On a whim…

Blood is the river we all share — given, not chosen.

How many lives would be lost without donors? A stranger’s gift flowing into another’s veins—life itself, offered unseen.

As a boy I dreamed of making a blood pact, binding myself to a friend as “blood brothers.” Only my friend was a girl. What would it mean to cut ourselves and mingle blood across that boundary? Innocence and danger mixed together in one gesture.

Now I wonder: in our divided era, could politics ever stain the gift? Might some refuse to give—or to receive—because of the donor’s convictions? Can blood even have an orientation? Or is it the last unshakable proof of what we share?

I think of the hymn about water and blood flowing from Christ’s side. Blood as salvation, blood as mystery. The chalice in worship. And the old Roman whispers that Christians were child-sacrificers, drinking blood—scandal and holiness poured into one cup.

And then the small, human side: my cousin who fainted at the sight of it. A nosebleed in school was enough to bring him down. Blood terrifies, even as it sustains.

It can save a life, it can signal the end of one, and it can bind us together in ways both strange and holy. Blood is the river we all share—flowing through strangers and kin alike, past every boundary, carrying us toward one another.

P.S. Perhaps the wonder is not that blood is so often spilled, but that it is still given.