Calming a City

d C? Would be like if ten thousand people, adults and kids incorporated a few minutes of a stress reducing meditation technique into their daily lives in much the same way as millions of people already incorporate a few minutes of physical exercise. What would happen to sickness rates, crime rates, trauma rates, graduation rates, rates of drug abuse? What would happen to the quality of life for the whole city?

I raised the point because the idea of ten thousand people meditating in Washington, d C. May not be so theoretical or pie in the sky. In fact, it could happen sooner than you think. A demonstration project is now underway in the heart of the district's Ward eight, the area with the highest death rates from COVID nineteen and

gun violence, and highest poverty levels in the city. The project is being led by a team of top meditation experts who are working with local government and community agencies to bring transcendental meditation for free two people in d C who may need it the most. Today, I want to tell you about a woman who is part of that team working to bring calm to an entire city. Meet a Dora iris Lee. A Dora was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, in the nineteen fifties and sixties.

Her activist parents encouraged her to be fully involved and engaged in social change. For a Dora, it was a moral imperative. She worked in the civil rights movement in the South in the early nineteen seventies, earned a master's degree in public health from Yale, and headed up the HIV AIDS Agency in Washington, d C. During the peak of the pandemic in the nineteen eighties. She also helped to write the landmark report on toxic waste and race

that launched the environmental justice movement. A Door also found time to earn a second master's degree, this time and divinity, and become an ordained Christian minister. And she worked with elderly people who are dying of cancer and newborn children who weighed less than two pounds, who were fighting to stay alive. For most of us, that would be a full life, but not a Dora. She kept going, learning

and serving. She spent years traveling and working throughout Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, implementing in a valuating programs for preventing HIV AIDS. Then, finally, five years ago, the Door thought she'd had enough. She returned to Washington and prepared for a life of retirement, which included some community work. But a Door said that even in retirement she felt tired. She started looking for something to center herself,

to calm herself, to re energize herself. She sought out meditation, trying different practices. She liked them, but kept looking for something easier, something that might work just a little bit better. Coincidentally, if there are coincidences, just down the street from her house in Ward eight was an amazing community center called

the Ark, which housed the meditation center. But Dora learned transcendental meditation there and loved the techniques ease and simplicity, and within a week she was working side by side with Rena Boone, executive director of the Meditations Center, and

three other powerful women. Today, they are partnering with Children's National Health Care System, Howard University Hospital, and other health, community and government agencies to deliver the meditation as an antidote to the high crime, sickness, and poverty rates in

that part of the city. Obviously, meditation won't make all the problems miraculously disappear, but a Door says, it will allow us to better handle our problems and find creative solutions, and that we all know is more than half the battle. Like everyone, a Door is deeply concerned about what's happening in the city and the whole country. She sees a lot of people advocating for change, in particular young people.

Change has to come, a Door says, But to make the change real, to make it stick, it's going to take time. This is a marathon, not a sprint. The fact is, these young people need a tool to help them stay center, collected and calm so that they can go to the distance. Otherwise they're just going to burn out. It's a long journey, and I think these young people will find transcendental meditation a very helpful tool on that road. They will benefit, but so will our community and really

the whole world. All right, let's end this time together doing something that I think should be a feature of our everyday life, and that's appreciation and gratitude. So let's take thirty seconds of quiet, thirty seconds to take a break, just take a moment. It turns out when we do that, it's good for our health as well. I'll be right back, all right. Thank you for joining me today. I hope you heard something that inspires, that uplifts you and that

you can incorporate into your own life. This is Bob Roth. Stay calm, hey, all of you out there. I'd love to hear from you. You can send me your stories, your questions, or anything else on your mind. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram at meditation Bob. You can also send me an email at meditation Bob Roth at gmail dot com. I look forward to hearing from you.