There is such a thing a being in relationship with people we don’t know, mostly by the fact that we are in the same place at the same time. Such “relationships” are some what optional, that is we may notice and revel in them, or sleep or read through them.

I don’t know any of the people I went downtown with this afternoon; but some how we all did that together.

“We” were such a mixture of colors, textures, languages, awakeness.

From the languages and clothing, we might have been in many other places than here in the Pacific Northwest.

English certainly wasn’t the only language spoken. I have no idea what language the beautiful woman sitting                 next to me was speaking. Once in a while she used an English word — Okay, “downtown” — while talking on her mobile phone. (She spoke  quietly so that no one else would know she was doing that. That was one of the differences between the people speaking some other language; at least one English speaker who made an appointment for Thursday afternoon that ALL of us knew all about.)

Still, it is all of this difference sitting there next to each other, riding the bus to downtown that some how feels holy, blessed, gathered. The “Holiness” isn’t in the words so much as it is in the together, in who is there. All of these people from all over the world riding downtown on Tuesday afternoon.

Mostly, the holiness is in the silence; in simply sitting next to another human being, with or without a conversation. Simply being there.