Haters gonna hate....I guess

For those of you who do not want to read my take on a political issue, stop now. Don't bother to comment. 

Along with millions of others, I have watched and celebrated the decisions this week handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States. It's not that either of them directly affect me now; it's that they do impact my friends and family, along with so many millions who have worked so long and so hard to make them happen, who have prayed for them to happen, whose lives are changed for the good because they happened.

But this post is not directly about either decision.

It's about seeing that a Facebook friend 'liked' a post by someone else that piqued my curiosity enough for me to go read the post.

The accompanying picture showed the White House illuminated by rainbow lights -- an image that was all over social media. But this original poster had written about how disturbing the picture was -- not because of the ruling, but because of the "fucking clown who lives here" and who "feels it's his right to involve himself in your life...." The post ended by saying that Americans are slaves and sheep to the media and the lies "the pompous ass who lives in this house dictates."    

Whoa, Nellie.

So....President Obama is responsible for the marriage equality ruling? Huh? Because of his lies and fabrications? Because he wants to control our lives? 

We learn early in school -- well, at least I did -- that our government has three branches in order to act as checks and balances for the others. We learn how they function. And we learn that the Supreme Court's  job is to make sure our state and federal laws and our President's actions are within the boundaries set by the Constitution. (There is more basic info here...)

The President had nothing to do with the Court's decision(s). Under our Constitution and our laws, he could not assume that power. The Congress didn't either. Nor did the media, folks. 

The Court decided the way they did based on the Constitution and how the case that was argued before them is interpreted through Constitutional law. Nothing else. 

This post was clearly from someone who hates our President. HATES him fiercely and irrationally and vengefully. And while all our Presidents have had their haters (I was no fan of George W. Bush, believe me), President Obama has been the subject of more vitriolic venom and vengeful action than ever before (or, as in the recent Congress, INaction, deliberately and for no other reason than the Republican Congress HATED that Obama was in the White House and made a pact not to pass any Democratic bills).

The primary basis for this hatred is race. You know it; I know it; they know it. It just KILLS them to see a black family in the White House, a black man as the leader of our United States. Any other reason given is way secondary to this fact. It's just not acceptable to publicly hate on a black man in power because of his color; especially not when he is our duly elected President (by a MAJORITY of the voters, by the way). So the haters always find another way to justify their diatribes and hate speech, even when Obama had nothing to do with the reason the haters state -- like this Supreme Court ruling, for instance. It's his race, people. His black skin. That's the real reason.

In truth, however, President Obama has been an extremely influential leader (despite the Republicans in Congress). Most remarkable is that he actually managed to get a national healthcare bill passed -- a feat attempted by leaders of both parties since 1912. But there is a lot more on his star chart. Read the article.

(I have absolutely NO doubt that if Hillary Clinton becomes the next President of the United States that she will be the next target for extreme hatred and vilification by the conservative camps. And that, friends, will be because of her sex: a woman? In the White House? As the Commander in Chief? Leader of the free world? A WOMAN?)

So yes, this post disturbed me a lot. The fact that someone I know 'liked' what the poster wrote disturbs me too. It's worth pointing out that both the original poster and the person I know have many inspirational and motivational posts on their public pages -- comments that urge people to keep going, to stay positive, to be who you are and embrace life, among others. To write or approve of something so full of hate and contempt (on so many levels, from the full text in the original post) seems to belie their good words of hope and encouragement and acceptance. I'm not sure you can do both and actually live what you purport to believe. 

There is a popular quote by Janis Ian making its way around social media: "We don't have to agree on anything to be kind to one another." 

Maybe that doesn't extend to politics, to Supreme Court decisions, or Democrat-Republican, liberal or conservative differences and opinions. Or religion, especially when one religion sees itself as the only right way and everybody else is wrong, no question, no arguments. Or social justice issues, where everyone is equal but some are a little more equal than others, especially if you have money, are male, and are white. 

But I think it does. 

However:
*** Do not make the mistake of thinking that I am a Pollyanna who never sees the ugly side of anything. Do not think for one moment that I do not know what it is to lobby and fight hard for issues I believe in, or to be bitterly disappointed in the actions and inactions of others, especially politicians, but also corporate management. Do not label me as a do-gooder, knee-jerk liberal Yankee Democrat who doesn't know what the "real" world is like. And especially do not dismiss my incredibly good research skills, my ability to write an impactful letter or testimony or opinion piece, and my Scorpio nature. All while being kind, of course....





