Connections
“...the
health of all community depends on how we treat each other.”
Mark Nepo
(“Eight Worldviews and Practices,” Parabola, Winter, 2018, p.10)
Since humans were
hunter-gatherers, we have known that in order to survive we must work
together. We moderns are the most “individualized” population
ever. Because of technology and our preference for individual
housing, we have kidded ourselves into thinking that we don't need
others, that we are perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves. It
wasn't true when we were homesteading in caves, and it isn't so now.
So many of our
traditional greetings and practices point to this reality. Clasping
hands and saying, “good to meet you,” for instance,
is the Western way of declaring “Namaste”—the divine in me
salutes the divine in you. In his article in Parabola, Mark Nepo
cites a Blackfoot tribal greeting that asks, “How are the
connections?” Native people know that without healthy connections,
our own well-being is in jeopardy. But perhaps Jesus said it most
clearly: “If a house is divided against itself, that house
cannot stand.” (Mark 3:25)
At some point, hopefully
now, we must grasp the truth that “us against the world” is not a
productive way to live. Neither is “I am right and you are wrong.”
All the nuclear warheads in the world will not make us safe if humans
continue down the path of separate and unequal. We have come to
espouse the unsustainable ideology of “if you aren't with me, you
are against me” more than “we are all brothers and sisters in the
eyes of God.” The Native American recognition of “All my
relations” is a great standard for the rest of us—all things are
connected, therefore all things are related to me, and without these
relations, I am nothing. This is a time for reconciliation and
joining. It is time to declare an end to all our petty divisions. We
are one people, on one planet, with one hope—we all want to
survive, and not only survive, but thrive. To thrive we must cherish
our connections—to one another and to all of Creation.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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