Connectedness

Connectedness, to me, starts with what Anton Lavoisier once said about chemical reactions; "Matter is neither created nor destroyed." And as I quote from a Web page rather than going to the library and digging out the quotation myself, "Anaxagoras, circa 450 B.C. said: 'Wrongly do the Greeks suppose that aught begins or ceases to be; for nothing comes into being or is destroyed; but all is an aggregation or secretion of pre-existing things; so that all becoming might more correctly be called becoming mixed, and all corruption, becoming separate.' "

"All becoming might be called becoming mixed." Everything that exists was there since the creation, it just comes apart ("corruption") and comes together again ("creation"). All this is to say that if this is true, we have all been around since the beginning of time in one form or another, so at least that should engender respect for everything and each other as we and everything else are all made of the same stuff made at the same time.

We are connected to each other and with everything. (You and I and chimpanzees and daisies share the same genetic material and even William Blake's "fearful symmetry.")

What is also true is that eternity is not something to look forward to; we are in eternity right now. One time I heard someone postulate something concerning physics, that even the mere observation of something changes it. After years, I finally figured out how the thing is changed: it can never not have been looked at. Information was formed about it that can never be erased. Even to the end of time, should every bit of matter and energy cease to be and Creation return to a void (Hebrews and Taoists anciently agree that the world was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep), the fact that you and I and everyone and everything else existed cannot be erased, and even the Creator himself cannot change that.

We are in eternity, and that unchangeably connects us to all that came before and all that will come after. We have always been here and always will be.

If all people in this world could see this interconnection, there would be far less anger and starvation, because we would see that it is our obligation to take care of the planet and all that is in it, and we would take of our excess and feed the hungry, we would cherish our water and allow nothing to pollute it, we would realize that air is our very life and would keep it clean. Those holding the Hebrew and Christian scriptures to be truth would realize that God's commandment to "be fruitful and multiply" has been fulfilled and that we can ease off, and that his charge to Adam to take care of the garden was a responsibility and not a license to use and abuse.

Humans can live on far less than they consume; we even have programmed into our bodies the capability of storing sustenance for lean times. We have been given the capacity to change the world; we can figure out things like how to mix copper and tin to produce bronze, and we can figure out how to make penicillin. We can use our intelligence to create a healthier planet and better societies.

Yet we also have the idea that if a little is good, a lot is better, and greed runs rampant. We treat each other cruelly, and no one can trust in the love of another but is forced to look out for himself. We forget that we are connected and that taking care of this planet is a sacred trust.

The miracle of life

Somebody I know said: "I guess its just scary and upsetting to think that there's no real "me" in here and i'm just a bunch of chemicals...."

My reply: THAT is the miracle of life! I have seen a human body reduced to only its solid parts; it is truly just a bunch of dry chemicals, dust. But put that dust together with 2 parts hydrogen and 1 part oxygen, and you will get. . . mud. Yet there you are, in your dust mixed with water, in that bunch of chemicals, alive as alive can be. There is a real you in there, one that is not static but in flux, always changing, always growing, always learning. Another part of that miracle is that if you lost your legs, lost your arms, lost other parts of that collection of chemicals, you would still be you! So you are the bunch of chemicals, yet you are more than that and you are other than that.