 

Saying one thing and doing another

I was raised in the United Methodist church by parents who very much lived their faith and values, and who taught my brother and me to do the same. Questioning and discussion was certainly permitted, even encouraged, and we had many lively conversations over the years about faith and action and beliefs.

As a college student, I took required religion courses at my church-related college, and studied not only the Bible, but many theologians. Again, discussion was encouraged by my professors.

Over the years I've attended and been active in various United Methodist churches and an active participant in many social justice issues and on various boards and committees, many of them ecumenical.  I know a fair amount about many other churches, denominations, and religions.

I'm no longer involved in a church. But I am a spiritual person. I have a strong moral code and beliefs that have evolved from my earliest experiences with the church. I try to live my faith and my values, and I believe in God, in a Higher Power.

But I am just absolutely baffled by those who call themselves conservative Christians but whose actions are anything but reflective of what Jesus taught us about God and about forgiveness and tolerance and love.

I don't understand how a person can pepper a Facebook page with proclamations of God's love and "Praise Jesus" and then on the same page, even the same day, post or re-post vicious condemnations of gays and lesbians, of Jews and blacks and Catholics and Mormons and Muslims. Attack our president for his support of marriage for gay people as well as heterosexuals. Declare that women are not capable of making their own reproductive choices for any reason, but some man knows better than they do and will make it for them!

I don't understand how on the one hand they can pray to Jesus to sell their house or get a new job or a new car or help them through a divorce or a custody battle or other of life's difficult times, and on the other proclaim that everyone who is on disability or who receives welfare benefits is a drug addict or lazy, fat, freeloader.

Or how they can love Jesus soooo much but not forgive someone who hurt them in the past or even to consider that perhaps that person has changed. Or to bear a grudge that is rooted in something that happened decades ago. Shun a person who they believe has wronged them, without explanation, without discussion or even attempts at reconciliation. But Jesus can heal all, Jesus will save us, Jesus forgives our sins? Huh?

Or somehow rationalize that it is all right to kill a doctor who performs abortions, safe and legal abortions, and to condemn those women who might seek one for any reason as 'babykillers.' How does that make sense? How does that demonstrate love and compassion?

This is not the Christianity I was raised with.

Instead, Christianity today seems to be increasingly populated with those claiming to be 'good' Christian people who advocate -- or at the least turn a blind eye to violence, discrimination, anti-Semitism, and prejudice. They are anti-gay, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-Jew, anti-black, anti-poverty. They consider their brand of Christianity to be the ONLY way, and if you don't believe as they do, you are clearly going to hell, and might even deserve to be punished, if not outright murdered.

Jesus was a Jew. He hung out with former prostitutes, tax collectors, thieves, the poor, the mentally ill, the crippled, the unpopular people. He taught tolerance and caring and compassion for everyone. He taught that loving others as much as we love ourselves is the right way to live. 

I'm not seeing it. Not by those who pray the loudest anyway. 

Reverb11 -- Day 17 -- Saying No and Loathing

#1 Prompt: Saying "No":  Recall a moment when you said "yes" to something but felt you probably should have said "no".  How did you feel?  Why did you choose to rollover your intuition?  In 2012, how can you choose to only do things that serve you?

#2 Loathing - Who or what do you loathe and how have you expressed that in 2011?

 #1 -- No. I actually got pretty good about saying no in 2011, or saying that "I'll think about it" at least. I am no longer involved in anything where I think I've outlasted my useful contributions, I don't volunteer to do things I really don't want to do, and I make a conscious effort not to be around people who are nasty or otherwise unpleasant. I plan to continue this policy in 2012! 

This is a sea-change from the people-pleasing behaviors I've exhibited in much of my past, and I'm proud of myself.  While I still sometimes want to open my mouth and express an opinion about something that needs doing in a group setting, or that could be done better (how arrogant is THAT!), I have managed to SHUT UP and smile because most of the time I don't want to get involved in doing it (usually something related to publicity or graphic design). It's not that I won't volunteer; it's just that I want to spend my volunteer time on something I feel passionate about, and right now there isn't much that I'm finding.

