Always Connected

I have read recently that whenever we eat a meal, true thanksgiving is expressed when we remember the ones who have brought the food to our table.  The broccoli on my plate this evening did not just suddenly appear.  Someone planted a seed, another tended it, and still another harvested.  How many people stand between the planting and the table?  Farmers, truckers, manufacturing workers, grocery store owners and employees.  Long years ago I held up a can of beans in a children's sermon and asked from whence the beans came only to have a child answer, "The grocery store." 

 

We live in a world where we are connected to countless unseen people.  We may flaunt our independence and self-reliance, but the truth is that we live dependent on many, many people.  Stopping long enough to give thanks for them is something that only makes sense.  In a recent reading of the letters of the Apostle Paul, it struck me that the Apostle lived in a community of people who needed him and who he needed.  As we read about these people in the latter sections of many of his letters, we see how he longed for those from who he was separated and how he depended on others to be with him as helpers and partners.  Some of them are named and some are not, but all were important to him.

Take a moment and look behind you.  None of us have gotten where we are standing today apart from the sacrifice and love of a sea of people.  Some of them are family.  Some are teachers.  Some are just folks who for some unknown reason paused in their living to make room for someone like us.  Some of them we know by name, recognize what they have done for us, and, perhaps, are even people we have thanked.  But, there are so many more who we will never know except as the person who planted our broccoli.