Last week, Thurs, I had knee surgery. About six people were directly involved in my surgery that day; that means they played a direct role in my life, but about six billion were indirectly involved to make it all happen that day.
Now what do I mean by that? Let me explain. Early in the morning, I took a shower in the water that was supplied by the city of coral springs. I was thinking of the thousands of people who were involved in the harnessing, production, purification and channeling of that water supply to my house at that particular address. The people who manufactured the pipes that made that water flow safe. The companies that made the water purification chemicals. The people who made the hot water tank in my house; the technicians who installed it. When I think like that, the number of people involved in giving me a hot shower that morning, multiplies by thousands.
Remember, the the day has barely started, and millions are still going to be involved.
I was wearing a shirt that morning which was made in Bangladesh. The label said: Made in B; 100% cotton.” Usually nobody pays attention to these things; but I do, and it has a lot to do with the peace and joy I feel in life.
I thought of the thousands of people who were involved in making that shirt, starting with the poor villagers who produced the cotton, a grandmother who might have woven that cotton in into threads in a small factory in a remote village; Her emotions of fear, and hope or hopelessness have been woven into the threads that made my shirt which is now covering my body. I think of the people who made the machine that stitched my shirt together; the person who folded it, packed it, sealed and placed it on a truck to be exported to the United Sates. The fears, cares and energies of of all those people are part of the fabric I am wearing that day.
Then I think of the train that transported it to the nearest Airport in Bangladesh and off to a cargo plain bound for Arkansas, the headquarters of Walmart. And from there, it is unloaded, coded and re-routed into a truck that goes a 1000 miles to a Walmart in Coral Springs. Think of the thousands of employees whose joint effort made that shirt appear on a rack, and I pick it up, pay for it with a credit card, issued by a bank that has another ten thousand employees, who make sure that Walmart is paid on my behalf. You see the endless connections with people that make it all possible.
The day has barely begun, and I have not gotten to the Surgery Center yet; My wife drives me there in a car that has 2200 different parts. Those 2200 parts of the car have been touched by the energy, imagination, and efforts of another million people, not here, but somewhere in Japan.
Then there is the girl at the front desk, who registers me on a Dell Computer with 5000 parts, that was made in China..and now another billion Chinese people are getting involved in my life that day.
Then I am taken into the prep room, and I am surrounded by half a dozen people, nurses, anesthesiologist, my doctor, recovery room personnel. I am thinking of all the people who are connected to them by extension, their families, friends, the communities they belong to etc. Then they put me under, using this sedation medication that was manufactured in a medical lab in Nebraska, shipped via Fex Ex planes and a Fed Ex driver brings it to the facility. An unknown Fed Ex driver and all the people in his life have now gotten involved in my life.
And then there is this million dollar medical equipment with a zillion parts, lights, camera and laser beams that will make three holes on my knee, will probe the damaged area, and this doctor whom I have seen only twice in my entire life, will scrape it, repair it and and make it all right.
That morning, I was held tenderly and directly in the hands of six human beings, but I was indirectly supported and lovingly sustained by the energy of six billion people. That is how I experience God through my connectedness to people who are created in the image and likeness of God.
And the funny thing is that I was completely unconscious, lying down helplessly, totally at the mercy of a group of strangers. But the reality is that they are not strangers; they are strangers only in a superficial sense. In a deeper sense, on the level of the soul, they are my brothers and sisters, sharing my same humanity, and I know that they will never do anything to hurt me, but try their best to help.
This is just one scenario of a single human interaction. This happens in all of our lives, every day. You don't have to go into surgery to experience it. Where ever there is a human interaction or transaction, this scenario of connectedness and interdependence plays out all the time.
Even if you stay home all day and does not directly come into contact with any one, you are still connected to millions, through the clothes on your body, the TV you watch, the cell phone you use, the food you eat, etc. etc.
And that is my greatest argument for peace. We don't have peace in the world, because we think we are strangers to each other; that one person or one nation has nothing to do with the other; that we are in competition with each other; that other people are our enemies; that other religions are inferior to ours; that enemies need to be destroyed etc. etc.
That kind of separatist thinking will never bring peace in the world. That is why Mother Teresa who won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 19 said it so powerfully: “If we have no peace, it is because, we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
So the way of peace is primarily, an inner process, a changing of our consciousness from the lowest level, which is the level of division, disunity and exclusion to the highest level, of inclusion, unity and wholeness.
So, the ultimate prescription for peace is AWARENESS. Awareness of our interconnection and interdependence!
No comments:
Post a Comment