In the one Spirit
we were all baptized into one body.
—1 Corinthians 12.13
Of course we don’t believe that.
We think we’re separate.
We thank God
we don’t live in that war zone
as if we don’t,
as if those who live there are not us,
not our flesh and blood.
(And so their suffering is less real than ours.)
It comes naturally to assume
that the stranger is not part of us,
that the grief of a distant tribe is not ours,
that the lake on the tundra
has nothing to do with the flow of our blood.
It is our life’s work
to overcome the delusion,
to live in the Spirit in which we are one,
rather than by the flesh
by which we seem to be separate.
If claiming the suffering of the whole world
seems too wearisome,
too much grief for one person to take on,
that is because we still believe
we’re one person, one small individual.
But when we know we are one with all,
we trust that all the world’s evil and suffering
is easily borne and absorbed
by the infinite joy and beauty of the whole,
the very heart of God.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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