Unity and
Diversity
June 2 – June 7, 2019
Unitive consciousness—the
awareness that we are all one in Love—lays a solid foundation for social
critique and acts of justice. (Sunday)
In the
Trinity, the three must be maintained as three and understood as different from
one another. Yet the infinite trust and flow between them is so constant, so
reliable, so true, and so faithful that they are also completely one. (Monday)
Gravity,
atomic bonding, orbits, cycles, photosynthesis, ecosystems, force fields,
electromagnetic fields, sexuality, human friendship, animal instinct, and
evolution all reveal an energy that is attracting all things and beings to one
another, in a movement toward ever greater complexity and diversity—and yet
ironically also toward unification at ever deeper levels. (Tuesday)
People
can meet God
within their cultural context but in order to follow God, they
must cross into other cultures because that’s what Jesus did in the incarnation
itself. —Christena Cleveland (Wednesday)
Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s observation that eleven o’clock on Sunday mornings is
the most segregated hour in America still stands to challenge each congregation
to examine the difference in its midst and to develop a higher capacity and
moral compass to embrace it and to celebrate it. —Jaqueline Lewis (Thursday)
Nothing
exists without these three interdependent energies that emerged from the first
flaring forth over 13.8 billion years ago: differentiation or diversity;
subjectivity, interiority, or essence; and communion or community and
interconnectedness. —Joan Brown (Friday)
Practice: You
Belong
At the Center’s spring
conference, The Universal Christ, we read the following call and response with
2,000 people gathered in Albuquerque and thousands more online. Later we heard
from so many people that this litany of welcome was powerfully moving. Read it
aloud to yourself and feel truly welcomed—all of you, even the parts that
culture or church have denied. Are there pieces of you not named here that you
would like to recognize? Consider sharing your own welcome statement with your
faith community and invite others to collaborate in making this vision more
complete and actualized.
We would
like to let you know that you belong. . . .
People on
all parts of the continuum of gender identity and expression, including those
who are gay, bisexual, heterosexual, transgender, cisgender, queer folks, the
sexually active, the celibate, and everyone for whom those labels don’t apply.
We say, “You
belong.”
People of
African descent, of Asian descent, of European descent, of First Nations
descent in this land and abroad, and people of mixed and multiple descents and
of all the languages spoken here. We say, “You belong.”
Bodies
with all abilities and challenges. Those living with any chronic medical
condition, visible or invisible, mental or physical. We say, “You belong.”
People
who identify as activists and those who don’t. Mystics, believers, seekers of
all kinds. People of all ages. Those who support you to be here. We say, “You belong.”
Your
emotions: joy, fear, grief, contentment, disappointment, surprise, and all else
that flows through you. We say, “You belong.”
Your
families, genetic and otherwise. Those dear to us who have died. Our ancestors
and the future ones. The ancestors who lived in this land, in this place, where
these buildings are now . . . we honor you through this work that we are
undertaking. We say, “You belong.”
People
who feel broken, lost, struggling; who suffer from self-doubt and
self-judgment. We say, “You belong.”
All
beings that inhabit this earth, human or otherwise: the two-legged, the
four-legged, winged and finned, those that walk, fly, and crawl, above the
ground and below, in air and water. We say, “You belong.”
Adapted from “Diversity
Welcome,” Training for Change, https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/diversity-welcome/.
Richard Rohr’s Daily
Meditation
From the Center for Action
and Contemplation
Summary: Week Twenty-three
Unity and
Diversity
June 2 – June 7, 2019
