The seismic shift that each of us experiences in the course of the midlife transition has varied and far-reaching consequences. Like the goads of the ancients, that transition urges us forward into paths that we may be very reluctant to embark upon. After all, don’t we spend the first half of our lives striving for independence and autonomy? The changes that come over us at midlife seem to be focused on our physical nature. For the second time in our lives, — for men and women both — our hormones seem to be taking over. Yet the physical aspects of midlife, although fundamental, do not define the ground where most of our personal transformation is taking place. When the goads of midlife are applied, what we experience can only be described as a ‘soul-quake’ of enormous proportions. It’s a 9 on our emotional Richter scale.

At some point in our personal evolution, we either change our minds about our relationship to life in this world, or we risk causing great harm to ourselves and to those we profess to love. We kick against the goads at our own peril, yet we do that whenever we refuse to accept life on life’s terms (and the radical changes that entails) and refuse to trust the process and the One who drives it forward. That’s one reason why I feel called to confront political and religious conservatism. People want to believe that the truth (‘Truth’?) is ‘out there’ and changeless. Yet ‘truth’ necessarily involves both a knower and whatever is known. To suggest that the ‘truth’ is eternal is only to suggest that knower him- or herself also cannot change.

The truth of what we know and experience derives from our dialog with what is. As we change, our ‘truth’ must change, too. To try to resist that change and to cling to old ways of seeing and understanding our world can only be described as ‘kicking against the goads.’ We spend the first half of our lives learning to hang on, and the second half of life learning to let go. Hanging on to old ways of seeing, thinking, and believing in the face of life’s invitation to change can only lead to frustration and pain. That’s the insight behind what Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong wrote about in his book, Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers in Exile. Using outmoded human paradigms to explore the wildness of God’s relationship to humankind can only lead us to an impotent caricature of faith. Tradition can give nothing to a people who cannot comprehend it.

It’s been a tense week here. My 88 year old mother-in-law has been very sick, and we thought for a time that we were going to lose her. After some relatively minor surgery (there’s nothing minor about surgery at 88), her doctor prepared us for the worst, based on her experience. Just as she was being released from the hospital yesterday, the tests results came back negative. Living life on life’s terms meant knowing that we would have to cope with the results, regardless of whether or not the news was going to be good. We had to let go of our own expectations and our own hopes, and live simply in acceptance and trust: not necessarily an easy thing to do, regardless of the outcome.

That’s the lesson that comes with maturity: ultimately, we’re not in control. Living life on life’s terms means living in an attitude of acceptance with the realization that “all things work together for the good.” Whether we’re looking back at the so-called tragedies of our lives, or looking forward toward the obstacles that still seem too daunting to overcome, it’s ultimately our spiritual connection with our Higher Power that will allow us to see everything in its true perspective. I’ll repeat once again that perfect prayer from Dag Hammarskjöld: “For all that has been, thanks; for all that will be, yes!”

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown

4 monkeys in a room. In the center of the room is a tall pole with a bunch of bananas suspended from the top. One of the four monkeys scampers up the pole and grabs the bananas. Just as he does, he is hit with a torrent of cold water from an overhead shower. He runs like hell back down the pole without the bananas. Eventually, the other three try it with the same outcome. Finally, they just sit and don’t even try again. To hell with the damn bananas. But then, they remove one of the four monkeys and replace him with a new one. The new monkey enters the room, spots the bananas and decides to go for it. Just as he is about to scamper up the pole, the other three reach out and drag him back down. After a while, he gets the message. There is something wrong, bad or evil that happens if you go after those bananas. So, they kept replacing an existing monkey with a new one and each time, none of the new monkeys ever made it to the top. They each got the same message. Don’t climb that pole. None of them knew exactly why they shouldn’t climb the pole, they just knew not to. They all respected the well established precedent. EVEN AFTER THE SHOWER WAS REMOVED!

Was this a scientifically-controlled research project, or a fabricated urban myth-in-the-making? Who knows? That’s as far back as I could trace the story. Even if it’s a fable or parable, I think that we can all relate to the underlying experience: many animals are prone to give up hope in the face of social opposition. That’s the message that researchers wanted to convey when they coined the term ‘learned despair‘: when attitudes around us turn negative, we tend to give up trying to reach our goal without even trying!

