What Makes You Come Alive?

I have been talking to people throughout the U.S. and around the world and I am asked the same question: "What should I do to help make the world a better place? There seem to be so many problems we face, I don't know what I should do." I like to quote Howard Thurman. He was Dean of Theology and the chapels at Howard and Boston universities for more than two decades, wrote 20 books, and in 1944 helped found the first racially integrated, multicultural church in the United States.

When asked by a student about what the world needs, he responded, "Don't ask, what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." I think that's wonderful advice and I've tried to follow it.

I believe that the Ship of Civilization is sinking and those who wish to survive and thrive are getting into lifeboats, rowing away from the sinking ship, and creating a new way of life that is truly sustainable and in balance with the Earth. I picture the Ship looking something like the Titanic having struck an eight-sided iceberg with each jagged point representing one of the following consequences of our addictive way of life:

1. Economic Implosion.
2. Environmental destruction.
3. The end of cheap oil.
4. Global warming.
5. Population overshoot.
6. Food practices that are killing us.
7. Male despair and global violence.
8. Wild-Card "Black Swans" such as a world-wide Pandemic