Relationships Are All We Are About

Relations. Rapport. That seems to be what humans are all about when one comes right down to it. All day today I was with people. People at St. David Episcopal Church, Southfield, MI., we part of my day. So was Imam Achmat Salie who spoke on Islam there and clarified some questions the waiting crowd asked. People before that visit also. In prayer with God, my neighbors whom I greeted as they went off to worship this sunny Sunday of March. Then there was a fundraiser at the Hyatt in Dearborn, MI., for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). More people there. People all day. From there is was off to Hamtamck's Queen of Apostle Church for a gathering of parishioners and clergy for what's called Forty Hours and sung lamentations of Jesus before he was crucified, given leaders who saw him as a threat to their authority ovr 2,000 years ago. A priest from Poland, Bernard Pilarski of Westland, MI., was there. I lived with him in a huge house called a rectory, when I was in St. John Seminary in Plymouth, MI., and would escape on weekends to the late St. Thomas the Apostle Church on Harper and Van Dyke on Detroit's east side. Bernie caught me up on his life, ministry and people we know by way of our pastoral care. Bogdon Milosz, pastor there connected with clergy as he hosted this dinner after prayer there. It was a day full of relating and re-connecting, praise the Creator. A full day ended with Meijer's where I needed some salmon, carrots, cheese and a copy of The Oakland Press newspaper with whom I write special stories, and a blog three times a week, including this one thatis fresh on my heart and mind. A full day of relating, bonding and building a better world. Langston Hughes put it best perhaps in his poem to let America be . . . be, and be better by each of us, inch by inch, one person at a time, Miami Herald writer and author, Leonard Pitts, Jr., voiced in his keynote at the CAIR banquet earlier today. A Muslim family I sat with inspired me with their dedication to strengthening marriage and family by coming together to events like this one. They were a delight and joy to break bread with together, thankfully. All humans are more pleasant and engaging when we take time for sharing roots, relationships and religon. That's good in a world and culture that gets toxic and terrible at times when it treats each other like enemies instead of one family and globe under God.