The word ‘despair‘ itself tells the story. It comes from the Latin de-sperare, meaning to turn away from, or to give up (de-) hoping (sperare). It’s a cognate of ‘desperation‘. When I’m working with people who might be emotionally allergic to hearing about the so-called theological virtues of ‘faith’, ‘hope’, and ‘love’, I replace those terms with synonyms: ‘acceptance’, ‘trust’, and ‘engagement’. Despair — turning away from or lacking hope — derives from a lack of (or, rather, from a misplaced) trust. We tend to trust what we learn from others’ beliefs (whether or not they’re grounded in facts) rather than trusting in our own experience. We turn our methodical doubt inward on ourselves at least as often we apply it to what we learn from others.

Our lack of trust in ourselves, in our own capabilities, and even in our own experience can prove to be a very serious flaw, particularly at midlife. I can relate it to another theological construct: what is known as the ‘unforgivable sin,’ or the ‘sin against the Holy Spirit.’ What kind of sin could possibly be ‘unforgivable’ in the light of an all-loving God? It’s not so much an action, as it is a belief or a mentality: one that says, “I don’t believe that God would forgive me for ______.” The ‘unforgivable’ sin is such because someone lacks the trust in a loving God that would make forgiveness possible.

Like the ‘unforgivable’ sin, ‘learned despair’ derives its power from a refusal to trust in ourselves and in a Power greater than ourselves Who loves us unconditionally and who enlightens and empowers us. In learned despair, we yield to the temptation to surrender our self-esteem to those who don’t believe in us, rather than to accept (have faith in) a God who does.

How often do those around you influence you not to try do accomplish something that would (or could) move you forward? In what ways are you allowing others’ beliefs about you to erode your trust in yourself (as well as your trust in a Higher Power who cares about you)? In what ways are you permitting others’ opinions of you to keep you stuck in a midlife rut? What do you need to do to recapture your enthusiasm for who you are and where you’re going? What do you need to stop listening to? What old, negative beliefs about yourself do you need to get rid of? What can you do today to overcome just one fear that you have about yourself?

To move forward, all you need is to recapture some of your primal hope. To recapture hope, you need re-learn to trust yourself (and your Higher Power). To learn to trust yourself, first, you need to unlearn despair. You can begin unlearning as soon as you tune out the discouraging voices around you, and start, once again, listening to (and believing in) the wisdom of your own heart.

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown

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Of course, Adams (quoting the Guide) goes on to explain more about how throwing yourself at the ground is easy, but knowing exactly how one needs to go about missing the ground can be a little tricky. But I won’t pursue that, because it has nothing whatever to do with the reason I’ve brought it up at all. Besides, what on earth does this have to do with midlife or a spiritual crisis? What’s so extremely valuable about this somewhat unusual approach to flying is that it’s so silly that it’s incredibly insightful. Once again, our whole approach to something like flying is defined and pretty much wholly decided by the bucket of assumptions that we bring to it. That’s why I need to tell you that the decision that you (and many other people) may have made to reinvent yourself at midlife is exactly like the decision to learn to fly: until you empty your bucket of assumptions, you’ll keep falling flat on your face. Sound familiar? You throw yourself at the ground, but you keep not missing! You’ll need to follow me closely now: this silliness is going somewhere . . .

You may still think that, when circumstances change drastically (like they do at midlife), reinventing yourself would seem to be a very wise thing to do. I say ‘seem to be’ because that’s all based on your set of assumptions. You assume that it’s possible to ‘reinvent’ yourself, and you further assume that you know how to do it. Interestingly enough, it isn’t, and you don’t. You are the product of the sum total of your genetic makeup plus your defining experiences as determined by a lifetime of choices you made either in response to changes in your environment or in an effort to change your environment. Your life is a continuum. You may change your mind; you may change your direction; but, you’re not going to ‘reinvent’ the person that you’ve become anymore than you can ‘reinvent’ your genetic code.

