When You Go Out In the World, Hold Hands and Stick Together

I have been reminded these days of this quote that I always liked and in which I feel really sums up how to live a good life and for me a life in mission.  The line I like the most is "when you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together".

I have an imagine in my mind of my brother and sisters and I holding hands and sticking together.  I have always felt like no matter what we stick together.  That has given me great strength and joy in my life.  Even now with great distance between me and my family I know they have my back and I am eternally grateful for their love.

In Brazil we have a community of missioners called the MBMC which stands for Maryknoll Brazil Mission Community.  I find comfort, strength and joy in this community.  The Maryknoll Family has the Maryknoll Society which is Priests and Brothers, the Maryknoll Sisters, and Maryknoll Lay Missioners.  We are three entities and our leadership in New York is different as well of our finances and we all have different vocations.  However, when it comes to mission we have a shared vision and love for the people of Brazil.  In our meetings we talk a lot about collaboration and where our ministries intersect and how we can live and work together.  But honestly at the end of the day I am just glad that I have people I can trust to hold hands and stick together with me as we go out into the world.  

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.
These are the things I learned:

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don't hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don't take things that aren't yours.
• Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
• Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
• And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

[Source: "ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN" by Robert Fulghum.  See his web site at http://www.robertfulghum.com/  ]