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SPIRIT IN MATTERS: Taking a Higher
View of Life on Earth
By Dianne Eppler Adams
Vol. 2, No 10 – July 2, 2004
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Can be read online at -
http://www.spiritinmatters.com/SIM-v2n10-70204.htm
Enjoy this newsletter? Pass it on so others can enjoy it too!
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FROM THIS VANTAGE POINT...
Included in Freedom’s Price, Letting Go
There’s lots of talk in the US about freedom. We pride ourselves for being the
“land of the free and the home of the brave!” Our freedoms are protected by the
Constitution –and the diligence of numerous watch-dog organizations like the
American Civil Liberties Union and People for the American Way.
Freedom, they say, is why the terrorists hate us (a questionable assumption) and
then there’s the U.S. Patriot Act that is supposed to protect our freedoms by
taking several of them away (a questionable action).
Freedom isn’t free, of course. It has cost many lives – over 850 in the last 16
months in Iraq.
But there’s another side of freedom’s cost that is rarely talked about and yet
is worthy of consideration – letting go.
In a free society, you have to let go of the illusion of controlling others. We
left behind monarchs who did that. In a free society, you have to let go of
being exclusively right. Everyone’s opinion is right – for them – and they are
entitled to express it. You may have to give up having your way, since majority
rules and you may not always be in the majority.
This concept works in everyday life as well. If you want freedom of expression
in your home, you need to let go of being the only one to have their say and
listen to what others think. If you wish to be free to do whatever you want,
you’ll have to give up control of other people’s time.
If you want more free time, you will surely need to let go of some commitments
to make time. And if you would like to be free to travel the world, you may
need to give up some material possessions and all that is required to maintain
them.
On a deeper level, a free-spirited person lets go of worries, judgments, and
attachments. Freedom comes when we let go into a place of trust of the Good, of
the Wholeness – of God.
Trusting the wisdom of the whole is also needed to maintain the freedom of our
Democracy. Wisdom lies in every one and in no one alone, but is definitely
found in the Whole.
Happy Fourth of July!
(Your comments are always welcome at
SpiritInMatters@aol.com.)
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COMING EVENTS
Astrological Mini-Readings
At Unity of Fairfax Health Fair
Saturday, July 10, 2004, 9 – 12:30 PM
2854 Hunter Mill Rd, Oakton, VA
For information – (703) 281-1767
I will be doing 20-minute mini-readings for $20 along with a variety of other
talented practitioners.
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FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION...
COOKING UP A CRISIS
By Bob Herbert, The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/25/opinion/25HERB.html
If you hear something enough times from people in authority, you tend to believe
it.
The tort reform zealots — including doctors, insurance company executives and
legions of politicians across the country — have been hammering away at the idea
that crackpot jury awards and lawsuits from undeserving patients are driving up
the costs of health care and driving good doctors out of their profession.
"Junk and frivolous lawsuits" is the term of choice for President Bush, who told
an audience in Youngstown, Ohio, last month that "junk and frivolous lawsuits
discourage good docs from even practicing medicine in the first place."
According to the American Medical Association, "There are now 20 states in a
full-blown medical liability crisis — up from 12 in 2002."
As the A.M.A. tells it, "America's patients are losing access to care because
the nation's out-of-control legal system is forcing physicians in some areas of
the country to retire early, relocate or give up performing high-risk medical
procedures."
Full-blown crisis! Out of control!
All right. Calm down. Take a deep breath.
Just last January the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this about
the link between high malpractice premiums and the availability of physicians in
various specialties:
The General Accounting Office "investigated the situations in five states with
reported access problems and found mixed evidence. On the one hand, G.A.O.
confirmed instances of reduced access to emergency surgery and newborn delivery,
albeit `in scattered, often rural, areas where providers identified other
long-standing factors that affect the availability of services.' On the other
hand, it found that many reported reductions in supply by health care providers
could not be substantiated or `did not widely affect access to health care.' "
That hardly sounds like a crisis. Moreover, in several states specifically
characterized by the A.M.A. as in "crisis," the evidence is rolling in that
malpractice claims and awards are not appreciably increasing, and in some
instances are declining.
