It is important that we just stop from time to time.

Gather our thoughts.

Reflect on the goodness that indwells our day to day lives. We do not know how greatly God protects us. We do not know that an untied shoelace or someone not letting you merge saved your life by a second

We are more often than not exempted from the knowledge of how everything interconnects. A second cup of coffee could result in you meeting your future wife. A stranger shaking another stranger’s hand can pass an illness that results in your finding a new job.

We know that synchronicity exists. We use terms like fate and coincidence. Or we say “a funny thing happened” and that preamble alone generally informs the listener that “one of those things” is about to be discussed.

But do we really understand any of it?

Is our world so corrupted by little blue light screens and all the brilliant spangle that emanates from them, that we are walking around, all of us on the same map; yet somehow further from each other than two intrepid souls on opposite sides of a mountain?

Have we forgotten that we all exist woven into the same piece of whole cloth?

Do you believe this?

Why do things happen the way they do but even more pressing: why do we all possess this nagging sense that we’re missing something?

Let’s have an hones moment here. I know I do.

Look around. No doubt you know many different types of people? Some have a nicer home or better education. Some are down to their last hundred bucks while another made a fortune in Bitcoin or real estate.

Some bitch incessantly about life while others wish they had more time.

Jesus told us to care for widows and orphans.

He told us to visit the sick and the prisoners.

He told us “the way you treat these people, the way that you treat the least among you; that is precisely how you are treating me.”

Are you following this? Am I?

Have we built little mental and by consequence spiritual jails that we think protect us but,in fact, prevent others from entering?

What if these infernal i-this and i-phone that, i-pad this and me, me, me-what if it’s not only the wrong direction; what if it is killing us?

One night in 2015, after several tequilas and some old Dan Fogelberg tunes a friend of mine lit a smoke and told me something that cut through all the BS and like a fine scalpel, still exacts for me its due today.

If I told you his name many of you would recognize it.

He looked at me with such clarity of purpose his eyes punched through the exhaled Salem smoke:

“Jon,” he took another drag and looked up. Rain clouds were passing across an otherwise dark night sky. It was still eighty degrees with showers. “Jon do you know the feeling of joy?”

I nicked one of his menthol coffin nails, lit it and dragged deeply. He continued:

“Because dude I have pretty much everything. I have a business. A beautiful wife. A great kid. All of this-“ he waved his arms around. My eyes were fixated on the cherry end of his cigarette.