State of the Unity

I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be. ~Albert Einstein


This past weekend a beloved high school voice teacher, Mr. Pressman, gathered former students and friends together for a day in the park. The occasion, from an outside perspective, was melancholy. Our former teacher has the appearance of terminal cancer and we were there to celebrate his life and give him hugs. Some of us may have even felt that we were there to say goodbye.

As we stood in line to greet him and caught up with old friends, the occasion almost seemed to transform itself. Instead of focusing on saying goodbye and what to say as we did in the beginning, we started focusing on the best way to get to him and avoid the line that was forming. Do we cut in with a friend or catch him as he walks to the facilities? Can we pull rank as "more mature" alumni?

Instead of crying we were laughing at the t-shirt he wore which read, "I'm not dead yet." Instead of mourning we were singing a song, as our teacher/guest of honor conducted, that he taught when we were high school students. It was a song, I later learned, that he himself had sung when he was a student at our high school.

I overheard someone say that they hadn't sung that song in thirty years and they had no idea how the lyrics and melody just came back to them automatically. It was as if it was lodged in the deepest part of his memory and resurfaced on an as needed basis.

And with that, I watched the day transform into one of unity and celebration. I watched as the love of music and love of the arts that brought us together as young high school students continued to bring us together. I watched as generational lines blurred, socio-economic lines were eradicated, racial lines became insignificant and the shared experience became the most poignant thing.

What I know for sure is that the state of consciousness we found ourselves in that day is how the Universe intends for us to live EVERY day. In unity, in harmony, in joy, in love. What isn't worth giving up to become that?

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