...There is no question that malpractice insurance premiums have increased
sharply over the past few years. In some instances they have skyrocketed. But,
as the Congressional Budget Office has noted, there are a variety of reasons for
that, including the cost of malpractice awards, decreases in the investment
income of insurance companies and cyclical factors in the insurance market.
"Insurance companies' investment yields have been lower for the past few years,"
the budget office said in a report in January, "putting pressure on premiums to
make up the difference."
The disinformation campaign of the tort reform zealots and their sustained
attacks on the rights of patients who have been harmed by doctors have been
disgraceful. The proper prescription for this apparently chronic disorder is a
strong dose of the truth.
LADY LIBERTY FIREWORKS
http://www.njagyouth.org/Liberty_.htm
[Here’s a fun site to visit in honor of the 4th of July. Click on the sky with
your speaker on!]
THE NEW BLUE GOLD
By Silja J.A. Talvi, AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/19017/
In point of fact, American cities and towns are the new staging ground for rapid
and strategic power plays over who controls water supply. In 2004, 85% of U.S.
municipal water systems are publicly owned, with a shocking 15% already in the
hands of corporations. Unbeknownst to most residents, municipal governments are
being heavily courted in the here and now to turn over control of their water
supply to multinational companies like Suez Water, whose U.S. subsidiary took
control of Atlanta's water in 1999.
In Atlanta's case, for instance, the city's $428 million, 20-year contract with
Suez-subsidiary United Water Services was cancelled after a series of citywide
EPA alerts advising residents to boil their tap water because of toxic
contaminants. Finally, after five such "boil-alerts," staff cutbacks, leaking
water mains, and rising sewer bill costs, city administrators yanked back
control of the utility.
THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERS
By Jay Tolson, US News & World Report
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040628/misc/28faith.htm
'Atheism is unknown there; infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live
to a great age in that country, without having their piety shocked by meeting
with either an Atheist or an Infidel."
Thus wrote Benjamin Franklin in his 1782 pamphlet, "Information to Those Who
Would Remove to America." At least one thing hasn't changed since Franklin
penned those words: America remains a godly nation. Among advanced
industrialized countries, it is easily the most religious. Some 60 percent of
its citizens say religion is very important to their lives, about six times the
percentage of the French. But the divine looms even larger in most Americans'
hearts than those figures suggest. Some 90 percent say they believe in God--94
percent if you add those who revere a "universal spirit" --while less than 1
percent call themselves atheists or agnostics. It is very possible that an
American might still live to a ripe old age without meeting an atheist or
infidel.
Some say the mystery of American religiosity is contained in a paradox: America
is a godly nation because it has kept church and state separate, at least in the
sense set forth by the Constitution. "Congress," the First Amendment famously
begins, "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof ..." Perhaps the greater mystery, though,
is that those two clauses did not produce conflicts during most of our history,
even though religious sentiments and symbols liberally suffused the public
square and much of civic life. But if most Americans have long approved of their
civil religion, why have some in recent years found it so objectionable?
Much confusion and litigation have arisen from the perception that America's
founders intended religion to be strictly a matter of private choice that should
never impinge upon public life. That may be as much a misunderstanding of the
founders' intent as the view that the founders intended to create an explicitly
Christian nation. According to Purdue University historian Frank Lambert, in his
book The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America, both extremes
fail to acknowledge that America had two different sets of spiritual fathers.
The "Planting Fathers," particularly the Puritans of New England, sought both to
practice their own brand of Christianity and to found a Christian state.
Establishing Congregationalism, they supported it with taxes and compelled their
chief magistrates to govern "according to the rule of the word of God." The
southern colonies, meanwhile, generally enforced Anglicanism, while the middle
colonies worked out more pluralistic arrangements. But some 150 years after the
Puritans signed their charters, a different group of national leaders, the
Founding Fathers, hammered out a new national compact, this one guaranteeing
that the state would have no voice in determining matters of conscience.
[Click on through for the rest of the article...]
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When nothing is judged, there is nothing to forgive.
---Anonymous
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©2004 Spirit in Matters: Taking a Higher View of Life on Earth
501 Slaters Lane #422, Alexandria, VA 22314. All rights reserved.
Permission is granted for reproduction or redistribution of the e-newsletter in
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