Now that you’re beginning to see the problem (and being sensible isn’t working all that well), it’s time to bring on the silliness! Instead of focusing more of your time and energy on an impossibility that won’t work, why not throw out your assumptions entirely, and re-define the problem into one that will work? Specifically, in the same way as Douglas Adams redefined the problem with light from one of how to leave the ground to one of how to avoid hitting it. So, perhaps the spiritual answer to the midlife crisis is less about reinventing yourself in response to the world, and more about reinventing the world that you’re an integral part of. Let me just say that reinventing your world is a whole lot easier than missing the ground, once you’ve thrown yourself at it.

Where to start? Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that one should begin treating a problem in as remote a spot from the problem as possible. We can do the same, and, since the ‘problem’ is you, we’ll start as far removed from you as we can: with your job or career. Rather than start with the question, “How can I become a raging success in my chosen field?” you can start by telling yourself: “This is not a dress rehearsal. This is the only life I’ve got. What do I want to do with it . . . rather, what do I need to do with it?” At midlife, it’s time to take true ownership of your life. You’re not being controlled by your parents, your upbringing, your religion, your politics, or anything else outside of yourself. At midlife, it’s time to stop making excuses for why you aren’t the person you’d really like to be, and start doing something about it.

This is called ‘goal setting’ and I assume that, over the years, you’ve already heard a lot about it. If you’ve not only heard of goal-setting, but listened to what people have been telling you, then you have a very clear, distinct, and detailed vision of the life that you want to live, and you’ve banished the words “I should” “I’ve got to” “I have to” “I need to” from your vocabulary, and you’ve replaced them all with “I want to.” You’ve also succeeded in replacing the phony buck-passing phrase “I can’t” with the true self-aligned one: “I won’t.”  Finally, you already know whether or not your current job or career is healthy and serves to promote your life vision, or it’s unhealthy and keeping you stuck and away from becoming the person you truly desire to be and, right now, you’re implementing a plan to change it.

German existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger defined human life as “being-in-the-world with others.” At midlife, perhaps more than at any other time, we have the opportunity to experience what he meant. ‘Others’ are not optional equipment to make use of for our own purposes. Once again, with all our relationships, spirituality challenges us to empty out our assumptions about who these people are, why they’re in our lives, and what purpose they may serve for us.

The people with whom you share an intimacy are a constitutive part of what life means for you. Whether or not you have an explicit relationship with another, you can’t just throw any of them away (no matter how tempting it may be). Each one you encounter is essential to your own human existence — not only because you rely on them for what they can provide for you or do for you — because each person you meet has something essential to tell you about who you are. This is even more true when your encounters gain intimacy. Dating, they say, is your opportunity to learn about yourself. A relationship is a 24/7 date. By reinventing how you look at the people in your life (from seeing them as obstacles or benefits to you, to seeing them as the only mirrors you have that show you who you really are), you suddenly no longer want them to change. You need them to stay as they are, because only then do you recognize that what you dislike most about anything you see in them is only your own reflection.

Finally, and most importantly — the most intimate relationship you have — your relationship with yourself. Here’s where the spiritual ‘rubber meets the road.’ For most people, adolescence and adulthood are both characterized by the assuming and shouldering of responsibilities as they go about the work of self-actualization. The focus is generally on creating a safe and secure life for ‘me and mine.’ It’s a period of acquisition and immersion into the struggle to hold on to what they’ve got, even as ‘what they’ve got’ grows and the struggle intensifies.

Regardless of the cause, at midlife, the curtain gets pulled back only to reveal the emptiness and purposelessness of a life lived for acquisition and self-aggrandizement. Whoever dies with the most toys wins . . . the booby prize. In whatever form it takes — physical, mental, emotional, spiritual or economic — life’s vagaries always intrude on the neat little plans you and I may have been making only to show us the vanity of the exclusive pursuit of health, wealth, safety and security. If youth and adulthood are all about acquisition, then midlife and maturity are all about letting go, and that’s a much more difficult lesson to learn. The meaning of your life can never be defined by your career, your relationships, or your accomplishments. Instead, on a spiritual level, the meaning of life comes from the courage you can muster to face your challenges relying not on anything external, but solely on the strength that comes from your connection to a Power greater than yourself to get you through.

