the individual, the group, and the body of god Dec 11, 2025

Not only my enjoyment, but yours. Not only my control, but also my submission and your control. Not only my experience, but yours. To become sensitive to the other by experience and observation---to say not only "i want" but to ask "what do you want?" To give, in fulfillment of what is needed. To make real what is imagined in order to move our perspectives to a new place. To flow with the river of god, down the mountain, through the valleys, into the ocean, into the sky, and back down onto the mountain. Love is a bond, an obligation, a oneness, a body of which we are members. To love is to share, to support, to lose my individual self and to find my true self, my body outside of my body, my larger and greater self, my blood which flows through the entire universe.

I am a cell which lives and dies in the body of god, a cell who has forgotten its purpose, its identity. I can see this little cell but it is much harder to see the whole body. I have an inside and an outside---i think that i am my own body. But i am fed by the body---my very environment is the body who produced and sustains and depends upon me. It is my duty to be a part of this body. I am an embryo, a bubble in the river, a wisp of cloud in the turbulent sky, a brushstroke in an infinitely changing painting. No metaphor can contain the reality which is poured out, around and through and within us, every day, every moment. I am the cell and i am the body.

Am i working toward wholeness? Or am i rebelling against god? Being an individual, being a group is walking this fine line. I may find local wholeness but resist the greater whole. The organs of the body have walls and special purposes, but they are also connected to each other in complete dependence---i provide for you and you provide for me, otherwise we both die, the body dies. And this is the kingdom of god, the body of god which has yet to be born into the whole of the earth---this interconnection, this mutual dependence.

On the physical level, all is the body of god. But on the spiritual level, we still must evolve and grow into the body of god. The spiritual level is about perspective, information, concept, how we see the world. It is farther from god, in a sense, than the physical world. This is "the fall of man". We fell into a hole, away from god's presence. We believe that we can escape from god, hide from god. Of course this isn't true, and it's exactly that realization that gets us out of the hole. To be with god is to be in touch with the interconnectedness of all things, to go beyond appearances and into the depths of interaction and interbeing.

Saying yes to god, saying yes to the wholeness of everything is about not rejecting reality---we must believe that what happens, everything that happens, happens for love and truth and light---that the force which animates all motion moves according to what is right---and this "right" is beyond us. It is beyond our morality and our understanding and our control. All we can do is our best to understand it, to move toward it, always remembering that it is beyond us.

The relationship of good and evil is not symmetrical. Good is wholeness and evil is rebellion. Wholeness is that which respects all individuals, all details, as well as their togetherness. It is not top-down but bottom-up. Rebellion is not individuality but building a wall---saying "i think i can do better than god. i can make my own reality"---trying to control others rather than allowing their god-given power to flow.

My will and your will move together with the will of the wholeness of all things, in the body of the One, the universe, growing together, evolving together. I am a cell and you are a cell and we are parts of organs, and the organs parts of the body. This is both the reality of the present and the vision of a future world, a better world. Let's get to it.

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the individual, the group, and the body of god

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