Posts Tagged ‘We are one’

Being

Posted: September 22, 2019 in friends, identity, wonders
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The bullseye of life — want to hit it? Don’t aim at me!

The bullseye is us! Shoot us!

“That they may all be one!” the wise one, Jesus, prayed, so there you go. He set up the goal of life, the ultimate movement and goal of history. The target is oneness!

My daughter called me this morning when I was still in bed. Her voice traveled out of the holes in the bottom of my mobile phone, hit the sheet, and bumped over my pillow to me: “How are you, dad?” — my ear said to me — from her.

What is precious in a life,  despite the fact that we have overused the word precious?

The small, microphone voice of my daughter in my ears is precious because it is her, her being connected to me, us there for each other, neither one alone.

The exact, perfect center point of all existence lies within us being together.

Exquisite — those not-doing moments, those being-moments — someone else’s existence allowed to come within ours. It has been said by a wise one, Paul “In him [God] we live and move and have our being.” Therefore, there really is no being alone! It’s impossible. Life is inside of another. All life moves within God!

My life isn’t me, or you. It’s us. Your life isn’t you, it’s us. Being is always plural. We go along together or not at all. If you could somehow get out of the divine presence and be alone, you wouldn’t exist.

I have long lived like the crux of my consciousness and my experience was me as an individual, my eyes, my actions, my choices, what makes me stand up and stand out. Silly! It was always all of us. Essential being is a pile of us. We were made to live like kittens drooped and draped and sprawled on each other sleeping and playing and eating together. Consciousness, being, life — it’s a pile of kittens; it’s a pile of presences.

I texted a friend yesterday and asked, “How are you doing?”

She texted back that she has been struggling with her sense of “worth on a deep emotional level.”

“Let’s call and talk on the phone tomorrow,” I said, “We can talk about our it.” So we arranged for the divine moment. And when we talked — bam — we came aware that we live in God for each other, two presences bonded in him with the glue of shared struggle, as it was always meant to be.

Being an individual is good. I love autonomy. My doing is good, but you’ll notice every doing hinges on being, and being requires beings, and good requires being present to each other. If I linger near you, and you listen to me, if I absorb bits of you, and you breath in what I feel, the mystery of our separated being crosses time and space and merges. It’s magic, the fusion. It’s supreme, matchless, nonpareil — when we apprehend the quintessential us and we!

It’s the “when two or more are gathered in my name I’m there.” Two creates a magnetic, drawing spiritual gathering, and three can conjure a whole community of oneness. This is the virtuosic movement of history that was always meant to be — a unified us.

Last night in the same room with my wife, I was writing, she was reading, breathing the same air. It was perfect being!

I “liked” a friend’s picture yesterday on Facebook. A “like” is a validation of existence. The social scientists say social media may raise our anxiety levels, looking for likes, addiction to likes, superficial social media likes, jarring hits of pseudo affirmation, or not, but this popular activity tells us a bit about who we are. We are ones with the need to be liked, to be known, loved, to have another person validate our being, to connect. That why 2 billion people use Facebook.

We always have and always will need each other’s validation of being in some form in order to be more aware that we are a presence.

I stopped on my walk last night to talk to a neighbor. This is better than Facebook. We did some lingering, listening, absorbing, merging. He talked about losing his wife last year, a tragic accident, how he has struggled to go on. We hugged three times before we left each other — and I wouldn’t say that before this we were close — but standing on his driveway in the dark we bonded over shared pain.

A moment together, a call, a text, a like, a love, a hand up to greet, a hand on a shoulder, a hand out to help — that is being. You and I can do nothing better with the time and space we have on this huge, distance-making planet than to be safely and warmly present to each other.

Never Alone!

Posted: April 24, 2019 in family
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She couldn’t get out. It’s her problem with balance, and coordination. She’s a bit topplely — so I did, got out.

“What do you want on it?” I asked her, but I pretty much knew. I mean she’s my daughter.

And sure enough, while I was out, wandering the huge, towering, concrete ballpark corridors  looking for hotdogs, they smacked a homer. They always do that. When you aren’t looking, that is when it usually goes down — or up.

But on the way back in — stepping over a whole row of people watching the game — I felt like a really good dad, handing her a bunned, mustardy, catsupy, oniony hotdog. She happily woofed it down.

You feed your babies, even after they grow up, because they are still a part of you, as you are a part of them and as we are all a part of all of us.

Identity is plural. It’s multiple. It’s freakin’ co-developed. My daughter and I are inextricably bonded together. Feed her? I even share my gut bacteria with her. Research now shows us that communities of microorganisms found in the intestines of genetically related people are more similar than those of people not related.

In Ed Yong’s fascinating new book, I Contain Multitudes, he writes, “Every one of us is a zoo in our own right – a colony enclosed within a single body. A multi-species collective. An entire world.” He is talking about microbes. Apparently, about half of me and you, isn’t even human. We are microbial! We are thoroughly symbiotic. Going on, Yong concludes, “Perhaps it is less that I contain multitudes and more that I am multitudes. Microbes subvert our notions of individuality.”

I’m down with this. I’m dependent. We all are. My experiences are shared. All life is shared. I am not simply an individual. It happened when I wasn’t looking.

When I travel to Nicaragua a few years ago, a friend led the trip. I would have been lost without her. She arranged for the multiple planes, the panga boats to take us up the river, arranged for our hosts to prepare our dinners, provided the money for them to do that and set up the work for the community center we built. And by the way, I did pick up some new microbes in Nicaragua — and brought them home. Life is shared.

In a week, I will be going up to see my 91 year old dad — in Los Angeles — to take him to the doctor, to check on the strength of his broken leg. I see in him myself, and in him I see my future. He is me; I am him; we are living parallel lives; I am aging — just one step behind him. He is another of my guides — my gut family — blazing the way into the future.

I like it. I am not alone. We are not alone. It is actually impossible to be alone. Our family is always with us, needing us, inside of us, going before us, following us. My dad leads, I follow, my daughters follow me.

Here is an often ignored reality. We contain, create, shelter, remember, carry and shelter a multitude! I exist in a biome. Individuality — be subverted!

Hallelujah!

It is as God intended — that we all be one! We are in Him, and in each other, always guided, co-developing, always following, always leading, ever symbionts, ever dependents, the divine zoo, always caring for someone, always being cared for —  never alone!