KS&L 176 The Death of Innocence by Tina Erwin

        Dear Friends, I wrote the following blog several years ago. The information in this piece echos the same cruel and inspiring elements that we have watched in the events in Newtown, Connecticut last Friday. My own aching heart goes out to all of those families. The extreme cruelty of this latest example of modern violence does not diminish the staggering acts of courage displayed by all of those teachers, staff members and children. Let all of our prayers be sent to give the living courage to face the challenging days ahead, for death on this level continues to echo out in truly agonizing ways long after the initial event. These families have many difficult days ahead of them. Please send them your prayers long after these first initial days pass. Compassion is appreciated no matter how recent or long ago an event took place.

       On one terrible day in October of 2006, death struck the Amish community in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. On that tragic day, a man entered a one-room schoolhouse and shot ten Amish girls. Five of them have died. The person who took these lives is believed to have been severely mentally ill at the time of the event. He did not seem to show this illness previously so his actions came as a staggering shock to his friends and family.

       How do we as a people wrap our brains around the fact that this man did this terrible deed? How do we still our aching hearts at the sheer barbarism of his despicable act? How do we come to terms with the death of innocence? If we are parents, how do we still the fear that this engenders in so many of us. If this area of the world is not safe, then what is?

       Perhaps the way we come to terms with it is to look at the example that the Amish themselves have set. They have not lashed out. They have not blamed anyone and they have not cried out for vengeance. In the darkest of times is the finest time to live a spiritual truth. Perhaps that is what they are doing.

       Every single death has a purpose; if it did not, then why would we ever die? Why would there be so many methods of death - easy and hard, painless and painful, death at any and all ages? What could possibly be the purpose of the death of these little girls? What could we possibly learn from the sheer stark horror of the method this man used to create such harm?

       Perhaps, just perhaps it was an opportunity for every single participant and observer to learn some tremendous lessons. For the older Amish girls, they learned that they had a huge level of courage that lived within them as they offered themselves in sacrifice to save the younger girls. They must have been terrified yet they offered their own lives in the ultimate sacrifice. Would we be that courageous? 

       It is hard for us to face the fear that the smaller girls must have felt, but in the final moments, they learned how much the older children loved them. Perhaps it was their faith that got them through those chilling moments.  Perhaps they called upon their angels. We can only hope that they had the presence of mind to do this.

       And what of the mentally ill gunman? What was his lesson? He had a choice - he could listen to those unrelenting voices of hate and hurt or he could resist them.  He made a tragic choice.

       And what of his family? They were also his victims in a different way because they also lost someone they loved. The man they loved died that day. The man who committed those crimes was not the man that they knew.  Imagine their complete bewilderment. 

       Perhaps the most important lesson all of us can learn from these deaths is the nature of compassion as demonstrated by the Amish community.  There is no one to blame, no one to lash out at. There is no plausible explanation for the unexplainable.  So in the face of all of this, the Amish have chosen to offer themselves and those grieving with them, compassion. They say that they have forgiven the gunman.  What in truth is there to forgive? How do you forgive someone for murdering your children? Perhaps the answer to this is that they forgave themselves first. There is nothing in this entire world that they could have done to prevent this. They did not let guilt soil their compassionate hearts. They forgave the hate that this man displayed.  Somehow despite their pain, they came to understand that his pain was so great that only in this bizarre aspect of death could he work out his internal agony.

       The Amish are allowing themselves to grieve privately. They allow themselves the opportunity to let grief unfold in all those hauntingly private moments of what ifs and if onlys that every grieving person must endure on the journey to healing grief.

       Perhaps the other lesson the Amish are offering is that if they open their hearts and love more that their pain will be less. An open heart works both ways and lets in love as well as sends it out. Even a terribly wounded heart will heal faster if it can be allowed in those private moments of healing, to send out love. 

       Maybe the question is not did innocence die in that schoolhouse that day in October, but rather was the innocence of belief displayed in the compassion and love shown by the Amish to all the grieving parties. Hate hurts us longer. Love heals us faster. Perhaps the biggest lesson of that hard day is in every way, let us all love more. Let us all send the love of our own compassionate hearts to all of those who are grieving no matter where in the world they may be. Maybe in this way the innocence and purity that is the essence of love will become stronger in all of us.

KS&L 372 Finding Moral Courage: The Pawn Has Power!

by Tina Erwin

This particular blog is my personal opinion. I admit to feeling strongly about these issues.

The new age movement often seems all about finding peace, love and enlightenment – on this side of heaven. However, to make mortal life full of love and light, it is incumbent upon each of us to stand up to what is making life not that way. Literally, part of our spiritual test is standing up to what makes things detrimental to all of us. We each have to find the moral courage that lives within us. We can do that in many mundane ways. We as consumer pawns have quite a bit of power!

Lets start about ten years ago when use of a credit card created a carbon with the full number on it. This was a great way to have your card number stolen. I started demanding that stores hand me the carbon and then asked the store every single time, why they didn’t use a carbonless machine and why they had to print out my whole number every time. I think I embarrassed my kids when they were with me. However, surprisingly it didn’t take long for everyone accepting a credit card to go to carbonless machines that blocked out your entire number except for the last four. Who knows how much influence one person can have. I believe there were thousands of us making that same request.

