This being the year of the Cooperative of Practice, I have been looking at the inspiration we can take from our colleagues in Kantolomba. I remember a painful time when we lost a member of the cooperative to AIDS. Christopher, husband of Josephine and Little Cheri’s father, was in his 30s when his body was no longer able to hold the HIV infection in check.
I recall Theresa telling me how astonished the rest of the community was upon seeing how the cooperative was with his death, as if their own family member had died. She said people remarked to her “I never realized what Living Compassion really was until I saw all of you with Christopher.” That has always stuck with me.
Kantolomba is a hard place to live in terms of the physical world. The reality of death is always close. The intensity of love that prevails inspires me.
And so it is with us. It seems we each need to go to the painful, difficult places life takes us, and we would never do one another the disservice of taking that away, but it is so very clear that we are not alone. What happens to one happens to all, the joys, the sorrows, all of it. All in love.
Gasshō,
Jen