About 25 years ago, the man who wrote the Tao of Physics wrote an amazingly different book, called The Web of Life. He’s a physics professor at Berkeley, named Fritjof Capra. He had also written a book called The Turning Point, on where we were in history, which I had found as interesting as his physics book. About that time I was working with a woman on a systems text who had worked with him. I was asked to coordinate a conference of systems people in 1990 that was focused on the future, so I took the chance to reach out to professor Capra through her and ask him to be the keynote speaker at this conference. When he heard it was a gathering of systems people he said he didn’t think he’d fit. I said not to worry, his Turning Point and his integration of eastern and western philosophy in The Tao of Physics was perfectly in alignment with our conference theme and he’d be just fine. He finally agreed, came, did his talk, and was very well received. Of course, he received a copy of our program and our proceedings as part of our thank you. I left my career as a systems scientist for the ministry a few years later and never heard from him again.
A few years later, when The Web of Life came out I was blown away. The man had paid attention! He had integrated what we were talking about at that conference with his own understanding of how the universe works and said it in a way that any intelligent reader could make sense of! Wonderful!
A few years later, I was asked to tea with one of my more “mature” former students – a retired engineer from IBM – and he said “I was participating in a class in Berkeley and one of our instructors was Fritjof Capra. When I asked him how he had come to do all this work in systems, he said “This woman in Portland called me and asked me to speak at a conference…” Needless to say I was delighted – and, once more, blown away.
Capra has since come out with a number of systems-thinking books, including A Systems View of Life, for which I am truly grateful… we need as many systems thinkers in the world as possible.
Now, why am I telling you this story today?
Because you who believe that there is One Power, One Presence, accept that we are all part of the Web of Life.
Whew! There is only One. That One is Good. Here is only One, Good. Everywhere is only One. Everything, everywhere is the One that we call God, the Good, omnipotent.
So that means all beings are Good. They can’t not be! We might misunderstand them. They might be being Good in places we’d rather they were not, or ways we can’t see as Good right at the moment, but they MUST BE GOOD.
A few years later, when The Web of Life came out I was blown away. The man had paid attention! He had integrated what we were talking about at that conference with his own understanding of how the universe works and said it in a way that any intelligent reader could make sense of! Wonderful!
A few years later, I was asked to tea with one of my more “mature” former students – a retired engineer from IBM – and he said “I was participating in a class in Berkeley and one of our instructors was Fritjof Capra. When I asked him how he had come to do all this work in systems, he said “This woman in Portland called me and asked me to speak at a conference…” Needless to say I was delighted – and, once more, blown away.
Capra has since come out with a number of systems-thinking books, including A Systems View of Life, for which I am truly grateful… we need as many systems thinkers in the world as possible.
Now, why am I telling you this story today?
Because you who believe that there is One Power, One Presence, accept that we are all part of the Web of Life.
Whew! There is only One. That One is Good. Here is only One, Good. Everywhere is only One. Everything, everywhere is the One that we call God, the Good, omnipotent.
So that means all beings are Good. They can’t not be! We might misunderstand them. They might be being Good in places we’d rather they were not, or ways we can’t see as Good right at the moment, but they MUST BE GOOD.
And not only are they Good in the most general, global sense, they must be my Good – the best possible thing that could be happening to me, in my current consciousness, in this time and place. Wowee!
You mean the ants in my kitchen are my good? Well, yes. They help me keep the kitchen clean – partly by reminding me to do so and partly by finding the crumbs I miss.
You mean the spider in the closet or the scorpion in the desert cabin is good? Well, yes. They remind me to be mindful of where I put things and to check my shoes before I put them on. They also eliminate other insects that I’d rather not have to deal with.
You mean the lions and tigers and mountain lions and wolves that eat other animals are good? Well, yes. It turns out that when they are not present, the herds that they have been removing the weakest members of get too numerous and overgraze the grasslands and start to have to eat tree=leaves and cause all kinds of plants to die, so the water that those plants’ roots have been holding in the ground, and the moisture that their leaves have been producing in the air are no longer present and what was beautiful rangeland and forest becomes a desert. It’s a pattern that has been documented all too many times in the past 100 years – and is now being reversed in some places, like the Yellowstone valley.
So yes, even all those animals that we’ve been told are not okay are, in fact, good. They contribute to a healthy world for all of us.
