It is in the shelter of each other that people live. -Irish Proverb

We are on a pendulum that swings to extremes. On one end, we believe we don’t need anyone, so we detach and swing so far the other way that we convince ourselves we are no longer needed.

Death takes this an an invitation. How quickly it moves depends on whether we choose to take our last breath, or spend the rest of our lives gasping for air (forgetting how to inhale and exhale in the rhythmic way that makes us more similar than different).

We believe that we are flying, soaring, until we crash into each other, like spheres on Newton’s cradle. Our actions produce equal and opposite reactions.

(When our feet left the ground, because we wanted to float freely, we forgot what it meant to be grounded — planted; so we wilted and stole the life from the soil that feeds everyone else.)

We dig ourselves into holes, believing lies instead of truths — creating gravesites — while burying the people beside us with the earth that once filled the holes we’re trapped in.

We want to know freedom, but true independence itself requires dependence. The right kind; go deep, go in. (In deep: the first 5 letters belonging to independence are an invitation.) Stop standing outside closed doors with regrets and self-pity that keep it locked. Become part of what you belong to, then notice how easily everything else opens.

But we believe deceptions when we fail to accept the invitation. Deceptions make everything unfamiliar, so brothers and sisters become enemies. Racism allows us to think that the hungry are undeserving, or if they are full it’s because they’ve stolen. But stealing involves taking what doesn’t belong to you. How can that be when we’re supposed to belong to each other?

Stop building on someone else’s destruction: rubble can only hold rubble.

When you let go of what held you for too long (and take hold of someone else instead of something that takes too much from everyone) Freedom finds you, and us.