- Connecting the dots
- Following the threads
- Assembling the puzzle pieces
- Hearing the voice
- Defining the problem
- Realizing the idea
- Overcoming the fear
- Following the path
- Creating the prototype
- Testing the solution
- Building the community
- Guiding the process
- Passing the torch
There is no separation. Everything is connected. I thought about how sad it is that we live in such an individualistic culture without realizing that the only individual in the universe is the universe itself. The universe is indivisible.
We keep looking for the building blocks of the universe by trying to find the smallest particle. We think that by understanding the smallest indivisible part of the universe, we can understand all of life. Humans are silly. How can finding the gear make the clock? The machine metaphor itself is the problem. We miss the forest for the trees. The universe is not a machine. The universe is alive.
Only by seeing the whole can we understand the universe and our place in it.
When we understand ourselves, we realize how no one is separate from anyone else. We are limitless. We are the universe.
Then the prayer of Jesus makes sense.
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
John 17:20-26 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/jhn.17.20-26.NIV
We walk around, feeling separate, isolated, lonely, disconnected, and alienated from each other, and it feels like we are all screaming into the void to be heard, wondering if anyone notices us, if anyone cares, if anyone will pay attention to our pain.
I suppose I have a different perception of the world. In every interaction, atoms rub off. We are forever changed by bumping up against each other. Change is the only constant in the universe. There is no point resisting change.
Every person I meet becomes a part of me. Even the bully is part of me. There is no point feeling guilty, because that would mean taking on the guilt of the entire world. No one can bear that burden of guilt. Guilt and shame are just the stories we tell ourselves about how we don’t deserve to live.
The fact of my existence tells me otherwise. Until I am dead, I still have agency. The question, then, is what I am going to do with my power to choose, to edit my own life, to decide what I think is important.
What am I here to do? That is the hardest question to answer. No one else can tell me that. Only I know that. Do I trust myself enough to listen?