Category Global health and disparities

FMM 11 18 16 Chant a Psalm

“Just living is not enough…one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”~Hans Christian Andersen.   My father was chaplain and teacher of Bible Knowledge at a high school in the heart of Jamaica.  Since the school was founded under the ‘auspices’ of a Christian School, the subject was not Religious Knowledge.  There was no […]

FMM 11 11 16 Remembrance

“In the end we will remember, not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”~ Martin Luther King, Jr. There was a card game we used to play when I was young; it was a simple game of pairing cards.  But the deck was spread out (face down) on a table, and […]

FMM 11 4 16 Evoking our Better Angels

“Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.”~Mikhail Gorbachev.  One of the problems with growing up as a preacher’s child (parson pickney, in Jamaican terms) is the unrealistic expectation that somehow you will behave better than the average child.  My mother discovered that I had ‘unfriended’ […]

FMM 10 28 16 Baked in your DNA

“We must make good use of this life for the time that we have left. This brief flash of light, like the sun appearing through the clouds.”~Kalu Rinpoche. When I was about 15 I had my first perm.  Like most females I was convinced that my own look was not good enough, I had to […]

FMM 10 21 16 Wake up and Live!

“If every day is an awakening, you will never grow old. You will just keep growing.”~Gail Sheehy. There is something special about watching a child develop.  The helpless baby that soon learns to roll over and explore, the toddler that figures out how to push buttons on a remote, the pre-schooler that begins to write […]

FMM 10 14 16 Awesome Wonder

“He who can no longer pause to stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.”~Albert Einstein. I remember very clearly being taken by my father to see an amazing sight.  It was one of the nights on board the SS Ascania, the ship that took us to Jamaica in 1963.  […]

FMM 10 07 16 Thankful

“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche.  I grew up in a God-fearing household.  When your father is a minister, and a seven-day-a-week-Christian, there is no escaping the religious routines and rituals.  Grace was expected before every meal, whether silently before breakfast, or out loud at the family meal.  […]

FMM 9 16 16 You Think you Know

“A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.”~Joseph Joubert. I still remember the smell of Pears Soap.  I chose to use it as the first soap used on my firstborn, associating it with purity and simplicity, a transparent oval bar that we could only find in a Jamaican store.  But I associate […]

FMM 9 9 16 Walk a Mile

“This is a wonderful planet, and it is being completely destroyed by people who have too much money and power and no empathy.”~ Alice Walker. At the age of 8 or 9, I attended a country school in the heart of Jamaica.  I was the only white girl in the school, which meant I was […]

FMM 8 26 16 Road Trip, Baby!

“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike”~Maya Angelou.  Before my family moved to Jamaica, our annual vacations began with a road trip.  My parents would pack up whatever old jalopy we owned (one was the ‘orange monster’!) with camping gear, supplies for a month, and five kids.  The journey was made slightly […]