Archive for the ‘Values’ Category

>     Last week the petite, young wife of a Chinese TV News and Sports Reporter interrupted a televised promotional event meant to outline her husband’s TV station’s coverage of the pending Chinese Olympics. It seems the wife had, only hours prior, discovered that her husband was having an affair and took the opportunity to let the world know as well. A video of the actual event is floating around YouTube. In today’s world, there really are no secrets…at least not for long.
    Several aspects of this story grip me.
    First, we have a daughter from China. Watching several men trying to “corral” that petite young woman and move her off the stage was sad. But the aftermath is more than sad, it’s disgraceful. I have read that the young woman has been arrested, without benefit of judge or jury, and will remain incarcerated until after the Olympics. If this is true, human rights and womens’ groups around the world should be expressing their outrage. And if that’s not enough to have her released, may I suggest that no female athlete participate in the upcoming Olympics to be held in China unless she’s released. There may not be many ways to move an elephant…but there are a few.
    I take more than a little comfort in knowing that while I wish that someday my daughter enters into a loving, committed marriage, should that turn out not to be the case she will have the option to simply hire a lawyer and secure her marital rights. I’ll lose no sleep wondering if she’ll wind up in jail for making public the shameful behavior her husband tried to keep private.
    Secondly, let’s talk about that husband’s alleged behavior. If true, it’s certainly not confined to China and Now. It’s as old as recorded history, as is the unequal societal and legal responses to men who are promiscuous versus women who are. Under Sharia law, women are beheaded for that which men are admired. Even in democratic countries, there is still societal stigma and lowered opinion of women who have affairs. Yet, men wear them as some sort of accomplishment and are not subject to the same reactions. In fact, my husband has a “cute” little expression he favors about the male sex drive. He summarizes it by saying, “Basically, we’re dogs.” And while I believe he’s been true to our commitment, I think the saying is a rationale and justification for avoiding the challenges of growing past an ineffective perspective that inhibits real intimacy. Make no mistake, I condone neither male nor female infidelity. I simply condemn double standards and unequal justice.
    Thirdly, and most importantly, is the power of one, female voice. While I am certain there are those who would try and paint that young Chinese woman as mentally unstable, lacking in self-esteem, or vengeful, they would be wrong. It took a Herculean amount of courage to do what she did. To do it, she had to risk the outcry of the established thinking that she knew would follow, she had to announce to the world that her husband found her, in some petty way, “insufficient” (although his alleged behavior says infinitely more about his insufficiencies than hers), she had to face the consequences that might, and apparently have, resulted, and she had to anticipate living with the memory of her actions forever. This was a courageous act and, further, she had the inner strength to tie her comments to the lack of a human rights policy in China. What she was saying by that connection is that no nation can be a great nation without respecting equally all of its citizens. All means each...regardless of race, ethnicity, religious or political affiliation, age, and gender.
    So, a petite young woman from China has shone light upon a whole host of issues. She has done her job and done it well.
    Now the question remains, what do you and I do?
     
    
   
    
    