The universe provides each of us with a series of life lessons. Regardless of what they may look like on the surface, they all teach only one thing: whatever it is that you choose to rely on that is not God, will be taken away. At midlife, the training wheels come off and the props are knocked away. You are left standing there with only your acceptance of life on life’s terms and your trust in God to support and guide you. If youth is the age for heroics, then midlife is the age for courage, since by now, experience has taught you what it feels like to play hard at the game of life and to lose.  The trick is to stay engaged no matter what else happens.

Those who, at midlife, try to reinvent themselves will undoubtedly experience frustration and futility. “No matter where you go,” they say, “there you are.” But those who, instead, work at reinventing their world will experience a life they could only have imagined. The lessons of life are unrelenting. If you choose to avoid failure at all cost, it will surely cost you dear and all to no avail. It’s all so very silly. Learning how to live with spiritual courage is a lot like learning how to fly: it’s so simple! All you really need to do is to throw yourself at failure . . . and miss!

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown

______
*Douglas Adams, The More than Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide, Longmeadow Press, Connecticut, 1991, page 363.

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Think, if you will, about the RMS Titanic, resting on the bottom of the deep Atlantic Ocean since its spectacular sinking one cold April night in 1914. I’m sure you’re familiar with the photos and videos that have been published over the years since the wreck was finally discovered by Robert Ballard in 1977. The great ship, weighing in at 46,326 tons when she left the shipyards in Belfast, is now festooned with ugly growths called ‘rusticles.’ Gradually, the iron ship’s massive hull is being consumed – eaten actually – by iron-eating bacteria. Before too very long, the great ship’s entire structure will disappear into virtual puddles of bacterial excretions. The pile of refuse that remains after the bacteria have done their work will be unrecognizable.

The Jeep, the Titanic, and your most intimate relationships may have a great deal in common. We humans are subject to a corrosion that beats out the destruction caused by oxidation and bacteria hands-down. I am convinced that fear causes more destruction in the lives of men and women than any other single agent. We all have it; yet, when the bravado of self-assured adulthood begins to yield to the deeper questioning that comes with midlife, fear emerges with a ferocity seldom experienced at any other period of life.

When I was considering the subject of this article over the past week, I was troubled and questioning my own understanding and appreciation of this universal phenomenon. “If fear is so corrosive and damaging to life and to relationships,” I wondered, “why is it so universal? Why is it there at all?” I’ve often heard that a little fear is a good thing. The more I think about it, the more I am certain that fear provides us with the necessary protection that we need to avoid getting into life-threatening trouble. There definitely is such a thing as a ‘healthy’ fear. We all need it to keep us from getting too irresponsibly cocky and making rash and self-destructive decisions. A little fear is a very good thing, I concluded. “So,” I asked myself, “is a little fear like a little rust?”

I have come to believe that there are actually two types of fear. The one – healthy caution – provides us with the protection that we need against rash decision-making. There is another type of fear, however, that arises from insecurity and self-doubt. This kind of fear, like the iron-eating bacteria in the hull of the Titanic, slowly but consumes its host. Psychologist Carl Jung located the core of self-doubt in what he called the ‘ego,’ while the true personality he identified as the ‘Self.’ In this sense, your ego, convinced of your fundamental vulnerability, lives in mortal terror. While the Self continues to try to convince you that you’re fundamentally OK – regardless of what’s happening within or around you – the ego drowns out that more rational voice with its own terrified screaming.

At midlife especially, when the Self finds itself beset with radical changes on all fronts, the Ego’s constant doubts have a chance to erode not only your self-confidence, but also, at the same time, your capacity for acceptance, trust, and engagement. Under the fearful influence of your ego, your willingness to accept life on life’s terms (and your most significant relationships on their own terms), to trust in your own judgment and others’ good will, and to engage yourself unreservedly in the work of giving of yourself begins to collapse. Self-preservation begins to assume a priority beyond anything you’d previously experience. Your choices no longer to accept, no longer to trust, and no longer to engage begin to take their toll. Fear begins its corrosive corruption of your quality of life.

The popular spiritual work, A Course in Miracles, defines the ego as “a fearful thought.” I completely agree. The ego is convinced (and is determined to convince you) that you are in mortal danger and that only you can save yourself by withdrawing from intimacy. Ironically, under the guise of self-preservation, your ego infects you with the fear of being killed, while, at the same time, it’s in love with death. Its strangling fear begins by cutting off your vital connection with the divine Spirit by convincing you that your Higher Power, or God, cannot and will not save you from death and destruction: that the only Savior you can count on is yourself.

