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Another Day in the Country

Putting the soup pot on

Contributing writer

For those of us in the north, with a cold wind blowing, our challenge is to dream warm thoughts, thaw out our hopes and open ourselves to possibility. It’s as simple as planting tulip bulbs, only on a spiritual level. With every bulb I planted in November, there was hope. With every clump of peonies divided, there was the desire for something lovely to bless our lives. So it is with our good intentions. We plant them deep and wait expectantly for fulfillment (blooms).

During these cold winter days, I’ve set myself the task of digitizing family photos. Talk about reviewing your life! I don’t really understand how a machine can copy a photo and put it on a tiny disc, to be resurrected any time you want to see it. I don’t understand it, but I believe it and I use it. Remember the beginnings of computer technology? “A computer is only as good as the information you put in it,” was the mantra. “Garbage in. Garbage out.” Like the mind. Like the neighborhood. Like the town. Like the country. Like the world.

Computer technology has transformed us into an instant information global community. We are constantly, immediately, connected to almost anyone, everywhere. Scientists, biologists, humanitarians, have all been telling us we’re connected for a very long time — even before computers. However, it was a little hard for Grandpa to comprehend as he sat in his chair reading National Geographic in Ramona. Even though he had immigrated from Germany, that other world was very far away.

Now with wireless internet and cell phones, we see this connectedness instantly right in our hand. We can be standing in Kansas and talk to a friend in China. We can put something on a blog in Alaska and have it affect someone in Arizona. It’s a huge responsibility to be connected.

Maybe, people are beginning to get it. Connectedness means that absolutely everything — what we do or don’t do, what we say, how we think or don’t think, what we choose, what we discard — affects every other living thing. This planet is alive. We are alive. We share this space, these nutrients, this air, this life with every other living thing. Isn’t it strange how in our isolation, our ignorance, we humans began to think WE were all that mattered? Now we know! We’re all connected!

The words I write, sitting at my desk in Ramona, on just another day in the country, connect you and me and those words create a world — even for five minutes. Every word in the Marion Record makes a difference to someone. We write, you read, you talk, you think, you choose, you do, and our words influence and change things. Your words do the same.

My sister likes to say that we are all a part of a universal experiment, “The world is like a soup pot,” she says, “and we all are an ingredient in the soup.” When the soup is dished into our bowl, we rarely realize that this is what we created. The soup can be a metaphor for our family, our town. The soup is the USA, the great melting pot. “The soup is the world,” Jessica continues, “and right now the world soup is hot and it’s sour — it isn’t tasty.” Jess is so good at analogies.

This soup we’re ingesting is a result of everyone’s choices, which includes the choices we’ve made in Marion, Hillsboro, Lincolnville, and even Ramona. “If we’re angry, it’s like hot peppers in the soup. We’re frustrated? Into the pot it goes.” The soup is life, our sustenance, our nourishment — we all eat it, no matter what the mix, whether we like it or not.

If we want something different, changing your congressman isn’t going to do it. They are just seasoning in the soup as you are — maybe they can stir the pot, but the ingredients have to change — that’s us! If each one of us agrees to put good organic loving things into the world, this soup is going to improve. It’s a big pot, a big world, and it won’t happen overnight but if each of us adds the milk of human kindness, it’s bound to enhance the flavor.

Last modified Jan. 12, 2011

 

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