Still Walking Each Other Home

A quote from Ram Dass is on my mind this morning. “After all, we’re just walking each other home.” Those words often find their way to my consciousness, but I never seem to be able to fathom precisely why they pop into my mind. I recall once reading them in a message from a friend, who quoted a Mary Gauthier tune whose lyrics included them as “Ain’t about the money, ain’t about who’s right or wrong. We’re all just walking each other home.” When I read the message that quoted the lyrics, I felt extremely close to my friend, as if the words bound us in a way that exceeded my capacity to understand but, still, felt somehow sacred, spiritual…almost holy. I welcomed those feelings, foreign though they were to an avowed atheist. I’ve since come to appreciate that a sense of awe and wide-eyed wonder at the world and the relationships we experience in it are not reserved for the religious.

At any rate, the words were on my mind this morning. So I used my computer to explore a little, trying to uncover a few more bits and pieces about them that might explain their appeal to me in general and in particular why they resonate with me this morning. I came upon a blog post by an Episcopal priest, Linda Taylor, who said this about those words:

We’re all going to the same place, and we’re all on a path. Sometimes our paths converge. Sometimes they separate, and we can hardly see each other, much less hear each other. But on the good days, we’re walking on the same path, close together, and we’re walking each other home.

Her comments triggered a thought about something I recently wrote about friend versus acquaintance. The difference, I think, is that friends are on the same path, close together, and we are, indeed, walking each other home. Acquaintances may be on the same path, but we’re not walking together. Somehow, writing those words just now seems trite, on the one hand, but utterly profound on the other. I can live with passing trite as long as profundity remains, as solid as a rock.

About John Swinburn

"Love not what you are but what you may become."― Miguel de Cervantes
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2 Responses to Still Walking Each Other Home

  1. Robin, I think we’re almost always in the same place, on the same plane. Thanks for reading and commenting and letting me know I’m among my “tribe” when I share my thoughts here.

  2. Ram Dass’s words have always appealed to me, even though I am an avowed atheist as well. I think perhaps because there is no sense of a supreme being in his words, not they are godless but that we are all one on the path to the same place. I love being reminded of Ram Dass. Thank you for that.

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