Written by someone highly judgmental, no doubt.  That mind-set is easy to run into.  The same writer said that we pray to demonstrate our faith in God.  Demonstrate to whom would be my question.  I can't say that ever in my life have I prayed to "demonstrate" anything.  I pray out of need, gratitude and thanksgiving, knowing that not everything can be fixed, not world events and certainly not every private unpleasant experience.

I also read that prayers un-prayed will be prayers unanswered, but that too is not true.  God answers many prayers that I am too absent (or tired or unknowledgeable or devastated . . .) to pray.  I bet for each of us.

 

I'm sure that prayer will come easily again.  Sometimes something happens that destabilizes us for some reason and we need a re-set.  I bet God will answer a prayer that I don't even know how to phrase.  Sometimes that is my prayer:  You ask and You answer; I will accept.  Thank you Lord.  AMEN

A BONFIRE DAY

A bonfire day, my prayers are gone.

The paper crackled, seared.

My words in flame, 

The pages curl,

And all my memories charred. 

But still You hear them, give me peace,

Come by my side and stay. 

I feel Your touch.

You seek, console

And help me find my way. 

 

You hold my heart between Your palms.  

If palms You have, and slow

My breath with care.

I thank you, Lord

For calm when moonbeams glow. 

 

My new words will be few and slant, 

No one to wound but me.

So slight in heart 

And deed am I,

A kernel naught can see.  

 

I once was hurt, or twice or thrice.

Or more?  But who needs know? 

If words are kept 

From pen and ink

Are thoughts denied their flow? 

 

Will memories un-remembered be? 

Kept at a cost no more? 

Nor read at cost?

Nor burned at cost?  

No ruminations soar? 

Does anyone know more than I 

That words are not unpled?

Words take you to

A railroad track.

(But wait, no facts, I said.)

 

Forget it slant, nay live it slant.

Sand clean your mind; it's done.

Do not crush love, 

Do not soil love.

(This could be anyone.) 

        by nina naomi

 

 

 

HEALTHY ATTITUDES ( "HELP, I'M OFF-KILTER")

 

A serious topic:  Do you ever wake with existential dread?  Existential dread may be too strong a phrase.  But depression, anxiety, regret, lack of motivation . . . each can be a sign of existential dread.  We may question things we have been doing in a rote way. We may question purpose and meaning.  Or we may simply feel anxious, off-kilter, needing to get up! and start our day.  Losses, age, health concerns, death, almost any important life change can be a trigger. This seems to be a part of life. 

For me, sometimes after a lovely day or night a painful thought will re-emerge, triggered I suppose by the knowledge that security and happiness are not givens. They can, and have, been attacked in unexpected ways. My father always said that the things that set you back are never what you were worried about.  That's pretty much true for me.

What can we do about this? Losses, age, health concerns and death aren't about to reverse.  Only our attitudes, our feelings are open to change.  Example:  We are getting older each year.  Can we feel good about that?  Amazingly, most days I can. I love the knowledge that age brings. I've experienced growth after trauma.  I love my life.  

We watched the Academy Award winning movie "The Father" last night with Anthony Hopkins playing the role of a brutally deteriorating Alzheimer's patient. This is not in my family history.  At 82 my mother made thoughtful end-of-life decisions.  My father lived without cognitive deficits until he died at age 94.  But we have a dear friend who is at the beginning of this decline; and an in-law's father has "good" days when he remembers which of his children is visiting. So this is not merely academic, for any of us. There's a new drug for Alzheimer's, but no one can actually say that it's promising. 

Plainly, any of us can veer into negative thinking.  After all, we're still in a pandemic. Plus, research shows that we overlearn from negative experiences but underlearn from positive ones. (Well, that's unfair!)  And that women are more likely to ruminate than men. (Maybe because women are victims of more traumatic experiences and fears than men? I don't see this considered.)  

So when I come across what we might call positive-thoughts-about-negative-things, I'm intrigued.  More than that:  I pounce on them. Anecdotes, medical articles, clinical studies, Bible passages, self-help classes . . . .  Surely that's one reason I get Mindful.org in my inbox each day, along with Greater Good Science Center (greater@berkeley.edu) and the Smiling Mind Meditation App.  It's why I took part in an expressive writing clinical trial for crisis management. And keep a Prayer Journal.

Experts agree that happiness often comes from within.  And that there are ways to encourage it. One is knowing that when someone does something bad to you, it's not about who you are, but who they are.  If you're bullied, or belittled, or assaulted, it's because of who the bully is, or the criminal, not you.  If the experience is closer to home and you're betrayed or humiliated by someone you know, it's about their need or weakness, not about you. 

