We are one in Spirit but it seems that as human beings we are very separate. This is not so. We are not as separate as we might think. As human beings, we are very much interdependent. We are much more intimate with one another than we might realize.

From birth to death we are dependent upon others. From the time the first humans walked on this planet, the family, the tribe, and the community have been necessary to sustain human life. Today our community includes virtually everyone on Earth; this is certainly evident in the arena of economics and commerce.

     As I have my breakfast of fruit, cereal, and coffee, I consider the people from many countries who are part of my morning's breakfast: the farmers in the United States who grew the grain, the workers on the coffee plantations in South America and the banana plantations in Central America, the dockworkers, the railroaders, the truckers, the distributors, the grocers, and many others are all part of my morning breakfast.

     We are finding-slowly and painfully-that our fates as humans are tied to the fates of virtually every other species on this planet. They are tied as well to the delicate balance of the ecosystems by which our lives are sustained. The destruction of a forest thousands of miles from where we live can affect the very air we breathe. The pollution from cars and factories on the other side of the planet can impact our local weather for long periods. ...

     Deepak Chopra tells us that we are constantly sharing the atoms of our bodies with one another. Based on calculations derived from radioisotope studies, we know that with every breath you exhale, you disburse one hundred billion trillion atoms that were once part of every organ of your body. From these same studies we know that in the past three weeks one thousand trillion atoms have passed through your body that have been a part of the body of every other living being on this planet. And at the present time, your body contains about one million atoms that were at one time a part of the body of Jesus of Nazareth. ...

     Unity cofounder Charles Fillmore recognized the existence of a "race consciousness" that psychically impacts each of us. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin hypothesized the existence of a "noosphere," a psychic envelope surrounding the Earth and as real as the biosphere and the hydrosphere. Peter Russell suggests that a "global brain" is developing from our interconnectedness. Perhaps the Internet is one manifestation of this global brain or noosphere.

     Physically, mentally, spiritually, we are intimately connected with one another. We are not as separate as we may think. We cannot become whole in isolation because, in reality, isolation does not exist.