Tuesday, December 3, 2019

"we are one..."


"we were all,
looking up,
in the same direction,
in that moment,
looking up,
we were one..."



When my sister-in-law [once-removed] Lisa, suggested that I listen to Ana Egge's performance of "We are One," featuring The First Unitarian Brooklyn Choir, all the pieces of this post -- came together for me.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Each year, as my celebration of advent, I review the 24 questions in the chapter "Recapitulation," from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. This chapter is the entire curriculum for those who are seeking to understand metaphysical healing through the lens of Christian Science primary class instruction.

Today is December 3rd. So today's question was:

“Is there more than one God or Principle?"
 
It's one of my favorite questions -- perhaps, because it is one of the first real "aha," moments in my study and practice of Christian Science.

Eddy's answer to that question is:


“There is not.
Principle and its idea is one,
and this one is God..."
 
Is one. Not are, one.

For most of my life, I thought that this question was asking about the possibility of multiple gods. But her answer pointed me in another direction. She was not asking if there were more than one god(s). But if there is more "out there" than one God or Principle? We are not off-shoots of divinity -- but part and parcel to divinity itself. The all-inclusive coincidence of God's wholeness as divinity embracing humanity. No separation. "...and this one is God." Wow.

Which gets me to an earlier piece of this puzzle for me. Question 1 on December 1, was: "What is God?" A question Eddy answers with: "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love."

Question 2, yesterday's question, was: "Are these terms synonymous?" And she assures us that, in fact: "They are..." She doesn't ask if these are the names for God. But if they are "synonymous," -- a word that means, "one directly implies the other."

For example, to say Mind, is to imply Soul. Therefore to feel the presence of Mind, is to directly imply the right to experience the presence of Soul. Thus, what we know to be true, we must be able to feel as the expression of Soul -- or spiritual sense. This is something I have written about  before - because it is such a vital part of how I understand metaphysical healing, but yesterday it came alive in a new way.

As I was deeply pondering this question again -- plumbing deeper for new insights -- my friend Kristin posted this video, "What Does Color Sound Like?" about synethesia [a word that shares an etymological root with the word "synonym"] and the artist, Wassily Kandinsky, on Facebook. It took my breath away. Oh my goodness! I am a synesthete. I had never heard either of these words before -- but that video was a window on my "soul," -- on the way I see, feel, hear, and experience the world around me. It is why poetry comes without intention or effort. I am experiencing color as words. I am hearing music as it takes shape in the clay I am holding in my hands.

But, perhaps this is also why I can hear a patient tell me that they are unable to feel peace, while at the same time, telling me that they love their children.  And, I am able to see - with absolute conviction - that this is impossible. For, if they love their child [an indicator of the presence of God as Love in their lives] I cannot even imagine - at any level - that this does not directly indicate the presence of Soul - and therefore, the sensation of peace.  It is why gratitude and inharmony - or unwellness of any sort - are absolutely mutually exclusive to me, for anyone.

On a more visceral level, this is how it feels for me:  I see a certain shade of blue, and I actually hear Joni Mitchell's song "River." I hear "River," and I feel that song's translation as a shape - in the clay I am holding in my hands. I feel clay under my fingers, and I sense the presence of Soul, as Spirit -- God moving, animating, skating my fingers through the clay, my arms around a horse's neck, the rise of words - like a murmuring of swallows above a river of ice --  swirling and lifting themselves into poetry.

It's all one.  We are all one. We are individually, all these things - colors, sounds, words, movement - working together for good, because we love - period. And we are collectively one - poetry and reader. Sound vessels and still water. We are blue and yellow - colors that compliment one another and reveal the deeper nature of the other, in hue, tone, meaning. But in the same spectral of light.

We are individually and collectively synonymous. Each one of us, directly implying the other. For example, if I say the word wife, I imply the concept husband. If I say God, I imply man. Principle and its idea - one. One directly and implicitly denoting the presence of the other.

I once asked my Sunday School class to put aside the "names" for God that Eddy listed [above] and imagine that they only had colors, sounds, textures, flavors, shapes to define the Allness and wholeness of God. What would the color of Spirit be? How would Life sound? It was refreshing. It was felt.  I actually do this regularly myself. It helps me to recognize the presence of God - Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love - in the world around me, and within me.

Practicing this re-framing, is like practicing a new language. We are translating sounds into shapes. We are hearing colors and feeling scents. We are seeing blue and feeling peace.  As a dancer translates music into movement, a spiritual healer translates love into health -- because Truth and Soul are synonymous.

I could go on and on -- and on. But I will leave this here. I am so grateful.

offered with Love,


Kate


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