>     After following the Romney win in Michigan and the dialog on the Democrat side as of late, I am concerned that despite identifying the challenges we face there is still a lack of understanding and unwillingness to prioritize the “how” of how we meet these challenges. 
    In the last week or two the economy has become the number one issue…as it frequently does in election years. This fact is an indication that we continue to focus on what I would call the “quantity” of our lives rather than the “quality” of them.
    The stock market is getting shaky and so Mitt Romney, successful Governor and CEO, is rising to the top because of his record of fiscal responsibility, not to mention turning around an Olympic Committee mess. Not to take anything away from him, he also seems to be a decent and ethical man (although I still can’t get over that “tying the family dog to the top of the SUV for a fun vacation” thing). On the Democrat side, the major players are now talking about “stimulus packages” (a.k.a. more taxes)as their proffered solution to what looks like a pending recession.
    OK. The wheel turns. The days of the unbridled stock and housing markets are winding down to a slow crawl. This is life and this is how it happens. Everything changes.
    The issue is not how we address it in the short run…how we bail out the greedy banks, mortgage and insurance companies as well as the unrealistic homeowners who grabbed for the brass ring and fell flat on their faces…but how we address the deeper and extended challenge of making our future work force, the children of today, more able to be part of both a national and a global economy by being educated to contribute to both with needed and marketable skills.
    Yesterday I was listening to a special report on National Public Radio. It was an interview with a man in Massachusetts who sells typewriters. Yes, that’s right. Typewriters. Not computers. What he said was that there is a certain percentage of his business that is the 16-24 year olds who want a typewriter. What he is hearing from these young people is that while they enjoy the slowed pace, the sound of the keys striking the page and even the bell at the end of each line…it’s the absence of temptation when at the keyboard to access the internet that allows them more focused attention and less stress.
    We have to educate and prepare our children, not stress and brow-beat them into thinking that more is never enough and faster is never fast enough.
    I remember in 1992 when James Carville, political strategist for then Presidential candidate Bill Clinton, coined the phrase “Its’ the economy, stupid” to underscore then President George H. W. Bush’s lack of understanding for fiscal issues. Well, it’s not the economy. It’s the type of society we continue to create by thinking and acting as if the future doesn’t matter in pursuit of short-term satisfaction.
    Our very creative and bright 14-year-old daughter is a whiz on the computer, cell phone, and ipod. And she has a required $150 Casio calculator for 9th grade Algebra. She also has a tutor for math. It’s not her strongest subject. Recently, we realized that while she can perform some very advanced technological tasks, she doesn’t know her multiplication tables 1 through 12. Now, you may not think that’s a big thing in today’s world but I can assure you that “the building blocks of a foundation” are always important…although that’s never really apparent until things start to collapse.
    Which brings me back to the election of 2008.
    I am not interested in quick fixes, magic formulas, bailing out stupidity and greed or any other superficial panaceas that address symptoms, not root causes. I’m looking for a candidate who is schooled in the fundamental building blocks of Life and Responsibility and has the courage not only to speak to them but to apply them and ask that we apply them as well.
    Until such a candidate appears, I’ll be practicing times tables with my 14-year-old.

>     Yesterday I was the guest speaker at a local high school, speaking for 6 straight hours to over 500 students in the 10th grade. My daughter happens to be a Freshman at the same school so it made the occasion a little tricky. I was a guest speaker in the Health Department teaching a unit about suicide. I had tried to kill myself at age 24 and have first-hand knowledge and experience on the topic. It was an opportunity the Health teachers didn’t want to pass up…and quite frankly, neither did I.
    While I have spoken privately on the topic over the past few decades, I had never before spoken about it publicly. Having discussed it several years before with our daughter, she was remarkably accepting of my presence at her school and even supportive of it. I take more than a little pride in this fact.
    One of the things I shared with the students, and I shared only what I know to be true from having lived it, is that we all have what I refer to as “appointments in Life” at which we are expected to “show up.” Those appointments are uniquely ours, as are our talents and challenges as well. While it is not always for us to know, in advance or even ever, why we need to be in certain places at certain times, the purpose of our presence in those moments is in support of the overall and ever-expanding consciousness and growth of humanity.
    Heady stuff, I know. But it’s how I see things none-the-less.
    I have spent all the years since the attempted suicide exploring many different roads in search of Who I Really Am. Each road was a choice I made to have the experience I had. Some of those choices were productive and some not so much…but all were my choices made in pursuit of what is true for me. And while I try to find the positive meaning and highest good in all that happens, even I have had my share of wondering if all the adversity and struggle that is a necessary part of Life can be worth it.
    At yesterday’s appointment I finally got my answer.
    As I looked into the faces of those children who were looking back at me with rapt attention, I knew with certainty that everything that had happened in my life happened so that I could be there at that moment and share with them the magnificence of transcending Life’s challenges.
    I have always wanted to “serve” in some capacity and oftentimes have prayed for a way to help me do that. Typically I have expected to find a particular cause or organization to which I might dedicate my time. But standing there yesterday I realized how many ways there are to serve and just what mine looks like.
    My service is one of Hope.
    By opening up to those children and honestly sharing with them both the triumphs and tragedies of my life’s path, and mirroring for them the Beauty and Love inherent in their own, I was able to “pay forward” the gift of hope I was given when I most needed it. For in the end, we are each “way-show-ers” for one another, not only by how we live our lives but also how we choose to reflect the lives of others. Having been both affirmed and denied at various times in my own life, I know well the power, and responsibility, of both thoughts and words.
    There was no financial compensation for my appearance yesterday. But if you could have looked into that sea of faces, as I did, you would feel today as I do.
    Yesterday, I hit the Lottery of Life.
    
