Reclaiming Our Personal Relationship With God, Part 3

Once we realize our Oneness with God, something amazing happens: We begin to understand how important it is to consider the welfare of others. Spiritually awakening to our Oneness somehow unites us with the rest of humanity. This might seem contradictory at first, and certainly much about believing in God is contradictory, or as Paul might say, even foolish. I don’t think we’re fools to believe in a conscious force greater than ourselves. Belief in a Supreme Consciousness (notice I don’t use the word being) keeps us humble. Awakening to the energy of the Supreme Consciousness within us opens our minds to a bigger picture about the interconnectedness of humanity. Realizing God is within, as intrinsic to our being as the blood coursing through our veins, compels us to serve others rather than nervously hoarding resources for ourselves.

Fear is the only reason humans hoard and refuse to share. We are afraid there won’t be enough to go around. We are afraid someone will get more than us. Jealousy makes us afraid we are less worthy than our neighbor. Fear of others drives us to create nuclear weapons instead of nuclear energy. Fear is the great ha-satan of our era. The only way to overcome this fear is to recognize our intimate interconnectedness with and interdependence upon each other. We are one, in ways our postmodern minds don’t want us to admit. We are connected in a weird, mystical way. Many of us are starting to realize this. Lots of us don’t want to admit it—it seems “backwards” to believe in God, or to sense anything mystical in this world of high technology. But where does inspiration come from? Where does creativity come from? What is that endless well of invention we call human ingenuity? What is the something more that continues to drive us to create, to explore, to journey beyond the known universe?
It’s more than the chemical reactions of cellular evolution. There is a force that creates and drives change. There is a force that constantly moves everything that exists toward a state of perfected love. In the 21^st Century, perhaps God may not be the best word for that creative, loving force, since the word God has been depicted as a human for so many millennia. We can change our concept of God. What we cannot change (and wouldn’t want to change anyway) is the fact that we are part and parcel of God’s creative love.

The creative love of God gives us enough creativity (and enough resources) to solve any perceived crisis. There are enough resources for us to create affordable housing, so that no human family ever has to live on a cold, freezing street. No child should be denied an education—a real education, not a series of “standardized” exams that only prove we all have different gifts, and that the idea of “standardization” is an affront to the beautiful diversity of humankind. There is enough love to help people in impoverished areas create clean water. There is an abundance of creativity and resources in this realm. What we too often lack is the will to change things. Recognizing we are personally connected, driven by, and created from God is a powerful way to become a change agent in this world.

We are called to participate in the unification of humanity. No matter our skin color, gender, sexual preference or belief system, we are one species, one race, one people of God. We are beloved, always and forever. Accepting that fact will change us, and our world, forever.

Meditation: Change me to love. Teach me to love. Love me into change.