Right here. Right Now...

Right here. Right now.

In my office nearly two decades ago, a blue-collar man and I were speaking about gratefulness. He stated, “Many times I think about how amazing it is that I landed in the time period and the place where I am now.” He continued, “Like we could’ve been born in a different country. We could’ve been born in Europe during World War II. But for some reason we landed in New Jersey. Born after that war. Now that’s lucky.”

I concurred. “I think about that a lot. Like what are the chances that you and I weren’t born in Haiti, in the 1950’s? We could’ve landed anywhere, anytime, any place. We could’ve been poorer. We could’ve been the wrong religion for the time period. Anything, could’ve been. Right?”

He acquiesced, “Yeah. It all still fascinates me.”

As this conversation had taken place all those years ago, I still think like this every day of my life. It brings me to a point, where I know that I must acknowledge what I have. What possibilities there are in the next few seconds, minutes, hours, perhaps days that someone else in the world is born. Right here. Right now, in what some of us would consider the wrong time, the wrong place, even what some of us would consider being born an unpopular nationality, religion, and so forth.

I ask myself, nearly everyday, ‘What are the chances? What are the chances we are born in that perfect place and time? Is it that, for some Divine intention that we are planted, whether by deep intimate spiritual prior request? Or perhaps by a journey intended to cleanse the world?’ Or, as I’ve had thoughts many times, ‘Why do I feel the way I feel, and react with compassion and deep-caring, when others don’t? Is it that, they have disregarded anyone else’s existence as important, other than their own?’ Or is it just the way humans have not evolved, when I sense we should have. Not just as a collective. Yet, individually, without fear.

I know we are all given gifts. Trust me, we all receive them. Are we acknowledging them? And if we aren’t, what happens then? My thinking is, that those gifts are lost. They are stolen from the world. I think that there is a heavy price to pay from each one of us, if we throw away those gifts we are afraid to share.---Jody-Lynn Reicher

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