“How are we to live together?” I am wondering this daily. At the larger, societal level, it can feel too big for me to wrap my arms around this one. It can feel beyond what I can hold. Too big. Too troublesome. Too much effort. Too little return.

And so, I make it very small. Small enough that I can have an impact. Small enough that I can see movement. Small enough that I can accurately and rightfully claim what is mine to do, and then try to do it as best as I can.

I go inside my own life. I go to living with young adults who are in some ways very, very different than me. They look different. They smell different. They move differently through the world. They want different things than I do. They expect differently. They love differently. They eat differently. They relate differently. And yet, we are the same. They are my people; the ones I am travelling with. Because of this, I try. I try to understand. I try to be better than I have been. I try to not ridicule or demonize their ways. I try to bridge and ride and respect the differences.

Could we not bring this level of “smallness” into the living of our daily lives? Could we not recognize that we are all travelling together? That we are all each other’s people? It is so very easy and natural and human to focus on what is different. It is a survival mechanism. Different could mean danger. Could. 

To balance my  tendencies to experience differences as bad or threatening, I come back to two teachings:”Say ‘yes’ to whatever shows up” and “Everything is allowed.” Nothing denied. Nothing banished. Neither approach to living equals condoning bad behavior or agreeing to the wrong thing. Instead, these teachings serve as a remedy for what ails us. As a softening into the truth of what is before us, whether we want it or not. And as an attempt to align with perhaps the most powerful thinking we could ever hold regarding others;all life, no matter what form it takes, has a “right” to be here. Beyond how we feel about it and beyond how it chooses to be, think, move, act, speak or live.