ALL TOGETHER NOW

Several centuries ago, the emperor of Japan commissioned a Japanese artist to paint a particular species of bird for him. Months passed, then years. Finally the Emperor went personally to the artist’s studio to ask for an explanation.

The artist set a blank canvas on the easel, and within fifteen minutes, had completed a painting of a bird. It was a masterpiece. The Emperor, admiring both the painting and the artist’s great skill, asked why there had been such a long delay.

The artist then went from cabinet to cabinet in his studio. He pulled armloads of drawings of feathers, tendons, wings, feet claws, eyes, beaks ‑ virtually every aspect of a bird, from virtually every angle. He placed these silently before the Emperor, who nodded in understanding. The magnificence of any "whole" can never be greater than the magnificence of any singular detail.

Everything in the world is a part of God's creation and each individual is a unique and special part of it. But, without any one part the painting would not be whole. Without each other, God's creation would not be whole.

We are all interconnected and bonded by this thing called life. Every idea, every intention, every action contributes to the whole ‑ the energy that life is.

Albert Einstein once said, "A human being is part of the whole, called by us the universe. A part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures."

We are, have always been, and will always be, a divine part of the divine whole, a member of the body.

After tucking in his six year old son one night, Robert O’Brien tapped his son’s chest and asked, "Do you know what you have in there?" Chris looked puzzled and responded, "'My guts?" "No, you have a piece of God," his father replied. After a brief silence he responded, "God is in my guts?" "No, we all have a piece of God inside us; it is God's gift to each of us." He smiled, tapping his father's chest, and asked whether he had a piece of God in his guts. They laughed together and they both began to ask the same question about the rest of the family. "Does Mommy have a piece of God?" "Yes," they answered laughing. "Does Matt have a piece of God?" they asked about Chris' older brother. "Yes"

Chris attended a day care center with a little girl named Mary who was so spoiled she made the people around her miserable. Chris' father said, "You know, even Mary has a piece of God." Chris looked stunned, and then he said emphatically, "No, not Mary." When his father insisted he said, "Daddy, I have been with her more than you. She doesn't have a piece of God." His father told him that God never missed anyone; everyone has a piece of God inside. Chris pondered this awhile and then said, "'Well, her piece must be all covered up with junk!"

This is a lesson for us all to remember. Even people we dislike have a piece of God. Our task is to move the junk out of the way so that we can find it.

In our families, neighborhoods, schools, on the streets of our cities, we are offered a hundred different ways to "move the junk out of the way"' and reach out with compassion. There are no problems that cannot eventually be solved by good people acting in a positive spirit of service and joy. We need to see and believe in the possibility. The world can work for 100% of humanity. It is up to us to help make it happen.

One of the ways to do this is to change how we look at the world. It is much easier to change what you are doing than to change what another is doing. In a larger sense, all the "'bad" things that happen are of our own choosing. Our mistake is not in choosing them, but in calling them bad. For in calling them bad, since we create our own destiny, we are calling our "Selfs" bad. Many people reject this idea as nonsense. It is too difficult for us to accept ourselves as Bad, so we disown our own creations. We decide that these occurrences are through no fault of our own, which lets us sit back and accept a world in which conditions are as they are. If each one of us were to feel an inner sense of deep personal responsibility for the world, it would be a far different place.

The day we all really want to end world hunger, there will be no more hunger. God has given us all the resources to do that. We have all the tools with which to make that choice. But we have not made it not because we cannot, but because we choose not to.

Some people may even go as far to say there are good reasons that 40,000 people a day must die of hunger. There are no good reasons. Yet at a time when we say that we can do nothing to stop 40,000 people a day from dying of hunger, we bring 50,000 people a day into our world to begin a new life. This is what some would say is God's plan. But it is a plan that totally lacks logic or reason, to say nothing of compassion.

We are systematically destroying our own environment, then pointing to so ­called natural disasters as evidence of God's cruel hoax or Nature's harsh ways. Yet it is our ways that are cruel. Nothing is crueler to nature than man. We step aside from all involvement in this; we deny all responsibility. It is not our fault, we say. And to a degree we are right. It is not a question of fault; it is a matter of choice.

We can choose to end the destruction of our rainforests tomorrow. We can choose to stop depleting the protective layer hovering over our planet. We could end all wars tomorrow. Simply. Easily. All it takes ‑ all it has ever taken ‑ is for all of us to agree. Yet if we cannot all agree on something as basically simple as ending the killing of each other, how can we call upon the heavens with shaking fist to put our lives in order?

People may still deny this and say that they did not choose to get mugged or raped but again I say that we are all the root causes for the conditions which exist which create in the robber the desire or the perceived desire to steal.

And in denying our own involvement we continue to judge. We are quick to call a thing "wrong" or "bad" or "not enough", rather than to bless what we do not choose.

And in reality, we do worse than just condemn ‑ we actually seek to do harm to that which we do not choose. We seek to destroy it. If there is a person, place, or thing, with which we do not agree, we attack it. If there is a religion that goes against ours, we call it wrong. If there is a thought that contradicts ours, we ridicule it. If there is an idea other than our own, we reject it

In a sense, I am saying that we need to love the "wrong" so that we can know right. Sound confusing? To explain this more simply, we need to embrace and heal the devil or that which we perceive to be evil or wrong. Healing is the process of accepting all, then choosing best.

Every master that has ever existed be it Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad ‑‑ has had the same message: What I am, you are. What I can do, you can do. These things and more, shall you also do.

But we don't listen. We say it is difficult to walk the path of the Masters. But it won't be if we can just remember this: we are goodness and mercy and compassion and understanding. We are peace and joy and light. We are forgiveness and patience, strength and courage, a helper in time of need, a comforter in time of sorrow, a healer in time of injury, a teacher in times of confusion. We are the deepest wisdom and the highest truth; the greatest peace and the grandest love. We are all these things. All of us. But we need to choose now, to know ourselves as these things always.

If we choose to express appreciation, gratitude, compassion, and all of the positive emotions, we open the door to new levels of spiritual understanding. We can help create a glowing network of joy and love that will embrace every other living being.

But again you ask "How will I know what is right for me? How will I know what to do?"

Listen to God. Listen to God in the feelings of your heart. Listen to God in the quiet of your mind. Hear God, everywhere. Whenever you have a question, simply know that God has already answered it. Then open your eyes to the world. God’s response could be in an article already published. In a sermon already written and about to be delivered. In the movie now being made. In the song just yesterday composed. In the words about to be said by a loved one. In the heart of a new friend about to be made.

God's truth is in the whisper of the wind, the babble of the brook, the crack of the thunder, the tap of the rain.

It is the feel of the earth, the fragrance of the lily, the warmth of the sun, the pull of the moon.

It is found in tears as well as laughter.

God's truth ‑ and your surest help in time of need ‑ is as awesome as the night sky, and as simply, unquestionably, trustful as a baby's gurgle.

It is as loud as a pounding heartbeat ‑ and as quiet as a breath taken in unity with God. God will never leave you; God cannot leave you, for we are an God's creation,

God's children.

Call on God, therefore, wherever and whenever you feel separate from the peace that is God.

God will be there.

With truth.

And light.

And Love.