I spent last night watching the students of the local ballroom dancing school perform in the town square in a small central Florida town. There was free ice cream, a bounce house for the kids, even a couple baby tigers from the local animal preserve. Maybe a couple hundred people, lots of young families, lots of old folks—just gathering for some good ‘ol American fun.
I stood watching the patrons and participants, imagining how different their lives are from mine. Me, a girl from a middle class family in Massachusetts, raising my family in a middle class suburb just outside Atlanta. I sensed a lot of these people never left their hometown. They lived a simpler life it seemed.
How often do we observe the people around us and identify all the ways in which we’re different. Why is that? For me to be plopped in this little town center I felt like I was in a different world, a different time. But if I stepped back and looked at the bigger picture, me and all of those people as a snapshot compared to the rest of the world, well, we aren’t so different from one another. Parents raising families, younger generations caring for the aging, gathering to celebrate Independence Day in this great country.
Life changes so quickly (or persistently) and sometimes it’s not so easy to figure out our place in this world. So we look at the people around us to try to measure against some barometer. It’s like we use the process of elimination to figure out what we’re not by looking at the ways in which we’re different from the people around us. This can reveal our core values, showing us what we want to be/have/do with our lives, or showing us what we don’t want to emulate.
The exercise that I’m focusing on these days, however, is to find the ways in which I am similar to the people, not only in my own community, but in the world at large. Our paths can be drastically different, the life that we’re born in to can be worlds apart. My situation is simpler than so many. I don’t feel that my challenges are really any harder than anyone else’s. I realize I am fortunate, so fortunate. I always reflect around the 4th of July holiday what it means to be born a white person in America with a wealth of opportunities available to me. But put all that aside—we are one human race sharing a finite time on this planet. I want to connect with people by finding whatever I can that makes us the same—sharing in those life experiences that we all have.
I’m a woman. I’m a mother. I’m a partner, a daughter, a sister. I believe in freedom. I value creative expression and following a spiritual path. I admire hard work. I know that laughter heals and binds people together. I feel that if we all speak, listen, and act from the heart then the time we’re sharing right now is going to be better.
Deep down in the core we’re all the same. If we can peel back all the layers that keep us apart--all those worldly things that make our lives look so vastly different--imagine how peaceful the world would be.
Happy Birthday America~
No comments:
Post a Comment