Small world.

 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. 

So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. -- 1 Corinthians 12:12-13

(First, I apologize if even the title has now set a certain Disney tune playing incessantly in your head all day long.)

I've been thinking about the whole idea of one Family under God, one almighty Being who created us all, every last one of us, in his perfect image (even if we have managed to dim that image somewhat on a regular basis). Never has this human kinship been more apparent than in our current age of electronic connectedness.

Blogspot (the host for this blog) has a function I, as owner of this page, can tap into when I visit. It's called the "Dashboard," and like the dashboard or display panel on my car, it shows me what's going on in the parts I cannot see. 

It would let me redesign the appearance of my page if I had the creative juices and technological know-how to do so. It tells me how many visitors my blog has every day/ week/ month/ all time. 

And in general terms, if you read my posts, it tells me where you are from.

In the scheme of things? I am reaching but a handful of people every day. But you keep coming back, and sometimes you share with your friends, so I am blessed by that. There is a passage earlier in 1 Corinthians where Paul talks about planting seeds, watering and tending-- and the harvest comes from and belongs to God alone.

What fascinates me is where y'all come from.

Besides the USA, I have regular blog-followers in Russia and Canada and Australia. A few days ago I picked up a reader in Bangladesh. Bangladesh!

Apart from this blog, I have Facebook friends whom I consider so much more than Facebook friends, people whom I have never met, who walk with me and allow me the humble privilege of walking with them, praying for them as their lives are flipped topsy turvy upside-down or they are forced simply to look change square in the eye.

We have taken friendships "off the Wall" and written notes back and forth, digesting, discussing, sometimes disagreeing. (Heck, I have even been unfriended, only to be re-friended because we simply could not stand not to be friends.)

We have shouldered one other's burdens, wept together in grief and shouted praises of celebration and joy at the arrival of new life.

How can this be?

How can people who have never met, never heard one another's voices or looked into the eyes of the other be connected at such a level?

The Reign of God, says Paul, has arrived when there are no human distinctions drawn. Neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female. When we can look at one another-- or sometimes only read one another's words-- and sense a common bond even when we disagree the Reign of God is emerging in this place.

If one person reads my foolish blog and looks at a fellow traveller through a different lens today, praise God. I am humbled and blessed by your presence here and in my virtual life. You-- yes, you are blessing from God.

Heavenly Father, thank you for your wisdom in creating such variety and diversity among your children-- and showing us how to love as you first loved us. Amen.