October 6, 2003

From the Inside Out
ANGEL 'HUMOR'

Do angels have a sense of humor?
You decide ... Diane Harrington, of Milwaukee, Oregon, had just lost her job. Money would be very tight for awhile, and she'd prayed to be watched over in a special way during this difficult time. Diane had some professional papers due to a client, so she went to CopyMax to prepare them, then drove into the city to deliver everything. Pulling into a parking place, she reached into her purse to grab her wallet to get change for the parking meter. There was no wallet in her purse.

Oh, no! Cash was especially important right now. The wallet had been in her purse at CopyMax, she remembered. So, after delivering the documents, Diane drove back to CopyMax, hoping someone had found the wallet and turned it in.

"The CopyMax store is on a hillside," Diane explains, "and its parking lot slopes down to a major traffic thoroughfare. There is a bank directly below the store, and many cars are always parked in the mall's lot. I parked close to the door of CopyMax, at the top of the hill."

Diane entered the store, and immediately saw her wallet behind the counter on a table. Relief flooded her, even more strongly when she discovered that her money was still inside. She thanked the store personnel, put her wallet in her purse, and went out to her car. The car was not there.

This was not turning out to be a good day. Refusing to become hysterical (yet), Diane asked other shoppers if anyone had seen the car. "A 1997 Ford Contour, taupe color, parked RIGHT HERE." No one had seen anything. One passerby commented on how easily cars could be hot-wired and stolen today, which did little to stem Diane's rising anxiety. What if the car was trashed, and her insurance didn't cover all of it. She went back into CopyMax and phoned the police to report a stolen vehicle.

While still on the phone, Diane noticed a couple hurrying into the store, their faces wreathed in smiles. "Your car is not stolen," the man called to her. "Come out and see this."

Diane followed them outside. They led her across the parking lot, and on and on. Why were they going so far away? If her car wasn't stolen, then where was it? Suddenly, way in the distance, in the middle of ANOTHER parking lot, Diane caught sight of her car. The couple laughed. "You had to see it to believe it!" the woman pointed out. "Your car rolled down the hill, swerved around the bank and the other cars in the lot, exited at the driveway, rolled through four lanes of traffic, then over an embankment at the Jack-in-the-Box restaurant, hit a little tree and finally ended up in THAT parking lot."

"We saw it happening, and came back here to find the owner," the man added. Diane was stunned. All that traveling, and no collisions? No one injured, no property damaged? Except the tree. She thanked the couple and went inside the Jack-in-the-box to find the manager and report the damaged tree.

"I'll pay for it," she assured him, thinking of her pinched budget, but he shook his head. "It was a little tree," he pointed out, "and you are safe, and that's all that matters." Customers too had seen the car moving along. "It was incredible," one woman reported to Diane. "Your car rolled peacefully around every obstacle in its way, almost as if someone were driving it!"

By now a police officer had arrived, and was checking the runaway car. Like the others, he shook his head. "I can't see any reason to give you a ticket, Ma'am," he said. "Just be careful."

"I will," she assured him. She would be very careful, and before she turned the car on, she would say a little prayer of thanks. For truly, an angel must have driven her car through this amazing obstacle course, and had shielded her from both physical and financial harm. If she was this 'protected,' surely she would find the right job too. She felt a smile coming from her toes, all the way through her spirit, as she turned the key in the ignition.

~ Joan Wester Anderson © 2003
Where Angels Walk

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Yes You Can!
GET LESSONS FOR THE LIVING

I've been a Registered Nurse for over 35 years, and a Hospice nurse for about 16 years. Several years ago I decided that the most important part of the job that I do when I am with an individual family, is teaching them about the dying process so they can get comfortable being with their loved ones.

People are often not comfortable around dying. And it can help to be familiar with the actual dying process, the physiology of it and the spiritual experiences of it, to know what is really going on. So I will describe what happens when Hospice gets called in, when people are counting their life in weeks or months rather than years.

The main thing I would like people to know is that the dying process is not something to be feared. It is a tremendously sacred experience, and there is tremendous spiritual support for the transition. What I have learned over time is that the dying process is perfectly and naturally orchestrated, just like the pregnancy/labor/birth process. It's just exquisite how the body naturally goes into the dying process.

