Threads

(Source)

 Not one of us is completely alone. Not ever. There’s this invisible thread that ties us all together in one way or another, and it’s unbreakable. It might fray, but it’s always there. I see strands of it in my life connected to a painter in Australia, a gardener/worshiper in Kansas City, a writer in West Texas, a social worker in Houston, an art teacher in Western China, a medical student in Honduras, a mom-to-be in Iowa, a media specialist in my city, a First Sergeant in Atlanta, a quilter in an adjacent city, numerous teachers in the Pee Dee of South Carolina, an art therapist in Louisville, an Army Chaplain in Utah, a translator in Guatemala, an internet security specialist in Jersey, a homeschool family in Southern China, a teacher and mom-to-be in my city, a barista in Charlotte, a web developer in Northeastern Georgia, a Harvard student in Ohio – these among so many others.  This thread, though it may take on different forms and colors with each connection, links every one of us together, makes us responsible for one another, helps us come alive. Even when relationships shift and change and even end, the tie is still there.

Even more beautiful is the thread that takes on three strands – the Thread that binds brothers and sisters together as one. This Thread bound us together before the beginning of time and will keep us bound until time is no more.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee. 

–John Donne