"Give and there will be  gifts for you: A full measure pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap; because the amount you measure out is the amount you will be given back" (Words of Jesus, LK 6:3)

The following is a recycled column I wrote 12 years ago for my small town KY newspaper:

Community sevice does make a difference in many lives.  We can begin as a large group of people with many resources to work with, or as one lone person with a 'cause'.   We do not need to be members of a non profit organization to make a difference.  Like the ripples of water which spread out from an initial  drop in a calm sea, people can make a difference toward postitve change. 

We can decide to 'take a stand' for issues which we carry as a burden to our consciousness.  It takes courage to be that first drop in a calm sea.  It takes acting from our Center- our hearts. 

From that part of us which knows that love and honesty, commitment to our beliefs and the care of our sick, our poor, our old, our suffering and our children, is more important than budgets we balance and money we save.

It is difficult to 'act' from our Centers unless we learn to throw out the inner garbage we have stored there.  Even if it is intense pain we are not letting surface.  Thinking positive thoughts over pain that still exists within us is a temporary solution and in the long run 'stuffing our emotion' creates only an unhealthy inner environment for our bodies.

A woman doctor named Margeret Kemeny, PhD ( a psychologist with a post graduate training in immunology and bio behavioral sciences) has discovered through a scientific study that experiencing extreme saddness is as healthy as experiencing extreme joy.

Short term catharsis of emotion, whether sad tears or happy screams, actually BOOST our immune system. 

Another woman doctor named Candice Pert who was a professor at the National Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, discovered evidence which suggest the surface of the monocyte, one of the prime cells in our immune systems, is covered with receptors for pepetides- the biochemical emotions. 

"If you cut your finger, in seconds these moncytes come out of your bone marrow, go right to the site of the injury, , and begin to remanufacture and restructure the body fabric.  Viruses use these same receptors to enter into a cell.  Emotional fluctuations and emotional status directly influence the probability that an organism will be sick or well." (Bill Moyers, Healing and the Mind).

In other words, sadness and joy both serve to increase the amount of natural peptides produced by our bodies.  Natural peptides are healthy because they increase our immunity.  The amount of these natural peptides determine whether a virus meets resistance when attempting  to enter a cell.

If we are actively experiencing our emotions, whether happy or sad, we are healtheier and more resistant to disease.  Neutral feelings have no effect on the production of these immune boosting peptides. 

It is better to be as a child and feel our emotions, than to 'grow up' and deny our emotions.  If we have pain buried inside us, we can release it by acknowledging and experiencing it first . . .  Then, letting it surface (letting it go)with the awareness that we are actually empowering our bodies' immune system, and building resistance to disease.

Every day we encounter opportunities to 'act'.  The strength in saying 'yes I will act' is as important as recognizing the strength of saying 'no I will not act'.

We are all accountable.  We all experience fear in the face of change.  And none of us are perfect.  But all around us are opportunities to choose actions based on furtherance of positive change within our environment. 

Just as our immune system becomes resistant to viruses when we allow ourselves to activate our emotions, the 'cell of society' becomes more resistant to disease when its culture unites for purposes of positive change.

By keeping track of our inner work and staying connected to the inner guidance of " . . . the Will of God as we discern it" (Thomas Kelly, Testament of Devotion)

We free ourselves from pain and fear which keep us in a 'neutral state'.  We boost our immune systems both internally and externally.  We empower ourselves as people guided by our Center. 

We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move (Tao Te Ching). 

"Give and there will be  gifts for you: A full measure pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap; because the amount you measure out is the amount you will be given back" (Words of Jesus, LK 6:3)