We are all in the same situation

This column is six years old. I am absolutely sure because my youngest grandson is 6 and reminds me often that he has attained this loft age and its wisdom.

The world has changed since he was born. In some ways for the better and in some ways for the worse. The sentiment of this piece is even more important today.

I hope you enjoy this revisit. I did.

The waitress at the Hilltop in Skaneateles kept our breakfast coffee cups filled as Jackie Bays and I talked about cabbages and kings, books to read, how to retire with some sense of style, my continuing dance with Weight Watchers and the coming birth of my second grandchild.

We couldn’t help but talk about the civilized Japanese reaction to the indescribable aftermath of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear emergency that has befallen that country. We both agreed that Japanese culture defines the individual’s position in the world differently than ours.

The world view of the Japanese might be best compared with that of one Native American group that sees God as, and I’m using a metaphor to describe a metaphor since the Native Americans did not have mirrors before Europeans came, they see God as a shattered mirror with each animate and inanimate part of our world having a shard from that mirror.

Look into the shard of the other and what do you see? Yourself.  To find the divine, you must join the pieces together.

This is elegantly much like that expressed by many eastern cultures in the greeting, Namaste.

We have seen from our own media how the sense of family and community rise strong in the Japanese heart, how individuals reached out to help others, how devastated villages and towns  mobilized what few resources remained to help each other survive, how tender care for the elders, for children and even for pets is the rule.

No one looted, no insane anger as the speed of government response, measured, self help as one elderly woman said, “We are all in the same situation.”

We have wonderful citizens here, people who subscribe to the Golden Rule, our version of the shattered mirror, but we also have those whose rule is a bit different, something like “Do unto other before they do unto you” and while they may have a mirror image of themselves, that is all they see.

So it was earlier today as I drove joyously into the city to greet my newest grandchild, William Alexander Stevens and his parents. Somewhere on Genesee Street as it rises to meet Erie Boulevard, the driver of the car in front of me opened his car window and dumped his ash tray into the street.

I couldn’t help but think what he must see in his piece of the mirror, how he would react in desperate times. Maybe if he looked in his rear-view mirror he would have seen a reflection of sadness and concern about the world in which my grandson will live.

I can and will give little William gifts, my time and my love, but I would also give William a shard that allows him to see a world where he has dynamic links to the world around him, responsibilities, purpose and a part of that which is divine.

Namaste, little one…from the part of God that is in me, to the part of God that is in you.

Namaste!