Monday, April 4, 2011

C is for Connection

Despite the barriers that tend to separate and isolate us, I like to believe that we are all in some way connected. I like to imagine that we are connected all across time and space so that when we are happy, our joy is celebrated all across time and space. That all kinds of spirits—gods and goddesses, angels and saints, the souls of the departed—laugh and clap their hands for us. I can just hear the heavens resounding with pure delight.


And I like to believe that when we grieve, we are connected with every soul that has ever grieved. That the spirits flock around us with tears in their eyes. I am certain that they know what it is like for us when our hearts are broken, when we are powerless, because they have suffered themselves. Among them is Mary at the foot of the cross...soldiers who were wrenched away from their young brides only to perish in the trenches...mothers who handed their infants over to strangers as they entered the death camps, or carried their babies in with them. They are the innocent victims of war, of disaster, of evil, of fate.They know what it feels like when sorrow and anger and fear become too much to bear because it happened to them.

Perhaps the spirits connect with us because someone was there for them and it helped a bit.

Maybe not. Perhaps they suffered alone, longing for someone to rescue them or to heal them or to comfort them but no one came. And it was so unbearable that they resolved right then and there that no human being should ever have to suffer alone again.

So they gather around us to celebrate our joy and to ease our suffering whether we believe in them or not. I like to believe in them but you may need to be embraced by a living, breathing human being in order to feel connected. You may need to see them, to hear them, to feel their touch in order to know that someone has come to help. That someone understands. That someone cares.


I like to believe that someone will be there for you…to celebrate your joy and to help bear your sorrow…as if her own weren’t enough.

Who will be there for you?

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience;
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
--Pierre Teilhard de Chardin--
jan
  

4 comments:

  1. Hi Jan .. good to be here .. my mother certainly a couple of years ago would be with others, now she's quiet - not sure that's a good sign .. but 'content' in her own self .. also not sure that's exactly true .. I'm there as often as I can (twice a day) & have arranged for other 'healing carer/therapists' to visit at those times that I'd like some 'freedom'. It's very difficult - she's just lost her 'bet friend' and ex Care Home Manager (which my mother owned) to bowel cancer - very suddenly .. - the last post before the A - Z included this 'story' .. I'm sure your posts and stories will help me. Have you found Doris blog yet - A Social Worker .. she's commented on my posts .. nice to be here and hope to see you around .. cheers Hilary

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  2. What a beautiful post! I've been blessed in my life to have wonderful family connections. Right now my online connections are super important to me, connecting with other writers esp. I never thought I would ever say that, but that's what blogging has done for me.

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  3. I like your thoughts about everything being connected. What a thoughtful and interesting letter "C" post. I hope you are right about this connection theory too, it sounds like a wonderful way for all of us to live. :)

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  4. Beautifully written post, and I enjoy the sentiment, even if not sure about it, nice to think they are there though, when we don't have physical connection. Thankfully, my partner will be there for me. I'm enjoying reading your blog.

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