And, in spite of what we’ve been told, they are not out to get us! Only when their habitat and food supply have been destroyed do they see humans as potential food. Otherwise, they see us as potential friends. Really! A favorite story a friend of one of my students tells is when he was hiking in the Sierras, alone, and came around the corner on a trail – to be face to face with a mountain lion. He stopped. He knew he couldn’t run, climb, or otherwise escape this magnificent being. He stood there, his heart pounding, and forced himself to remain calm. He spoke to it, in a low, calm voice, telling it that he meant no harm and that he appreciated how beautiful it was and hoped it would be well and happy. The lion looked at him a bit, then turned and went off down the hill into the trees. He waited a bit while his heart settled down again and then, somewhat more slowly, proceeded on his way up the mountain. Not long after, he came to a large flat rock and stopped for a rest – he’d calmed down but that had been a draining experience! He spread out, relaxed, and dozed off in the warm sunshine. After a bit, he woke up, realizing that a warm furry presence was rubbing itself on his outstretched hand – the mountain lion had lain down next to him and wanted to have its neck skritched! The afternoon wore on, the sun no longer warmed the rock, the mountain lion, content, got up and went away – and the man returned to his car safely. Everything – even what we have feared – is good.
You know the indigenous peoples of the world tend to refer to other beings as “all my relations”. They understand that the One Presence, the Great Spirit, is in everything, and that all other life forms are different offspring, or expressions of that Spirit. When they see a rabbit, or a hawk, or a coyote, they know that’s not just any old critter. They know that the presence of all these beings is telling them about themselves and about the world around them. They know that great Spirit has taken on different forms to tell us different things, and that seeing a coyote means that the archetype Coyote has a message for the person seeing.
A woman from the Dineh people, who we call Navajo, did a Ted Talk recently, in which she shared the things she’s learned while working on her Ph.D. Some of those things are the facts that her ancestors had carefully maintained the prairies for the buffalo, feeding the small fish so that the larger fish and other species might thrive, and carefully created gardens against the mesas by managing waterflows, and lived comfortably for thousands of years – millions of people – here on North America, before the Europeans came. She was proud, and angry. And still she was offering this knowledge as a gift, an opportunity for us, the European immigrants who have destroyed her ancestral paradise, to do something different – to return to the ancient ways and once more preserve the beauty and balance of this land, and help our children, and children’s children to live comfortable, healthy lives in the process.
There was a time when all humanity lived that way, nurturing the land, creating habitat for other beings to thrive and provide food sources, and creating beauty in their homes and social gatherings. Millions of us, all over the world. Thriving because we helped one another thrive. Yes, before the empire-builders came along, 6000 years ago, we all lived that way. And, in some remote parts of the world people still do.
I believe our drive to care for animals as pets is a small reminder of that time when we cared for all beings, everywhere. I believe that we can, once more, live lives of comfort and ease in harmony with, and blessing, all the beings of this beautiful planet, our nurturer and supplier, our grandmother Earth.
Why do I believe all that? Because I know who we are.
We are a Unity. We know that we are part of the One Presence, Good. As are all beings everywhere. Can we learn to live that way?
Can we bless all the beings we hear about and read about, regardless of what we’ve been told about them? Can we honor that Spirit that is in all of us? Recognize that everyone is Good, is seeking their Good, is offering their Good, in the best way they know how, right now?
Because that is, after all, what we’re called to do.
If there is only one Presence that is Good, and only one Power that is Good, then there can be no other Presence, no other Power. Even the micro-organisms that we’ve been taught to be afraid of are good – our bodies host over 40,000 different ones all the time – and we couldn’t live without most of them. Even this virus, this SARS CoVid is good: it woke millions of people up out of their wage-earning-keeping- up-with-the-Joneses trance into the possibility of a new way of living, in which a relationship with people, not dollars, is most important.
Everything we see, hear, taste, touch, or smell must be Good – regardless of what we’ve been taught, otherwise. The lonely men who act out of their fear and pain, causing others to feel the same fear and pain are saying “Wake UP!” “Help me!” “We need to be doing something different for all of us!” The power-hungry men who impose their will on those around them, who use weapons or laws or simply the authority of their personality or uniform or badge to make others do things they don’t want to do are saying “Wake UP!” “Help all of us be better human beings!” in the only way they know how. The manipulative people, using and abusing the system and the people around them to get as much as they can, are saying “Wake UP!” “Our system is destroying lives!”
And we need them to do those things. Not because it feels good for us, but because we need and want to Wake Up. We need and want to live our lives in a different way – a way that is good for everyone, everywhere. We need and want to be a blessing for all beings, everywhere. It’s our nature to do so. It’s our heart’s desire.
And, as Unitics, as people of Unity, there’s another thing that we know: because the One Presence is Good, the one Power grants our heart’s desires. All of them. It must, It can’t not: “It’s God’s good pleasure to grant the desires of your heart.” The Power and Presence that we call God is giving us all the experiences our hearts seek. If we don’t enjoy them, we may not be seeing them for what they are – or our hearts are confused and asking for things that we don’t really want, simply because that’s what we’ve been taught.
