Image by WikimediaImages from Pixabay
On Easter Saturday, my daily readings took me to a favourite author, Madeline L’Engle. In her novel, Dragons in the Waters, she declares, “We believe that everything is dependent on everything else, that the Power behind the stars has not made anything to be separate from everything else.”
In my words, all of Creation is one. I, too, believe with my entire being in this interdependency. I call this creating power “God, Creator.” St. Paul says, “[In the body of Christ,] …if one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.” (1Cor 12:26) Madeline L’Engle calls this “the butterfly effect.” When a butterfly flutters its wings on a weed stalk, something is affected somewhere else in the world.
Our First Nations people understand this principle as part of their spirituality. Richard Wagamese, in his meditation book, Embers, speaks of “All my relations.” Concerning these “relations,” he says: “We all belong to each other…every person, every rock, every mineral, every blade of grass, every creature. We live because everything else does. If humanity could choose collectively to live that teaching, the energy of our change of consciousness would heal each of us – and heal the planet.”
I believe that when, as a human species, we finally learn to live the belief that we are all connected, all responsible for each other’s welfare, all sharing from the same abundance, there will be peace. In the meantime, we are called to carry the light of God’s love, the message of our interdependency. Love God, our Creator, and love our neighbours as ourselves. Only then can the weeping, the war, the killing, end.
As Easter dawns again today, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Like many others in his time and today, I pray for the dawn of this new life. I write of the love that is needed. I do my best to live the belief that we are all connected.
May our every thought and action carry the message – when one person, one creature, one part of our planet hurts, we all hurt. Let us work towards the day when our total world is honoured, and we can all rejoice. Resurrection has happened and can happen again.