#2 --  Loathing. The dictionary definition is "verb (used with object), loathed, loath·ing.

to feel disgust or intense aversion for; abhor: I loathe people who spread malicious gossip."

I loathe what the Tea Party has manifested itself to be in our country, especially those Congressional legislators who have as their primary goal the ouster of President Obama AT ANY COST. Programs which aid the poor, the elderly, the sick, and the mentally ill have dramatically suffered because of their votes or unwillingness to compromise. Our financial stability has this year been gravely threatened even further by their refusal to extend the debt ceiling. Their rigid stand on women's rights and conservative views of marriage and equality is simply unacceptable to me, and I don't understand how they justify such positions from a Christian point of view.

I loathe lying. Nothing breaks my trust more quickly than lies. The truth is always more acceptable even if it is hard to hear. (Okay, little white lies about where I've hidden the chocolate or the Christmas gifts being the exception...)

I loathe deliberate cruelty, especially to animals and children. The sick tickets who think it's funny to light a cat on fire or chain a dog with water and food just out of reach (or not available) have a special place reserved for them in hell. And those who molest children deserve castration, preferably without anesthetic. (While I realize that such sick adults were also probably abused as children, there IS help available for them. Well, unless the Tea Party has their way, I guess, and eliminates all mental health programs.)

That clear enough?

Ten years later

Five years ago I wrote this about our experiences on Sept. 11, 2001.

It's so hard to realize that those events occurred 10 years ago. Ten years ago we were still in the SFBay area, although we'd been looking at houses in Red Bluff a few times. We had just returned from moving Princess #3 from Chicago to Birmingham where she was going to live with Princess #1. Only a month earlier we had attended the Dahl cousins' reunion in Cambria where my mother's sisters and brothers, most of their children, and their children's children had come together for the first (and so far only) time, although there have been smaller gatherings a few times since.

Ten years ago I was barely into my 50s. We'd been married a little more than a year. My mother was still alive and so were her brothers: all now are dead and still missed daily.

Ten years ago the world changed forever, and not for the better. But Americans came together in ways they had not since World War II, and for a while we were united in our grief and shock and determination not to allow the unthinkable act of war to be forgotten.

Unlike my husband, I do not have any positive memories of that time: he writes today about an event at his company that forever touched him and helped his whole company get through such a difficult time.

What I remember is sitting in a meeting a few days later with a product director demanding that I come up with better, more enticing descriptions of monitor screens and wrist rests, and getting angry when I made only minor copy changes. When she complained to my manager, he reminded her that not all of us process such catastrophic events in the same way, and she responded, "She (meaning me) didn't know anybody who died. Why is she so upset?" And my manager looked at her for a moment,  and then said, "Somebody has to grieve for them." He put off future meetings for another few weeks and helped minimize my contact with that person. She left the company not long after that. 

 The tragedies of Sept. 11 are all over the TV this weekend and I'll be glad when it's over, frankly. I don't want to remember it any more vividly than I already do. It's difficult to see anything positive that came from those deaths, although I'm sure that there are programs that take that spin.

But after the tumultuous, divisive political battles we've had in recent years, and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have sent so many of our soliders home in body bags or with horrific scars mental and physical, it's hard to remember that for a little while just 10 years ago we were a united people, all Americans, all grieving for what we had lost that morning. We are still grieving for our country and all we lost, but we are not united any more about much of anything.

Books -- Day 10 -- a love/hate relationship

Day 10 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving

While there have, I'm sure, been several such books, the one that comes to mind is "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini.

There was quite a lot of press and hoopla out about this book when it came out, and I just was not interested in reading some novel about Afghanistan and its political turmoil. After 9/11, I turned from a news junkie to a no-news bystander: I simply could not bear to hear more about the pain and despair and grief, the well-laid plans, the evil that was so terribly clearly loose in the world.

So the book sat on my shelf, on loan to me by a voracious reader friend who had highly recommended it.

I don't remember why I picked it up,

But I hardly put it down until I finished it. It was heart-wrenching, about guilt and loss and finding some sort of redemption, and about how decisions and events even in childhood can take a huge toll on our later lives. It was an amazing look at a culture that is very different from ours, one that has not been either kind nor easily understood. And it's written more like a memoir than a novel.

What are we doing to our country?

