We Are All Connected
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
by Dr. Mike Hegeman
Our lives are intricately intertwined, and every once in a while we get poignant reminders of this. Just a week ago I was flying back to the US from Europe through London, and as we waited to board our plane (after a four-hour delay), I looked up and was amazed to see a Pinnacle Presbyterian Church couple boarding the aircraft just ahead of us. What a surprise and what fun! What are the chances of something like this happening?
Well, this wasn’t the first time I’ve gotten on a plane and ended up traveling with Pinnacle people. It happened flying from Dallas to Phoenix and once from Boston to here. Think of all the flights that are in the air at any given time (about 5400) and how few Pinnacle people there are compared to the world’s population (about .0000125%). The chances of ending up on a flight with people from our congregation is pretty slim…yet, clearly, not impossible; it happens more than seems probable. When such things occur, I am reminded of our deeper connections one to another.
Another opportunity I had on this recent trip to see deeper connections came in using my ancestry app to find out how I’m related to historic figures. I got to visit the summer palace of King Frederick “The Great” of Prussia in Potsdam, just outside Berlin. If my app is correct, Frederick is my 8th cousin, six times removed. That’s really distantly related, I know, but it’s fun to think that I am genetically connected to the man who had that palace built and who spent his summers there. He was also a flute player, as am I!
Potsdam is in the State of Brandenburg, and probably a lot of my ancestors are from this area. I know that my father’s great-great-grandparents emigrated from Brandenburg to the US around 1850. When I walk around the countryside there, I try to imagine how deep my family roots are there.
Another place of “connection” for me, believe it or not, was Auschwitz-Birkenau. We took a side trip from Berlin over to Krakow, Poland. While we were there, we decided to visit the historic memorial that marks where 1,000,000 Jewish people were murdered. This was a very sobering event. To walk the grounds where the Nazis sought to exterminate a race of people, to experience the bleakness of the setting and to hear of the great suffering of those who were imprisoned there triggered in me a profound sense of connection to all who suffer. Elie Weisel, Jewish author, who was once imprisoned at Auschwitz-Birkenau, once said, “Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.” Walking through just one of the barracks that still stand, we got to move freely among the bunk beds where over 700 people were housed in filthy and degrading conditions.
It’s hard to say that we were “tourists” while at this memorial site. We were encouraged to consider ourselves “witnesses.” If we have any capacity for human empathy, it is hard not to have a sense of connection to those who suffered in that place. And in that connection we are called to remember and tell the story, so that no one need suffer in such a way again. Bearing witness is an important part of connecting with the past and those who suffer even now throughout the world.
When we live in a global community, and when we follow a savior who related himself to all humanity through his own suffering, we are called to remember that we are all connected. As I write this, there are people suffering in Ukraine, in Israel/Palestine, in the Sudan, and in Southern California. We are all part of one great human family. We are connected one to another, through our faith community, through our ancestry, and through our common humanity. And when we see people suffering, we are called to bear witness and to respond in the compassion that our savior taught us.
Each of us may be called to respond in different ways, but the call is on each of us. Marvel, give thanks, remember, bear witness, and lend a helping hand.
This article tells of ways that those in our Presbyterian family are experiencing the wildfires and how we can respond through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance: https://www.pcusa.org/news-storytelling/news/leaders-california-share-impact-devastating-wildfires-and-look-disaster-assistance-support