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Oneness is the reality of who we each are. We are all interconnected, and we are all connected in God. That can be hard to accept about someone we don’t like or respect or who is very foreign to us in some way.
I didn’t grow up in any particular church. I like to say I grew up culturally Christian. My family is white, Western and nuclear. My parents were raised Baptist, and while they didn’t force my brother and I to go to church the influence of the traditional Baptist church was clear. God was separate from us. God was male, and an overseer. There was no fear generally associated with this, but there was no relationship either. As I grew up and began to explore religion on my own I discovered that many religions viewed God as not separate, but internal to each of us and connecting us all to each other. That rang true to me. In the Science of Mind and Spirit we like to say God is all there is. That means every person, every thing, is imbued with the Divine. Yes, even that person we don’t like, don’t respect or who is foreign to us. There is only separation in our human mind, not in the reality of our Oneness. We are each glowing embers in the heart of God. And aflame within each of our hearts is the Holy One. No action, either by us or by the one we are struggling with, changes that. It doesn’t mean we have to let someone continue hurting us, but shutting them completely out of our hearts only hurts ourselves. Boundaries are never wrong, but forgiveness is the path to our own healing. Oneness is what makes us whole and what celebrates the Divine within each of us. It can be a challenge to accept that about everyone we meet or everyone in our lives, but the challenge doesn’t make it any less true. If anything, the challenge of accepting Oneness makes it more real. As the saying goes, nothing worth having comes easy. I hope you are willing to take up the challenge of accepting Oneness as Reality and Truth. The world becomes a better place when we live from Oneness. There is less harm, less pain, and we are better problem solvers. Oneness is Divine Truth. Embrace it and see how your life changes. I recently read a social media post that said in America we aren’t separated by divisions of politics or policy or beliefs, we’re separated by a division of cruelty. It said that some of us are willing to engage openly in cruelty because we have seen it rewarded publicly, while others remain appalled by acts of cruelty. After giving it some thought, I agree.
Cruelty isn’t just taking pleasure in the pain and suffering of another, it’s also indifference to that pain and suffering. The Trump administration openly stated their family separation plan was designed to be cruel. That was the point of it. But the former administration simply revealed something. When cruelty is the point, some of us will not only be okay with it, we’ll applaud it. There are, of course, disorders of the brain that cause some human beings to be indifferent to the suffering of another, but the rewarding of cruelty that we have seen in recent years here in the US has broken something open. It’s not a rogue administration being cruel, it’s our neighbors, it’s our family, maybe it’s even us. Cruelty has become our dividing line, and there’s only one way to cure it. Dr. Maya Angelou said, “We are not our brother's keeper, we are our brother and we are our sister. We must look past complexion and see community.” She’s talking about Oneness. She’s talking about a deep spiritual understanding, a kind of maturity that not everyone has. Hurt people hurt people, and healed people heal people. Oneness is the acceptance that we are all interconnected and that when we cause harm, we harm ourselves too. We all have the capacity for cruelty. It’s been alarming, however, to see just how readily some have embraced and celebrated cruelty, whether from politicians or in their own communities and homes. We’ve lost the thread of Oneness in America. It’s because so many people are frightened of all the changes happening in our society. A black president, a woman vice president, our children expressing themselves in ways we don’t understand, all of these things and more have caused great spasms of fear. It’s no excuse for cruelty, however. It requires maturity and emotional intelligence to express our fear in ways that still make our society safe. We have discovered that many are simply lacking those skills. For those not lacking in spiritual maturity and emotional intelligence Oneness is the answer. Remembering that we are all connected can be challenging. Those on the opposite side of the cruelty divide can appear almost alien to us, but it has become our calling to be the teachers of Oneness. When we not only speak of Oneness, but embody it, we are beacons of light in a dark time. Understanding and living from a place of connection makes us healers in our communities. It’s not easy, but the time for it has come. The cruelty divide can destroy us if we stand idly by, shaking our heads at our neighbors, family members and those that represent us, and doing nothing else. It’s time to speak up, reach out, and be the ones. It’s time to tap into whatever spiritual belief feeds us and let it lead us to the Truth of Oneness. It is the only way we will heal our divide. |
Rev. StephaniLiving by the affirmation, "Everything I want is chasing me!" Archives
November 2022
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