Waves of the Same Sea

Fear grabs us suddenly and when we least expect it. This past year of navigating a pandemic, and facing employment issues, money troubles, unplanned detours, and cancelled plans, have put us on edge. We challenge things, situations, and people we would never have questioned before this struggle. We are divided politically, socially, racially, and we are all looking for something familiar, something comforting. In light of the fear we all face and we all feel, though, there are beautiful things happening in our midst; those kinds of things that give us hope and help us to keep going forward.

A shipment of masks from China arrived in Italy, and as these tens of thousands of FFP3 face masks were unpacked, they noticed the following message inside each crate:

We are waves of the same sea, leaves of the same tree, flowers of the same garden.

                    —Seneca

These masks, for the health care workers facing the first wave of Covid-19 in Italy, are vital when working in these conditions. As important, in these divisive times, masks synthesize our features, somewhat erasing our differences in face shape or skin color that trigger our responses to what we see around us as well as in the news. A seemingly small thing, but one that allows the work of caring for each other to continue without interruption. We are beginning to wake up to the fact that we are ‘One’ people, and that we need each other.

Though the work to mitigate tension between nations, especially those which have a history of animosity toward one another can be difficult and fraught with centuries-old arguments, sometimes an unlikely friendship is formed. The Japanese government sent a plane carrying thousands of pieces of PPE garments to the city of Wuhan. The boxes holding the masks carried a line of classical poetry:

Foreign lands separated by mountains and rivers, we share the wind and moon under the same sky.

                    —Tang-dynasty text

While the historical relationship between Japan and China has been historically contentious, in the midst of a global pandemic, there is now hope for a better, more peaceful future, as the two counties come closer together while fighting this deadly virus.

Events like these help us see that in the face of differences, there are great similarities. The ‘unknown’ is always scary, whether it is not knowing the answer to an important question you’ve been asked, or facing a little known virus. Leaving these ‘scary’ things in the dark, however, is not helpful, as they grow there, and begin to govern our thoughts on the ‘unknown,’ much to our detriment. Reaching out, even a little, to the grumpy neighbor, the rude woman, the argumentative man, like the Chinese and the Japanese have done recently, starts to open doors we thought were long closed and locked. The start of the ‘beating swords into plowshares,’ allowing us to nurture rather than destroy, is the result. It does not happen overnight, and sometimes our patience will be tested, but piece by piece, the picture will begin to take shape, showing us a new world we helped create by facing our fears, gently dealing with them, and letting them show us the way to living a better life.