by Melanie Gruenwald
This semester, I am teaching the Base Awareness and Kabbalah of Mitch Albom classes for Kabbalah Experience. I always love to see how classes overlap. (Paying attention to what’s showing up definitely helps inspire blog posts!!)
In Base Awareness, we’re working our way up the tree of life- starting with Malchut. Our awareness practice for Malchut reminds us to: Attend to what shows up as a reflection of what you need to learn and grow into.
During today’s Kabbalah of Mitch Albom class, we discussed the first two people Eddie meets in Heaven (from the five people you meet in heaven).The first person, the Blue Man, teaches Eddie that we are all connected. We often live life through our “I’s” (our personal stories, experiences and narratives) and we don’t realize how our actions, behaviors and connections can have a lasting impact on another’s story.
Julie Beck writes: The overstuffed crate labeled coincidences is packed with an amazing variety of experience, and yet something more than rarity compels us to group them together. They have a similar texture, a feeling that the fabric of life has rippled. The question is where this feeling comes from, why we notice certain ways the threads of our lives collide, and ignore others.
And her Kabbalah teacher would say- “how are you paying attention to what shows up, as a reflection of what you need to learn and grow into?”
From the book, we learn how Eddie’s actions affect the life of a near stranger. As a child, he chased a stray ball into the street, which led to the driver having a near miss, losing control of the car, and dying from a heart attack several blocks later. The driver was the Blue Man. Eddie never knew this connection until their conversation in heaven.
Would we call it a coincidence? Synchronicity? Miracle (that Eddie wasn’t hit by the car, yet the Blue Man died…)?
How many times do we have seemingly random encounters? They might be on a big scale– missing a car accident, or getting into one– We somehow avoid the disaster that hits our neighbor or friend…
Or perhaps we experience a seemingly minor “random” moment where we choose to express empathy or a kind word to a stranger? We might give way in traffic, or take a deep breath while waiting on in a line?
How often do we look at a stranger through the eyes of shared humanity- recognizing we all come from the same source? I’m thinking about the woman I saw bringing the carts back into the super market this week and the man dealing with a toddler having a tough moment on the sidewalk today. In what ways can we acknowledge hard work, or perhaps frustration—and share an act of recognition and connection, acknowledging we’re all doing the best we can?
Do we realize that our seemingly small action might actually impact the life of the person on the other end of it? We show up in other people’s lives in seemingly random ways. The opportunities to create ripples of connection and kindness are never ending.
Coincidences, synchronicities, miracles- they surround us all of the time. The question is, are we paying attention? The threads of our lives intersect through themes showing up in books, conversations, dreams, and seemingly unrelated moments.
Eddie learns from the Blue Man “That there are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind.” (pg. 50)
As we head into this season of shorter days and cooler nights, my hope is that we pay attention to what and who shows up. How might we engage with kindness, mindfulness and intention, so we can create ripples for good in this world?
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