Reading the headlines this week has made my last post even more poignant for me. To be grateful for just the simplest things; food, shelter, clothing, a job, loved ones, is really the key to my happiness.

My heart is absolutely breaking over what has happened in Asia. Reading the stories of death, destruction, missing loved ones, mothers and fathers watching children disapear, what a horror. Its a great reminder of how small we really are and how nature is all powerful, despite our hubris. Not only are the native inhabitants and their countries devastated, but the death and suffering of the tourists is awful as well.

As a frequent traveler, I know it is always far from the top of your thoughts that a thing like this could happen, but in the back of your mind it is what you most fear. A disaster or sickness far from home.

Then I turn the page and read about innocent men, women, children and soldiers losing limbs and dying in Iraq everyday. And finally closer to home, people being shot, run over, made jobles and homelss right here in NYC.

To read this and dare not be thankful for what I have, to dare to wish for more than I do have and to not know that I must accept life on life's terms would be criminal and immoral and would be spiritual suicide.