No matter what brings you to the dying process, whether it is cancer, old age, lung disease, heart disease, whatever, the process is the same. I get the picture of a funnel: everybody gets brought to this place, and then they begin the same process; it becomes very recognizable. Many people say to me, "How do I know when my loved one is ready for hospice?" Or, "When have they begun dying?" I ask if the person has changed their relationship to food, because what I see is that the body has this natural withdrawal from that which sustained physical life. It's really switching from a physical energy source to a spiritual energy source, so usually there is loss of appetite with some degree of weight loss.

That's one of the criteria when we are assessing if we can put someone on Hospice. If there is a valid weight loss and other factors, we can say okay, they have probably started the process. The other thing we do as we enter the dying process is we start to withdraw from the outer world and turn inward. There is a disconnecting from social things, from those out-in-the-world kind of things; people in the dying process don't have energy for that anymore.

The first thing to go — it goes in layers — are our social connections; we stop having energy for that.

Next to go is our close circle of friends, and then pretty soon the only people we have energy for are our core people, the people for whom we don't have to put on a social face.

Throughout the dying process, we are doing what conserves energy. Eating lighter food because our body can't digest the food. And energetically or physically, withdrawing from activities, doing less and less and spending more time doing what we the living think is sleeping. We say they are sleeping, and the truth is they are doing a lot of this internal work, the work of dying.

Dying is work, it is hard work, and some of that is the work of introspection. I believe that not all of that is done on a conscious level. Just like our dreams are healing, I believe we go into these different states of consciousness, and we are able to do clearing or reordering, for want of a better word. This introspective work takes place on many levels.

From what I observe, one of the things that we do is to start taking stock of our lives, our relationships. We ask, "What has our life meant?" "Does anything feel unfinished?" We start to think about the things that we haven't done, the relationships where we may not feel complete, or wish we were in a different place. We start to do that, and from what people have told me as they get closer to actually dying, there is an experience of getting to see the "other" side.

~Excerpted from "DYING ... A NATURAL PROCESS"
©2000 Denys Cope, RN, BSN

To Contact Denys or Read More
Click: "Lessons for the Living"

Mangroves along Suriname River


Suriname lies on the northern coast of South America, between Guyana and French Guiana, and Brazil to the south. While Paramaribo, Suriname's capital, holds its fair share of Dutch colonial architecture, it's the well-ordered system of nature reserves that are most alluring. Paramaribo is a curious hybrid of northern Europe and tropical America. Imposing brick buildings overlook grassy squares and wooden houses crowd narrow streets, but towering palms shade many areas and mangroves still hug the riverside. Suriname's food is an exotic mix of East Indian, Indian, Creole and Chinese cuisine... here Javanese vendors peddle satay and Dutch-speaking Creoles enjoy peanut soup in sidewalk cafés.

LINKS
THAT SHINE

"All Kinds of Minds"

This site highlights the work of Dr. Mel Levine, who shows students how to compensate for their specific learning dysfunctions. Of particular interest: the library of articles, case studies, and activities to help identify learning problems and correct them.
www.AllKindsOfMinds.org



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Fascinating Facts
VITAL HOME REPAIRS (Part 2)

Homeowner procrastination can ruin a house. Don’t let water, pests, faulty wiring, dirty chimneys or old appliances get the upper hand. Here are six more repair items to look out for in your home:

5. Peeling paint: Paint is like a home’s skin. It’s the first line of defense against incursions by water and pests. Water that seeps into wood can lead to rot. At the other extreme, unpainted wood can quickly get too dry and crack. The fix: Scrape
off the old paint, sand the surface smooth and apply a coat or two of fresh color. (Be cautious in homes built before 1978, since many still have lead paint. Dust and chips from such paint can cause irreversible brain damage in children and nerve damage in adults. Consider hiring professionals to test your home and remove any lead paint. Your local or state health department should be able to provide referrals to testing labs and contractors.)

