Powerful Connection

 

As I walked through our neighborhood park this morning, I was greeted by the largest pile of mulch I have ever seen. It is apparently time for the playground to be touched up and refurbished. As I reached this point on the path, I met a man walking in the opposite direction. We pass each other everyday at this same spot. We always speak, a simple greeting, an acknowledgement of the other as a person. We are about the same age, but with different color skin and no doubt very different experiences of life across the years. But in this moment we caught each other looking at this huge mound of mulch and shared the same response: “I’m glad I’m not working a shovel today!” We never broke stride as we went on our ways, smiling at our own recollections of hard days of physical work long past.

It is amazing how we can feel a connection with someone in a passing instant, without even knowing their name or their story. We can feel such moments in a large crowd as beautiful music moves us or in the loneliness of a hospital waiting room as we share situations rife with anxiety. The connection can click when we watch the joy of children at play or when we stand speechless in the reflection of flashing lights when tragedy comes to our block and our street. We can feel this powerful feeling when we worship, finding that our common desire to know God is enough to cross all the boundaries of difference.

It is my prayer that, somehow, in the face of our current collective challenges, we begin to see in the face of each other the face of a brother or sister. That in the aisles of the grocery store and on the streets of our neighborhoods, we begin to respectfully recognize each other as persons, even if we don’t break stride as we walk. Maybe, just maybe, this practice will change us. Perhaps, whether in the context of passing a pile of mulch or standing in a masked line waiting to conduct one task or another, we will feel the bond of our humanity and lose at least a little of the drive to see others as so different from ourselves.

Peace.