I am comfortable opening my heart to you,
although you know me as yet only as an image on a screen
or on a magazine cover or story.
Only by being forthright about my own experiences
can I convince you
of the personal convictions behind such images.
They are convictions I have held all my life.
When I was seven years of age my whole life changed because of a dream.
Such things can happen. Such things have happened to many people.
Perhaps not as many continue to believe and live their dream.
In my dream it seemed my soul had opened to the world, but it was a world full of darkness. People, their eyes masked with sadness, stared blindly through me. I saw people young and old, hungry, thirsty, bewildered,
trying vainly to help one another, not able to help even themselves.
I could not bear the sorrow in their eyes, but I could not wake from the dream. I was afraid. I wanted to run away. Why am I here? I wondered.
I did not run. I stopped and looked back and suddenly saw that all those faces, young and old, had grown lighter, were now happy. I was not afraid anymore. I felt happy, happier than ever before in my life. This happiness drove away all my fears. How had this happened?
Perhaps I had done something to make that happen,
but I did not know what I had done to change their lives.
The answer would come later.
Keeping that answer alive every day would be my mission and goal, in life.