6. Smoky chimney: Here’s another way neglect can kill your family, since chimneys that aren’t properly cleaned and maintained can catch fire. Creosote, a byproduct of wood burning, can build up in the flue and ignite unless removed, said inspector Hy Naiditch of Accuspect Home Inspection Services in Chicago. The fix: Get your chimney swept and inspected annually; the cost is about $100. (You can find certified chimney sweeps via the Chimney Safety Institute of America.) Use only seasoned wood, and build small, hot fires, rather than big smoky ones. Never burn trash, cardboard or wrapping paper in your fireplace.

7. Dirty, or missing, air conditioner filter: Overloaded or missing filters allow dirt and dust to settle on the air conditioner’s coils. Warm air passing over the coils causes condensation. What you get is mud — and a perfect medium for mold to grow and be blown all over the house. Enough gunk can block air from getting into the system causing it to catch fire. The fix: Replace the filter once a month while the air conditioner is in use. Get your system checked annually. With a $2 filter you can preserve a $6,000 air conditioning system.

8. Ground-fault circuit interrupters: These electrical outlets, with their distinctive red and black buttons, are designed to prevent deadly shocks. Outlets in bathrooms and those in kitchens within six feet of the sink should be replaced with GFCI outlets. The exception: Don’t put a refrigerator on a GFCI. A fridge’s normal on-and-off surges can trip the interrupter and leave you with an icebox full of rotting groceries.

9. Flexible gas connectors: Gas appliances installed more than 10 years ago may still have dangerous brass connectors that can fail, according to the safety commission, leading to fires or explosions. These should be replaced with an approved connector, typically stainless steel. But don’t move the appliance to inspect, since even a slight motion can cause the weak soldered connection to break. Have a professional appliance repairperson check and make any changes.

10. Dryer vents: The lowly clothes dryer causes more than 15,000 fires every year, often caused by lint buildup in the duct that vents to the outside. Clean the ducts regularly and replace plastic ducts with metal versions.

~Liz Pullman Weston, MoneyCentral.MSN.com

Why did writer O. Henry end up in jail?

Click for Answer

Laughing It Off
IN COMPUTERLAND

1. Computer: A device designed to speed and automate errors.

2. When computing, whatever happens, behave as though you meant for it to happen.

3. The first place to look for information is in the section of the manual where you least expect to find it.

4. Remember, you don't need to enter your password on the microwave.

5. Smash forehead on keyboard to continue...

6. To err is human... to blame your computer for your mistakes is even more human, it is downright natural.

7. He who laughs last probably made a back-up.

8. Press any key to continue or any other key to quit...

9. A complex system that does not work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine.

10. Error! Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue.

11. A computer program will always do what you tell it to do, but rarely what you want to do.

12. <-------- The information went data way.

13. Buy a Pentium 586/90 so you can REBOOT faster.

14. Southern DOS: Y'all reckon? (Yep/Nope).

15. When you move into a new house, be sure to Netscape before you landscape.

16. RAM disk is NOT an installation procedure.

17. SENILE.COM found ... Out Of Memory ...

18. Cannot find REALITY.SYS. Universe halted.

~Contributed by Jane at The-Cat's-Meow

Untangling the Web

WHAT A SITE!

The world's ugliest bridesmaid dresses...
However awful the dress you were required to
wear for your best friend's wedding, it could
have been much, much worse.
www.UglyDress.com

COMPUTER-EASE

If the past few months haven't...
convinced Windows users that keeping up to date on software patches is an important computer-maintenance priority for security reasons, we can't imagine what would. Go to The Software Patch for help.

Photo: Ron Winn /Herald & News

A pollen-covered black bumblebee...
hovers over a pumpkin flower in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Bumblebees don't make much honey, only enough to feed their young. How do you know if you are upsetting a bumblebee? If the bee is on a flower or other surface and is feeling threatened it will raise one of its middle legs. This is a sign that you are too close and should back off a bit. In cold weather the bee may even fall to the ground to avoid you, as it hasn't built up enough heat to fly off. It is said that bumblebees don't like human breath, so if you want to observe one closely then don't breathe on it. ~MSNBC