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church have waved their horrible picket signs at military funerals as well as other funerals for some time, trying, they say, to send the message that God is angry with the United States because of increasing acceptance of homosexuality.

Their Web page is filled with vile language and hatred: not the God in whom I was raised to believe.

And next fall the Supreme Court is actually going to consider a case about their rights to picket military funerals.

Where is compassion? Empathy? Respect for a soldier serving our country?

**********
Conservatives are rallying en masse against the healthcare reform bill, calling it full of socialism, communism, and insisting the President and supporters are 'ramming' it down the throats of the people. ( Never mind that BOTH houses of Congress have already passed a healthcare reform bill. They're now voting on the compromise.)

What do they think Medicare is? Social Security? Who do they think REALLY controls healthcare in the US? We sure don't control what kind of care we get, nor what we pay for that insurance -- that is, if we can get it at all.

In California, more than 8 million people are without insurance. Know what happens when they finally have to visit the emergency room because they are too sick not to? We insured pay in increased insurance premiums as well as through increased hospital and physician costs.

Congress doesn't care, folks. They get great insurance, guaranteed, no waiting period or pesky pre-existing condition requirements, and we're paying for most of it. See what they get? And they're also getting some great perks and job offers from the health insurance companies who are lobbying so heavily against healthcare reform.

Where is compassion? Where is empathy? How can this happen in our country -- people dying because they can't afford healthcare? Isn't that what happens in third-world countries? Surely not in the United States! (think again)

***********
Education budget cuts across the country are causing thousands of teacher layoffs and program cuts. There are many schools who have few or no arts programs because they can't afford it and haven't been able to for years. Sports programs -- at least in sports other than football -- have been cut. Diversity in education is waning. In my town, our adult education program is being eliminated -- no more computer classes or GED classes.

So we have another group unemployed and searching for non-existent jobs.

But who suffers? Our kids. Our future. Their future.

And history is being rewritten anyway, at least in Texas, and because they are the country's largest purchaser of textbooks, their decisions will eventually affect the rest of our country's curriculum.

In 50 years, we may not even acknowledge that the Holocaust happened, if the conservatives have their way, not to mention evolution. If it even takes THAT long.

What is happening to our country?

It scares me. And my only consolation, honestly, is that I am 62, and likely will not live long enough to see the full effects of the hatred, twisted unethical actions, and poor, inadequate and misleading education. Unfortunately my daughters probably will.

I am also beginning to understand why I've always seen so many grey heads among the politically active. Mine may soon be one of them.

Claiming your power

Boyoboy, the universe is certainly busily stirring the pot these days, not just in our lives, but from what I've heard from friends and family, it's pretty much everywhere.

Not sure what astrological things are happening to exacerbate the disturbance -- Mercury, my favorite culprit, is direct for another month. I know there's been a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse, and the Perseid meteor shower has been going on the last couple of weeks, but there's gotta be something else.

Much of the turmoil is about power: who we are, what we are about, how we are sometimes challenged to remember that, especially when we are treated poorly or belittled or our contributions are not acknowledged to be of value.

Been there, done that. Numerous times in previous lives, and even some in this one.

Ethical people with a strong work ethic are not perpetrators here, but especially in the corporate world, there are all too many management types who have eyes only on the money and don't really care how they treat customers, employees, or vendors.

I believe you either have ethics or you don't. If you don't, it's not likely you're suddenly going to acquire them, unless you're Paul on the road to Damascus and God speaks to you.

That kind of management type probably wouldn't listen even if God did speak. Or would dismiss Him/Her. The kind of manager -- or person -- I'm referring to believes in just one thing: him/herself...Oh. Yeah... and money.

In my last corporate job, we had a big reorganization where some 25 or so were let go in one day. The few remaining marketing/creative types were kept because management thought we had the skill set to make a transition to a new organizational style. I'd made the cut.

My directive? My one and only directive was to "take marketing to the next level."

What was that "next level'? Nobody defined it. None of us in marketing knew what they wanted. Nobody in management could explain beyond that.

The result was that for the better part of a year, we all duplicated efforts rather than teaming up, we had different styles for different departments rather than creating an overall brand for the entire product line, resulting in confusion about what was used when and where. We tried to meet and discuss things, but it never worked because nobody would rock the "next level" boat.

