"No man is an island..."

I giggle a little bit in my head as I begin to type this, because I can't shake the mental image of John Donne's statue in St. Paul's Cathedral... that's him, rolled in a sheet like a fancy little literary burrito.

There you go. Giggle a little bit at it before we get into the serious stuff.
Which is this: "No man is an island, entire of itself."
Wise words from Mr. Sheet Burrito, straight out of his poem No Man Is An Island.
If you've never heard this phrase or had the poem explained to you, "lemme splain". We, as humans, are not a bunch of little islands separated by chasms of water and free from affecting each other with our choices. No, we are a part of the main land, a bunch of little clods of dirt and rock and sand smushed together to form what is Humanity. Every action and reaction causes the reactions and affects the actions of the other little clods of dirt around us, in turn rippling out to the rest of humanity.
It's a scary but beautiful thought, that the actions I choose today will affect my friends & family today, and for generations, really.
In my psych class the other day we had several guest speakers talking about their family members who have varying exceptionalities, and how it sometimes makes life more complicated, but overall it's richer and more beautiful and worth the struggle.

and how dare we pity them or attempt to express sympathy for those whose lives are "worse" than ours? I believe empathy is necessary. I believe sympathy is sometimes unnecessary and easily faked.
Wouldn't you rather positively impact the clods of dirt around you than sit there stagnantly, faking your way through?
Live your life! Take advantage of the beauty that surrounds you and fills each day. Choose actions and thoughts that are good, right, true, noble, pure, just, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy! (Phil. 4:8)
Let the pieces of land that are washed away from you affect you. "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind," he says. Shouldn't the inverse, then, be true as well? Any man's life augments [grows, benefits, supplements, improves] me, because I am involved in mankind! Any man coming to Christ and living abundantly and learning to take the struggles with the easy stuff and appreciate life's lushness because of it makes me a better person because their ripples bounce around in my heart and make me want to do the same thing and live the same way.


No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; 
It tolls for thee. 

It's a frightening prospect: that the choices I call tiny are sending out ripples and affecting all those around me. I am not an island, all by my lonesome. I am a small clod of dirt in the kingdom of God.