And we’ve been taught some weird things. As children of the European immigrants who came to this paradise and destroyed it because it didn’t look like cities and farms, we have been taught to want things that are not necessarily what’s best for us. As children of Empire builders who thought the only way to be happy was to take as much as possible, we have been taught to want things that are not necessarily truly what we need or even enjoy. As children of the Industrial age, we have been taught that using machines is more effective and more desirable than working with our hands. And, as children of fearful cityfolk, we’ve been taught to be afraid of the natural world “out there.”
So our hearts have been mixed up. Our nature is to love and bless and receive joyfully and share, and to trust this world into which we’ve been born. Our training is to take and hold on to and build walls to protect ourselves from the world “out there.” So the One Presence, so generous, gives us some of both. And then we’re more confused.
But we, people of Unity, don’t have to be confused. We can relax in Truth. We know that what we’ve been taught isn’t Real. We know that everything in the Universe is Good, so we don’t have to be afraid of anything or anyone. We know that the loving Presence and Power always provides, so we don’t have to take, and grasp, and hold on to things in case of some fearful future. We know that as we give so we receive, because that’s how the One Presence Is and the One Power works in this Universe, so we bless all those we meet, knowing we receive blessing in return. We share whatever we receive, knowing we receive more in return, we hold in our hearts an image of a life of comfort for all, of thriving for all beings, in beauty and harmony, in this beautiful Web of Life that is the One Presence supporting us all.
For So it Truly Is… Amen.
You mean the ants in my kitchen are my good? Well, yes. They help me keep the kitchen clean – partly by reminding me to do so and partly by finding the crumbs I miss.
You mean the spider in the closet or the scorpion in the desert cabin is good? Well, yes. They remind me to be mindful of where I put things and to check my shoes before I put them on. They also eliminate other insects that I’d rather not have to deal with.
You mean the lions and tigers and mountain lions and wolves that eat other animals are good? Well, yes. It turns out that when they are not present, the herds that they have been removing the weakest members of get too numerous and overgraze the grasslands and start to have to eat tree=leaves and cause all kinds of plants to die, so the water that those plants’ roots have been holding in the ground, and the moisture that their leaves have been producing in the air are no longer present and what was beautiful rangeland and forest becomes a desert. It’s a pattern that has been documented all too many times in the past 100 years – and is now being reversed in some places, like the Yellowstone valley.
So yes, even all those animals that we’ve been told are not okay are, in fact, good. They contribute to a healthy world for all of us.
And, in spite of what we’ve been told, they are not out to get us! Only when their habitat and food supply have been destroyed do they see humans as potential food. Otherwise, they see us as potential friends. Really! A favorite story a friend of one of my students tells is when he was hiking in the Sierras, alone, and came around the corner on a trail – to be face to face with a mountain lion. He stopped. He knew he couldn’t run, climb, or otherwise escape this magnificent being. He stood there, his heart pounding, and forced himself to remain calm. He spoke to it, in a low, calm voice, telling it that he meant no harm and that he appreciated how beautiful it was and hoped it would be well and happy. The lion looked at him a bit, then turned and went off down the hill into the trees. He waited a bit while his heart settled down again and then, somewhat more slowly, proceeded on his way up the mountain. Not long after, he came to a large flat rock and stopped for a rest – he’d calmed down but that had been a draining experience! He spread out, relaxed, and dozed off in the warm sunshine. After a bit, he woke up, realizing that a warm furry presence was rubbing itself on his outstretched hand – the mountain lion had lain down next to him and wanted to have its neck skritched! The afternoon wore on, the sun no longer warmed the rock, the mountain lion, content, got up and went away – and the man returned to his car safely. Everything – even what we have feared – is good.
You know the indigenous peoples of the world tend to refer to other beings as “all my relations”. They understand that the One Presence, the Great Spirit, is in everything, and that all other life forms are different offspring, or expressions of that Spirit. When they see a rabbit, or a hawk, or a coyote, they know that’s not just any old critter. They know that the presence of all these beings is telling them about themselves and about the world around them. They know that great Spirit has taken on different forms to tell us different things, and that seeing a coyote means that the archetype Coyote has a message for the person seeing.
