The power of Love

Of all the reasons that people choose to take the risk of devoting their minds, bodies and resources to creating sustainable development (however you define it), the most important, and maybe the oldest, is love. Alas, 'love' is a word rarely used. I hope that it isn't just fear for your children's future or anxiety about global warming or about the toxins in the water and in the weird-looking fish that keep appearing that motivates you - I hope it is love. Love for this precious, gorgeous planet, love for your family, love for life.
Once, one of those do-everything entrepreneurs, Duncan, and I were walking over the wild edge of the Northwestern coast of the U.S. and he said, you know, I originally (took over the stewardship of this land) because I didn't want it to be destroyed. Then I discovered I was here because I love the land. Now I discover that the land loves me; my whole life has changed; I work out of love, not (just) fear.
I've heard similar stories from Wangari Matthai, the great Kenyan tree-planter and peace-builder, who once said how she motivate by her profound love for the earth and her people, and it was that sense of love - given and fully returned- that kept her going.
Today, I heard the story of a Japanese development worker who went to Afghanistan. There, he found himself forcefully isolated: 'Every time I went somewhere, I would see poor children; but I saw them only through the window of a bulletproof car. I went from my heavily guarded living space to the heavily guarded office, where I worked inside for long hours, and then went back to house, all in this car. I found that I couldn't look at the children, because I was afraid of what I would see in their eyes.'
His refusal to look at the children whom he felt he could do so little for haunted him. Even months after his return to his homeland, the image of begging children stayed with him. And then a wise older woman, listening to his story, said, if you run from something, it will make it stronger. If you feel pain, you have to be with the pain, not run from it.
And so, in his small room, he wrote letters of what he wishes he could have said to the children. They have stopped haunting him so much.
When I heard his story, I said, 'it sounds like you really loved them.' He nodded, and we were both quiet. 'I need to go back,' he said. Yes, I thought. Love does not let us go very easily. Nor is it always easy to know or do what is the right thing, the loving thing. But sometimes, if we turn towards it, even if it is ugly, we can embrace the ugliness and the pain and the sorrow, and discover what lies beneath it, linking us all together. Like arrows shot from Cupid's bow - love strikes us deep, and, if we let it, can teach us how to heal one another, our beautiful, mysterious world, and ourselves.