Oneness

Not sure how I can put this in terms that will do justice to the really awesome deep thoughts I am having today. But here goes.

I was driving in to the office this morning, my commute should normally take around 30 minutes, less if it is in the middle of the night and there is zero traffic, more in the morning as every other Joe drives in beside me, and I was thinking about all of the cars around me. I see many of these cars day after day. I see the people in them sometimes too: the cute blond girl who is always on the cell phone while she is still putting on her mascara, the angry guy driving his work van and chain smoking – throwing red hot cherry after cherry from the cracked window. I see the soccer mom with the stickers on the rear window, proudly displaying the names and jersey numbers of her three kids.

All of that to say this: who are these people. We are joined together somehow, we are driving the same roads, living in the same city, moving in the same direction day after day. Do they have other impact on my life? Maybe the soccer mom knows my wife somehow? Maybe the angry guy in the van will help me on the side of the road one day? Who knows.

I was in San Diego years ago and I met a family that lived in the same small town where I had grown up. They lived just blocks from my parents and I had never met them back home. But in this seemingly random location, a fast food place near the base, they notice my shirt and ask if I was from Oklahoma.

I tell them I am from a little town they have never heard of, they laugh that I wont know where they are from either and then in the conversation we learn that we live blocks from each other. I grew up one street away and never knew them; but I meet them 1100 miles from where I could have met them in my own backyard.

Connected. Timing. Oneness.

Distance closes and then you become familiar with people and places you didn’t ever think you would happen across.

I have a friend that I have known for almost five years now. We could have met a long time ago, as we had many mutual friends and acquaintances but somehow the timing just never fell in to place. Once we finally met it was not through any of the people we knew in common, it was work related and then we slowly figured out just how many people we knew together.

I like that. Kind of like we are all just threads on a tapestry. Sometimes those threads come close to other threads, combine for new colors and patterns and then move away again, to become yet more patterns and colors. Or maybe more like we are all leaves on the same tree. We touch when the wind blows, we grow close to some leaves, further away from others. But, we are still on the same tree.