A woman from the Dineh people, who we call Navajo, did a Ted Talk recently, in which she shared the things she’s learned while working on her Ph.D. Some of those things are the facts that her ancestors had carefully maintained the prairies for the buffalo, feeding the small fish so that the larger fish and other species might thrive, and carefully created gardens against the mesas by managing waterflows, and lived comfortably for thousands of years – millions of people – here on North America, before the Europeans came. She was proud, and angry. And still she was offering this knowledge as a gift, an opportunity for us, the European immigrants who have destroyed her ancestral paradise, to do something different – to return to the ancient ways and once more preserve the beauty and balance of this land, and help our children, and children’s children to live comfortable, healthy lives in the process.
There was a time when all humanity lived that way, nurturing the land, creating habitat for other beings to thrive and provide food sources, and creating beauty in their homes and social gatherings. Millions of us, all over the world. Thriving because we helped one another thrive. Yes, before the empire-builders came along, 6000 years ago, we all lived that way. And, in some remote parts of the world people still do.
I believe our drive to care for animals as pets is a small reminder of that time when we cared for all beings, everywhere. I believe that we can, once more, live lives of comfort and ease in harmony with, and blessing, all the beings of this beautiful planet, our nurturer and supplier, our grandmother Earth.
Why do I believe all that? Because I know who we are.
We are a Unity. We know that we are part of the One Presence, Good. As are all beings everywhere. Can we learn to live that way?
Can we bless all the beings we hear about and read about, regardless of what we’ve been told about them? Can we honor that Spirit that is in all of us? Recognize that everyone is Good, is seeking their Good, is offering their Good, in the best way they know how, right now?
Because that is, after all, what we’re called to do.
If there is only one Presence that is Good, and only one Power that is Good, then there can be no other Presence, no other Power. Even the micro-organisms that we’ve been taught to be afraid of are good – our bodies host over 40,000 different ones all the time – and we couldn’t live without most of them. Even this virus, this SARS CoVid is good: it woke millions of people up out of their wage-earning-keeping- up-with-the-Joneses trance into the possibility of a new way of living, in which a relationship with people, not dollars, is most important.
Everything we see, hear, taste, touch, or smell must be Good – regardless of what we’ve been taught, otherwise. The lonely men who act out of their fear and pain, causing others to feel the same fear and pain are saying “Wake UP!” “Help me!” “We need to be doing something different for all of us!” The power-hungry men who impose their will on those around them, who use weapons or laws or simply the authority of their personality or uniform or badge to make others do things they don’t want to do are saying “Wake UP!” “Help all of us be better human beings!” in the only way they know how. The manipulative people, using and abusing the system and the people around them to get as much as they can, are saying “Wake UP!” “Our system is destroying lives!”
And we need them to do those things. Not because it feels good for us, but because we need and want to Wake Up. We need and want to live our lives in a different way – a way that is good for everyone, everywhere. We need and want to be a blessing for all beings, everywhere. It’s our nature to do so. It’s our heart’s desire.
And, as Unitics, as people of Unity, there’s another thing that we know: because the One Presence is Good, the one Power grants our heart’s desires. All of them. It must, It can’t not: “It’s God’s good pleasure to grant the desires of your heart.” The Power and Presence that we call God is giving us all the experiences our hearts seek. If we don’t enjoy them, we may not be seeing them for what they are – or our hearts are confused and asking for things that we don’t really want, simply because that’s what we’ve been taught.
And we’ve been taught some weird things. As children of the European immigrants who came to this paradise and destroyed it because it didn’t look like cities and farms, we have been taught to want things that are not necessarily what’s best for us. As children of Empire builders who thought the only way to be happy was to take as much as possible, we have been taught to want things that are not necessarily truly what we need or even enjoy. As children of the Industrial age, we have been taught that using machines is more effective and more desirable than working with our hands. And, as children of fearful cityfolk, we’ve been taught to be afraid of the natural world “out there.”
So our hearts have been mixed up. Our nature is to love and bless and receive joyfully and share, and to trust this world into which we’ve been born. Our training is to take and hold on to and build walls to protect ourselves from the world “out there.” So the One Presence, so generous, gives us some of both. And then we’re more confused.
But we, people of Unity, don’t have to be confused. We can relax in Truth. We know that what we’ve been taught isn’t Real. We know that everything in the Universe is Good, so we don’t have to be afraid of anything or anyone. We know that the loving Presence and Power always provides, so we don’t have to take, and grasp, and hold on to things in case of some fearful future. We know that as we give so we receive, because that’s how the One Presence Is and the One Power works in this Universe, so we bless all those we meet, knowing we receive blessing in return. We share whatever we receive, knowing we receive more in return, we hold in our hearts an image of a life of comfort for all, of thriving for all beings, in beauty and harmony, in this beautiful Web of Life that is the One Presence supporting us all.
For So it Truly Is… Amen.
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