Connected

In recent years, much has been written by authors from a variety of disciplines about how small our planet is, and how connected we are to each other. One explanation of this phenomenon is the “six degrees of separation” theory, which postulates that any two people on earth are, at most, six steps away from each other. This idea grew out of the work of Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy dating back to the 1920s. Karinthy suggested that any two individuals could be connected through, at most, five acquaintances. In other words, you know someone who knows someone, and so on.

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in Healing and Freeing the Spirit reunion at Ziontario. All week long, people seemed to be discovering connections to each other. Lest you assume this is merely because we are a small church, let me assure you that there is much more going on here than families connected by marriage. Let me share one example.

On Thursday, the reunion was blessed by a wonderful visit from Father Terry; a Roman Catholic Priest from Scarboro Missions. At first glance, one might have thought that we had little in common and no connection with this man. One would have been wrong. The person who introduced Father Terry to my wife remembered (incorrectly as it turned out) that both of them had once lived in the village of Ayr. Father Terry corrected this remembrance by saying that he had never lived there but his parents and his brother had lived in the area. He mentioned that his brother was a doctor at Cambridge Memorial Hospital. Joan asked what his brother’s name was, and discovered that this was the very surgeon who had operated on her father some years ago! The first level of connection had revealed itself.

As the day went on, the entire reunion soon discovered we had much more in common with Father Terry than that. We discovered we were connected by shared beliefs and ideas, a mutual connection with and respect for the work of J.W. Windland, and common experience with the human family. Most of all, we came to realize that we are strongly connected through the work of the Holy Spirit of God. By the time Father Terry left the grounds, we were also connected by bonds of love and friendship. It was a wonderful gift!

Each of us are connected. The world is, indeed, a small place. When Karinthy first proposed his theory, there were perhaps 1.5 billion people on the planet. There are many times that now, and yet the connections seem to be more intense than ever.

As we go about our day today, let us each try to remember that each person we meet is our sister or brother. Each one of us is a beloved member of the human family, and each one is God’s beloved. May we be blessed by that connection, and may we also be a blessing to others. Know you are blessed today.

Posted by Carman