Another way is to let negative thoughts run their course.  Like all thoughts, they come and go.  Acknowledging our pain is not an indulgence.  It's a stepping back so that the pain is not our whole self.  Thankfully, this helps even when the loss is what we call unbearable.  We find that we have borne it. As I'm believing that a hurt is too heavy, I become used to the weight. 

A third way to encourage happiness, or at least relief, is to reframe our stories. If I have to act to correct a situation that should not have happened, I can concentrate on my bravery in so doing. That's why we talk about survivors of sexual assault rather than victims. If we think we won't recover from a loss--of a person, a marriage, trust, self-esteem--we can reframe with something more accurate:  this is going to be very, very difficult.  It may take some time.  I may need help.

This is a big topic.  But I find just thinking about this challenging and interesting.  And writing about it, like expressive writing is said to do, improves my attitude.  I hope reading does the same for you, provokes thoughts about your life, how you want to cope, where you've been and how far you've come.  Introspection can be part of loving ourselves which helps us love others.  I almost feel like this is a sort of prayer.  Or at least thoughts guided by an unspoken prayer.  So I'll say it:  Amen 

  

 

 

  

YESTERDAY WAS ONE OF THOSE DAYS

Meadow Wildflowers

Yesterday was one of those days.  Too much ruminating, too many unhelpful thoughts.  Does this ever happen to you?  Like all of us I suspect, things have happened that I wish hadn't. Sometimes one of those is right there waiting for me as I wake in the morning.  As if whatever happened isn't enough, my mind decides to enlarge it, creating unpleasant scenarios against my will.   

Luckily I had signed up for a free course at learning@mindful.org.  I love this sort of thing.  Choose what you want whenever you want.  So I picked the soothing voice of Jessica Morey on the topic of nourishing emotional resilience.  The meditation helped.  It was calming.  Then I went outside.  Outside always helps.  The daisies are just beginning to fill the meadow.  In a week they will look like this, bending with the grasses to follow the breeze.  

Even yesterday there were enough daisies, lavender bugle weeds and buttercups for a bouquet for my breakfast room.  Still, the unhelpful memories kept interfering, some triggered by a short conversation later in the afternoon.  That bugaboo hyper-vigilance was roused.  

I decided to open my prayer journal.  That turned out to be just what I needed.  After writing I began reading over prior entries.  Of course there are prayers of supplication, prayers that arise from need or fear or concern.  All the emotions we feel.  But so much gratitude.  So many reminders of the goodness of everyday.  Of healing, of lessenings of traumas, of the love I receive and hopefully give.  

Life goes on in a haphazardly beautiful way. A way good enough for me and I hope for you too.  That goodness is what a diary of any mindful nature lover should be mostly about.  

                                           from Nina Naomi 

 

 

PRAYER FOR AUTUMN

 This is the time when the ground turns gold

When red confetti falls

And the woods out my door is living and dying.

      Grant me O Lord an eye to see and a heart to feel.  

These are the days when the wood-smoke curls

And the pine cones crackle

When logs are split

And the crock pot simmers.

      Grant me O Lord a mind to ponder and love unbounded. 

Tonight is a night when the air is moist and the stars shine low

When moonbeams reach deep, deep in our rooms while we sleep content. 

     Grant us O Lord a nourished soul and a giving spirit.

     Grant us wisdom to gather your gifts and count them, one-by-one-by-one. 

      Amen

N.N.

FOR THE SOULS OF THE DEPARTED, TODAY AND TOMORROW

Trinity Church, Copley Sq. Boston

For the 218,746 souls of whatever faith or none who in our land have as of this day lost their lives to this virus let me offer the following: 

Isaiah 3:1-3

But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.  For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.  

Romans 14:6-8

Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the LORD.  Also those who eat, eat in honor of the LORD, since they give thanks to GOD; while those who abstain, abstain in honor of the LORD and give thanks to God.  We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.  If we live, we live to the LORD, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the LORD'S.

Salat al-Janazah

O GOD, forgive our living and our dead, those who are present among us and those who are absent, our young and our old, our males and our females.  O GOD,  whoever You keep alive, keep him alive in Islam, and whoever You cause to die, cause him to die with faith. . . . O GOD forgive him and have mercy on him. . . . 

May they rest in peace. May the hundreds who will die today rest in peace. May those who stand before their GOD on a day that for many could have been avoided rest in peace. For each of us who will die from this plague, whether by carelessness or of necessity, whether preventable or not preventable, may we find rest eternal and perpetual light. May our memory be a blessing.  In peace let us pray, Nina Naomi.

