inspirational diverge.

I wanted to change the world, so I got up one

morning and looked in the mirror. That one

looking back said, “There is not much time left.

The earth is wracked with pain. Children are

starving. Nations remain divided by mistrust and

hatred. Everywhere the air and water have been

fouled almost beyond help. Do something!”

That one in the mirror felt very angry and

desperate. Everything looked like a mess, a

tragedy, a disaster. I decided he must be right.

Didn’t I feel terrible about these things, too, just

like him? The planet was being used up and thrown

away. Imagining earthly life just one generation

from now made me feel panicky.

It was not hard to find the good people who

wanted to solve the earth’s problems. As I listened

to their solutions, I thought, “There is so much

good will here, so much concern.” At night before

going to bed, that one in the mirror looked back at

me seriously, “Now we’ll get somewhere,” he

declared. “If everybody does their part.”

But everybody didn’t do their part. Some did, but

were they stopping the tide? Were pain, starvation,

hatred, and pollution about to be solved? Wishing

wouldn’t make it so — I knew that. When I woke up

the next morning, that one in the mirror looked

confused. “Maybe it’s hopeless,” he whispered.

Then a sly look came into his eyes, and he

shrugged. “But you and I will survive. At least we

are doing all right.”

I felt strange when he said that. There was

something very wrong here. A faint suspicion came

to me, one that had never dawned so clearly

before. What if that one in the mirror isn’t me? He

feels separate. He sees problems ‘out there’ to be

solved. Maybe they will be, maybe they won’t. He’ll

get along. But I don’t feel that way — those

problems aren’t ‘out there’, not really. I feel them

inside me. A child crying in Ethiopia, a sea gull

struggling pathetically in an oil spill, a mountain

gorilla being mercilessly hunted, a teenage soldier

trembling with terror when he hears the planes fly

over: Aren’t these happening in me when I see and

hear about them?

The next time I looked in the mirror, that one

looking back had started to fade. It was only an

image after all. It showed me a solitary person

enclosed in a neat package of skin and bones. “Did

I once think you were me?” I began to wonder. I am

not so separate and afraid. The pain of life touches

me, but the joy of life is so much stronger. And it

alone will heal. Life is the healer of life, and the

most I can do for the earth is to be its loving child.

That one in the mirror winced and squirmed. He

hadn’t thought so much about love. Seeing

‘problems’ was much easier, because love means

complete self-honesty. Ouch!

“Oh, friend,” I whispered to him, “do you think

anything can solve problems without love?” That

one in the mirror wasn’t sure. Being alone for so

long, not trusting others and being trusted by

others, it tended to detach itself from the reality of

life. “Is love more real than pain?” he asked.

“I can’t promise that it is. But it might be. Let’s

discover,” I said. I touched the mirror with a grin.

“Let’s not be alone again. Will you be my partner? I

hear a dance starting up. Come.” That one in the

mirror smiled shyly. He was realizing we could be

best friends. We could be more peaceful, more

loving, more honest with each other every day.

Would that change the world? I think it will,

because Mother Earth wants us to be happy and to

love her as we tend her needs. She needs fearless

people on her side, whose courage comes from

being part of her, like a baby who is brave enough

to walk because Mother is holding out her arms to

catch him. When that one in the mirror is full of

love for me and for him, there is no room for fear.

When we were afraid and panicky, we stopped

loving this life of ours and this earth. We

disconnected. Yet how can anybody rush to help

the earth if they feel disconnected? Perhaps the

earth is telling us what she wants, and by not

listening, we fall back on our own fear and panic.

One thing I know: I never feel alone when I am

earth’s child. I do not have to cling to my personal

survival as long as I realize, day by day, that all of

life is in me. The children and their pain; the

children and their joy. The ocean swelling under

the sun; the ocean weeping with black oil. The

animals hunted in fear; the animals bursting with

the sheer joy of being alive.

This sense of ‘the world in me’ is how I always

want to feel. That one in the mirror has his doubts

sometimes. So I am tender with him. Every

morning I touch the mirror and whisper, “Oh,

friend, I hear a dance. Will you be my partner?

Come.