What follows are some brief quotations on the theme of Kinship.  Perhaps one or more of them will speak to you, opening up a new way of playing with the idea.  

“If everything is connected to everything else, then everyone is ultimately responsible for everything. We can blame nothing on anyone else. The more we comprehend our mutual interdependence, the more we fathom the implications of our most trivial acts. We find ourselves within a luminous organism of sacred responsibility.”   (Laurence Kushner)

“Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”  (Eugene V. Debs)

“You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.”   (Oscar Wilde)

“Loving [kinship] is giving someone the power to destroy you but trusting them not to.”

(Anonymous)

“Kinship is the connection that says, ‘I get you.  My husband & I witnessed a lady take a tumble on the sidewalk and as we hustled to help her to her feet & gather her belongings, she began to weep. As I hugged her, I told her we should call an ambulance, but she insisted she wasn’t hurt, just embarrassed. ‘I have MS,’ she whispered. As I comforted & reassured her, I struggled with my own tears. My sister-in-law has MS, too.”   (Soul Matters facilitator)

“I went off to college and started finding new friends- but it wasn’t easy for me, and I spent a lot of time feeling alone. While expressing my frustrations to my mother, she calmly said, ‘Do the things you like to do—and you will find people interested in the same things.’ At first I thought she was nuts…you meet people in class or parties and bars, not doing things you like. After college I followed her guidance. I joined a ski club, a hiking group, a living history group…she was right!”   (UU facilitator)

“In deaf culture, one is often ranked by how many generations of deaf members one’s family has. Why is kinship something to use to claim seniority over others?  I myself can claim seven generations of deaf family members, so… I can assert seniority over any second generation deaf person even if they are heavily involved in the deaf culture. [Makes me wonder about] how other members of minority groups make one person better than another.”   (UU facilitator)

“When it comes to my step sisters, I usually just call them my sisters.  They are, after all, the only sisters I’ve known… My sister and I share a birthday but are definitely not twins. Although we’ve celebrated our birthdays together since we were toddlers – we were neighbors and best friends before we were sisters!   (UU facilitator)

I try to remember that everyone we interact with offers us an opportunity to learn something about ourselves, other people, & the human common denominators & condition that we share. These interactions also offer us the experience to rise to difficult occasions & become the finest vision of Who We Are & Who We Want To Be. In this sense, we are all kin.”  (UU facilitator)

“You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children–that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know. The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself…”  (Chief Seattle, credited in The Earth Speaks, by Steve Van Matre and Bill Weiler)

“Spiritual practice among Lakota peoples is grounded in the expression ‘All my relations,’ which proclaims that spiritual activity is not only for those immediately participating in it but for all beings everywhere.”   (Joan Halifax, The Fruitful Darkness)

“There is on the earth no institution which Friendship has established; it is not taught by any religion; no scripture contains its maxims. It has no temple nor even a solitary column…However, out fates at least are social. Our courses do not diverge; but as the web of destiny is woven it is filled, and we are cast more and more into the centre. Men naturally, though feebly, seek this alliance, and their actions faintly foretell it. We are inclined to lay the chief stress on likeness and not on difference, and in foreign bodies we admit that there are many degrees of warmth below blood heat, but none of cold above it.”   (Henry David Thoreau, Walden)

At This Party”  (Hafiz)

I don’t want to be the only one here

Telling all the secrets–

Filling up all the bowls at this party,

Taking all the laughs.

I would like you

To start putting things on the table

That can also feed the soul

The way I do.

That way

We can invite

A hell of a lot more

Friends.

Maybe there’s a quote you think should have been here.  You are invited — encouraged — to drop Rev. Wik an email so that he can add it to the compilation for the future.