Of all the little trinkets we picked up in southeast Asia, this is by far my favorite.

It is a wood carving of a Thai monk that is begging for his food in the morning from the people, as all monks there do every morning.  Every time I look over at this little statue, I am reminded of our profound interdependence.  The monks that beg for food in the morning are not just depending upon the people to sustain their physical bodies, they are reminding themselves, and those who feed them, as well as those who witness, that there is no future, no eternity -- neither physically nor spiritually -- without each other.  Despite what appearances may be, my very being is dependent upon you, and yours upon me.  And every moment that we forget this, we bring more misery into our fragile human predicament.

I have not said a word about the CT school shootings up to this point -- there has been so much noise on that subject - much of it valid, heart-felt, authentic, and necessary - that I felt for me, this was a time to shut up, to merely reflect and listen.  But as I look at my little statue here, I will say only that when human beings remember by means of mass consciousness, that we are not islands, that nothing is truly our own, that on the most basic soul level WE NEED EACH OTHER, these things do not happen.

One morning in Vietnam a few days after the shooting, the bellhop helping us from our hotel room turned to us, and in broken English and with deep pity he said, "I am so sorry about what happened in your country. I saw it on the news and I had tears, like your president, Obama..."  This man, who probably makes about $5 a day, who lives in a country who's government oppresses its people in ways that you and I cannot truly conceive of, who most likely has had no formal education past the age of nine, who is helping us with our over-sized luggage out of a hotel room that costs more money for one night than he probably makes in a year, so we can go back to our freedoms and liberties in our super-power country...  HE takes pity on US...
Because he knows that all three of us in that room are really just beggars, relying on each other to get us through this next moment...