[todaysdate]
By Kimberly Burnham
The mother of an Israeli soldier stands near the check point watching as other Israeli soldiers search the Palestinians at the crossing. Her son is not here. He is at another check point but he knows she is here watching. He is aware of why she rises each morning and walks to this check point. He is a better man because he knows she wants him to treat all people with dignity and respect, not for them but for him. Terrorizing another human being changes us. She doesn’t want him destroyed by actions done out of hate or fear. She wants him inspired by compassion and consciousness of the affect of one’s actions.
At the height of the Vietnam War, as a 12-year0old child I lived with my family in Brussels, Belgium. One day at the Grand Place in downtown Brussels, someone spit on me. For them I represented all that was bad about America. I barely even knew where Vietnam was and clearly had no responsibility for the fighting there. But still the hate spewed out and hit me.
From the field of energy medicine and quantum physics comes the idea that we are all connected. We are each a part of a community. We might think of that community as our spouse, our family, our religious or cultural community, a reading group, a town, a state, a country, or the world. As human beings we share 96 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees. Think of how much more similar we are to every other human being in the world. We are all connected. What we do individually and as a community affects each of us.
