Grow with the flow.

Some years ago I was gazing up into the leafy branches of a tree that was being pruned and had an epiphany. A TREE JUST GOES ON ABOUT ITS BUSINESS. It gives equal attention to a torrential rain, high winds, a forest fire or another species with pruning shears...exactly none. What a tree continues to do is use all of its energy to grow.

There was absolutely no belly aching from this tree as its limbs were systematically severed. No outcry of wrong doing. No 'woe is me' speculation as to its fate minus those carefully cultivated appendages. I imagined its roots, in the midst of this mayhem, steadily climbing in there down and out direction. I could easily see the outward manifestation of its efforts. This was a huge tree and it stands to reason that some time ago it was just a spindly twig, and some time beforwe that a little seed with glorious aspirations.

I think about that tree when I am rocked by the loss of a loved one. I consider the tree when my feelings are crushed beneath the boot of someone I adore. The tree is foremost in my mind when the world does not comply with my desires.

I hope that even now I'm planting little seeds that will germinate in the mind of a reader and start a forest of people who just grow.

I'm in the throes of a new and wonderful book by best selling author, Malcolm Gladwell, titled "Outliers".
Once again I am impressed by his accuracy and his ability to not fall into the trap of what is expected. He is so refreshingly revealing. You move on to each next chapter anticipating the discovery of what else you got wrong. I would love to share a meal with this guy.

I'd like to propose a suggestion for the Tea baggers who don't believe the federal government should mandate health care coverage for its citizens. Follow the letter of the law even if you can't stomach the spirit of the law. Wouldn't it be fairly easy to institute your own health care insurance plan? It could be called "Tea baggers Comprehensive Health and Hospitilization". You could charge some nominal amount for premiums, let's say 1/10 of one cent. Each ten policy holders would constitute group coverage at a cost of only 1 cent. Since, by your own estimations, you number over 60% of the American people, even if we conservatively only counted the adult population of the United States (that's 1 cent multiplied by 220 million people divided by 10 people, or $220,000.00) that should be a hefty enough sum to entice the nations doctors and hospitals and various labs and pharmacies to care for you and your dependents. That,or the sheer strength of your number. This proposal, of course, is only for the sake of argument. Because we know that any Tea bagger, to the degree that they can afford it, even though adamant that the government NOT mandate he or she have health insurance, already has health insurance to cover themselves and their families. So what they are really saying is that those Tea baggers who don't have health coverage because they cannot afford it, have the right to continue not to have health insurance to protect that same right for other Tea baggers who do. In the words of Tom Hank's character in the movie "Big"..."I don't get it".

Blogging is a huge act of self confidence