Photo: Osnat Halperin-Barlev

There’s a tether that connects the hearts of care, the souls of kindness. It is tangible. It is sublime. It has a quality of light which bridges time and place, happenstance and circumstance.

It is not about words. Or at least not exactly. It is the way one can be seen: if known by name or face or only by the recognition of a shared humanity. It is the way one can be heard: by action or response, reflection or emotion, by prayer and by thought. It is the way we all are one, essentially, affected by the pains and joys that grip even those whom we may not know, and yet are part of us, in one way or another.

There is a tether that fetters heartbeats to the expressions of another. It is seen in young and old as mirror neurons and empathy weave the tapestry of wisdom and pulse with compassion.

There is a tether interlinking who we each are with who we can be. It exists in sharp relief to whom we might become if we risk the loss of that which nourishes what ticks within.

“It is a chain to care,” some say, reluctant of obligation. “A leash. A hindrance to independence.”

Not so, for it is not restraint, but rather a foundation. A cornerstone of interconnection. We are none of us truly an island, and all part of a shared future: the air, the earth, the water, the resources, the young and old, the hearts and minds.

For The Daily Post