Starfish and Peace

What is the dancing in my head. It makes me recall the Dancing Wu Li Masters, a book by Gary Zukov that makes an association between Eastern mystic ideas and observations from modern 20th century physics. "Wu li" can be translated as "patterns of organic energy." It is the Chinese phrase of "physics."

I was just imagining walking along the beach and that always reminds me of a story about a girl once on a beach. She was a sweet, little girl, may be five years old. I don't remember where I heard the story, maybe at a homily one Sunday mass, and I don't know where that storyteller heard it. The beach was completely covered as far as one could see with bright red starfish, thousands and thousands of them, maybe even millions, that had all washed up on to the shore. The sun was hot and baking down on the starfish and they would soon die from the heat and from drying out. The girl ran down and started picking them up one by one and throwing them out back into the sea as fast as she could, getting as many as she possibly could. There was a nun walking along the shore that came up on this girl trying to save these sea creatures. The nun said that it was a futile effort to try and save these starfish; there are so many she could never hope to save them and what difference could she possible make, just one little girl and so many starfish. The girl responded, holding up one in her hand, and said "It makes a difference to this one."

In our lives, there a thousands of people all around us, and billions in all the world. For most of us, as individuals, we could never hope to aspire to bring about world peace, or in even peace within own community. But, if we live with the aim of being peaceful all the time with everyone, then it WILL make a difference to each person we encounter. And, unless we strive to be peaceful with everyone, then our peace with those we do choose will be compromised.

Just my 2¢ on this day of memory.