 

THREE PRAYERS FOR THE PANDEMIC

Abbey of Gethsemani, Trappist, KY

This gate to a private part of the Abbey where Trappist Monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968) lived reminds us to rely upon God alone.  To God alone be the Glory.  But what it makes me think of is that God may be alone, but we are not.  You may have seen these prayers, but like many good things, they bear repeating.  The first one was chosen by a member of my church for the daily parishioner devotions that we began when gathering became unsafe.  See if these don't resonate with you.

May we who are merely inconvenienced
Remember those whose lives are at stake.

May we who have no risk factors
Remember those most vulnerable.

May we who have the luxury of working from home
Remember those who must choose between preserving their health or making their rent. 

May we who have the flexibility to care for our children when their schools close
Remember those who have no options.

May we who have to cancel our trips
Remember those who have no safe place to go.

May we who are losing our margin money in the tumult of the economic market
Remember those who have no margin at all.

May we who settle in for a quarantine at home
Remember those who have no home.

As fear grips our country, let us choose love.

During this time when we cannot physically wrap our arms around each other,
Let us yet find ways to be the loving embrace of God to our neighbors.

AMEN

This prayer is by Cameron Bellm, a Seattle mother of two and a member of her local Catholic parish.  The next one is more traditional and is from the Anglican New Zealand Prayer Book (1988).


For People Facing Great Uncertainty
God of the present moment,
God who in Jesus stills the storm and soothes the frantic heart;
bring hope and courage to your people as we wait in uncertainty.
Bring hope that you will make us the equal of whatever lies ahead.
Bring us courage to endure what cannot be avoided,
for your will is health and wholeness;
you are God, and we need you.

AMEN

I love the direct address to God as "God of the present moment."  That is where I want God to be.  The prayer is a pastoral liturgy to be prayed in crisis situations.  Another, for people watching at a death, begins "God of the Dark Night . . . ."  

One more prayer [with some editing], by the Right Rev. Richard Bott, Moderator (most senior elected official) of the United Church of Canada.  

A Prayer during times of COVID-19
In this time of COVID-19 we pray:
When we aren't sure God, help us be calm;
when information comes from all sides, correct and not, help us discern;
when fear makes it hard to breathe and anxiety seems to be the order of the day God, slow us down;
help us reach out with our hearts when we can't touch with our hands; 
help us be socially connected when we have to be socially distant;
help us love as perfectly as we can, knowing that "perfect love casts out all fear."

For the doctors we pray.
For the nurses we pray.
For the technicians and the janitors and the aides and the caregivers, we pray.
For the researchers and theorists, the epidemiologists and investigators,
for those who are sick and those who are grieving we pray.
For all who are affected all around the world . . .
we pray for safety, for health, for wholeness.

May we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty,
clothe the naked and house those without homes;
may we walk with those who feel they are alone,
and may we do all we can to heal the sick--
in spite of the epidemic, in spite of the fear.

Help us O God that we might help each other.
In the love of the Creator, in the name of the Healer,
in the life of the Holy Spirit that is in all and with all, we pray.
May it be so.
AMEN

Yes, may it be so.  With care for us all, Nina Naomi

Andrea Del Sarto, Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist, 1512

 









 

TODAY IS DIFFERENT

In a conversation once I said complaining, "My life isn't what I expected it to be."  A fair statement given the deaths in our family that summer.  "Whose is?" was the reply.  

I think a lot of us are feeling that way.  At least right now our lives are not what we expected them to be.  I don't need to list all the ways.   

I know of no new sickness among our circle of family or friends. And the friend who was in intensive care is home.  We give thanks.  But this morning I stood in line behind a young man wearing a protective mask. I had seen him before the pharmacy opened, stretched out on an out-of-the-way bench for customers. He lay there alone, eyes closed keeping his distance.   Tall, thin and with a shaved head, now he was kneeling at the pharmacy counter.  Too weak to stand for long, he waited on his knees as his prescriptions were filled.  My first thought was, "Here is someone to pray for."  Then he rose and slowly left the store.  

Each of us in line--three women all standing 6 feet apart--looked at him and at each other with visible compassion.  It was hard seeing this man, this stranger with whom it was so easy to feel kinship.  I don't believe I'll ever forget the sight he made.  Him tall enough to easily reach the counter while on his knees and me immediately thinking of prayer.  In a safer world I could have knelt beside him, though he would have surely found that strange.  After all, we were in a pharmacy not church.  After he left the three of us spoke about him briefly from our distances.   

I had a tall thin sick boy of my own a few years back, that summer that I mentioned.  I've written of him before ("The Sundial," 7/23/19).  I came home and lit a fire to ward off the inner chill and saw this:

Life is messy and complicated and we are afraid.

But we show up anyway.

All the changes of this season are not this difficult.  But for this post, I'll leave it with the picture of the young man kneeling and how he woke compassion in the women in line behind him. 