Next, its corrosive influence extends to your most intimate relationships, seeding doubts and watering them with imagined faults and failings in the other that “threaten” your security and well-being. It convinces you that, once again, only you can “protect” yourself from ruin. Finally, as its work runs its course, it not only cuts off your capacity for unconditional and unqualified love of others, it locks you into a kind of imagined self-protective mode where not even the grace of God can reach you. Ego-driven fear, left to run its course, will eventually succeed in causing you to forget, at the deepest level of your being, who you are.

Who are you? You are the beloved Child of a Power greater than yourself Who called you into being from the origins of the universe and who sustains and protects you in all your ways, regardless of any detours your fallible human consciousness my send you on along your way. All your Higher Power or God requires of you are the ‘virtues’ that I wrote about in my last article: acceptance, trust, and engagement (or ‘faith,’ ‘hope,’ and ‘love’). If only you would choose to ignore the fearful screaming of your ego and focus on the invulnerability of your Self and your connection with your Higher Power, you can be set free from fear to choose to respond to that Power with unconditional Faith, unconditional Hope and unconditional Love. Only then, in truth, can you accept, trust, and love yourself or anyone else.

Do your choices show that you actually believe that you are who you are? As a Child of your Higher Power, do you exercise unconditional acceptance of life on life’s terms and of the others with whom you share the gift of intimacy in this life? Do you trust that, no matter what happens to you or to others, you will always be cared and provided for? Are you willing to accept that your life depends on the quality of the commitments that you’re prepared to make on a daily basis?

“What about getting hurt?” “What about betrayal?” you may ask. In return, I want to ask you, “What is your circle of influence, and what is your circle of concern?” You may well be concerned about other peoples’ ideas or behaviors, but you have no control over them! You have control only over your own attitudes and choices. Your decisions to accept, trust, and be committed never depend on what the other person says or does. They depend wholly and exclusively on you and your willingness to love regardless of the cost. That’s the way your Higher Power loves you; that, in a nutshell describes the essence of Love itself. Love doesn’t necessarily involve intimacy; love doesn’t necessarily involve intimacy (those things require two committed people). But love does require you to choose commitment over fear, and forgiveness over anger and resentment. Can you handle it?

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown

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Must couples in trouble necessarily fail? No, not necessarily: no healthy couple is doomed to failure. In fact, the only ‘doomed’ relationships are those where one or both partners are unapologetically physically or emotionally abusive . Without a doubt, the only realistic option for someone who finds her- or himself in a fundamentally abusive or exploitative relationship is to exit immediately. Apart from that, I believe that many (if not all) relationships “on the rocks” could be healed under the right circumstances. From my perspective, the fact that this healing so often fails to take place could be an indication that one or both of the partners have stopped listening. Additionally, ceasing to listen indicates a spiritual problem. Let me explain.

It would seem that the  person who hears another’s voice, but is no longer committed to listening to what the other has to say has given up on her or his partner, as well as their relationship together. If you look more closely, however, it soon becomes clear that the person has actually given up on him- or herself. Empathetic listening and appreciative inquiry represent a three-fold choice: 1) to accept the other, 2) to trust the other, and 3) to engage with the other. Closing off the lines of communication also represents a choice: to cease accepting, trusting and engaging with one’s partner. Before I relate this to fundamental spiritual principles, let’s look briefly at each choice.

The choice to accept another human being is foundational. True acceptance represents a fundamental option to see in the other person another self, with exactly the same sorts of strengths and weaknesses that we ourselves possess. This choice to acknowledge the other person as another self  has two destructive opposites. The first perversion of acceptance we call ‘exploitation‘. Philosopher Martin Buber contrasts these approaches with the terms I-Thou (for true acceptance of the other), and I-It (for exploitation). To see your partner merely in terms of his or her usefulness (like a tool or a piece of furniture) or her or his capacity to satisfy you represents a fundamental denial of humanity on your part. The second perversion of the choice to accept your partner shows itself as conditional acceptance. In brief, “I’ll accept you if you do such-and-such or so-and-so.” Conditional acceptance of another puts you in the position of being their judge, jury and executioner. In fact, it represents nothing less than your attempt to usurp the position in your partner’s life properly held by God alone.

