If, as these posts have been suggesting, we are one, not two…
When I mistreat you… I mistreat me.
That’s why it doesn’t work. Mistreating folks does not work with reality as reality is. You and I are expressions of the same Divine reality; a oneness… not a two-ness.
When spouses… or sisters… or friends… get so irritated with one another that they want to hurt each other, it never goes well. It’s like jabbing a stick in our own eye.
Our emerging reality tells us that we are connected. Our fortunes are linked to one another. Our well-being is linked to one another.
– The idea that I can defeat my wife in an argument…
– The idea that I can get the win; and her the loss…
– These are fallacious ideas. They’re just not true.
If Denise (my wife) and I are one, the only viable solution is to work for what is good for her – and – what is good for me. Anything less than a whole-system approach is like my hand poking my foot with a knife because it got irritated with where the foot took me.
That’s just silly.
But laboring under our illusion of separateness…
That’s exactly what we do to one another… every day.
In our illusion, it feels OK for me to be comfortable and satisfied in my nation of easily-afforded groceries, while people in Western Africa face a broken political-social system that keeps them from the same. I can only be comfortable with this arrangement, if they are “them,” and I am a separate “me.”
But if we are one, it doesn’t work at all.
You start to get the picture that Jesus was working in a different world than we are.
Jesus was working with a different set of assumptions than we are.
Jesus was working with a different God than we are.
…and so, Jesus came to different conclusions about how to live than we do.
Practically speaking, it is not possible for me to care for everyone. What are the criteria? Where is the boundary. How much is enough and how is that to be determined?
yes, i still live in a body that needs to sleep 7-8 hours a night. yes, i still live in a world of length, width, and height. yes, i still live in a finite reality. there are 7 billion people out there that “are me.”
but when it comes to loving them w/ the same passion i love myself… how can that work out?
which i think is the dilemma we face as human beings. we are both animal… and transcendent. eternal beings locked in time and space. (a good book: earnest becker, “the denial of death”)
so, this way of thinking changes me internally first. i begin to see differently.
after the INTERNAL transformation…
THEN we figure out the practicalities of how we’ll live. it is possible that a video-account of our daily actions might look very similar… but probably not.
there is a very good chance that when our internal orientation to people and the reality we live in changes… our daily actions will change as well.
but first things first…
first, let’s begin to SEE that we are one with one another. only after that, will we be able to figure out how what we DO will change.
d.
Yes. This begins to make sense when the “oneness” concept can be perceived as a process with many small steps to be arrived at, reconciled, integrated, and then we are open(ed) to the next bit.
Even the internalization part seems to be a step-by-step process. I don’t seem to be able to grasp it all at once. How about this – as the process of integrating oneness goes on internally, one’s external action (behavior) is also changing along with it, however subtley? Why not? Could be….
I have to admit, I was a little concerned and afraid of the title of this series. Being, in my mind anyway, a fairly newcomer to the Christian Faith I am afraid to step out of the “norm” and try something new. But having God explained in this context makes sense to me. I have always heard that God is a “Omni” figure, yet those same people always tried to explain the unexplainable. In my mind that didn’t connect and was causing a contradiction within me. We, as simple humans, have a hard time accepting the fact that we will never know everything. We have felt for eons that we are the “center” of everything. Our brains have limits that God exceeds and no brilliant mind or machine will ever be able to contain. So, instead of trying to box God into a corner, why not bask in the knowledge that the Divine is everywhere?
michael:
welcome! and thanks for commenting. yep, i think lots of good christian folks are nervous at the idea of “trading in their god.”
i’m glad you are navigating the tumult. as you’ll see on the blog, tumult is pretty much a requirement if we are going to navigate this moment in history.
again, welcome!
doug