Thursday, October 31, 2019
ONE OF A KIND
Dear All of Us,
So, how do you get along with your relatives - all of them?
Blood and marital relatives for sure.
Just as much, every other person, place, form of life, element of existence
in all of creation - relatives all.
We're all related, intimately so - no degrees of separation involved.
Sure, there are all sorts of superficial separations.
At core, though, we are all manifestations of Being.
We are all together rooted in Ultimate Reality.
Put other ways, we are all like rays of the sun,
we are God emanations,
we are family.
Our spiritual living is relational.
We're in this business of existence together.
We're kin.
And so we are kind, "kin'd" to all of existence.
The word kind speaks soul.
It come from the Old English "cynn", meaning "family".
Be it people, molecules, mountains, music, puppy dogs,
energy and matter of all forms, we are family,
we are kin and "kin-ness" is the manner of our spiritual living.
We live in a universe evolving, order coming out of chaos.
We want to support that, care for it, be "kin"d to it
So we treasure it as we do ourselves, because we are one, we are "kin".
We also live in a time and place painfully fouled by human evil.
Much of society worships in the Temple of Self,
not in the Sanctuary of Kinship.
Self centered greed manifests itself in materialism funded by capitalism
strong armed by militarism.
Family is fractured into factions of power gone astray and destructive.
Few have most.
Most have not enough.
Nature is raped.
Soul is stupefied.
Yet, in this mix we are blessed to live a life of kin-ness, of kindness
and so right the wrong.
Now, kindness is a lot more than holding the door for another.
It is living what we are - family, one, together.
It certainly is not some sort of soft, sappy, wimpy "nice nice ".
It is engagement with our engagement to all.
It is connection with our connection to other that isn't fundamentally other,
with our kin -
people, place, energy.
It is being a being with all beings in Being itself - God.
Whatever the power brokers of this world
and the politicians who work for them do,
we get to live a life of relationship, a life of kinship, a life of kindness.
In personal and practical ways let's pray our way through this reflection:
How aware am I of kinship with:
the unborn
the terminal
the marginalized
the needy
the gifted
the ordinary
the uncommon
How do I safeguard and nurture nature?
How do I simplify my living so that others may simply live?
How do I delight in the beauties of creation, meeting God there in love?
How do I live kindness with people experiencing and responding to life
much differently than I do-culturally, religiously, politically?
How do I live kindness towards the evil powers of this world,
Empire and its chieftains, even those in my family,
at work, in my neighborhood, church/synagogue/mosque?
How do I see, encounter, respond kindly to people, places,
music, art, science, literature, energies -
as the starburst of God's creativity, all of us kin?
How do I get along with my relatives - all of them?
How "kin'd" am I to us, One in splendid diversity?
Our spiritual living is relational.
It's family, kind to kin.
The privilege and joy of it is to live
the mystery that we all together are
ONE OF A KIND
delightfully different.
Thanks for the kindness of your company.
Holding us all together,
kin that we are,
In The Love Who Is God,
John Frank
*****
FOR PONDER AND PRAYER
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"Three things in human life are important:
the first is to be kind,
the second is to be kind,
the third is to be kind."
Henry James
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"Love is patient, Love is kind..."
I Corinthians 13:4
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"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."
William Shakespeare
Troilus and Cressida
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"...we are all stardust."
Carl Sagan
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" For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of
the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit
we were all baptized into one body..."
I Corinthians 12:12-13
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"When I was young, I admired cleaver people.
Now that I am old, I admire kind people."
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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"Kindness is the language which the deaf hear and the blind see."
Mark Twain
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"And this; our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees,
books in running brooks, sermons in stone, and good in everything"
William Shakespeare
As You Like It
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"Francis ( of Assisi ) has been described as a nature mystic, one who finds God
in the vast and beautiful fields of nature. Everything spoke to Francis of the
infinite love of God. ...In this way, creation became the place to find God, and
in finding God, he realized his intimate relationship to all of creation...
For Francis, justice and peace are related to poverty, compassion,
contemplation and on-going conversion by which we realize our familial bonds
with all living creatures..."
Francis of Assisi
nature's mystic
Ilia Delio
The Washington Post
March 20, 2013
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"...that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you,
that they may be one in us..."
John 2:17
_____________________________________________________________
*****
Welcome to all being one with us for the first time.
Like at The Olive Garden,
"When you're here you're family."
"frankly speaking"
is posted online Thursday evenings, east coast USA time at
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
and is available be automatic email on Fridays - sign up above.
Have a great week.
Looking forward to being together next week.
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