What if

The other day while eating my lunch, I thought about how fortunate I am but how fragile that fortune is. I thought about the people who thought their futures were set and now those futures are shattered and I wondered…


What would I do if I had no roof over my head; no AC to cool me in these hot humid Houston summers; no electricity to run the AC and lights and refrigerator and computer and music and DVDs and heat my water and run my dish washer and cook my food. What would it be like not to shower and shampoo my hair each and every day? What would it be like to have no food? What would it be like to have only the clothes on my back? What would it be like to have no car nor any money to take a bus? What would it be like to have no idea where to turn for help and no one to help me figure out where to turn?

And I wondered…

What would it be like to have nothing but what I wore on my back and nowhere to turn for hope? What would it be like to have no hope?

And then…

A small voice in the core of my being said, “Those things you are wondering about are just things. But Hope. No one can take Hope from you but you. As for those other things, you did not bring them in with you and you cannot take them out, so what do they matter?”

Ah, I thought, the high road is all well and good for the pure energy we were and the pure energy to which we will return, but while we have taken on a corporal body it has requirements that we must address or suffer the consequences. The body must have fuel in order to work and thrive. It must have protection from the elements and temperature extremes. It must find ways to survive and thrive for the success of the species. Since we chose to enter this corporal being we have responsibilities to it that we must honor or we may find that we cannot complete the tasks that we came here to achieve. If enough of us choose not to honor these responsibilities of guardianship then the earth school may cease to become the great school that it is.

So the questions remain and I wonder: What if….