So we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members of one another.
Romans 12:5

I want to preface what I’m about to write by saying I’m not a physicist.  
That’s my husband.
Or Neil Degrasse Tyson.
That being said and clearly understood, there’s this thing in physics called Quantum Entanglement.
It’s when two particles are so entangled that when one changes, the other one also changes instantaneously.  
Really.
(Watch the actual physicist Neil D-T talk about it here.)

So quantum entanglement reminds us that there are connections that cannot be broken, no matter what, and that some particles are so entangled, so tied up in each other, so bound together, that any change made in one is made in the other.  Even if the particles are across the world from each other.
It’s crazy awesome.
And it’s a good reminder that we are all connected.
That our shared humanity matters.
And today I think this Uplift needs to be about our sameness.
Because over and over and over again we are told how different we are.
How someone else is better than we are.
Or how we are better than someone else.
It’s not ok.
Because we have been created by the same God.
And our differences make up one big world filled with beauty.  
This verse in Romans is one of many places in Paul’s letters where he refers to humanity as the body.
Because it’s something we can understand.  
Our hands and feet look different, do different things, and yet are equally important to the life of the body.
If you divide the body up into individual parts, then it is many.
But all together those parts make the body something really amazing.  

This is US you guys.
All of us.
Yes. All of us.
People we agree with and not.
People who look like us and who don’t.
People who love like we do and people who don’t.
We all matter.
Each of us looking different, being different, believing different, acting different, when put together, gives us a picture of humanity that is full and vast and so so beautiful.

There’s a quote from Mother Theresa that always reminds me of our combined humanity: If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten we belong to each other.
She knew.
She understood the danger of getting focused on our own problems and our own lives and issues.
She understood the tendency we have to surround ourselves with people who look like us and believe like us and agree with us.
We need to be reminded that we belong to each other.
Heck, this week, with the way the world seems to be falling apart, the way everyone seems to be picking sides, the way we have demonized the side the is different from our own,
I need this reminder.  

Look at the second part of this verse from Romans:  
“We are members of one another”
Not we are members of God.
But we are members of one another.
Some translations actually say “we all belong to each other” here.
We are connected.
We are entangled.
What I do and say and how I love in the world matters.
Because we belong to each other.
And we belong to God.
And if God’s love extends to me and changes me, and I’m all entangled in everyone else, then God’s love changes everyone else too.
Dang.
Entanglement yall.

I do not understand God’s grace and love for me unless I recognize that God’s grace and love extend to everyone.  
You heard me.
Every. One.
Just as we are entangled in each other, God is right in there entangled with us.
And I’ll say it again, DANG if that isn’t some really good news.