Who We Are To Each Other / Snapshot:

Snapshot:
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Driving on an busy overpass, two lanes in both directions, no sidewalk. Something moving ahead in the far right of the right lane.  Closer... two small triangular bicycle flags.  Closer... a younger tired looking woman on a makeshift tricycle made of a bicycle attached to a cart.  Passing her.... the next 'vehicle' is an older woman in an electric wheelchair.  They are trying to make safe passage, probably to go to a store to get some supplies.
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It's not right, that people are left to have to seek to make their lives work in these ways.
Perhaps they had choices. Perhaps there were other ways to get supplies.
Or perhaps, lacking choices, they are simply trying to get by as best they can devise.

Who would allow their grandmother to be at such risk, if they had any other choice? How many grandmothers face these kinds of choices, because we forget that all grandmothers, and grandfathers, are our grandmothers and grandfathers?

All children are our children. All are our brothers and sisters. We are all each others family. All of us.

There is so much suffering because of the justifications in our collective lives, for things being the way they are. We do not live in "the best of all possible worlds" (Voltaire), though much of our economic structures and culture would have people believe that seeking to have 'more' for 'oneself' or one's group is what drives the economic system upon which all 'depend'.

But that is a house which cannot stand... for its foundation is separate from what is in harmony with life.

We have the resources to address the needs of all. But as long as our economic system is based on "me" and "mine", rather that on "we" and "ours", the divisions between us will cause suffering for the many, for the Earth, for all.

As we come to redefine what we need, and choose to give, and share - to need less, and to give more - the world will change, and grow, and heal.

And we will feel joy in this, in living in this kind of way.

Whereas the more superficial seeking for "me" and "mine", and the materialism within which it is embedded , will not in the end lead to the happiness or joy we seek.

I pray for all hearts to awaken. I pray for the forgiveness to ourselves and each other for not yet finding more loving ways to live with one another.

I pray for the awakening of the moral necessity, for the fire in our hearts, for commitment through our individual and collective actions, to care for ALL of one another and ALL the Earth with the same kind of fierceness, dedication - and great depth of love - that one would for one's own children, one's grandparents, sisters, brothers, parents, aunts/uncles, nephews/nieces, cousins, and extended families - And we are ALL one another's extended family.

One family. One human family. May we come to know and live this in our lives. May the world and the earth flower, in the love and in peace that grows through our coming to know this, and to live this, from the generosity of the heart that celebrates and nourishes all life, generated from the center of Life itself.

Amen.