    
   

>     They’re caucusing (whatever that means) in Iowa today and the media is holding it’s collective breath as if this were the actual election for President that will take place later in the year. While we should be concerned about the outcome in Iowa to some extent, I think our focus needs adjusting. It’s not about which one of the many potential candidates will come out on top, but rather which of them most closely reflects who we are and how we want to see ourselves mirrored. You see, the choice we make about who should lead us is simply a reflection of where we are at any given point in time.
    The process around electing representatives and leaders is in flux… as are so many of our processes and institutions at this time. As each of us realizes the extent to which we create our own reality, the corresponding realization is that we are also responsible for that reality. So, it’s no longer enough to sit back and say either 1) I’m voting for the lesser of two evils, or, 2) I’m not voting. I mean, yes, it’s certainly possible to still choose either of those options, as long as one realizes that the outcome of one’s choice will be the reality one lives.
    George Bush will likely be the last President to have been chosen by an unconscious and irresponsible electorate. Even those who voted for him find themselves in a position of having regretted it. Mainly, because he failed to follow through, to have integrity, around the things he said he would do if elected. And, because that was OK with us, he and those with whom he shares power felt emboldened to proceed in ways in which they had not only little mandate, but in ways in which they had no mandate at all. They understood that we didn’t want responsibility for the truth of our choices and would pay any price to circumvent that responsibility.
    We owe a debt of gratitude to George Bush, as we do to all of those people in our lives who, by their actions, challenge us and prod us to look more closely at who we really are and what it is we are really creating. For, in the end, it is never about them but always about us. Earlier today I heard someone say in referring to two other people, “They are ruining my life.” Well, no one has that power. Only we have the power to create from, or destroy through disregard, the life we have been gifted.
    The state of the nation, and it’s leaders, are just the macrocosm of the microcosm that is our individual lives comprised of the choices we make each day. Where we look out and see greed, apathy, self-indulgence, and aggression we must turn inward and eradicate the seeds of those outgrowths that were first planted, then cultivated, within.
    I am an optimist. I look around, listen, and am heartened by the sights and sounds of people awakening from the unconscious state of personal abdication of responsibility and choosing none-the-less, although on shaky limbs, to move into a new reality where harmony and unity are the destinations and responsibility to truth the vehicle used to get there.
    Yes, Iowa matters. But not nearly as much as we do.

>     It’s barely 48 hours into 2008 and I suspect most people have already begun, or will soon be on their way towards, breaking those “resolutions” made for the new year. Why do people feel compelled to make New Year’s resolutions anyway, knowing the unlikelihood of success? And what is it that we could successfully pursue instead?
    I think the intent behind grand proclamations of impending, personal change is a noble one. Everyone wants to better themselves and, in particular, cease behavior that’s self-defeating by replacing it with behavior that’s self-affirming. This is an admirable quest. So it isn’t that the intent is wrong, it’s that the premise of how one goes about it that’s awry.
    Behavior, and therefore patterns of behavior, are not created in a single moment through a conscious thought to, in fact, create a pattern. Rather, patterns of behavior are the result of repetitive reinforcement of a thought or thoughts that, over time, become a way of thinking that leads to a particular way of doing. We strengthen the muscle of acting, so to speak, by giving repeated thought to a particular idea.
    Self-defeating behavior is the result of giving repetitive thought to what it is we fear or do not particularly want. For, you see, the power of manifestation that we all possess by way of our thoughts lacks the quality of “judgment” and, therefore, does not distinguish between what is good for us or bad for us. It simply manifests that which we think about. And since it is very human nature to dwell upon what we lack or do not want, we keep on exercising and building that muscle of thought, getting better and better at getting more and more of what we don’t want. Hence, a self-defeating pattern of behavior is established and sustained.
    The solution is not to feed the beast, so to speak.
    The “beast”, it turns out, is every thought that’s inconsistent with who it is we really want to be or what it is we really want to achieve. So, the first step is to stop feeding the beast by not giving it the negative thoughts that continuously re-fuel the energy necessary to sustain the pattern. Once you can catch yourself mid-thought and interfere with self-defeating energies, it’s a small leap to substitute a self-affirming thought in it’s place.
    Example.
    I had a heated argument with my husband yesterday and it seemed to take on a life of it’s own to the extent that it consumed the entire day and negatively impacted everything that happened in our family. At days end, laying awake in a separate bedroom…I found myself thinking about all the things about him that made me angry. When I realized that I was “feeding the beast”…but was unable to magically shift my thinking to his positive qualities…I began to think about him as a giant bouquet of poppies and Gerber daisies.
    Now if you can just stop laughing, or suspend your disbelief long enough to hear me out, I’ll tell you why and what the net effect was.
    I like poppies and Gerber daisies. They’re some of my favorite flowers. They make me happy just to think about them. So, by thinking about them, I shifted my pattern of thought from one of anger and sadness to one of joy and gladness. I en-lightened things up. And, by so doing, not only did I stop feeding the beast of self-defeating thought, I actually lessened the energy charge around those thoughts. Without energy, things…and thoughts are things…cease to exist.
    No, it didn’t solve all the problems of the day and no, there is no happy ending (as of this writing) to the argument.
    However, what did occur was a step forward in the one-step-at-a-time guaranteed method for reversing behavioral patterns that no longer serve us. It’s not as sexy as a martini in hand at midnight avowing never to eat high cholesterol foods again in the new year…but it’s the stuff real change is made of.
    I’ll take that any day because that’s what life is really made of.
    Happy New Year.
    
