Sunday, March 15, 2009

ubiquitousness

Every once in awhile I get a Providential reminder about humanity.

I forget sometimes that we're important, all of us. I go on my way, passing through my days like I hold the monopoly on soulful journeying, like I am special. And some days, the tables turn and I go through my days as though I'm just another cookie cut from a cosmic mold.

Thing is, I am special. And so are the 6.some-odd billion other divine sparks running around on this great ball. It's easy to slip into the not-so-clever lie that, because we are ubiquitous, we are therefore mundane. How can my story matter in the hugeness of life? How can yours? How can hers? The real question should be, "How can it not?" If we were not gifted with sentient souls, it might be easier to dismiss humanity as one more biological curiosity, though one could argue that we're all amazing just on the merits of our crazily complicated and unique biology alone.

But we each carry something much deeper and much higher than just the body, and it is because of this, if nothing else, that each story of each life bears such gravity and is so profoundly important. The old men in the parking lot yelling at each other over a dented car; the grumpy lady in the check-out line who couldn't get past being run into by a 5-year-old unsteadily wielding a cart; the orphan in Sudan dying of the same disease that took her parents; the Chinese miner who died along with 200 of his coworkers. We all matter.

It's a good idea to re-align our perspectives every once in awhile and refuse to be swallowed by the immensity of the importance of our humanity, don't you think?

--Teri.

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