No labels in God's kingdom

Spiritual resource to share: our common heritage
 

A bustling humanity at an international airport
"Have we not all one Father?" Malachi 2: 10

I regularly read tmcyouth.com - a website for those who want to know more about Christian Science a/o are practicing Christian Science.  It has, as its name implies, a youthful bent.


One post shared how a young Christian Scientist came to grips with who he was and how to break through any resistance to share who he is - as a Christian Scientist!


Its title: "I'm gay"  "Oh yeah!  I'm a Christian Scientist!"  made me think about all the categories we find ourselves in and responding to, and how there is a higher calling - a more all-inclusive uber-category that we all belong to.  Here is my response to that post:


What a startling title! And what a great example of coming out and blessing others!


Today, I thought about this post and just knew I needed to respond.

You know, being gay and being Christian Scientist have a bit in common: They are both labels; there are arguments in some circles that both are against the Bible; and again, in some circles, they are both perceived as being strange.

Michael (this is the individual who wrote the tmcyouth post), I love that you were brave enough to announce that you are a Christian Scientist – you had to face up to some stereotypes and had the moral courage to do so. So anyone who is stuck with a label that has been maligned or misunderstood has had to have that same moral courage and to show themselves as God knows them.


The bottom line is that we are not all running around in scared and isolated little categories! We are all the children of God.

A friend of mine was going to Brazil for the first time and was a little nervous about fitting into that culture. I had gone to Brazil a number of times and told her so. “And you know,” I shared, “the Christ is already there! In fact, the place is crawling with children of God!” We laughed. And that certainly broke any mesmeric sense of being an outsider. She went and had a wonderful time.

What was healing with my traveling friend and what I got was healing in Michael’s case is that there is an understanding that we are spiritual, not material. And because we are all the spiritual image and likeness of Love, we have something profound in common with everyone – we are all children of God.

This is the healing idea (that we are ALL the children of God) that lifts stereotypes we have of others, dissolves fears that others are bad influences, it reverses prejudices and false assumptions. We can get a better glimpse that we “… are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus….. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”* We can add ...there is no human category: neither Brazilian, nor gay, nor Christian Scientist, etc…..for we are all have one Father-Mother God!

*Galatians 3: 26, 28

Zum Geburtstag viel Glück! - Happy Birthday - Feliz Aniversario

Spiritual resource to share: we are all in this together

Two of our "sons" Kyu-Po from Korea and David from Germany

It was the best scene. My older son and I were a part of an international youth conference full of about 1,000 kids from 40+ countries involved in Rotary's international youth exchange. Someone (!?!) told the conference organizer that her son's birthday was that day, and so my son was called up during one of the major sessions to his great embarrassment and joy (you know how that goes). There was lots of whooping and hollering and clapping and laughing as these thousand kids sang "Happy Birthday." Where I was sitting, I could hear a group of lively Brazilian students and some strong voiced German kids singing "Happy Birthday" at the top of their lungs in their native tongue.

I love this stuff. So does my family. In the last ten years, we have been deeply involved either in working internationally or hosting people from other countries in our home.

The big neon sign lesson in all of this has been the experience of the universal nature of God and man. We all celebrate life and birth and connections and wisdom. We are all connected. We are all one.

Dr. Dennis White, one of the many speakers at this conference, gave parents and kids an opportunity to think through what it means to be bi-cultural -- as the ability to move gracefully from one cultural orientation to another as the situation calls for it. Culture is explained as everything outside of the natural world and it defines how we think feel and behave.

I realize that harmonious relations - either with our fellow church member, our neighbor, or an exchange student or even international dignitaries - all have a basis that goes even deeper than the behavioral, emotional, or identification with a group. Harmonious relations are based on the idea of oneness. And, in my practice of Christian Science, this oneness is based on one God, one Truth, one Mind - all synonyms of God. Mary Baker Eddy helps to define and clarify this:

This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter for Spirit, by no means suggests man's absorption into Deity and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man enlarged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent peace.

It is delightful to learn about other's cultures, but even more so to see how affirming it is that we each are a part of that oneness that comes from an infinite God. So the basis of our identity is to reflect an infinite range of possibility stemming from an infinite God. Who I am becomes clearer as I love who you are and all of us are children of one God.

We are never diminished by including a wider sphere of individuals and experiences into our lives, but can only be blessed.





To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

Who are we really? (continuing prayer for Virginia Tech)

Spiritual resource to share: spiritual identity

To donate to Virginia Tech's

Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, click on ribbon

One post from The Wall (a Blacksburg community's response to the Virginia Tech tragedy), drew my attention to a growing concern about cultural stereotyping. Here is an excerpt:

Tuesday night, at an Emory candlelight vigil, a South Korean student stood up and said he was afraid. He was afraid that the shooter at Virginia Tech was going to ruin things for all South Korean students studying in America. Perhaps he was thinking about the backlash towards Muslim students after Sept. 11.

But Virginia Tech does not need to become an example of a culture clash. As educated people, we are taught to see the foolishness of generalization and false-attribution. I pray that nobody on this campus feels afraid because of what they look like, or because of the hometown they left to come study at Emory. We must find the courage to unite against the unfounded stereotyping used by some in the aftermath of Sept. 11. - D.H.

In a couple of days, we welcome into our family a very well-loved international student who has been here for over seven months. Not only is he fun and active in sports, he is well liked by his fellow students, teachers and community members. He is from South Korea, so I have been attentive to the climate of thought here. Although I don't think there will be an issue in this community, the issue of negative cultural sterotyping still needs to be addressed prayerfully.

South Koreans students represent one of the largest international student populations in the US, according to my son's admissions counselor at his school. And since racial stereotypes have flamed into ignorant acts in the past, I feel that prayer - focussed on all of us as God's children - is going to help dissolve the negative suggestions of ethnic stereotyping.

The identity of one does not determine the ethnic character of all. To me, each individual has a unique relationship to the divine. Each individual has their own spiritual journey, which reveals his or her own spiritual qualities.

But classifying ( stereotyping) others can be a subtle force, making us feel that we know others when we don't and isolating others on the basis of physical characteristics or behavioral patterns. I felt this when I lived abroad for a short period of time and I had the opportunity to see that I was more than my cultural sterotype. As a child of God, I had unique talents and insights. I could see that God determined who I really was.

So it makes sense to me to continue that prayer and line of thought that recognizes each individual in his or her own true light, as a child of God. We're not absorbed into a clump of humanity, but we are all children of one God who is spiritual -- good and loving.

I can also support the intelligent care of our community to see beyond cultural stereotyping to the spiritual qualities in each of our community's students.

This intelligence runs throughout every community. The spiritual insight, to recognize the good in each individual member, has a healing impact. Being alert to everyone's spiritual identity helps to bring people in to community, as opposed to seeing only their physical attributes which tends to isolate others who are different than us.

Man is not absorbed in Deity, and man cannot lose his individuality, for he reflects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, solitary idea, for he represents infinite Mind, the sum of all substance. - Mary Baker Eddy

(For more articles and resources on this topic, see Virginia Tech prayers.)

To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.