大象传媒

A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Steve Taylor

In 1968, the American astronaut Rusty Schweickart was floating in a spaceship close to the moon. As he watched the planet Earth slowly turning, a small blue pearl surrounded by the emptiness of space, it struck him that the idea of calling himself 鈥淎merican鈥� was absurd. There were no boundaries or borders, no countries or nationalities 鈥� there was just one planet, and one human race.

There are around 8 billion human beings living on different parts of the Earth鈥檚 landmass. We speak different languages, have different appearances and different traditions and religions. But we all stem from the same source.

Let鈥檚 rewind history all the way back to 250,000 BC, when our species first developed in eastern Africa. For tens of thousands of years, we remained in Africa, but eventually began to disperse, to migrate into the Middle East and Europe. Over the following millennia, as we dispersed further, groups developed different physical characteristics, in response to new environments and climates. For example, groups who migrated north developed lighter skin and hair.

Scientists have identified fundamental features shared by all the human race鈥檚 languages, suggesting that there was one original human language, dating back 50,000 years or more. But as we dispersed, linguistic differences grew until groups were unintelligible to one other. Groups developed different lifestyles and traditions too and began to perceive each other as distinct.

So today, whenever I meet a person who seems to belong to a different nationality or religion, I will remind myself that we all stem from the same source. Beneath our superficial identities, we share the same essence. We are all each other鈥檚 cousins, sharing the surface of this beautiful planet as it spins through space.

Blessings.