BLOGGER'S NOTE:  For the last few weeks I've been talking to friends about how amazing it is that something you need, often comes to you at just the right moment.  I don't believe it's coincidence. Right now my prayers are going out to my friends and colleagues, and of course to their families, some of whom have suffered terribly this year, losing children, parents, young neices and nephews.  Some are heroically battling devastating disease, and other personal losses, a marriage, aa home, a job.  I know it is painful for them to bear, and it is a pain that I carry in my heart for them.  It is a very real and a very physical pain, not just emotional or psychological.

We read about the tragedy in our newspapers everyday - the terrible way our military is treated, at home, on deployment, and even in death.  We know that our institutions are not infallible pillars of integrity, but it is still shocking to know that our judicial system and state and federal laws do not protect us from poisoned food, water and air; that our children are not safe in their homes, or their schools, or with those whom we trust to teach and guide them.  We are not safeguarded when we buy a home, or a car or even when we open a bank account.  It's devastating, it's frightening - overwhelming.  Most of us don't know where to start to fix it.  And we are paralyzed by having trusted in the wrong people and instituions before; by having made the wrong decision.  I don't have an answer, and I'm not sure that I'm ready to trust anyone who tells me that they do.  But today, I received this from my dear friend Roberta Brown, and tonight a I do feel a little better.