If there was any doubt, we now irrefutably know that we are all interconnected, our lives globally and locally are intertwined, our capacity to thrive is undeniably linked with those whom we might never know, and what occurs for one is inevitably felt by another.
What is being revealed is that the world has been designed thus far inside out and upside down. And what is unfolding is revealing what some perhaps haven’t wanted to be true. Those who are in low-pay, precarious work are engaged in vital services – cashiers in supermarkets, food delivery people, uber drivers, hospital cleaners. If our interconnectedness is true, then how can we accept a world where everyone doesn’t have access to financial security in their jobs – whatever they may do – that each of us needs to thrive in dignity? Where, for example, getting unwell, as humans do, doesn’t mean eviction because you can’t pay the rent that month. Being sick doesn’t mean fear you can’t put food on the table. Simple choices about who we want to be could transform this context. A society where we all have what we need to thrive in dignity is eminently possible.
And so, while some of us may have the urge to turn inwards at this moment, we urge you to focus instead on looking out, reaching over, and offering up. To that end, we were uplifted this weekend by the words of Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her article titled: You were made for this. In it she offers: “Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach…It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing.” If you need light right now, we recommend the rest of her piece.
