“Nothing exists by itself alone. We all belong to each other; we cannot cut reality into pieces. My happiness is your happiness; my suffering is your suffering. We heal and transform together.” Thich Nhat Hanh
Consider the workings of the internet, a vehicle we use in our everyday communications and functions by which we connect with the outer world. Through this invisible network, my computer and telephone connects with other machines owned by people or organizations in order that I can send or receive information without the use of wires through an ether world. Even the least technologically savvy folks use it every day.
Some communications, like my garage door opener, or transponder, fastened to the car visor, sends a one-way message to my garage door receiver that tells the door to open. Other transponders, like those contained in computers, both send and receive messages.
The “Human Internet”
Let’s further consider that all human beings possess similar “internet connections” with all other human beings via a “human internet.” This internet capitalizes on using our heart as the transponder to send and receive messages/feelings between us and other humans. (And, perhaps, other living things.)
If my heart/transponder is truly in touch with my own self (or intra-net) and not callused over with the grime of hate and self-loathing, it is possible that I can project myself into the lives of others. As Jesus has said, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” meaning that I can actually become the other person and feel what he/she feels.
Great actors in movies or on stage regularly become the character they are portraying even to the point of actually feeling as though they are that character. Actress Sally Field says that she does not watch herself in any of her movies because of the emotional stress that she would endure.
Emanating from the heart, the act of love connects via the human internet with another person empowering one to become, even for a short period of time, the other, replete with the other’s emotions, joys, fears, and suffering. “I feel your pain,” becomes words of real meaning.
(This transaction, between and among others, is the opposite of projecting my own feelings onto another person and assuming that he/she will feel or act out how I would act out or feel. The act of projection exists only within the projecting individual.)
Personal Experiences of Connectivity
In my own experiences over the years, there have been several instances when I was transported into another person. For example:
- My college teammate/classmate as he endured racial discrimination.
- My kids’ and grandkids’ successes and failures in sporting activities.
Earlier in life, there have been occasions when I was connected to the cosmos almost as a floating spirit. Allow me to quote two passages from the book, “The Skinny Kid from Braidwood.”
Meditation after Supper
“We all have had magical moments when everything stands still and quiet. Times when it seems that the soul gently leaves the body and floats effortlessly. Times when you’re conscious only of the air, the soft breeze, and nature’s sounds. I don’t know when others experience these moments, but I remember the times when I first did. It’s easier to do when you are young, and your head is uncluttered with thoughts about jobs, family problems, and the future.
For me, the magic appeared at the Walker St. house after supper. The sun had just dipped over the horizon. It was neither day nor evening. It was summer in the cool of the evening, with its accompanying dampness, just beginning to be felt.
To stand quietly on the back porch of the house near the long-handled water pump and stare toward the east was the calmest I’ve ever felt. I could stand still for many minutes for almost an out-of-the body experience, thinking of nothing, in total sync with the environment. I was suspended in the center of the universe.
As I’m older, it has become much more difficult for me to replicate the magic moments…except when I picture myself at age seven standing alone after supper in the backyard of my house on Walker Street.”
Zen and a Paperboy
Early Sunday mornings in Braidwood are quiet except for the few cars travelling on route 66. We are now living on the East side of town, across the highway and over the railroad tracks, but my route today is over to Roundhouse Street and then crisscrossing over Main Street. The route includes papers to people whose names I have heard since early childhood. Kilpatrick, Hynd, McHugh, Trofimchuck, Mahler, Oswald, Girot, Grinchuck, Stonich, Bottino, Martinetti, Berta, Nielsen, Agamy, Nahas, Higgins, Adams, Jones, Rink, Carpenter, and Edmundson. No need to hurry while my town sleeps. I alone am awake.
Today is especially noteworthy because I had just graduated from St. Rose and will be going to high school in Joliet. I would rather be attending Reed-Custer, but Mom convinced me to “give Catholic High a try” even for a couple of years. But it will mean getting on a bus every morning for the hour-long, monotonous ride through Coal City, then Wilmington, and past Elwood.
We had rain the last two days and the early morning sun, coupled with the greening of trees, bushes, and grass, make my hometown fresh and new. The captured rainfall sits in ditches and puddles, adding to the freshness of the day. For me, summer is officially underway, with high school miles away in three months.
For the next several minutes, I am in a zone, aligned with all that matters; comforted in the silence; and enhanced by the familiar. Even as I peddle, time stands still and nothing else matters.
There are few Zen-like times in our early lives when crystalized moments can be recalled later without hesitation. The magic years between eight and fourteen are stages when a boy seeks reasons for his existence and questions the directions for his future. Between those years there are brief intervals when his young universe assures his connection to the world, moments when he is in communion with all that surrounds him.
Time slows while the glow that is you adds splendor to the commonplace, transforming it to a paradise. Braidwood and the boy are one. The sleeping residents are noble. Dawn is harmoniously, celestially shared.
Never again will these crystalized moments of serenity, solace, and solitude reoccur despite exotic travels and life’s experiences. But they are preserved in the recesses of memory and can be recalled with vivid accuracy, conjuring up specifics and feelings.
The same feeling of oneness with all, even after decades of living. And…all’s right with the world.
Braidwood Beginnings 