Somebody Has to Go First
Wow, my first blog post. I don’t know where it’s going, so bear with me, Kind Soul.
I’ll start with a question. What’s important enough to you to stand in a crowd of people all waiting for something to happen, thread your way to the front of the crowd, and step forward? Heart beating like a jackhammer in your chest. Sweat pouring from your body like a garden hose. Stomach a hive of bees ready to sting if you break ranks.
What would it take to step forward, turn to the crowd, and ask—plead if necessary—for the help of strangers? To save your child? Or a parent? A partner?
How about the world?
Sometime in the past three or four decades—so long ago I’ve forgotten where or when—a thought arose in me. You might even say it was “a calling.” The thought was: I’m responsible for releasing the world from the illusion of separation. Crazy, huh?
For somewhere between 30 and 40 years, that thought has been breeding in me while I’ve pretended to be just another body in the crowd: living a simple life, trying to “fit in” wherever I’ve found myself. Being a good wife, mother, grandmother, friend. Trying not to draw attention to myself. Watching the world, year by year, decade by decade, become ever more dysfunctional, impersonal, disconnected—lonely.
This isn’t my personal experience. I’m one of the privileged ones. Eighty-two years and counting of good health, a 60-year happy marriage. Children and grandchildren, friends, community, education, resources . . . Isn’t it time to count my blessings and “ride off into the sunset” (I’m really dating myself here) with gratitude?
Apparently not. Apparently I still have work to do.
Somebody has to look at that “crowd,” step forward and ask for help in releasing the world from the illusion of separation. Somebody has to remind us that we’re all in this together and that every act, no matter how small, strengthens or diminishes the health of the whole. Every kind act, whoever the recipient: family, friend, stranger—or ourselves—feeds the world body.
Somebody has to go first. But that “somebody” can’t do it alone. Maybe “my” calling is a communal calling. WE are responsible for releasing the world from the illusion of separation.
I’m stepping out. Will you join me?