It’s Monday, and often on Monday, everybody needs a hand! Everybody needs a hand of encouragement, a hand up, a guiding hand, a hand of welcome, a hand of congratulations, a hand that grabs on when things are overwhelming, a hand that leads to an embracing hug. And not just on Mondays! Our hands are often joined as human beings in so many ways. And then, we often use our hands to hurt those around us; throwing punches, taking what isn’t ours, vindictively pushing away. But hands are meant to be the points of human connection.

Much like the threads of a quilt or a piece of cloth; they’re the intertwining connections between one human to another and so on. We reach out and endeavor to hold onto one another in this life, even as virtual strangers, because we aren’t meant to go through it all alone! We are meant to connect and to share our experiences and our gifts not only for our own sakes; but to teach and to learn, to follow and to lead, to give and to receive, to interlace, as well as to weave strength, love and purpose into humanity via our hearts, our minds, our hands and our lives.

Hands come in all sizes, colors and from every corner of the earth; but hands, like threads of any quilt or cloth, are most useful when they are linking, connecting and strengthening the fabric of humanity rather than pulling it apart. Too often, we bear witness to hands busily rendering patches of humanity weaker by way of a human desire to be better, to have what belongs to others or to hurt others. Each weak spot in the fabric of humanity helps to make the whole cloth weaker, even though the rest of humanity may endeavor to strengthen around the torn patch in response.

All of humanity is only made stronger for the duration when humans are led to strengthen those familiar and proximal bonds which hold all of us together! Each of us must do our part by offering to others our hands; holding onto one another as though our life and theirs’ depended upon it! It does.