We've got the whole world in our hands

This year for Christmas I sent the same gift to my trio of two nieces and a nephew gathered at my brother’s home in Nashville. Copies of a book I picked up at our local elementary school book fair last fall. Titled “We’ve Got the Whole World in Our Hands,” it is a take-off from a song first published in a 1927 hymnal called, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”

These siblings, in their 30s, have circled the globe like a home-run hitter rounding the bases. Sometimes just for travel — but often with the work of promoting understanding and goodwill among cultures. Their contributions have reached to Mexico, Bolivia, and Argentina, to Jordan, Australia, Rwanda, Mulawi, and most recently Tanzania.

“We’ve Got the Whole World in Our Hands” depicts the earth as a big ball of yarn with a single strand unraveling — being carried by — children from different lands who traverse the world’s terrain in tandem. Its colorful imagery portrays our connection in this home we call Earth.

“We’ve got you and you’ve got me in our hands,” it sings. It’s true. Whether we’re small town or rural, inner city or suburban, we all have only one planet spinning us together. We are earthlings, plain and simple. A commonality impossible to deny.

Opening a new year — with all its unwritten pages — is a chance to consider our own world, and the larger world, as a shared story. We are each searching out our way. We all have mountains to climb, rivers to ford, deserts to cross. Oceans to sail. Skies to reach for.

The comfort is in the togetherness. The final page in the children’s book depicts the ball of yarn that is the world forming a giant hot air style balloon with its strings holding a basket filled with children and animals flying through the night sky. The gondola’s passengers a vibrant presence in the universe.

We can ride in on hope to a new year when we have one another. To look out for our personal world — and carry that spirit into the wider world — is to take care of each other.

In the unknown stretching before us it helps to know there are other travelers in the basket. The “we’ve” makes a nice weave.