..... war and hunger, poverty, diseases, economic hardships, injustice and leaders killing the people they were supposed to protect ..... so many of us are living through all of this, many of us learn about them on the media and pay attention for a while, so many of us try to act and
help, few of us get the information about it then move on, few of us just turn a deaf ear to all the suffering.
And possible do all of this at different times.
But we cannot separate ourselves from what going on. whether the problems are next to home or across the world.
Discouraging. Shocking. Sickening.
This can be some of the words to describe both various situation like the events in Syria or the famine in many regions of our world and their aftermaths.
Same words can be used to describe what we feel when we get confronted with this directly or via news......
That One in the Mirror
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."
