Mike Paschall . com

These thoughts…

Everything that has unfolded in space and time was present in utero in the universe’s beginnings, so interrelated are we and all things with that initial flaring forth of light.

Teachers in the Celtic world have been saying something similar for a long time. In the ninth century, John Scotus Eriugena said that all things in the universe were made “together and at once.” He did not mean that we and all things became visible at the same time. He meant that we and all things have been hidden in the “secret folds of nature,” as he put it, waiting for the time of our manifestation. We have been latent in the matter of the universe since its inception. Now is the time of our emergence.

Bohm describes reality as “undivided wholeness in flowing movement.” The universe is like a mighty river in flow. From that single stream, smaller streams emerge. These are to be celebrated and cherished, each one absolutely unique, never to be repeated again—that blade of grass, that autumn leaf, the countenance of that child, your life, my life. Then we dissolve, merging back into the flow, our constituent parts to emerge again in new formations further down the river. The universe wastes nothing in its endless unfolding.

Within that flow everything is interrelated. There is a propensity within all things to move in relations, even though we may choose to deny the predisposition or be untrue to it. The law of gravitation expresses it. At some level every atom in the universe seeks to remain in relationship with every other atom. Science observes this propensity without claiming to understand it. —John Phillip Newell, The Rebirthing of God: Christianity’s Struggle For New Beginnings, (Woodstock, VT: SkyLight Paths, 2014), 7.

 … should draw us closer towards inclusivity!

How else are we to think about it?  The great unfolding of creation, that is still very much happening, originated from a divine singularity. He said, “it is good” and blessed the handiwork. Who has been born among us that didn’t require the hand of God to be involved?  Who chose for themselves to add spirit and soul to our flesh? Who among us was not wonderfully and mysteriously made?

It doesn’t make me feel superior or “special.”  In fact, it challenges me to settle the issues of unrestrained ego and pride.  Family usually doesn’t do ego with each other, and if what Newell is saying is true, maybe the family is much larger than our parental genetics or social parities.  Maybe love and value for God’s creation might be more expansive than just trying to be nice to people because the Bible says so. Wouldn’t it be advantageous to see Him in everything he created?

Live every day inside this magnificent truth: GOD LOVES US ALL!

Mike