Two birds fly past.
That are needed somewhere.
—Robert Bly—
Our lives touch the lives of thousands of other people in ever widening circles. Every act of ours has a public dimension, even something as private as sharpening a pencil or filling a teakettle.We all are needed by everyone, and our chosen lives become a necessary part of a larger pattern woven by all other lives.
Even by becoming a recluse or hermit, we don’t leave the pattern. We may change it, so that others may direct their lives in a different way with respect to our own.
But this is true of all choices. And we don’t see the pattern as a whole; it’s too complex, too vast for us to grasp. About the best we can hope for is the optimistic detachment that lets us see that those birds are needed. The squirrels in our attic, the ants at the picnic, the angry driver honking behind us, are all needed. What can we learn from them? Today I’ll rejoice in my connectedness.