"We are not the web of life, we are but a thread of it..."

As I sit here in the MSU Redhawk Nest, I listen to the life of the campus (commuters mostly in this case), and think about the beginnings that are all around.  For some, the campus is new and unfamiliar.  New students launching an entirely different experience of their life journey, blazing a whole new path.  For others, they are returning, perhaps to their final year of this college experience. But, whether we are new here, or find these spaces all too familiar, we share a common bond of life, love, fear, joy, pain, expectation...of being a community bound by scholarship, but held together by the connectedness of human beings.

It is most important that we remember as we live and grow in community these words based on a quote attributed to Chief Seattle:  "We are not the web of life, we are but a thread of it.  What we do to the web, we do to ourselves.  All things are bound together.  All things connect."

There is a reason these words appear on my contact card (aka. business card).  

When we forget that we are all children of God, 

when we forget that God loves everyone (and I mean everyone), 

when we forget that we are all, everyone of us, responsible for the other, 

when we forget that we cannot be full when others are hungry, 

when we forget that we are all responsible for what happens to each other 
and all of creation, 

then we ourselves are lost.  

As a graduate student, chaplain, seminarian, homeowner...  the demands on time and space can seem overwhelming, as I believe it to feel for many students, staff and faculty on campus. But I have found that the exchange of energy in the universe is constant, and that in giving, we really do receive.  Deepak Chopra says “The universe operates through dynamic exchange…giving and receiving are different aspects of the flow of energy in the universe. And in our willingness to give that which we seek, we keep the abundance of the universe circulating in our lives.” 

So, welcome back to all the possibilities that await you, and to another day to live into all you can be as a child of God, in whatever way you experience that divine presence.

Peace,

Chaplain Diana