Good morning…
“Breathe into the glory of this day,” her voice set the table for our verbal feast. “Cold is coming. Thanksgiving is approaching. At harvest we gather love to share.” Then she read aloud a blessing to begin our sacred hour.
“Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue,” her voice soothed me through the phone. “We have been given the duty and responsibility to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give our greetings and our thanks to one another as people. Now our minds are one.”
“Now our minds are one.” That sentence caught my attention. Interesting surround sound. God had just spent significant time repeating in me three small words: “BE ONE NOW.” I was learning on a very personal level: heaven can begin right now if I choose oneness with God moment-by-moment. Yet was God inviting me to even more? Amid fragmenting factions, how can I actually live God’s harmonious heaven on this eroding earth?
Jesus answered: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. This is the first and most important commandment (Matthew 22:37-38, CEV). Jesus’ answer I can recite in my sleep, but this morning might I let it tickle me awake? With your loving God, be one in heart. With your loving God, be one in soul. With your loving God, be one in mind. “BE ONE NOW.” The second most important commandment is like this one. And it is, “Love others as much as you love yourself” (v.39). Here is where my “I” expands into our “we.” Living in perpetual oneness with the Lord our God, we are equipped to live in loving union with our true self as we live in loving union with each other and all living things.
Talking about us to his Father, I now remember Jesus saying, “Everything mine is yours, and yours mine, and my life is on display in them. For I’m no longer going to be visible in the world. They’ll continue in the world while I return to you. Holy Father, guard them as they pursue this life that you conferred as a gift through me, so they can be one heart and mind as we are one heart and mind” (John 17:10-11, MSG).
Waking up in a wounding world, we are guarded by God as we pursue heaven’s life on this hungry earth. With one heart, one soul, one mind we are empowered to harvest harmony here and now, Father and Son, you and me.
…Sue…
