Life is interdependence. Each of us came into the world attached to another human being by an umbilical cord. Right now, I’m inhaling what the bushes outside my house exhaled and they’ll take in that CO2 and give me more of what I need. On Thursdays, I drop my son and a girlfriend’s daughter off at tennis; then she picks up these kids and brings my son home to my husband while I drive her daughter and mine to choir on the other side of the island. Life works better together.And as much as we treasure our independence, the reality is that we ARE connected with others. Consciously or unconsciously, we share life, ocean and air with myriad beings and elements. Belatedly, we’re discovering how self-centered advancement has severe costs. 50-70% of the earth’s breathing oxygen is thanklessly produced by humble, microscopic ocean plankton, but these little buggers have declined by 40% since since the 1950s, due to warming oceans. Uh-oh.
The butterfly effect. In his1952 time travel short story, “A Sound of Thunder”, Ray Bradbury suggested that a single butterfly could change history. Meteorologist Edward Lorenz reapplied this poetic notion to explain his numerical computer model of how weather patterns could be altered by seemingly insignificant secondary conditions; one butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil could dramatically alter the trajectory of a Texas tornado. That butterfly didn’t even have to know about Texas.
In the relational realm too, our actions matter. How we treat the person in front of us, sets off a ripple affect. Generosity begets kindness and hope. Fear triggers self-protection and justifies cruelty. This works out in generational and global proportions. My kids talk about how we have a choice to “fill one another’s buckets” or “make holes in them.” When we lash out in criticism or impatience, suddenly it seems like we are trudging through peanut butter. But if we make the choice to laugh and say positive things, the environment imbues us with power to face the math or the dishes or the even the bills.
So what storms brew beyond on our horizon? Could they really be averted with a tiny exertion of goodwill? You bet. True, we might never know the one to one correlation but there’s some wisdom in the old adage: “what goes around comes around.” Or karma, or “bachi” as we say in Hawaii. Or as Jesus said, “You reap what you sow.” Interdependence isn’t just a defensive, superstitious thing to fear; it’s an opportunity for aggressive goodness, butterflies that we are, with no awareness of Texas. For my part, I want to make healing the earth part of my regular spiritual work, a way to flap my wings, so to speak; so a portion of all Life is Swell sales will be given to non-profits dedicated to ocean healing. How can you make today a celebration of interdependence?
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. (1 Corinthians 12)
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