Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Gifts and opportunities

We conclude Love Earth Now today. Cheryl Leutjen ends her quirky testimonial love-letter with a poem about "the holy universe,"

Hidden within catastrophes
are gifts and opportunities;
perhaps we have the chance here
to awaken potentialities within us,
perhaps to live
the most meaningful lives
that we could ever hope to live. 
-David Christopher

And that is a good end-note, pointing forward at possibilities of renewal and even rebirth. It reminds me of the way Al Gore ends his Inconvenient Truthwith an appeal to our generational conscience and the question we don't want our descendants to ask: “What were our parents thinking? Why didn’t they wake up when they had a chance?” We still have an opportunity to forestall that question. If we seize it, we will indeed live up to our potential and enjoy "the most meaningful lives" we can imagine. What a gift that would be, for us and them.

So here was Al on the TED stage, with "15 ways that individuals can address climate change immediately"... (If only he'd been this personable and funny when he ran for president!)


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