    

>    Benazir Bhutto was buried today in Garhi Khuda Baksh, near her ancestral home in Pakistan. As I look at the photos of the simple wooden casket being carried and followed by throngs of mourners, I am reminded of the shared tradition of simple wooden caskets among so many of the devout world religions. Which reminds me of the ornate bronze and metal caskets and elaborate funerals one so often attends here in the West. Which causes me to think about what it is that we really amass in a lifetime and just what, exactly, is it that we can take with us when we die.
    I have, in this lifetime thus far, had both times of great affluence and times of financial hardship. I consider this a special blessing, as I have had the benefit of learning what life is like with money and “things” as well as what it is like without.
    As a child and young adult, my family was financially affluent and I truly wanted for nothing material that I desired. Yet, I was an unhappy child and young adult…lacking in self-confidence, self-love and feeling alienated from most people. This was one of the blessings I mentioned, for I learned at a very early age what most people take a lifetime to know. Money cannot buy the things that matter. However, despite my feelings and my profound realization, it was not until I lived financial hardship that I turned inward to discover what true wealth is.
    True wealth is trusting your inner guidance. It’s an awareness of the connectedness of all living beings.  It’s finding purpose that transcends the immediacy of your own needs and applying whatever gifts Creator has given you in pursuit of that purpose. It’s an appreciation for the finite period of time we are given a body in which to do the work that can only be done by us in this lifetime. It’s having the courage, through both words and deeds, to support what it is you believe to be true based upon your own unique experience of life.
    All of the material bounty acquired in the material world will be left here when the Spirit that is You completes this part of the journey, moving on in Spirit only. However, all of non-material wealth amassed through self-awareness and manifestation of purpose continue on, both here through the inspired works of those who remain, as well as in other realms where treasure is measured not by “how much?” but by “how True?” 
    I think beyond the simple wooden casket Benazir Bhutto was, and remains, a wealthy woman.

>     This morning I received a poem via e-mail written by a soldier serving in Iraq. It is a touching poem about military service (particularly at Christmas time), the price paid by those who serve, asking only that we remember and honor them when they return home, be they alive or dead. At the end of the e-mail, it asked that I pass it on to as many people as possible. Although I was deeply moved by the author’s expression of both sadness and selflessness, the request placed me in a difficult position in light of a conversation I had with our daughter yesterday.
    Yesterday, I told our 14-year-old that I never wanted her to say or write anything in school that she did not believe in just to get the grade. I believe strongly that conformity, for the sake of acceptance or recognition, when it compromises core values and beliefs about who we really are, is a dangerous precedent that we humans have reinforced generation after generation. It’s a “follow the pack” mentality that keeps us unconscious around our choices and perpetuates so much of what is wrong in our world.
    The best example is war. Which is why the poem caused me so much discomfort. Yes, that soldier has stepped-up to the plate and done what his country and his culture have asked of him. But did he search his own soul before he agreed to do what he is now doing? I often hear soldiers say, “My grandfather served, my father served, and I am serving.” This is not a reason, it’s a repetition. It’s unconscious behavior to do what has always been done. Which leads me to the saying, “The definition of insanity is doing what you’ve always done and expecting a different result.” War will not birth peace.
    My husband and I appear to disagree on this one. He feels that a 14-year-old is in school to be “taught” and doesn’t need to believe in what she answers on a test in a particular class. However, that slippery slope to conformity at any price that I see beginning in grade school has me wondering if now, at age 59, he would again make the choice he made at age 19 to serve in Vietnam? I suspect not. And it would be because he is more conscious now around his choices and more aware of who he really is.
    War is a mechanism to effect domination and greed. When people with the power to declare war lack the human capital to affect war, there will be no war. Making sure such people lack the human capital they require is your job and mine.
    I pray the soldier who wrote the poem, and all the others, comes home alive tomorrow. I pray my daughter sees it my way and never compromises herself, or her beliefs, to advance her position. I pray that each of us takes a moment to stop before we act without thinking and follow what came before just because that is how it’s always been done or how the surrounding culture see it. I pray that each of us knows our own hearts and minds and lives our lives consistent with who we truly are.
    These are my prayers this holiday season.
    And this is my prose.
    Pass it on to as many people as possible.

