Several days a week I gather with others for lunch in the church’s library. We sit around a table and take a break from whatever it is we’ve been doing all morning and open our lunch bags of leftovers and sandwiches. I often station myself so I can peer out the window that looks onto Hennepin and Lyndale Avenues. With great regularity I see the preschool class from a church down the street on their after lunch – before nap – walk. They move with a methodical pace, each holding onto a rubber ring that is attached to a rope. The adult caregivers flank them, one at the head of the line, another at the end, and one stationed right in the middle, guiding their little line up the street. It is such a sweet, comforting sight.

The warm winter we have had has given this little band a varied look and rhythm. One day they were moving along in tiny colorful sweaters and tennis shoes, the sun shining like it was springtime. They walked rather quickly for being tethered to a rope. Just a few days later, snow had fallen and the path had become icy. Now they moved like little robots, snowsuits causing a stiff-legged march up Douglas Avenue. I imagined the swishing sound of the waterproof material making sand block rhythms as they moved. Each kept pace with the nearest child as they moved along held safe and secure by the length of rope that connected them.

Rope. I have thought about that rope many times over the last few days. I have been thinking about the times when it would feel awfully good to be walking along holding onto a rope, safe and visibly connected to the nearest breathing human in sight. There are many people I know right now who would do well being able to reach out and hold onto just such a rope. The knowledge that they are held together, not alone, with another human being would bring such comfort. As I have been remembering this band of rainbow children, I have wished a precious rope for these dear ones.

Some time ago I read a book by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner called Invisible Lines of Connection: Sacred Stories of the Ordinary. It was a wonderful compilation of the ways in which we are held together on a daily basis by unseen connections with the Holy and one another. It is a book whose intention was, I believe, to remind us that we are always connected whether we choose to remember or not. Connected to those we know and those we don’t. Connected to the movements and seasons of this amazing Creation. Connected to the One who dreamed us and breathed us into being.

Perhaps today is a day when you are feeling particularly alone. It could be a day when life threatens to overwhelm. Or it may be a day when you are aware of someone else who is in this very place of believing that they are moving along life’s path untethered to anyone or anything that can bring hope and comfort. Wherever you are on your journey this day, I invite you to imagine the small tribe of brightly clothed children as they walk along holding the rope. If you need to hold on, reach out. If you can offer a helping hand, make room in the slow moving band for just one more.

In the end, I believe, this is our real work.