Human connection. Certainly, it can be so very complicated at times, what with our diverse, sometimes colliding personalities, politics, and predilections. And, yet, often human connection is so basic, so fundamental, so instant. The German novelist and philosopher Goethe said it so beautifully: “The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone here and there who thinks and feels with us, and though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.” Here are remarkably wise words from thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Chivers, who has learned so early in life about what it means to connect, really connect, with another human being.
Elizabeth Chivers is a seventh-grade student at the Wheeler School in Providence. She lives with her family in Wakefield, Rhode Island.