A Time to Be Born, A Time to Die

each time i write a blog post i end it with the english rendering, "shalom," of a hebrew word.  this word has so many meanings and encompasses much of what we humans work toward and need.  shalom is that which we seek and only find when we realize that we cannot control anything beyond ourselves.  shalom is peace.  shalom is unity.  shalom is wholeness.  shalom is oneness with the universe.  shalom is the interconnectedness of everything that is.  shalom is hello.  shalom is goodbye.  shalom is wellness.

how do we find the wholeness, the unity, the "oneness," the health that is included in these six letters?  this is the quest on which many of us find ourselves.  perhaps shalom comes when we let go of the self that clings and craves.  this monumental task may take a lifetime.  as i look around me, i see a room filled with beautiful things collected over many years.  i ask myself how important are these things to me.  they represent so much of my history, and it will be difficult to let them go when the time comes.  

our lives are filled with the desire to cling to the things we hold dear.  we don't want to think of the time when those we love will be gone, or when we ourselves will end this present life, or when we must surrender much of what we have accumulated because we can no longer care for it.  but these things are not who or what we are.  they are a part of us and we are one with them, just as the memories that they evoke are a part of us.

the same is true of what we call the "self."  it is not who or what we are.  shalom means sensing that all-that-is is part of the wholeness of being.  everything is connected, and each of the parts of "everything" is necessary to the whole without being that whole itself.  i am my own mother, my father, my sister, my brother, my friend, just as each person we meet and each person we hold dear is all of those things.  we are one, and yet "i" am not one, but a part of "one."

to achieve shalom, i must learn to be at one with all that is.  the more i realize that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, the more i live in shalom, in wholeness.  so this day i wish "shalom" to each one of us who is a part of the whole.  may we each see how we are connected.  may we sense the vibrations of the seeming inanimate objects that we encounter as part of the connection that unifies the whole.  may we see that our memories are shared memories of all that is, all that has gone before, and all that will be.  may we accept the continuity of life that flows from the past and into the future and know that we are a part of that continuum.  shalom.