We Are One...

While on vacation last month, my two younger kids talked us into something that they had dreamed of doing for several years, to climb Cadillac Mountain by the light of the moon, arriving at the summit in time to watch the sunrise.  It seemed an appropriate rite of passage, as my daughter was headed off to her Senior year of High School, and our younger son to his second year of college.  Because they would be together, and are collectively skilled in the ways of the woods, we agreed.  They left our camp at 1 in the morning after a few short hours of sleep, arriving at the trail head at 2 AM.  At 3:30 they called us as agreed to give an update on their progress, and had already reached the summit.  Lynn and I, less hardy adventurers, hopped in the car and drove to meet them.  Since the federal government paid to put a perfectly good road to the top of the mountain, I felt like it was my civic obligation to drive on it. 

The morning was everything one could hope.  Jupiter and Mars were dancing together in the Eastern sky.  The porcupine islands were dark shapes in the moonlit bay.  The distant lights of Bar Harbor were slowly going out as morning approached.  As our kids wrapped up in the blankets we brought, and we all found a place out of the chilly morning breeze, God put on an amazing show.  The earth that we call home, in its constant rotation, carried a mountain peak full of travelers at breakneck speeds towards the sun that gives us light, and life, and food, and warmth.  Gradually unfolding itself from chilly Atlantic waters, the sun rose up from behind the Schoodic peninsula.  Sending ahead of it a rainbow of colors:  deep blue, turquoise, mint green, pink and then the barest slice of orange, the sun transformed the landscape that stretched out below us, creating a golden path that united land and sea.  It was a truly miraculous moment. 

I don’t know what it was, but as the sun began to shed its light down on the cold and huddled group of people who looked for its arrival, something made me want to turn around and look at the dozens of people who were behind me, many of them perched on the paved walkway at the very top of the mountain.  Most had arrived after us, and I was surprised at how many folks were there, having gathered in the hushed predawn darkness.  The sun, touching human faces for the first time that day in our nation, transformed a hundred individuals into one kindred people.  They were Asian, African, Scandinavian, Hispanic, drawn from many different lands and places to this miraculous moment and place of transformation as the darkness of night was swallowed by the rosy light of day.  They were children and adults, the old and the lame, some in wheel chairs and using walkers.  Some had arrived in $ 30,000 vehicles with polished chrome grills.  Others had ridden well-worn shoe leather to the top, all of their earthly possessions in their packs and their hands.  But in the presence of that sunrise, there was no rich or poor, no conflicts or difference, no excess and no lack.  In that moment, in that place, each and every one had everything we needed to know we were alive, and loved, and cherished by the one who had created us.  We were one, huddled under the golden cloak of our creator who had claimed us as kinfolk, baptizing us in the light of God’s own creation. 

Yes, of course, the moment passed, as every moment does.  The orange light turned to yellow, the day brightened, the mountain pilgrims applauded and toasted the artist of the sunrise with thermoses of dwindling coffee.  The unity between us, glimpsed only for a moment, slipped away as quickly as it had come.  We got in our vehicles or hit the trail, moving back to the familiar and the sensible, laughing at our foolishness and longing to go back to bed.  But we carried with us // that moment, knowing it would be a part of us for the rest of our lives, a glimpse behind the curtain of reality that clouds our kinship, our unity, our common humanity.  The radio as we descended the twisting mountain highway sought to disentangle that cord of connection we had just experienced.  Brutality in the Middle East, racial tension in Missouri, homophobic violence in Uganda, hunger and homelessness on the rise in dozens of American cities.  We stopped for coffee and tea and blueberry muffins down in the town, and then hit the road for home.  The bad news on the radio had been turned into folk music, blessedly, and the poetry of one who had seen the truth we had experienced that morning washed over us like bathing in baptismal waters.  I remembered the artist and looked up the lyrics when I got home.  There is hunger, and violence, and tension, and prejudice in the world, but as a child of an inclusive God, I am grateful for these words by Pat Humphries, of Emma’s Revolution.

 We Are One

Smiling face, outstretched hand,

Through disputes small and grand

We will lay down our guns

We are one.

In the rage through the war

We have shared pain before

In our grief when it’s done

[we are one]

Where the earth touches sky

We are born, we all die

Where the clear waters run

[we are one]

When the light touches land

Over sea, over sand

When each day has begun

We are one

As the rock wears away

And the tide rolls and sways

By the moon, by the sun

[We are one]

In the birth of a child

Through the fierce and the mild

In our daughters and sons

[we are one]

…In our daughters and sons, we are one. 

We are one

We are one.