What is all the HOWLING about when it comes to ALIENS?  I forgot, no one is howling about just any ol' alien, just the ILLEGAL aliens?  So tell me, what category of ALIEN do the PILGRIMS fall under?  Were they legal or illegal?  Can the Native Americans go to court at this late juncture and demand that we all acquire green cards?

     YES, IMMIGRATION is an issue, a problem to be solved, perhaps it's complex, perhaps it's not.  It definitely has a lot to do with economics.  Like OIL.

     Issues can be tossed about and even rejected or discarded.  BUT immigrants and aliens, themselves, legal and illegal alike, are not issues, but real-live PEOPLE.  Treating people as issues is the scarey part.

     At this very moment, in other parts of the world, there are large numbers of people, legal and illegal alike, who are identified and treated like issues and in some cases the powers-to-be deem it necessary to cleanse the world of these issues.  And history abounds with examples of those in power seeing it as their mission to cleanse the world of people who are identified as "issues," burdens, evil, and alien.  It's an impoverished day when talk radio DJ's resort to illegal immigrant bashing as the sole means of touting their craft.  Bill, you stooped to Ken and John--a first for you!

     As long as we build our "village" on the fear of those who are different, as long as we build walls around the village to protect the pie that belongs to us alone, then we are all vulnerable to being identified as aliens and "issues."

     I wonder what this is all about ultimately.  Perhaps there's something here that needs healing.      

     Remember Mom admonishing us, "If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all"?  In recent years, as therapists, with all of our infinite and new-age wisdom, we have tended to encourage folks to do the opposite.  Just put it all out there, VENT, discharge, cathart!  And there is some wisdom to our encouragement.  Often times, when I find an appropriate means for discharging all the "bad-stuff energy," then I create room for "lifegiving energy."  However, there is something to Mom's "old fashioned" advice.  We now know that our brain produces neuropeptides (enzymes) which are emotion specific.  So if I wake up in the morning already thinking that today is going to be a bad day, then sure enough, my brain begins to produce neuropeptides which literally invade my entire body and "program" me for seeing and finding every bad thing there is to see and find.  The reverse is also true.  So when I "shift" from saying something negative to something more uplifting, I also shift neuropeptide production in the brain!  So maybe Mom knew what she was talking about after all!  Well how about that?  I'm still not convinced that Dad knew what he was talking about!