Sad awakening
In a few minutes I'll be leaving home to go to the third day of an awesome four-day conference about trauma, addiction and adult children of alcoholics. Yesterday, in an experiential session, a middle-aged male counselor stood behind a paper on the floor and described the role in which he relates to the current moment in his life (the roles were those of children in alcoholic families). He chose Lost Child, and volunteered that it was because he lives in Louisiana and feels that his state, still devastated by Katrina, has been forgotten and abandoned by the federal government. Later I spoke with him and he told me that many people in his area are still living in tents or FEMA trailers, amid piles of rubble. He and five fellow counselors back home live in FEMA trailers outside their work place, and many of their clients live in trailers beside them. The trailers "are like camping out every day." They have inadequate toilets, very small refrigerators, and constant problems with electricity. And they are the lucky ones. I had no idea, and I'm probably not alone. It saddens me that our government, supposedly for the people, does so much for the people of other countries and not our own. Of course, we also spend huge amounts of money killing people in other countries. I'm definitely going to write to my congresswoman.
Have to go now if I'm going to make the hour of optional meditation just prior to our first speaker of the day.
Have to go now if I'm going to make the hour of optional meditation just prior to our first speaker of the day.