Next, let’s look at the choice not to trust your partner. Why don’t you trust her or him? Because you’ve been hurt before? The refusal to trust your partner goes way beyond self-preservation. Once again, it is passing a judgment of condemnation on another person — another self — who exhibits the same sorts of faults and failings that you yourself exhibit. In fact, if the truth were known, the faults and failings that you find most easy to condemn and most difficult to forgive in others are the very ones that you exhibit most strongly yourself. In fact, the two keys that are absolutely essential to unlocking both acceptance and trust are these: first, to acknowledge an identical humanity in both yourself and the other, and, second, to commit yourself to the path of unconditional forgiveness. Who cannot look at the plight of even the most desperate of people around us and not be able truthfully to say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I?” The greatest message of Christianity — and also, I’m afraid,  its most forgotten and neglected — is simply this: unconditional, unlimited forgiveness. If you cannot forgive unconditionally, you cannot trust for very long.

The final choice is the choice to engage with your partner. If you refuse to engage with her or him, you thereby give credence to the (Jungian) ego’s false belief that you are vulnerable and need protection. It’s the same force that drives people’s frantic searching for that illusive (and illusory) ‘security’ that they believe will fix everything and protect them from danger. Once again, it would be foolish to put ourselves in harm’s way by engaging with an abusive partner. We owe it to ourselves and to them to take the necessary precautions so as not to allow ourselves to become victims of deliberate abuse. However, if you imagine that refusing to engage with your well-intentioned partner will grant you some sort of immunity from harm and from hurt, you are mistaken. Do you believe that spiritually you are invulnerable and that nothing outside of yourself — not even death — can destroy the essence of you? “Greater love has no one,” we have heard, “than to lay down his life for another.” Oddly, dieing for someone can actually be a whole lot easier than living for them.

Finally, what does the choice not to listen say about that person’s spiritual condition? The testimony it gives is nothing short of damning. Personally, I would liken it to what Christians refer to as the ‘sin against the Holy Spirit’ or the ‘unforgivable sin.’ Here’s what I mean. Whenever I write, I use the terms ‘acceptance,’  ‘trust’ and ‘engagement’ as  synonyms for what are called the ‘theological virtues’, namely: faith, hope , and love. The ‘sin’ against faith is the decision not to accept the will of God exactly as we encounter it in our world. The ‘sin’ against hope is the choice not to trust that our only Source of genuine security is divine providence. The ‘sin’ against love is the refusal to become meaningfully engaged with those we were sent to serve: our fellow creatures who, along with us, share the “image and likeness of God.” If the ‘sin against the Holy Spirit’ is a refusal to believe that the love of God is powerful enough to forgive us (and so we refuse to ask for forgiveness, and therefore refuse to accept it), then turning a deaf ear to someone we once claimed to love is a ‘sin against love’, for, as we know, the opposite of love is not hate, but deliberate indifference.

What can you do if you find yourself failing to listen? Remember the futility of protecting yourself. What can you protect yourself from? Even more importantly, what are you protecting yourself for? After all, your mission here in this world is not to try (futilely) to keep yourself safe. It’s to share with your fellows (and especially those in relationship with you) the same kind of acceptance, trust, and engagement that your God has shown to you. God hears his people’s cry . . . can you do any less?

And what about you who find yourself ‘learning to love one another’ and your words keep falling on deaf ears? You, too, have the opportunity to pass on the love of God. Your acceptance of the other can be renewed continually. Your trust of the other need never fail or fade. You may stand ever at the ready to engage. However, engagement (love) requires reciprocity. God does not condemn, so how could you? God does not constrain, either (because love can never be forced), but rather waits for all eternity for the other to emerge from his or her isolation and re-engage. You can have the willingness to re-engage, whether or not the other ever seeks it. You may never re-engage as you once did: time and the world goes on while the other chooses to isolate, stagnate, or (what’s worse) repeat the same self-defeating choices and behaviors with other partners. You, on the other hand, have the opportunity to accept and trust and engage with people at every stage and every condition of your life: people who, like you, have chosen to listen not only with their ears, but with their hearts.

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown

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