Unity

A contemporary art installation on an exposed sidewall of a residential building in the East Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago.

By breath, by blood, by body, by spirit, we are all one.
(Sara Thomsen, contemporary US singer-songwriter)  LINK

All living creatures are sustained by this life-giving rhythm,
and we are dependent on plants, trees, and other
vegetation to transform the carbon dioxide we
exhale into the oxygen we need to thrive.
(Teilhard de Chardin, 20th century French Jesuit paleontologist)

Whatever befalls the earth
Befalls the sons and daughters
of the earth.
We did not weave the web of life;
we are merely a strand in it.
What we do to the web,
we do to ourselves.
(Chief Seattle, Suquamish and Duwamish chief, 1854)

Like thick, gnarled roots
Of an old cypress tree
Spreading beyond itself.
Like the extended roots
Of the communal aspen
birthing fresh saplings
From the original source.
So is our union with you
Held strongly by your love.
Deep and wide is our connection.
(Kabir, 15th century Indian mystic poet
with roots in Islam and Hinduism)

The love of God creates in us such a oneing
that when it is seen, no person can separate
themselves from another.
(Julian of Norwich, 14th century English mystic and writer)

On that day, you will know that
you are in me and I am in you.
(Gospel of John 14:20)

Dear Mayfield,

Whoever installed the “we’re all in this together” message in my neighborhood is reflecting on an often heard sentiment in these weeks and months of the Covid-19 pandemic.  However, this truth is not restricted to one neighborhood, one city, one year, or one pandemic. These are not words only for this moment. As Richard Rohr has written: “Divine and thus universal union is still the core message and promise–the whole goal and the entire point of all religion.”  In this Web Note, you can see, listen to, and read the images and words of a handful of people who identify with a variety of spiritual and wisdom traditions, a blended tradition, or no specific tradition, around the globe and across time.

“We’re in this together” is not the stuff of a fuzzy greeting card. If we take it seriously, it is both a comfort and a challenge.  It asks us to open our eyes, our hearts, and our lives in ever-widening circles. It requires that we consider our ethical response or how we will belong to one another offering awareness and compassion, near and far, when it is easy and when it asks us to grow. The community of life it addresses is not only human. This is cosmic truth.

Last Sunday and this Sunday coming up, the fifth and sixth Sundays in the season of Eastertide, situate us in the 14th chapter of the gospel of John. In this chapter, over and over we are reminded of the invitation to dwell with, to participate with, to be in communion with the depth and breath, the very reach-beyond, of divine love. We need one another to do this with courage, integrity, imagination, and persistence, here and now and beyond the horizon.  Peace, Martha

P.S. — I encourage you to listen to “By Breath.”  I discovered Sara Thomsen’s music shortly after I came to Mayfield. Recently, I was on a virtual retreat with several leaders including Sara.