We All Belong

 

My best friend sent me this picture of a balloon that met its ignoble end in the limbs of this tree along the trail she walks in her neighborhood. The shiny pink Mylar is in stark contrast to the dormant and barren limbs. Here it hangs, for who knows how long?

Anytime I see a balloon in such a dire situation, I can’t help but wonder where the story started. Was it a child’s birthday party, with cake and games and presents? Could it have been a gift to someone sick in the hospital, and upon the return home the balloon escaped an open car door? How far away did its story begin? Blocks? Across the neighborhood? Across town? Miles away?

Human beings all have a back story. We would do well to consider the journey that brought a person to the moment when we meet them and know them. They have also traveled far, and some have had a path that was most difficult. The wind that pushed them along in life was seldom a gentle breeze. They have known storm after storm. Some do not have a story that begins with a party, but with a struggle. Some spend most of their life bouncing along in a breeze while others land in the trees pretty early in life.

The scriptures tell us that, ”The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” As varied as our pasts may be, no matter how different our journeys, no matter whether we arrived to this moment on a gentle breeze or in a howling wind, we belong. We belong to each other. We belong to God.

Peace.