All in the Same Boat

“We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

This is an apt quote for a country [and a continent] where the majority of the population came from across the seas just a few hundred years ago. And I think that is what Martin Luther King Jr was referring to - that while we, or our ancestors, came to this continent via different ships from different countries and realities, we are all here together in the ship that is this nation and share in all that is both good and bad about it. Let me take the analogy a little bit farther

My grandson, for example, is sailing on a ship called ‘Autism’. Life on this ship is perfectly normal for him. It is where he belongs, where he is ‘home’. However people on the ships sailing along beside him, keep insisting that he leave the ship called ‘Autism’ and sail on their ship, adopting their reality. And when that doesn’t happen, then he is the one who is labelled ‘difficult’, or ‘bad’ because he can’t/won’t change.

The other day, a friend referred to me, in my hearing and not in a pejorative way, as ‘elderly’. The word grated on my ear because that is not a ship on which I see myself.

Actually I suspect each of us is sailing on many different ships, sometimes with people we know and sometimes feeling as if we are all alone. We may leave one ship and board another but that happens only when we are ready, on our own time. While we may never feel as comfortable and safe there as we did on the previous ship, we know it is the ‘right’ time for us to make the move, and that going back is not an option.

To paraphrase the quote from Martin Luther king Jr., “We may all be sailing different ships, but we're in the same sea now.”

As ships sailing the same waters it behooves us to recognize that we are all connected by a reliance on the safety of that sea. ‘Who’ is in the ship along side us doesn’t matter when it come to surviving in a storm or making a much-needed repair to our ship. We are all connected regardless of gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, country of origin, and must rely on one another in order to live and flourish.

The ‘ships’ I sail on are of my choosing as are the ones you sail upon. That means to me that I can’t take whatever measures I deem necessary to force you to come aboard my ship and scuttle yours. It also means that when you need assistance in keeping your ship afloat I must do everything in my power to help you do just that.

It seems to me that the world in which we live is much smaller that it was 50+ years ago when Martin Luther King Jr made that quote. It is now a shrinking global sea on which we sail which is getting more and more crowded everyday. And so we need now more than ever to follow what is known as the Golden Rule:”Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.” ― Socrates

What boat are you on?

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