To the Editor:
I have listened to sermons on gratitude carrying a significant spiritual, historical and scientific view. It is thankfulness to whom we are as an interrelatedness with all that exists.
We are unique beings possessing qualities, talents and gifts yet insignificant in the grand picture of all the cosmic realities that are real and true.
Our lives, I believe, only can become meaningful to ourselves and to others when one brings their uniqueness not for personal gain but only in our relationships with all other things, living and nonliving, human and nonhuman. In fact, I believe one cannot exist in an unrelated life, like it or not, consciously or unconsciously.
Therefore, each and every day I must take time to remember and give pause to gratitude for who I am, for family and friends. A deep thankfulness goes out to my wife, children, grandchildren, other family members, ancestors, friends and neighbors, and even to those whom I dislike or consider enemies. This gratitude leads me to an understanding that everything is a part of creation; all are living systems dependent upon one another.
One cannot separate our living selves in this global world called “earth” that our very existence depends upon.
We must and drastically need to look upon earth as our “mother” from which all things have come into existence, beginning with our evolutionary journey starting from the Big Bang intertwined with divine interrelated of creation. There is understanding that the oxygen we breathe in our atmosphere is an interrelated living part of our lives. That the water we must have is not only from which we are interrelatedly part of existence.
Also, the very soil and ground upon which we stand is alive with creatures and is an interrelated part of who we are. All is one and greater than one. It is now that we must honestly view the physical destruction we are doing to our “home” and see the daily wastefulness us humans, above all other species, create.
Richard Rill
Crystal Lake
