It's All Relative -- Or We Are

“It’s all Relative—or We Are”

by Tarin Chaplin

There comes a time, or a situation, when we step in (and we don’t know what we’re stepping in to) or we step up ((and we don’t know what we’re stepping up to) or we stand up (and we may not be sure what we’re standing up for) – but we do.  We do it because of an urge, a sense of immediacy or rightness, a compulsion.  We do it because someone is in need, or something isn’t sitting right, or the effort or resources necessary to exert that effort (howsoever noble or important the need) have dwindled or are in trouble.

We may not (for all practical purposes) have the time or energy or money that is necessary to rise to that occasion, but rise we do.  We find ourselves offering a generosity of heart, or a measure of care, or writing a check, or taking on one more responsibility in a life already overstressed and overburdened and ovefull and overtaxed.

Perhaps it is the sacred place in the human heart, that elastic part that has the capacity to stretch an extra bit such that it exceeds even itself.  In any case it is a moment when things are startled into a different perspective and, in spite of other obligations calling, other ‘must do’s’ or priorities on our lists, we make the effort to help out.  It comes not from a logical place but from another – label it compassionate, impulsive, irrational. It may, in fact, put ourselves further behind, cause us a time squeeze or loss of sleep; but at the moment when the urge to help arises, none of that matters. 

The person in need may be someone we know well or not at all.  The situation may be dire, an emergency (as with the response of millions to the victims of 9/11 and Katrina) or may be—in the scale of things—rather quite small (a fundraising campaign we’ve never heard of or a cause we never knew existed nor have a personal connection to), a co-worker’s exhaustion from the ordinary things life put on her plate this particular week. 

The need may or may not be massive relative to our own needs and troubles.  And while its scale (or relativity) is immaterial, a different kind of relative is at work, the call from that ancient place where we are bound as relatives in the family of life, all come from the same glob of cells billions of years ago.

“What is needed, what could most help this person at this moment,” something in us whispers.  And an equally clear answer arises—simple, unbidden, from we know not where.  And before we even have time to think too long, we find ourselves responding, almost as though it is not us doing the deed, but the deed being done through us.  We become a channel acting from and for some higher purpose and higher good. 

And to the extent that it is not about us but simply about the goodness or generosity or kindness or rightness of the action itself, to the extent that we are moved to do it rather than having taken considered action, seeking praise—to that extent we are living from a place of grace.