Ancestors

Diana Butler Bass' book, Grounded, is excellent, but one that I cannot read without taking breaks. Sometimes the reminder that we are destroying this good creation is more than I can bear. Sometimes, like with the passage below, I find I need to pause and ponder before moving on.  Here Bass is quoting science writer Carl Zimmer:  

 

"When you draw your genealogy, you make two lines from yourself back to each of your parents. Then you have to draw two lines for each of them, back to your four grandparents. And then eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents, and so on. But not so on for very long. If you go back to the time of Charlemagne, forty generations or so, you should get to a generation of a trillion ancestors. That's about two thousand times more people than existed on earth when Charlemagne was alive. The only way out of this paradox is to assume that our ancestors are not independent of one another. That is, if you trace their ancestry back, you loop back to a common ancestor. We're not talking about first-cousin stuff here - more like twentieth cousin. This means that instead of drawing a tree that fans out exponentially, we need to draw a web-like tapestry."  

   

Many years ago, Tyler and I would have dinner about once a week with close friends.  After the four of us would get settled at the table, we would lift our glasses, and one of us would say, "I celebrate your ancestors."  What we were really saying was, "I celebrate you." Today I am reminded those ancestors are also my ancestors.  We are all related.  This belief for me is not new, but it is now quickened because the relationship goes further than human ancestors.  We are related to this earth and all creatures.  We are part of this great Being that some call the Kingdom; some call the Kin-dom, and some simply call Life.  This, of course, is what St. Francis knew and taught.  We all belong, whether we are human, an insect, or a flower.  We belong to God, and to one another.  We belong to the past, and we belong to the future.  How that unfolds remains to be seen.   Regardless, we journey together, and have for a very long time.       

   

Cousins, neighbors, join me in holy service...

God will listen as I cry out, 

Cry out with me! 

Be comforted with me. 

We would do well to turn away from indifference

As you and I have only our righteousness to offer.   

 

Psalm 4, Let us Praise, Betty Bracha Stone