What needs to be changed today? Frankly, I have begun asking the manager of each restaurant I enter to tell me what on the menu is made from Genetically Modified Food. I remind them that GMO food is poison. GMO food, uses Roundup Ready seed. When an insect eats the seed, its stomach explodes. If this is the case, then ask yourself, what is happening in my own stomach when I eat GMO based food? Virtually 99% of corn and soy are GMO. When I am in a restaurant, I ask management what menu items are made from GMO food. I am very polite. I have been surprised at the response. Cracker Barrel said that their corn and green beans are GMO but coleslaw isn’t. The waitress was a student in environmental studies and knew exactly what was GMO and what wasn’t. Another restaurant in Taos, Graham’s Grille said the chef refused to use any GMO products. They were quite proud of that. Especially when a menu item uses corn or soy, I absolutely ask if it is GMO. Even if it makes the waiter or manager uncomfortable if they hear it enough, you can effect change. It’s the only way I can vote: with my voice and my dollar. If management doesn’t know what is GMO, I do not order anything with corn or soy. I also call the home office of the restaurant and ask these same questions. If enough people ask, we can turn the tide.

I have also begun to call, now and then, when I have a spare moment, food companies. Bird’s Eye says they absolutely refuse to use any GMO seed. Orville Redenbacher’s popcorn only uses GMO seed. I have insisted that they label their packages as to GMO or non-GMO. If the company isn’t worried about whether or not someone will buy it, tell them to be honest, label the package. I am one of these consumers who wants to know.

I also only purchase dairy products that do not include RBST which is a growth hormone. If I have to buy a dairy product and I don’t see one with this label ‘No RBST’ on it, I ask the manager. If they don’t have the product I’m looking for that is not contaminated with RBST, I leave empty handed and I explain to the manager why.

I have also begun to ask management why they aren’t including Stevia as a sweetener choice. Islands, a restaurant chain on the West Coast offers Stevia packets as well as one of the only two places to eat in Monument Valley, Goulding’s restaurant. Other restaurants are beginning. Ask for Stevia. Go on line and tell chain management that you want Stevia included as a sweetener option instead of aspertame, which is Equal which we all know is bad for us, or Splenda which is one molecule away from almost pure chlorine.

I do not buy products with High Fructose Corn Syrup in them and I won’t serve those products in my home. Most sweet tea in restaurants is made from HFCS.

In these days, if I had a child, and the doctors insisted on vaccines, I would have a lawyer draw up a legal document requiring the doctor and nurses to sign it. The document would inform them that if my child gets autism or has a bad reaction from a vaccine, I reserve the right to sue the drug company, the doctor and all the nurses. Then I would ask the doctor, is he or she absolutely positive that vaccine won’t cause autism? You can recover from measles, mumps, whooping cough and chicken pox. Autism is a life sentence that affects not just your family, but literally thousands of people who will have to help you along the way. It will take all the money you have to care for one of these kids damaged by a vaccine. . . and it only takes one shot. It’s time to hold doctors accountable. Having personally watched autism strike many families who had perfectly normal kids one day, be utterly disabled the next day, this is a real situation that requires tremendous moral courage. Currently, they are insisting that pregnant women receive vaccines, most of them with mercury. Again, moral courage is required to stand up and say no to these intrusions on the immune systems of our children and our own bodies. Finally, every American has the right to refuse vaccines for themselves and their children, under the Constitution. Do not let schools bully you into forcing vaccines on your children.

I personally will never have a mammogram. I believe to my very core that they have caused the explosion of breast cancer in this country and I am not alone. If your doctor insists, find the moral courage to ask your doctor [if he's male] to have his testicles tested in the same way. Tell him that you’ll do it after you watch him have his testicles tested for cancer by squishing them, bruising them and then irradiating them at point blank range. Also ask your physician if he or she has an ownership stake in the mammogram machine. One woman’s doctor insisted she get a mammogram twice a year and after five years, her hair fell out and her doctor refused to see the connection. Radiation doesn’t leave the body. It accumulates. If you must have your breasts looked at, use Thermography instead. It does not use radiation.

Just maybe, if we can stop the use of GMO products, mammograms, vaccines and growth hormones, we can begin to stem disease, stem the exploding use of drugs and begin to bring our own country back into balance. It will take the efforts of every single one of us. This country functions on how people make money. If less money is to be made by harming us, then perhaps corporations will take a different route, one away from potentially poisoning us.

Consider that it was people complaining about smoking in restaurants that finally got cigarettes out of office buildings, hospitals, airplanes and restaurants. Even Virginia and North Carolina have banned cigarettes from these places. Voters actually overcame the cigarette lobby! Miracles can happen. We can make them happen.

If we remain complacent, then nothing will change. We can each take some action every single day and begin to turn the tide toward less toxic food and medicine in our lives. We may appear to be pawns, but we have tremendous power!

Epilogue: Currently, as I write this in January of 2012, there is a political move to place on the November 2012 ballot in California, a bill to require the labeling of all GMO food. The GMO seed companies will fight this hard. But if voters can overcome the cigarette companies, nothing is impossible!