In one meeting, I remember vividly, I let my frustration show at all of us going in such wildly different directions. And then I was accused by my manager of being difficult to work with and inflammatory (he had heard this third hand from someone who WASN'T EVEN IN THE MEETING.)

Oh, I tried to stick it out there until the end of the year. The goals I had to set as part of the review process were belittled, even though I took them from what management had said they wanted (the little bit that they did). I was plunked into a job that didn't remotely use my strengths with people who didn't respect me and who went behind my back to vendors with whom I was dealing. When I questioned --very strongly -- the ethics of using a package logo that was from a VERY POWERFUL SOFTWARE COMPANY on a product that had NOT been tested or certified as compliant with that software (and the process and consequences were clearly outlined on VERY POWERFUL SOFTWARE COMPANY'S Web site), I was ignored and my concerns were laughed at (even though I was the one who signed off on the package design and who would be the first one they came after).

I got sick. Really sick, physically, but I believe a great deal of it was because I was so mentally worn down and stressed out from trying to function ethically in an unethical place. Went on disability for the rest of the year. And they canned me about a month and a half into it, along with another 20 or so people in yet another reorg.

I was SO happy that I did not have to go back for anything more than to clean out my desk (which I'd mostly cleaned out before I got sick).

Being told you are worthless, that you can't do anything right, never being given a compliment about your work, never having your hard work acknowledged in any way -- never even being spoken to pleasantly, even to say "good morning" does a number on your emotions, on your own feelings of self-worth and value.

You begin to feel that "they" are out to get you, when in truth, they probably rarely notice you. You begin to question your own competence and even skills you know are rock solid.

That's abuse of a sort, folks. That's giving away your power to people who are NOT WORTH it, who don't value you.

Take it back.

There are some good links about power and abuse that I've found...and I'm not done with this topic.

Fire strikes -- and so do looters

The Humboldt Fire started near Chico, where Tony works, last Wednesday and many of his company's employees had to evacuate their homes near Paradise.

It has been devastating to watch the news, see the map, and read the comments by worried friends and family. Our home is 50 miles to the north and west, so we were not threatened by this one. But everyone who lives in California fears wildfires, as well they should.

There were 74 homes destroyed by this fire; cause at this point unknown. Thousands of firefighters from throughout California assisted the battle to contain it. Hundreds of people were evacuated and sheltered and fed by volunteers and good people.

And last night on the news there was this report about looters. Today, Tony discovered that one of his colleagues was a victim, and that his insurance company only covers $5K caused by theft. The guy -- a young man with a family -- did not lose his home to fire, but lost its contents to thieves who took advantage of his absence and stole everything: tools, toys -- everything.

How do people lose ethics? Did they never have them in the first place? What corrupts a person, causes them to compound a terrible event into an even more incomprehensible act?

Tony's colleague did not realize that others had also been looted, so he perhaps can find some company with his misery, and perhaps they all can work towards a solution, towards regaining some of the stolen merchandise.

I'm 60 years old. And I don't think I'm particularly naive. But this just blows me away -- sort of like the guy I wrote about a few days ago baffles me with his nastiness and mean spirit -- only these thieves are even lower than that on the ethics and decency scale. They kicked people when they were down, walked away and left them gasping. And didn't look back. That is the true tragedy in this.

Deja vu (all over again)*

Another meeting this weekend was cause for serious deja-vu, and more bewilderment about ethics, moral codes, and people's behavior. While not a general meeting, this was a neighborhood board meeting, one of several throughout the year which I and others have been attending just to keep an eye on how business is being conducted.

The deja-vu came when the players mentioned here pretty much reprised their behavior of last fall. The six of us who came as interested parties were threatened with the sheriff -- the host and leader said that he had the right to throw any of us who disrupted the meeting off his property. At least two of us were ridiculed, insulted, and subjected to character assassination, including private business that had no place being aired at that meeting or any other.

I simply do not understand how a person can be so filled with anger and hatred that nothing but venom comes out of his mouth. I have never heard this person say anything positive about anything, and he obviously takes pleasure out of pushing other people's buttons, especially personal ones, and watching them react, and in being just as ugly and mean and nasty as you can imagine a person could be.

It's clearly a power thing -- he throws out a personal attack, and watches as that person reacts -- usually in anger and frustration and embarrassment. And he smiles. I watched him do it.

