Recently my wife and I went down to the "Four Corners" marker in the United States. For those who do not know what this is, it is the place where Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico all meet up at one location. Basically, you can stand on one spot and be in all four states. It is the only place in the United States where this is possible. We did the normal tourist thing, and stood and had our pictures taken at this location. As we walked around though, and passed through all these states many times. It never felt any different from one location to another. Why? Because these lines are just lines drawn by man and nothing else.
To me in life we do that so many times as a species. We draw lines that we think should mean something, and yet in reality they mean so little. We classify our piece of land as ours, we classify our friends as ours, and we classify our religion as ours and the only one that is right. Yet when you look at it from another view, you see that your land looks like mine. Your friends look like everyone else, and your religion is just something you divide from others to make you feel good and a little more right.
So much in our society is about dividing into sections. We have the love we have for our family and the love we have for our friends. Yet doesn't that love feel good, whether you are with your father or your best friend. We think so often in life that life is about crossing borders, to find something new. We step from one religion, like the Witnesses, and go into another religion like another Christian Church. We tell ourselves we are in new territory now, and yet very soon we start to see the similarities. Of course, there are differences too. Yet often we do learn in time that no religion is truly perfect, and free from problems and strife. I think in time we just accept the one that fits the best for us, and has the most we can tolerate.
I have learned so much in this life, how borders are just man made lines. Not just with my one minute walk through fours states, but with my six year walk through many religions and friends. I see that despite all the effort we make in this life to say that everything is so different. We often start to figure out that there is a lot in common in this world, that knows no borders. People all like to love, and at times they like to argue. Some places in life give us time to smile, and some places give us times of sorrow. Yet in the end, the borders we cross are just not their. They are just lines drawn in our mind, and in the minds of man. We are all one world, one people, and despite all the religions and churches standing on the corners. People who believe in God, and those who don't ... often have one goal, and that is to do what it right in their life.
When I think of things this way, I find I have less room to judge. I just see everyone as riding the same merry-go-round, only they are on a different colored horse then the one I choose. Yet we all continue going round and round, around the same sun, on the same world and with a land that shows no borders, when you look at it from space.
My thought
Dragon
Edited by - kenpodragon on 30 October 2002 14:12:50