Job’s Pond this morning appears beyond my window providing just about all that is needed for life. All the fundamentals at least. There is light in abundance. There is water in the same measure. There is vegetation, and around the shores of the pond there are people living life.
Praying this morning, as the breeze shifted to every which way, at intervals the light would reveal a single strand of web attached to the top of one of the Adirondack chairs on the deck and heading upward until it disappeared above. No doubt it is the work of one of our eight-legged friends, inveterate networkers as they are. But the fact that it is always there, though not always discernable, got me to thinking.
This is the way it is with us. All of us. In God, we are firmly connected to one another, but by supple connections that may look frail but that will endure. For me it is vital to remember this in our present era. So obvious are those things that divide us, and so apparently carrying the day are they, that we can seem and feel very distant from one another.
But often unseen, prior to any division and lasting beyond them, we are bonded to one another by links that will not fail; links that can and will bend with the winds of any moment and still remain. I take joy in this God-provided truth on this beautiful morning. It reminds me that I know good, beautiful, faithful men and women who are supporters of President Trump. I struggle with that daily, and they with me on my political principles, and yet we still belong to one another. We still are one family when all is said and done. (And all is not yet said and done).
Perhaps even more fundamental (he wrote, tongue now firmly in cheek), I am connected even to amazing people who for reasons that I will never comprehend are loyal fans of that baseball team that practices its dark arts in the heart of the Bronx. All the while a team of light and achievement and possibiltiy beckons to them from just to the northeast! But come what may (even in the series about to begin tonight) I can and I do love these people, know them as friends, and am connected to them by bonds as deep and lasting as the human heart.
The single strand that networks the deck chair to unseen realities above is thin, but strong and lasting. And so are the bonds that, underneath it all, make us one. Celebrate that unity, even in the midst of the stresses of the present time.
Believe it. 
Happy to see you’re still loyal to our beloved Red Sox– go Sox!
All the way!
Another beautiful reflection, John. I found it especially helpful I n my experience of fear, sadness and anger about today’s confirmation vote. Thank you for offering this wisdom and light.