We Need Each Other

 

As I walked today, I found myself curious about these drawers. How odd to throw out drawers and not the chest! What could they possibly be doing with a cabinet with no drawers? I would think that the question of getting rid of a piece of furniture with drawers would be an all or nothing proposition. Some things just seem to need each other to be whole.

The longer I am working at this human being thing, the more I am coming to realize how much we need each other to be whole. This pandemic has revealed how important we are to each other. Even when we cannot be together in our more traditional ways, we have been compelled to find new ways of connecting. Zoom. FaceTime. Emails. Cards. Letters. Phone calls. Drive-by parades. On-line everything, from religious services to business meetings. Even many folk who like to be alone have reached their limit of being alone.

We need each other to be whole. It’s not just the good times or the warm and fuzzy things that make us whole. We need the dynamic of working together, of the give and take of navigating life with others. We even need the push of different ideas and beliefs to keep us growing and sharp in our own thinking. We have known this as the human family for a long time. So why do we insist on building walls and drawing lines and embracing ideologies that only serve to keep us a part?

John Donne writes, “No man is an island, entire of itself.” Paul writes, “so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” Why do we fight it so? I might be a drawer, I might be a cabinet; either way, I need you to be whole. We need each other to see ourselves in a honest way. We need each other to see the possibilities within us. We need each other to be whole.

Peace.