         >Yesterday before I left home in the morning I quickly checked out internet headlines and, of course, the big story was that TIME Magazine had chosen Vladimir Putin as Person of the Year. Upon returning home, I again checked out the headlines and found that, by evening, the big story had become that Britney Spears’ 16 year old sister Jamie Lynn, herself a television series star, is both single and pregnant.
    Two questions come to mind. “Is anybody conscious?” and “Where are their priorities?”
    I actually think the former provides an answer to the latter.
    It isn’t possible to be conscious (as in awake and present in the ‘here and now’ of Life)and choose Vladimir Putin as Person of the Year. I make this assertion because once one understands the power of thought combined with the powers of both intention and deed, one would never give energy to a person or idea such as Putin or what he represents. To “glorify” him (and that is what placing his face on the cover of TIME does…no matter how TIME’s editorial board tries to justify and rationalize their choice) is to empower both him and the energies of domination he represents. These are energies of a failed past that the world is moving beyond. TIME, by its action, gives life to an attempt at resurrecting that past.
    So, the editorial board of TIME is unconscious. Much of media appears to be, as well. The awareness we all need to have around this thought is that an unconscious creator creates by default…not by design.
    A “default drive” cannot prioritize. It creates by rote. What has been “is” and what “is” will continue to be. So, as the media remains stuck in unconscious creation, it perceives that the sex life and moral choices of a 16-year-old actress are what matter.
    Not so much.
    To conscious individuals, the highest good for all concerned is the place to focus thoughts, intentions and deeds. Conscious individuals understand the power of individual creativity as well as the cumulative power of collective creativity. My thoughts matter, and they matter that much more when combined with, and aligned with, yours. Ad infinitum.
    So rather than Putin and Spears, I prefer to direct my energy and focus on making myself a better person each day. I am committed to not allowing myself to be distracted by the misguided wanderings of people, and organizations, with apparent power.
    True power is neither Putin’s, because he is President of a nation, nor Spears’ because she is famous. Both are transient and illusory states. True power is knowing that they are, in fact, transient and illusory states. Being aware of how we behave today, where we place our thoughts, focus our intention and manifest our deeds is to know the purpose of Life and to have prioritized in light of that knowing.
    

>     In fairness to full disclosure, I need to say right up front that we have an adopted 14-year-old daughter from China, so writing about adoption is always quite personal for me.
    Writing about this particular one is infuriating.
    It seems that 7 years ago Dutch vice consul Raymond Poetaray (posted in Hong Kong) and his wife adopted a then 4-month old Korean baby girl named Jade. Now, 7 years later, having never attempted to obtain Dutch citizenship for the child, the Poetarays have returned their child to Hong Kong’s Social Welfare Department citing her “emotional remoteness” as the reason why they can no longer care for her. While I have neither doubts nor illusions concerning the challenges inherent in raising an adopted child, particularly one that may not have benefited from nurturing pre-and post-natal care, it almost defies imagination that two educated people would “return” a child as one might an appliance or a toy.
    So perhaps this case is about common sense and compassion…not about education. In fact, this might just be a very strong argument in favor of why academic degrees and professional accomplishments mean nothing if not balanced with a healthy dose of common sense and compassion for all living things.
    We adopted our daughter from China when she was 2 years old. While we will never know what those first two years of her life were like, we can make a reasoned assumption that she missed out on all kinds of nourishment, physical as well as emotional. Such lack takes it toll. To think, or expect, otherwise is delusional and harmful for all concerned. We have had our own share of challenges in raising our daughter but are they any more or less than they would have been had we given birth to her? In either case, it is a roll of the dice.
    What for us (and the Peotarays) have been emotional challenges could just have easily been emotional and/or physical challenges had we given birth to these girls. It really matters not. What matters is that when you reach out and embrace a child, you do it fully with an understanding of what your part of the bargain is to be. And even if, as in my case and the Poetarays, you underestimate the responsibility as well as the challenges, you none-the-less stand your ground in the name of love.
    I often wonder what will become of a world where we disrespect and disregard the rights of children, for as I often say, “they are the future.” Usually, I pose this question in light of child slavery, child abuse, or genocide in Africa. But now I must add yet another category to this tragedy. Now I must acknowledge that for some people, children are like property to be traded in when the model does not suit one’s needs.
    What gives me hope is that behind all the human failings that we are capable of, I believe in a Higher Order that is always moving towards the highest good. It appears that Jade, now in the custody of Hong Kong’s Social Welfare Department, has been placed with an English-speaking foster family and is going to a Hong Kong school while the Department looks to make a permanent placement for her in the future.
    I believe that Jade will find a family that loves and appreciates her for the gift she is and that life will reward her in ways as yet unimagined by all concerned. While I deeply regret what she has had to endure in 7 short years, she has a whole lifetime ahead of her to overcome her experiences and use them to her benefit.
    As for the Poetarays, who I am certain wanted to quietly dismiss and disregard this precious life they took on in a most careless and callous manner…well, they are now and forever infamous for what they lack.

