One World is Out the Window…and we must Get it Back, Now!!! When World Leaders Meet We have watched the world get so polarized that one is in power and one is not, and in a very strange way we have accepted that division. When you get so used to division and conflict in the world, and you keep choosing sides, you end up in a very un-trusting world. The result is that no matter what someone says they are for, you don’t believe it anymore. Somebody gives you one opinion about something and another person gives you a completely different view, and then another person tells you the first person was wrong and the second person was right. We have now entered into a world of complete distrust. The first time this kind of thing happened was with Kennedy. Then came Viet Nam. Then came 9/11 and now there are all these wars that nobody wants anymore. All of this keeps us divided, and most of it is fake. We live in a world that is so divided that one person is in power and another person is out of power, so we want our side to win and the other side to lose. If that happens, everything will be alright again. There will be peace and people can get along with one another. That is not the way that things really work in a democracy. How it works is that we are to be for ALL of the people. We are supposed to have one voice for each and every person, including our enemies. Yes, including our enemies! This is so hard for us to learn because we don’t understand the other person’s point of view, but we must learn to see ourselves in them, and not just them in us. How many times have you heard someone say, “There are two sides to every story.” Have you ever thought about what that means? Are you on the same side as the people whose side you say there are two sides to? Do you actually believe there are two sides to your life, your future, and what is going on right now? The truth is that this is not how a democracy works. If it was you would never see yourself as different from the people you are trying to help, or against them. So How Can We Unite? The key to uniting and helping others see themselves in us, is by first learning to love ourselves enough to look at ourselves through their eyes. We cannot do that with any justice if we do not first love ourselves. It is not enough to just know we love other people. We have to show them how much we love them. If we cannot look at our selves with kindness and respect, we will never have the ability to see them with respect and kindness either. That is the foundation that needs to be laid. If we do that, then we will be able to see the problems with our society, and how to resolve them in a non-violent way. We can do this without hating ourselves, and by doing this we can begin to bring other people along to find themselves in us. If they can find themselves in us, that will bring them to a place where they can be uniting with each other and with us. We are to be for ALL of the people. We are to be like the one person whose power keeps coming back. We are one in the same person who never dies, dies, gets born, gets older and older. That is the way our Creator made us. “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom should I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom should I be afraid? One thing I ask from the Lord—to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” (Psalms 27:1-2) A group of us walked along the trail, taking turns riding. I was the last one to climb on the horse and when I was hoisted up, I wasn’t sure how to make sure that the saddle was fit right. My arms were weak from holding the camera and my head was full of all sorts of things I wanted to record, so I didn’t have the energy or the focus to look for all of the signals. The riding instructor was there to make sure everything was done right, but I had been there so many times before that this was just part of the journey. As I climbed up on my mount, I could see my students waiting on the trail, as the rest of us were already starting our ride back to the ranch. I was worried about the things that I had forgotten, and I was also worried about missing this ride back to our cars. We rode and rode and rode. When we got to the top of a hill, I could see how big the horizon was and I didn’t want the ride to end. As I started to look at the clouds to try and see if I could see something to make the ride more important, I turned my head to the right and I saw the clouds change. I was so tired, but it was my job to be observant, so I took a minute to take it in. As soon as I took that minute, the clouds changed again. I realized this was my signal, and without thinking I sat up and looked around. A moment later, there was a flash, and then the sun set. This was the first day of school. The first day of a new year, a new class, and a new career. It was the first time I would have the opportunity to see if people were going to like me. It was also the first time that I would have the opportunity to see myself and my actions. The next day, I was nervous. I kept thinking back to the last day of school. I had been late a lot in high school and it was not good. It was the last time that my mother ever saw me fail, so I was hoping she could see that I had changed my ways. I had done some things right and then some things wrong, but I hoped that the people in the classes would see it the way my mother did, and that they would see me as I was. I went to school early and found my seat in a row with two of my friends who were also back from summer vacations. When they walked by, they looked at me. I kept thinking about how I had changed in the past year, and how this was an opportunity to prove them right. But as I was worrying, someone tapped me on the shoulder, and it was a friend from high school who told me how he had just been released from the hospital after a suicide attempt. We talked about the things he was going through, and we talked about the things he needed to be done. We talked for a long time, and when I looked up, my first-hour class was about to start. There were three seats in front of me, and one seat in front of the student who was talking to me. I had done enough preparation in my mind, and I knew that when it was my turn to speak, it was not going to be a good conversation. It would not be good, and it would be a lot like my last year of school, when I didn’t have anything good to say. But as I took the seat and I waited, I had no idea what I was going to say. I turned around and saw a sign. As I turned around and looked at the sign that said “Mental Illness,” I said, “Yes. This is about right.” When it was my turn to talk, I looked out at the class and I could see the students looking back at me. I started to talk about how things were the same and how things were different. I started to talk about how things had been good and how they had been bad. There was a time when I could never look back and see what had happened, but now I was able to take a look at it and see how it affected me. I looked out on the class and I knew that the students were going to look back on that day as a turning point. There were some smiles, and some nods of agreement, and then I was done. I sat down and tried to take it all in. There were a lot of people there, and I didn’t know many of them. There were other students who were just as nervous as me, and I was glad that it was a team that had been chosen to talk. It wasn’t only good because they had a group experience of their own, but it meant that if I had a problem I didn’t have to deal with it alone. I could go to the group and they could hold the rope. I was ready for that. In the days that followed, we were introduced to the school. The headmaster was the man who had given my first-hour class, and as we spent time talking about the school, I could see him working hard on his staff. His goal was for us to have the kind of experience where we would share and work together. We were going to be a part of the school that we were part of. We were going to be a part of the school in which there was no hierarchy, but instead the whole school was going to be a part of the whole. There was a chance for me to experience a school where I would learn more about myself, and about the school as well. Over the next few months, things went along, and I had a lot of trouble finding myself. Part