What could have twisted this man so deeply that he takes such pleasure out of causing others pain and humiliation? According to those who have lived here as long as he has, he has always been this way (and he's no spring chicken).

After last fall's meeting, I said that I was done wasting major time on minor people, and by golly, I have pretty much done that. I did not allow this man and his horrible comments to affect the rest of my day, nor to ruin my sleep. Except for a few moments when my honey was expressing his opinion and things got tense and my tummy sort of turned over, I have been pretty sanguine about it.

As writer Kim Antieau said today, you can change light bulbs, but you can't change people.

I have reflected a bit on his nature and on how bleak such a life must be to live. I know that the good thing to do is to say a prayer for him. But I simply do not understand at all how there can be a moral code by which such people live -- how do they even live with themselves? How could you find anything good or decent or loving in the world when you are so filled with anger and hatred, and behave in such an immoral way?

You either have morals or you don't. I think they're learned at a very early age, and I believe there are people who have none, who live only by a "do unto others before they do unto you" code. What a bleak existence.

The ultimate insult to these people is to be ignored and dismissed. And that's how I've begun to handle it. If I don't fuel their passion through my own response, they get no pleasure (although what masters of manipulation! They will stop at nothing to evoke a response, any response, and it is so difficult not to respond when your words are being twisted, you are being slandered, and your character is defamed so publicly, and of course you want badly to deny the lies.)

Next meeting is September. We'll see how I do.

*from Yogi Berra, who also coined such twists of the language as these. Scary that some of them actually make sense.

As seen in real life...

I don't know whether to write about theatre -- as in Wonderful Town last night at the Redding Convention Center and the upcoming Rent next week -- or tv, as in Grey's Anatomy (although I didn't see it, since I was at Wonderful Town, but I've read a bunch of blogs and episode descriptions today) -- or another Mercury Retrograde that started on Valentine's Day -- or a really horrific murder in San Francisco.

What varied topics!

And really, none of them matter a whit except the last one.

Wo/Man's ability to be cruel and inhumane to another is simply the most abhorrent sin I know, and it is so old. I can think of hundreds of examples, from the incredible genocide of the Holocaust to the shocking deaths at Darfur. I believe it begins in childhood -- if you've ever observed a group of middle school girls in action, you know what I mean. And earlier -- kids pick on anyone weaker or different from themselves.

I was always taller than most kids in my classes, and I was shy. And I believed what I was told. I was an easy target for teasing and ridicule, and I can tell you that the old saying "sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me" is baloney. Verbal abuse leaves scars that can't be seen, but wounds that are as damaging as physical abuse.

I remember wanting so desperately to "belong" to a group of girls -- I was maybe in second grade -- that I willingly sat on the low concrete wall of a small bridge on the way home from school when the three or four girls told me to, and then was pushed backwards into the little creek. They ran off laughing while I made my wet, sobbing way home wondering why they'd been so mean and what I'd done to make them dislike me so much. It made my already shy self even more shy and quiet.

My mother always wrapped me in her arms and was sympathetic, but also continually warned me not to let them see me cry or react; that when bullies get a reaction from their victims, they just go at it harder. She was, of course, right. But I just couldn't believe they'd keep teasing and calling names when it was obviously so upsetting to me (or any other victim).

When bullying extends into adulthood, it often turns criminal. The SF story about the homeless woman who was doused with gasoline and burned to death in revenge for her reporting a previous beating by the same women to the police should outrage every person who reads it.

Oh, you get the idea, and there are far too many more examples: Saddam's sons throwing living people into a shredder, for instance...

I don't understand. I don't understand why so many of us live in safety and security and with shelter and enough food, and so many others live in constant fear and starvation and deprivation. I don't understand why "The Secret" works for some of us, but would be a concept completely and totally foreign for so much of the world's population. How do you "visualize" your way out of that? How do you keep from being kidnapped and burned to death because you tried to protect yourself?

Mercury is retrograde again, and it is supposed to be a very introspective time. Maybe that's why I've been feeling quiet...

But I've also said a prayer for the poor little woman who died, and tried to say one for the two women who killed her. And always, always I am grateful for my life and the love and blessings I feel in such abundance. I hope I reflect that back to the world.

Be grateful. Be well.