>New Jersey today became the first state in more than three decades to abolish the death penalty. I live in New Jersey and have a 14-year-old daughter so this was not an easy subject for me to find my bearings on. If you recall, it was in 1994 that 7-year-old Meagan Kanka was abducted, raped and then strangled to death by 46-year-old Jesse Timmendequas. It was that horrific crime that led to the passage of “Meagan’s Law” and the federal “Sex Offender Act of 1994” both of which place post-incarceration restrictions and reporting duties upon persons convicted of sexual crimes against children.
    This is a tough subject and one not easily approached by someone who has never had a loved one harmed, violated or murdered. I cannot imagine how a parent feels who loses a child or (if lucky enough to have their child survive an attack) lives with a child who was subject to such inhumanity and abuse. It would be easy to understand why parents, under those conditions, might want to see “justice done” by knowing the perpetrator, if captured, was put to death.
    Yet I marvel when I see parents or loved ones of a murder victim on television, or in print interviews, express their “forgiveness” and advocate that no higher purpose would be served by executing the murderer. It’s a natural reaction if one wonders, “Where do those people get that kind of strength?”
    I think I know.
    It comes from a deep knowing that there are Universal Laws that provide us with the opportunity to heal not only ourselves but all of humankind as well. One of those laws is surely that killing another human being for any reason carries with it consequences and ramifications that go well beyond both the individuals and the moment. Violence begets violence. Even if you couch it in “humane” terms and conditions…lethal injections, blindfolds, whatever…the veil is transparent and serves only to hide the truth from those who are determined not to see it. Yes, violence begets violence.
    One of the 8 men who have been on death row in New Jersey is Jesse Timmendequas, Megan Kanka’s murderer. He will now spend the rest of his life in prison without possibility of parole. I have thought about the two alternatives, death vs. life imprisonment, in light of this particular case and here is how I see it.
    If we, as a people, put Jesse Timmendequas to death, we violate one of those Universal laws we know in our hearts to be true…and with some distinction (although not enough) we become somewhat more like him than not. If, however, he lives out his life in prison, there are two possibilities.
    The first is that unenlightened and without remorse, his freedom and quality of life are taken away and he remains like a caged animal for whatever time is his by design. If, on the other hand, he gains some enlightenment and feels some level of remorse, then he will live every waking moment and breath every life-sustaining breath with the knowledge and reality of the heinous and inhuman act he committed. Either way, imprisoned for life, his is a damned fate.
    Which leaves me with Megan’s family. How to justify the continued life of the man who took the one gifted to their daughter? I would not begin to try.
    What I would say to them is that another of those Universal Laws is that failing to forgive is a prison of it’s own making…one in which they would keep themselves bound for no reason at all. The murderer’s prison is real and necessary. Not so theirs. They are free not only to forgive him but to forgive Life as well for such seeming injustice.
    We are human and because of that limitation too often see only part of the picture, thereby missing what the whole canvas portrays. Megan Kanka gave her life so that countless other children might be spared suffering and harm. It was a life so very well spent.
    May her family live on, and move on, with both honor and forgiveness in their hearts.