On the 10th anniversary of 9-11, Our Lady of Refuge Catholic Church on Ocean Avenue held an Interfaith Service of Remembrance and Healing that brought together community members from the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths and combined liturgical readings and music from each tradition.  The church gathering included two rows of uniformed police officers from the local 70^th precinct.  The clergy told stories of how the events of 9-11 transformed New York and Brooklyn into a small village where everyone helped each other.  I was in living in San Francisco when the towers fell and watched in horror as the tragedy unfolded on the Today Show – then frantically called and e-mailed friends in NY to make sure they were safe. I had lived in this neighborhood before marrying and relocating to California. That service helped me feel more intimately what it was like to be here that day and share  the emotion that still felt strong after ten years.

The following weekend was the Flatbush Frolic, a country fair on Cortelyou Road where local businesses and non-profits showcased “more than socks and sausages,” according to the organizer, the Flatbush Development Corporation.  There were live bands, and scores of food, merchandise and arts and crafts vendors exhibiting their wares and games for the kids. I’m on the Board of the Flatbush Food Co-op, one of the event’s sponsors – and also one of the vendors cooking up hot sausage, in our case the organic kind.   The Co-op’s booth  also featured an organic smoothie made in a juicer  powered  by the Sustainable Flatbush SunBike, a mobile solar-electric system that gets around on a retrofitted cargo bike.

Despite the difficult economy, it seemed like thousands of neighbors came out during the beautiful afternoon to sample a stew of cultural dishes in a zip code that has been called the most diverse in the country.  We may be experiencing hard times, but for one week Ditmas Park showed its small village touch and neighbors whose ancestors came from all areas of the globe hugged and danced.  I find that’s a sign a hope!

My friends next worked hard to convince me that a final solution was dating one of their colleagues – I resisted for almost a year and then embarked on a path that led to the most laughter-filled and glorious days of my life, a partnership with my late husband Tim Robinson.

Amazingly, it was laughter and tears meditations that helped me get through the pain of Tim’s sudden loss after surgery.  I had met meditation master Pragito Dove (http://discovermeditation.com/) in San Francisco where we were both  members of the National Association of Women Business Owners.  She had just written a book on “Lunchtime Enlightenment” about meditation in the workplace and we started a long friendship. She counseled me on how to use meditation to heal after Tim’s death, when Doctors could only prescribe strong anti-depressants to cure my overwhelming pain and grief.  She knew that laughter and tears were closely aligned and explained why allowing the tears, not blocking them, would also allow the laughter to flow. At Tim’s funeral, his family agreed that we needed to share the joy he brought into the world, not focus on our grief. We laughed that day as much as we cried.

The financial crash brought my latest test of strength as my career faced daunting challenges.  The stress seemed endless.  Suddenly Pragito was back to the rescue, this time with a new teleclass on laughter meditation.  Once I took the first course, I became convinced that I wanted to take the entire series to get certified as a laughter meditation coach – that’s how much it affected me.

Now Pragito is offering a FREE CALL,  THE POWER OF LAUGHTER MEDITATION on Tuesday, May 3^rd (5pm PT and 8pm ET) to introduce  laughter meditation to newcomers and demonstrate how it can change your life (http://discovermeditation.com/programs/free-call-discover-the-power-of-laughter-meditation/). In this increasingly complex and stress-filled world, please bring on the clowns!

My friend Pragito Dove is a meditation master, author and trainer who specializes in working with both entrepreneurs and large corporations to reduce stress in the workplace.

She recently sent out this meditation to help those of us overwhelmed with e-mails, texting or social media.

Weekly Meditation:

Description:

Do you sometimes find that you move too quickly and forget details?  As one example, these days so many of us are inundated with emails, and they can be a real source of tension.

The next time you write an email, stop for a moment and take a deep breath before you start.  Allow yourself to relax by dropping your shoulders down, feeling your feet on the ground, and settling comfortably into your chair. Now write your email, staying fully present with what you are writing and with the person you are writing to. Write in a relaxed way with full awareness. If you are in a hurry, include the awareness that you are in a hurry. When finished, reread the email, checking the content, spelling and attachments, if  there are any. Breathe and pause for a moment before you hit Send.

Benefits:

This technique saves you time and, depending on the circumstances, money.

Communication and relationships are enhanced, and you have an easy way to include mediation in your busy day.  You can use this practice with other written communications and for reading emails as well as writing them.

If you are interested in receiving weekly meditation exercises, you can sign up by visiting Pragito Dove’s website at www.pragito.com

much to be hopeful about this holiday.  We pledged fewer gifts yet found the simple pleasure of meals together meant so much more – it was not taken for granted.

On the way home, my connecting flight on Southwest was cancelled in Baltimore because of a snowstorm. As I waited in line to talk to a representative, I was amazed how everyone was calm and seemed to reassure each other that a night in the airport would be fun.  I eventually found out that I could get home that night by Amtrak and befriended another stranded businesswoman, a personal wealth manager for a major bank, waiting at the free shuttle bus stop. We shared family stories on the bus and later on the train ride to New York before drifting off to sleep. Her parents were from Sicily and she lost her husband 14 years ago and never dated – too busy first raising her kids and now taking care of her elderly mom. She was proudly visiting her daughter in New York, who works with a famous American chef.  Clearly, she loved her work and to me she represented the proud tradition of banking that helped immigrant generations find their own American dreams.

Tough times?  Yes, but I am finding a generosity of spirit in the American soul shining through that is making me believe in this country’s resilience.  Happy Holidays!

My former business partners and good friends David Hamlin and Sydney Weisman in Los Angeles recently reached out to their friends and colleagues by e-mail to alert them that their son Jason’s kidney transplant is failing and he has started a blog he calls “I need a kidney.”

Jason is an amazingly tough guy.  I knew him when he was still in college and had already had his first transplant. In gratitude, at Christmas David and Sydney would send out information on the National Kidney Foundation and they urged friends to make donations for kidney research.  I remain in awe of this family’s total dedication to their son’s fight and their determination to raise awareness on kidney donations.

Today Jason is married, is helping raise one daughter and his wife is expecting a baby any day.  The last kidney transplant, four years ago started out badly as it seemed to be rejecting his body, but amazingly it has kept him off dialysis for four years and is just now failing.

He has maybe a month left before dialysis begins and he writes…”I’m going to work and push and live, and hold my family.  And after that? Same deal.  I’ll continue to doggedly pursue stories about transplants, I’ll push and scrape and make noise about kidney failure. I’ll share with you what dialysis looks like and express my hope for the next kidney…”

Luckily the urgency of organ donations is finally getting some coverage -  the hit NBC Network show 30 Rock, for instance,  has a campaign going with a music video called “He Needs a Kidney”  in partnership with the National Kidney Foundation http://www.kidney.org/

But much more attention needs to be paid.  Too many transplant recipients face excruciating waits of months and even years and not all of them will survive.

I hope you’ll read Jason’s blog http://ineedakidney.wordpress.com. and understand that if you are a match, you can immediately save a life.  Even if you aren’t a match for Jason, he points out that hospitals like UCLA will line you up with a match – there are far too many people waiting.

Jason further writes  in one of his blogs that every single person on the transplant list could be off that list this year with less than one percent of the U.S. population donating – a fact he notes is both infuriating and hopeful: “Politics, laws, ethics and social customs could change oh-so-slightly to make such a huge difference in so many people’s lives – why don’t we just do it?”  Good point, Jason.

Just in:  You can see Jason and Rebecca on the website http://www.iwearyourshirt.com/

Just click on the calendar on the top of the home page and look for August 9th – that’s the date friends of his bought for him as part of the website promotion.