I was on a live Zoom call with Dr. Zach Bush recently, and he said some cool things about nature and humanity.
He talked about the beauty of humanity, even as imperfect and damaged as we seem right now, and how deeply connected we are to nature.
Down to our cells. He said, "She is shaping us."
We are in relationship with nature at the deepest level of our being.
I loved that.
He also talked about the Earth having her say. Earthquakes. Volcanoes. Fires. Enormous disruptions that make it impossible not to pay attention. The disruption exposes what has been hidden. It brings the darkness into the light. And in responding to it, we adapt. We change. We evolve.
And the way I heard it was:
Sometimes disruption is a demand to be seen.
I know something about that. And I'm sure you do too.
Cancer created an enormous disruption in my body and my life. And whether or not I'll ever know why it happened, it certainly made me pay attention.
It led me to see my body. My husband. My family. My friends. My life.
Being alive.
And now, looking around at humanity, I wonder if we're being asked to pay attention too.
I see neighbors fighting over six inches of land. People scamming people for money, credit cards, personal information. Neighborhoods where we lock our doors because we don't trust who's outside them. Shootings becoming normal. Cancer showing up in generation after generation. Stress and sleepless nights becoming everyday conversation.
Sometimes I want to put my hands around the universe and shake it a little.
What are we doing?
We fight. We argue. We lie. We manipulate. We defend. We hurt each other. We spend an unbelievable amount of energy proving that we're right and someone else is wrong.
Meanwhile, we're all dying. I know. Very uplifting. But we are.
From the moment we're born, we start dying. Sometimes it takes a good hundred-plus years to accomplish the whole dying thing, but every day we're getting a little closer.
This Friday is already disappearing as I write this.
So… How do we want to live as we die?
Because if we're all here for this ridiculously short amount of time, why are we making it so hard on each other? And if disruption is nature's way of getting our attention, what happens if we don't get the message?
Does it just get louder?
Does nature eventually run out of earthquakes and start speaking a language we can't ignore?
And that's when I started imagining God coming in to shake us up.
Not biblical God. More like slightly exasperated parent God who has finally heard so many prayers that even God is triggered, and reaches for the giant microphone hidden somewhere between the moon and the galaxy.
Attention, humans. This is God speaking. Yes. THE God.
Can everyone stop for one second? I'm a little disappointed with what I'm seeing down there.
I gave you life. That was my gift to you. What you do with it is up to you.
BUT…I had higher hopes. You have no idea how much fun you could be having in that playground.
I gave you oceans. Music. Dogs. Sex. Grapes. Sunsets… Pasta!
I gave you other people. That was a big one. And somehow you've turned the whole thing into an argument about who's right.
Humans.
You're spending an awful lot of your very short time judging people whose lives you've never lived.
Truth? You don't know what it feels like to be anyone but you. Maybe remembering that would help.
Also, I left you clues.
HumanKIND. It's literally in the word.
I thought that one was fairly obvious. Apparently not.
And human nature? Also not an accident. You were never separate from nature. Or from each other. You keep waiting for nature to tell you something.
It is. You're part of it.
How did humankind become unkind? When did humanity stop feeling like family?
Anyway, I love you just the same. Just the same.
And then there's a click. A rumble. A glitch in the universe, as if God has just left the premises.
And I'm left thinking about it all.
I will never completely know what it feels like to be you, and you will never completely know what it feels like to be me.
So why are we all so damn certain about each other?
Why you did what you did. What you meant. What you should have done. What you should be feeling by now.
And then I imagine one more little glitch in humanity.
For one moment, together, we remember there is an entire world happening inside every person that we cannot see.
Someone who was about to send a horrible text puts down their phone.
Someone lets a car merge.
Someone calls their mother and says, "I'm sorry."
Someone chooses not to win the argument.
Nothing enormous happens. Humanity doesn't suddenly become enlightened.
We're still us. Just a tiny bit more connected.
Maybe that's the beauty Dr. Bush was talking about. Underneath all the fighting and fear and six-inch property lines, there is still something in us that remembers we belong to each other.
Maybe she is shaping us after all... if we stay curious.
How much of my temporary life do I want to spend proving I'm right?
How much do I want to spend judging? Defending? Fighting?
How much do I want to spend loving? Listening? Enjoying? Wondering?
And then…Ahhhhhh.
Aha. I get it, God.
That's our gift. We get to choose.
God only knows... how much time we get and how many choices we have left to make.
But I know... we're running out of Fridays.
And this is the perfect Friday to lean a little more into the KIND in humanKind.
How do you want to spend this Friday?
Love,
Jenn