a prophetic voice-

After a week filled with sharing the pain of others about whom I care deeply...after some times of soul-searching and sadness and the Sense of walking in the dark, trying to feel my way, at times unable to see the light at all, this afternoon's sunshine was a precious and beautiful gift. I sat on my back deck, soaking it in...absorbing both the healing and beneficial Vitamin D and the warm and healing of the sun's rays themselves, reminding me of the ever-presence of the healing presence of the One Who Loves. I could almost feel the warmth soaking into my body and spirit...could almost feel the healing of the spirit which was happening for and to me. And that's the way it is, isn't it... so very often in life. We go along convinced that it- whatever the "it" is- all depends on us...that we must have the solution and the strength, the courage and the Conviction, the wherewithal and stick-to-itiveness...when, in reality, the healing and strength,

October 10, 2014...a date which will forever be written in my mind and heart...a date on which a thought-filled and justice-minded judge struck down North Carolina's infamous Amendment One, which had prohibited same-sex marriages. What a time of rejoicing for my gay and lesbian friends, for all those who have worked so hard for justice and equality for all people under the law. I have long pondered about the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act", better known as DOMA...about why so many of my hetero- sexual sisters and brothers feel that acknowledging the right of same-sex couples to marry would in any way threaten their own. But, then again, I guess I've lived long enough to realize that we human beings are easily threatened and disturbed by anything or anyone we see as DIFFERENT from us... anything which is outside of our carefully-established and comfortable frame of reference, which knocks our worldview out-of-kilter. Unfortunat

Been wondering why my sleep patterns and appetite have been disturbed the past couple of days...why I just felt kind of "out of sorts"...and then, today, I realized yesterday was October 2, a more-than-momentous date in my life. Thirty-nine years ago on that day, my thirty-seven-year-old husband died of the leukemia which had overwhelmed his previously healthy body. It had been exactly one month from his diagnosis to his death and to say my entire family was devastated would be understating the effects it had on each and all of us. My children were seven, nine, and eleven and I was only thirty-three. October 2, 1975 became a day which worked its way deep into my psyche, into the innermost parts of who I was and am. Fast-forward nine years to south Florida, with a second marriage and three teenagers and a newly-adopted three- year-old, when I found a lump in my right breast and, on October 2, underwent surgery in Boca Raton. I was only forty-two, had already

So, a nurse in the ER at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas noted on the chart that the patient stated he had just arrived from Liberia, one of the West African countries at the center of the Ebola epidemic. And somehow this information was not "transmitted" to the rest of the medical team treating the man, who was subsequently sent home, only to return via ambulance two days later, seriously ill. And only then, ONLY THEN, was the diagnosis made. In the meantime this man had become contagious, exposing everyone in the household where he was staying to this potentially deadly virus. Yes, I'm on a rant about health care in this country. You see, I was an R.N. back in the seventies- that's the nineteen-seventies- in a small, not-for-profit community hospital known for its nursing care. And I can tell you, that lack of transmission of information would not have happened. No way, no how. We took good histories and we passed on significant information, perhaps