Earth and All Stars

each morning as i walk inside my home and meditate, i touch a variety of surfaces--various types of wood and fabric, the quartz of the kitchen countertop, the glass that covers the kitchen table, the metal on appliances.  i'm aware of the variety of sensations that each material causes on my fingertips or the side of my arm as i brush past the objects along my path.  it struck me that all these substances, though very different, are part of the stuff of that primordial explosion that brought the universe into being.  everything, including myself, is made of the dust of that "big bang" and eventually we and everything we see and touch will return to that same dust.

in this way, the universe and everything in it is related.  we and the stars are one living thing, a whole much greater than the sum of its parts.  this collection of particles--electrons, protons, neutrons--that i call "me" are the same bits of matter that form all that exists.  the differences between "me" and a piece of wood or sheet of metal are much less than our similarities.  if there is so little that separates "me" from an inanimate object, the differentiation between this "me" and billions of other "me's" is miniscule.  we are so much alike, all made of the same stardust that makes up the rest of the universe.  the villain and the saint, the emperor and the pauper, the arab, the jew and the gentile, the man and the woman--we're all the same.  circumstances and the choices we make in dealing with them cause us to go down divergent paths.  biology and the ways in which we are brought up--nature and nurture--cause us to look at life differently.  in the end we are part of one great sameness.

this being the case, we must relate to one another in ways that recognize that we are not individuals looking at everything outside us as some "other."  we and all that surrounds us make up the environment.  caring for the earth and every person is caring for ourselves.  the vastness of the universe is contained in each of us, and, as the psalmist says, we are "wonderfully made."

may we see the holiness of every object and every person.  because we are all made of the same stuff, may lovingkindness, compassion, and forgiveness flow from us to every living thing.  may we remember that we came from dust and will return to dust, part of the eternal cycle of the universe.  shalom.