Essays by Rev. angel Kyodo williams

On Wellness
Long ago, I took my personal wellness to account, holding the belief that wise practices would shield me from the health challenges of my family. But yoga, exercise, meditation, and a healthy diet couldn’t dodge the bullet of genetics. An at-times debilitating and recurring illness cast me into the pre-existing condition black hole of care.

For the past three years, I’ve had only the Hope of 2014 and its Affordable Care Act to cling to as a respite from the insult of insurance industry practices added to my unwanted injury. If Willard Had Won, I would have no guarantee that securing the health of its citizens matters in my own land.

There is no doubt in my mind that Buddhism is a religion. It has rituals, traditions, schools, and hierarchical structures. However, Buddhist philosophy, in its purest form, is just a set of principles to help you become awake to the life that you have so that you can live it more completely. If we go back to the original ideas and strip away the extras, if we take the “ism” out of what a brother named Buddha taught, then it’s no more and no less than a way of planning your life.

We exist in a time in which we are acutely aware of the need for leadership and yet despite the litany of blogs, the avalanche of articles, and the legions of training on leadership, our yearning for consistent, reliable, and plentiful leaders within progressive political and social movements is not quite fulfilled.

Valentine’s Day is upon us, so it seems appropriate to reaffirm my love, most especially in those places in which I have been least clear. Since then, like many others, I’ve watched that hope wane under the most relentless onslaught of the political pounding of a President any of us has ever seen. Because I was so disappointed by the chasm between that hope and reality, I stopped professing my love.