Getting along

This weekend some things happened that have compelled me to think a lot about how we all get along.  I remember back a ways, when, after riots broke out in Los Angeles, a remorseful Rodney King was quoted over and over saying "Can't we all just get along?"

My friend Chantal, a gentle Ghandi-like woman with beautiful blue eyes that see through the muck of things to get down to what is real, told me this weekend, "We are all human, and we are all just learning."

It seems like such a simple statement, but the pure wisdom in it cannot be ignored.  Each mortal that walks here beside us and including us, is simply that: mortal.  We are eternal beings, crammed into human forms, having no memory of our former home or life prior to this earth walk.  And there is not one of us here who has it all figured out, who has nothing left to learn, or who is so wise, polished, or experienced that she (or he) need not gather a few more morsels of understanding.  The beauty of it is this; though we, none of us, are done learning, it does not prevent any of us from being a teacher.  How amazing that we frail beings of limited insight into our own weaknesses can yet see clearly enough to at times be guide to a lost one, comforter to one who weeps, or witness to another as they grow through (and perhaps out of) their own weaknesses. 

And when our path collides with that of another in perhaps a less peaceful manner, isn't it best that we "get along", moving beyond what that moment brought?

I am so grateful that I have had, placed along my path, brother- and sister-souls who are my teachers.  More grateful still to share my path with a husband-friend who is learning like I am, and who is patient when I sometimes get stuck. 

Saturday night I was in a craft store picking up a few things.  As I reached the checkout stands, I saw, a ways off, my friend and mentor, Kathy, talking on her phone.  As I poked my head out around a display to say hello, her eyes filled with tears and as I hugged her and asked how she was, she said "Better, now that you are here.  I just found out that my mother is dieing.  I feel like Heavenly Father just brought you to me because I needed you."  After the many, many times Kathy has been there because I needed her, I got the chance to be there for her. 

Maybe that's what it means when they say we should "get along with each other".  It's not just about moving along our way, but helping others, and being helped by them, as we all get along home.