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Today's
Meditation:
Oh, boy. These words, of course, are completely
true, but they do come with a mandate for each one of
us: help others become what they ought to be, and
keep working at becoming all that we as individuals ought
to be. There's a great deal of responsibility tied
up in these ideas, all brought about by the fact that we
are unified as human beings, and not separate at
all. We like to look at ourselves as separate
because it relieves us of the responsibility in our own
minds, but the fact is that we all are completely tied
together.
We learn that we are separate from others very early in
life. We learn that we are not our brothers' and
sisters' keepers, and we even learn that life is a
competition, and that the very people with whom we should
be working towards better lives for all are people who are
our enemies, or our competitors. We don't value
cooperation when we're so focused on competing.
It's only when we accept this mutuality of which Martin
writes that we can truly begin to become what we ought to
be. Because what we ought to be is a strong
contributor to the single garment-- the tapestry of life
should have many threads contributed by each of us, but if
we don't see the unity in the process, we may even see
ourselves as not even needing to contribute. But
that's a misconception that can be very damaging to us,
and if we damage ourselves, we damage everyone.
What affects you, affects me. What affects the
cashier at the supermarket affects the woman who's buying
milk. What affects the teller at the bank affects
his co-workers and the customers who come to his
window. We need to be ready and willing to accept
our unity if we're going to contribute strong, healthy,
beautiful threads to the "single garment of
destiny."
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