Today, as spring moves quickly to summer I see leaves of hickory, cherry, oak, maple and myriad other trees sprouting their differences in varied shades of green. Each one so beautiful! Come fall, their assorted colors will reveal the multiplicity of species with a different glory. But in the cold mists of winter mornings, after their cloaks of leaves have fallen, the trees of my woods share sculptural Oneness. Because at their hearts they are all trees. All beloved of Earth.
We, too, we the Peoples of the Earth, sprout our differences. But our bones, our blood, the strands of our DNA, reveal that we are more alike than different. Culture, language, politics, and religion are simply like leaves on the tree that hide our mutual desires and values – to belong, to be cherished, to raise our families in peace, to enjoy life, to find happiness.
Decades ago, I was deep in the London Underground at rush hour. Moving slowly, synchronously, all of us were packed body to body on multiple huge escalators, riding slowly up or down as our journeys took us. As I rode, I looked in wonder. Everywhere were faces representing the world’s humanity in its different manifestations – ethnicity, size, socio-economic status. Our differences appeared visually stark in the bright white light of the modern subway station, yet those faces were so like mine.
What overwhelmed me in a flash of an instant was the energy of a pure love. A love that delights in recognition: all are One, all are her children.
The thought hit me then and has only grown stronger that the religion of my childhood has it wrong. God does not plan eternity without these, her children. All of her children.
But this world holds the lingering legacy of injustice for the many, imposed by the privileged who claim undeserved power and deny Oneness.
The unfairness of this chills my soul – not with fear, but with sorrow and a sense of my own smallness in the face of discrimination, prejudice, and the many “isms” that immorally divide us.
So, I look deep within to live each moment ~ extending whatever peace I can, however much love I can, with a cry for grace when I fail, and to find ways to remember:
We are all One.
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