War, tsunami, and hurricanes; over the past year many have suffered losses of family, friends, lovers, love, and even faith.  My simplest consolation is that whatever suffering we may endure in this life, will be a blink of an eye compared to our eternity of peace yet to come.  

It is said that among the angels; those who chose to live, learn and serve God, by enduring incarnate life are especially honored.

Peace and love to all whom have suffered.  The angels sing of your courage, and your service to the Universe.  You are loved.

Jeffrey

This Holiday Season,

Be Thankful, Be Grateful, and Be Charitable.  

We wish you Peace, Love, and Abundance for now and always.

Its Here!

Jeffrey’s first Book,

"Honor Amidst the Shadows"

By Publish America,

details at our web site:

www.serenitynews.net/bear.htm

Click cover for link to mywebsite

Also for sale at:

www.amazon.com

&

www.bn.com

I believe all things happen for a reason, even terrible catastrophes like Katrina. There is little comfort in that thought, but one thing is certain, we can ill-afford to fail to learn the lessons Katrina brought us.  

While many folks are busy trying to fix blame I think the deeper lessons of Katrina are sociological, and fundamental in nature.  John F. Kennedy said “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”  I do not feel race was at issue here except that it is a sad fact and product of our past social injustices, that there are a disproportionately high number of poor African Americans. But, money equals power, so certainly if the whole of New Orleans was high value property of an affluent demographic, they would have had the political clout to get better levies built sooner, rather than later.

That said, I’m not certain that if the Superbowl were filled with 25,000 affluent white folks, the federal Government could have worked any faster.  It appears that FEMA dropped the ball before the storm even hit.  If there is a fatal flaw in the Federal system it is too much bureaucracy, and the fact that so much decision making is based on cold statistical models and numbers, not people.  

So huge lessons lie in the modern concept of risk management.  Having some experience in this industry I can tell you it is the coldest of science applied to human reality.  Human losses and the potential for disaster are broken down to raw cold numbers.  Numbed out bureaucrats stop seeing the human loss potential and just see numbers.  Let me give you an example.

According to the Corp. of engineers, a Katrina sized storm hitting New Orleans was a once every two hundred year event.  But when was the last time that occurred, not in 300 years of recorded weather history.  But you can get an event in the last year of one 200-year cycle and in the first year of the next 200-year cycle and still over time average once every 200 years (2events/400 years=1event/200 years).  Such is one problem with statistics.  

But perhaps, the biggest problem I have with statistics, is that they minimize the human factor, and raw numbers can be misleading, as the human tendency is to interpret them poorly, or to allow ones own biased perception to manipulate the numbers.  The risk above of a Katrina type storm was overdue, but the feeling among the public is that once every 200 years is a rare event not an imminent danger. Politicians back popular projects, bureaucrats worry about budgets, so where were the leaders with the courage to look at the potential for disaster and fight for what is the best for us. There are few real leaders to be found in Bureaucracies.  

 Mayor Nagin himself said the pre-storm evacuation was considered successful, as he stated “normally you only get 60% evacuation, we managed to get 80%”.  Again the numbers gave him a false sense of security before the storm.

A Corp. of Engineers officer stated the 1 in 200 years number as a statistic, saying that they were prepared for the 99.5% most likely event.  That statistic ignores the fact we were over due and clearly politicians were not alarmed enough by the “numbers”, but now they now know how much pain and destruction the 0.5% event can cause.   

Here is the ugly truth; people not numbers were suffering the worst kind of indignity and death.  Katrina’s victims could not see the scope of the disaster, or understand the errors FEMA and others made in the first days, all they felt was overwhelming loss plus feelings of abandonment and betrayal.  

Yet there are silver linings to Katirna’s storm clouds.  Katrina shows us that we must put the human factor back into civic planning.  I’m not just talking about emergency planning, but we allow ghettos to build beyond the ability to serve them (or evacuate them) with the poor  put in harms way, relegated to the trashiest or higher risk areas around dangerous factories and structures (like levies).  Public planning should not just be about economic growth.  

Katrina’s aftermath gives us an opportunity to rebuild the entire infrastructure of a major city and to help a bunch of people start over in life.  There is great power in a complete start over, as there is no old stuff to get in the way, no old habits left to interfere with new habits.  I expect many previously poor folk will rise to new heights (some in new home cities), because of the opportunities created by the thousands of caring folks shocked into action by this event.   In fact, I also suspect that history will show this disaster to be the largest willingly undertaken redistribution of wealth in human history, as private and federal dollars pour in to help the victims rebuild, relocate, and start new lives.  

Dr. Depok Chopra reminds us that we are all connected.  Almost everyone who watches this disaster is affected, and that affect leads to  feelings of compassion.  Compassion is the basis then for feeling real love for our fellow man.  

He also reminds us that 40,000 children starve to death in the world every day, but we lose site of that statistic.  If children were starving in New Orleans at a rate of 100 per day (a fictitious rate I chose to give a dramatic example) then the  number of kids starving world wide only increased by 0.25% for a couple of days.  How’s that for a cold statistic that in no way conveys the real suffering?

I hope that we Americans, who have been so long focused on wealth and selfish indulgence, will grow more worldly and more spiritually mature from this event.  May we  stop accepting statistics that hide real horror behind a cold mathematical mask.  May we all get more involved with caring for our fellow man.  

The days to come will show us the details of our mistakes and misperceptions, but one thing is certain: If we do not learn the lessons of Katrina, the Universe will offer another class next term.  We all but failed the first exam, will we be ready for the second?

Peace,

Jeffrey

There is no limit to the amount of good that people can accomplish, if they don't care who gets the credit.

-- Anonymous

“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”

-Mahatma Gandhi

As I prepare this e-version of the newsletter, the "re-test" for Katrina, Hurricane Rita, is upon us and we await the results.  This is a chance to get it right in the short term.  Unfortunately humans can be terribly short sighted. Perhaps the true second test will be a different disaster after we have numbed from the pain of Katrina a little.  Then we will see if we fell back into old bad habits and if we moved forward with real change.

A second thought, consider Karmic law at work. President Bush and some of his supporters have denied the effects of global warming.  So Earth is manifesting its most obvious effect, more & bigger storms, and she is hitting them where it hurts, America's biggest oil producing region. It has to make the oil execs nervous, but then again maybe not.

Things Are Looking Up!

Our view is becoming more global...

And we are learning EMPATHY!

We’re appreciating our families more...

While opening our families to adopt those in need!

We are sharing our abundance!

Hi Diane

I was just thinking of you last night and will be calling you soon.

Thought you’d like to know that our last reading included you telling me a spotted dog was going to come into my life, but you did not think it was the “fire engine type”(meaning a large dalmation).

Well... see attached picture of my new puppy... who happens to be... yes, spotted. A big spot on her back and every day more spots are appearing!!!! I had nooooooo intention of another dog yet when we went to look at puppies for a friend, low and behold, this one tugged at my heart. She is giving me lots of love and... you called it!

Thanks again for your guidance and I will be calling you soon

Karen Detmering - New Jersey