HOMEMADE SELF-HELP

A Selection of Found Insights

Stop investing energy in imagining scenarios that trigger anxiety. 

Feeling guilty causes mild yet chronic stress. 

If we can't forget at least we can forgive.


Feeling flattered is a bad counselor. 

Believe in Ourselves, Possibility, the Future, Kindness, God's Goodness, the People who Love Us, Generosity . . . 

Forgiving isn't condoning; it's taking back control, giving ourselves the freedom to move forward.  There is no moving forward without forgiveness.

Give the Gift of Love.

When we have sad thoughts remember they too will pass.

When we try something new it is at first irksome rather than pleasant; give it time.

Clear our minds with actions that take concentration.  Focus is calming.

There is good news everywhere when we're not depressed. 


Most things that make us happy are Free:  Curiosity, Friendship, Laughter, Nature, our Instincts, Change, Growth, Discovery . . . 

Prayer is the Soul's Way of coping with Reality.

If we have a choice, choose what's best for us.

Be affectionate, be tender, be present.

If we're upset by a memory write in our Journal; Give it to God.

Read.  Lose ourselves in a Book.  Immerse ourselves in a parallel literary landscape.  Mindful reading may be the ultimate balm for our tech-worn brains.  Merge the story with our own memories and experiences.  Live elsewhere. 

Doing nothing for a while expands our sense of time which makes us feel less hurried and stressed.  

Travel gives us distance from our daily worries.  That's one reason it's valuable. 

A Handbook for Happiness might be to Slow Down, Enjoy what we have, Make the most of Where We Live. 

The Simple Things, January 2020 @Icebergpress.co.uk

 

   

  

 

 












  






   











  

BEST BOOK FOR SPRING,PART II

"MISTAKING ILLUSION FOR REALITY IS SAID TO BE 

THE ROOT CAUSE  OF OUR SUFFERING"

"Integrity usually comes to people slowly and takes them unawares, as part of a natural process of maturing or through the need to be there for someone else who is counting on them.  But it can appear full-blown in times of crisis or loss."  

Dr. Rachel Naomi Ramen has learned these truisms through her years as a medical doctor counseling cancer patients.  Her book is their stories, her story and, miraculously, often our story as well.  My copy of Kitchen Table Wisdom is filled with marginalia.  After the first quotation above I wrote a simple "Wow."  A wonderful person we love has an illness that when untreated causes delusion.  This mistaking of an illusion for reality brings great hardship. Everyone suffers, together and separately.   

The second quotation also brought an event about loved ones to mind.  When his grandparents were hospitalized our son intervened and met with the doctors.  He wanted to step up.  He was young.  Then he turned to me where I was waiting down the hall.  "See, I'll be able to take care of you when you need it," he said.  He wanted me to see his maturity.  By being competent in this crisis he was instilling confidence in his readiness for the next one. Ramen says that sometimes it takes a crisis to initiate growth.  

She also writes about anger, not giving it the bad press it usually gets.  I remember my mother being angry just about every time we went to the doctor's. Angry and unreasonable.  If you're a care-taker, that may be your experience too.  My mother  had cancer.  She could have used a counselor like Dr. Ramen. "Anger is just a demand for change," Ramen says, "a passionate wish for things to be different."  It can be a way to assert personal worth in the face of a trauma.  Anger can flare if we are sad, fearful or in despair--difficult emotions we all share.  But the book addresses this as well.  Over time, Dr. Ramen says, she realized that some things that can never be fixed can still be healed.  We all need this promise, don't we?  

The book is full of promises.  "Listening is the oldest and perhaps the most powerful tool of healing."  And it is something we all can provide.  We can listen generously, to ourselves as well to others.  We can create listening sanctuaries.  We can be mindful of our own needs and the needs of others.  

This book dovetails so well with the loving kindness I'm learning about in mindfulness and meditation training. At this stage my life has been both better and worse than I expected.  This may be true for each of us.  Wonders we never expected have helped us bear hardships we could not have foreseen.  For me some of the wonders have come from prayer.  

"WHEN WE PRAY, WE DON'T CHANGE THE WORLD,

WE CHANGE OURSELVES."

"WHEN WE PRAY, 

WE STOP TRYING TO CONTROL LIFE

AND REMEMBER THAT WE BELONG TO LIFE."

Aren't these thoughts helpful?  Dr. Ramen says that with prayer we can relinquish our attachments, our attachment to fear, for example, and even our attachment to hope. The most beautiful prayer I ever heard was, "Dear God, please protect the one I love."  A prayer like that goes a long way toward healing anything doesn't it?  With love, Nina Naomi