Several years ago I attended a large concert. The week before I had been part of a class that friends from all over the country had traveled in for. When I was at this concert, I kept thinking I saw people I knew in the distance. Then I would stop myself when I remembered that each of the people I kept thinking I saw was on their way back home if not already there.
A similar phenomenon has happened to me regularly here in Anchorage. As a newcomer to the state, I only know a small percentage of people here. Yet, I find myself doing a double take to see that oh, no, that person is not the person I know. Of course not, I am thousands of miles from where that person calls home.
Instead of this being a case of mistaken identity, maybe it’s something much more beautiful. I can see them as a stranger of course, but I can also use this moment of recognition as a reminder that each person actually is a beloved, I just don’t know it yet. Maybe what I notice in them is not so much that they have something in common with someone I know, but that we have in common the most basic thing, that we are all human and that we are all divine. As Carl Sagan said, “we are all made of star stuff.”
It’s so obvious, and yet forgetting it is where the trouble comes from, when we forget that we are all made of the same stuff. Skin, muscles, bone, and organs. Dreams, feelings, memories, and passions.
At the most basic levels, most of us want the same things: food, shelter, safety, friendship. We want our loved ones to be happy, to have success, to be able to follow their dreams, and have a great life.
How does that translate into all the chaos we often see in the world? I believe it’s when we forget that we are the same stuff. When we use strategies that hurt others to meet our needs. When we default to prejudices and fear, making someone else a monster or ‘the bad guy/gal’. When we equate different with wrong.
We’ve all done it at some point and some find much more harmful ways to be separate than others.
As a spiritual student, what am I to do? Many of the spiritual teachers of over time have given the same advice: Pray, and then move your feet.
I take time in silence to release and forgive, to clear my own judgments and remember the truth of the oneness of all beings.
Then I ask: what am I being called to do in this situation? How I can I see the spark of divinity in another? What action can I take today that might uplift, support, provide basic needs, create connection?
My practice is to remember that we are all made of star stuff, we are all expressions of the divine. This means that person who looks familiar, is! They are one of my beloved siblings here on planet earth.
Won’t you join me in sharing that love?