We Are One

Many years ago a wise, young office friend named Mark told me about a fellow choir member at his progressive Baptist church on the south side of downtown Houston. I suppose our conversation had been about faith and courage and triumph of the spirit. Mark’s friend at church had been battling cancer and her condition had deteriorated to a prognosis of “terminal”.

What remains clear to me after all these years is her reply when Mark asked her one night at choir practice how she was doing. “Oh, I’m good. My body’s not doing so well, but I’m good.” I may not have the words exact, but my heart understands the spirit of triumph given voice in a conversation that was in truth only hearsay to me.

I was reminded of this incident—now, just one year shy of a quarter century—as I read this morning from Wayne Teasdale’s collection of meditations, [The Mystic Hours]. “The body trembles, the tongue falters, the mind is weary. Forsaking them all, I pursue my purpose happily.”—Ashtavakra Gita. Teasdale adds, “As Hindu mysticism teaches, the true self is not the body nor the speech nor even the ordinary mind, but the observer of all three and the actor in us. The body wears out, speech fails, and the mind forgets, but the self is eternal.”

We just can't predict when and how even the simplest, most unintentional conversation marks us forever with its power for good, teaching us and connecting us, reminding us that we are one. And so it is.