We are all in this together

Nov 28th, 2011 10:36 AM UTC
By ONE Partners

Guest blogger Jack Gordon of Faith in Action DC reflects on an important lesson about life that he learned from his childhood.

In the late 1800s, Bahá’u’lláh, the prophet and founder of the Bahá’í faith, famously wrote: “The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.”

Years before I read this quote for the first time, I witnessed the concept in action in my very household through the hospitality that my parents extended to guests from around the world. During my childhood in suburban New Jersey, we hosted a young Israeli-Argentine couple, a middle-age El Salvadorian pastor and his wife, and a succession of Chinese graduate students. Through these intimate connections, my sisters and I developed a natural respect for and inquisitiveness about foreign cultures and especially languages. Likewise, our visiting friends were fully integrated into our family life -– sharing meals, holiday celebrations and everyday chores.

The lesson -– perhaps unspoken -– was: we are all in this together.

Our neighborhood block was also like an extended family. The older kids looked after the younger ones; everyone ran freely between houses to play; and if we misbehaved on the block, we caught hell twice –- as the saying goes -– first with our neighbors and again at home. In fact, there was such shared sense of family responsibility that, during my prideful teenage years, I was reluctant to have friends stay over too late in the evenings, lest my father corral them into laundry duty, folding towels and sorting underwear.

But here again, the message was: we are all in this together.

This past year in particular has underscored for me the indispensable need for a supportive community. In January, my wife Ruth and I linked our families through marriage; we then spent a few months staying with friends during a long process of searching for and moving into our new home; and most recently this fall, we welcomed the arrival of our first daughter, Khaia.

Throughout, we have wholly depended on the gracious and inexhaustible assistance of innumerable friends; some of whom we’ve known for years, while others are new neighbors whose earliest interaction has been to offer service. But regardless from which hands the help came and in what form, we recognized with deep gratitude their clear motivations of love, sincerity and encouragement.

These actions declared: we are all in this together.

During the holidays, let us appreciate our inter-connectedness and be –- to again quote from Bahá’í writings — “waves of one sea,” “leaves of one branch,” “flowers of one garden.” In recognizing our oneness, we see that all work done in the spirit of service is worthwhile — whether it is assisting with the famine relief effort in East Africa or helping a loved one through a personal crisis. We can each strive to find our calling and, with unceasing enthusiasm, encourage friends in their own endeavors to build better communities.

We are all in this together.

Visit the Faith @ ONE page to get started in joining ONE to end famine for good.

Jack Gordon is a media producer currently working on Faith in Action DC, a multimedia project celebrating faith-based community service initiatives in the nation’s capital region. He is also a board member of the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, representing the DC Bahá’í community.

TAGS: Faith, ONE