No Relation?
Submitted by Barb Messerknecht
Excerpt of an article from the Siena Center by Executive Director Claire Anderson
Growing up with the last name of Anderson, I often heard that other Andersons were of “no relation” to us. After all, “Anderson” is the 15th most common name in the U.S. Earlier this summer, I took a road trip to southern Illinois where my Anderson great-great-grandparents had farmed before coming West in a covered wagon. Although I didn’t meet any Andersons in my short time there, I couldn’t help but wonder if the young server at the local restaurant might be a distant cousin. Or maybe the clerk in the local post office. I started envisioning these total strangers as potential cousins. My heart was overcome by the human kinship in all of us.
How would our world change if we could look strangers in the eye and see them as cousins? What would our neighborhoods be like if we viewed the people who had a different lawn sign than ours as potential kin? What would our words or actions be if we knew that we were all related? The next time you meet a stranger, I invite you to feel your shared kinship, as ultimately there’s no such thing as “no relation.”