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Today's
Meditation:
We
find it very easy to withdraw from one another because we
convince ourselves that there's a significant distance
between us and everyone else whom we don't want to have
close to us. "She's not family," or
"He's just a co-worker," are things that we tell
ourselves to justify pulling away from others. And to
be fair, many people make it really easy to pull away--they
take advantage of us, they're not trustworthy, or they hurt
us in any of many possible ways.
The
truth is, though, that we are all related and
interrelated. There are connections between you and me
and every other human being on this planet, and they are
connections that cannot be legitimately denied. We
deny them to make life easier for ourselves sometimes, but
the truth is that we are more completely connected than we
are separated. Think of the Force from the
movies--humanity is bound together by what we share, things
such as energy, love, hope, compassion, service, and so many
other things. That stranger who walks up to you and
asks for directions is just as strongly related to you in
spirit and in humanity as your sister or brother or father
is related to you in blood.
Recognizing
that connection, though, immediately implies some sort of
responsibility. And it's true--we are responsible to
treat each of our fellow human beings with dignity and
respect and compassion. It's not a sin to deny your
help to someone who has been taking advantage of you, for
sometimes the best thing we can do for such people is to
cease to enable them so that they can work their way through
their own issues.
Life
becomes magnificently brilliant when we realize our
connections with others, when we realize that there is a
Force, and it's made up of our shared love and hope and
dreams. Don't withhold your love or compassion from
anyone, and soon enough you'll find that you belong as a
part of a greater whole, and you'll no longer be looking at
life from the outside, but you'll be an integral part of
that greater whole.
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