Enjoy the journey. For it is the journey that unfolds into the goals.
First we are beings then we are doing. So it is important that what we do is good for the being.

Parts & Wholes

We are incomplete realities seeking completeness. We are parts seeking wholeness. We are parts seeking unity – unity of existence, reality, purpose, being. We are likened to a jig-saw puzzle putting itself together – finding a proper fit in a profusion of parts of our “fragmented” world.

Everything is part of something. Parts combine with parts to become wholes which are again parts implying some whole, on and on forever, toward the absolute wholeness of God.

Parts in combination ultimately change to satisfy a whole, whether an idea or a physical entity, because the whole is reason for the part. Wholeness, completeness is the nourishment of life and living. The part separated from the whole will perish, i.e., will change. It is separation, incompleteness that makes us mortal. It is the inertia of life.

Experience

Experience is that which I realize.

I have all the experience of a stone; but, the stone does not have my experience. Within God is all the experience of me; but, I do not have the experience of God.

This is what I am now. Who and where I am now is what I am supposed to be.

Experience is an encounter, absorption, and understanding of a set of relationships or circumstances. A person’s understanding of a specific experience, or event, is dependent on all the prior experiences gathered and understood by that person. An event occurs and we necessarily become it, participate in it to the extent of our capabilities to perceive and understand it.

To understand an experience outside our immediate reality – for example, to be empathetic to another’s experience, we must be must be able to freely draw (without prejudice) on our own experience to recreate another’s. We must sometimes take quite disparate experiences to combine and recreate an experience in which we have not in fact participated. It is even possible for the empathy to be felt in greater depth than the person we are empathic to because of who we have become through the accumulation and understanding of past experiences.

We do not have to be physically present at an event to understand it – to feel it. We have, however, to some degree, to have been and/or be that event.

Some individuals such as writers, artists, actors, etc., are able to express an event even though they were not there, and have us feel the event; at least to the degree we ourselves are capable of feeling it through our own sensitivity and understanding of our prior experiences. And sometimes the actual participants understand the experience better as time passes because of their added experiences and understanding, i.e., maturity.

Absolute experience and understanding is God. Our experience is that part of God, the total reality that we realize and understand. We are only capable of understanding within the limitations of our perceptiveness and our ability to understand the interrelationships of the information perceived. The more we understand the relationships of our experiences, the more we understand the total reality and our place and purpose in it. We continually gather experiences and create new ones from them, coming ever closer to the one inevitable experience – God. In our interaction with each other, things, events, i.e., other realities, the true reality of God is made manifest.

Rationality

Everything is ultimately rational – it has purpose and meaning. In that we perceive it at all vindicates its rationality to some degree, i.e., it has some meaning. In other words, an event, an object without (some) meaning would not be perceived. Things become more rational when we understand the relationships involved – their reality and purpose and our place in them. Chaos is only that part of reality we do not understand.

There is a reason for everything, though we may not see it or may not be capable of seeing it. Our sanity is based on reason and predictability. With the lack of reason – of establishing predictable relationships, patterns of living, we court insanity, fragmentation. The more we understand relationships – the reasons for them and our part in them, the more self assured, confident, and rational we become.

Identity & Security

We identify with and assume security in familiar or “understood” patterns of reality; and, we recreate such to fit our needs. These patterns can be in such things as consumption, possessions, philosophies, societies, clubs, religions, sports, dress styles, behavioral modes, ad infinitum. The experience of these patterns can help us discover and understand more complex relationships if we extend their meaning beyond the limitations of their defined function and our psychological need for them. In other words, any set pattern is inherently limited and, if taken too seriously, can have a stultifying effect on the discovery, recognition, and pursuit of more dynamic, i.e., less restricted, reality patterns that enhance our understanding of the total living unity of God.

The best security we can have is the faith and knowledge of the greater whole – God, and that we are all of equal and necessary importance, because we can not become one with God without mutual participation with each other and all things to achieve the infinite joy of being in a collective and infinite identity.

Change

Existence is change. Change is the continual fulfillment of purpose – and can not be repeated. Seeming repetition only means the change has not been fully recognized or understood – it’s either too insignificant or, perhaps, too significant for us to understand.

Change is the continuing integration, the combining of reality parts to compose the ultimate reality. It is movement caused by imbalance where the imbalance is caused by a need for wholeness which often assumes a direction difficult to perceive. Two examples of personally motivated change are selfless and selfish. Selfless change is directed toward an expedient union with the greater whole through total sharing with the environment. Selfish change is self benefit at the exclusion of others – the denial and sometimes destruction of other realities. It is counter-productive to unification with the greater whole, though it inexorably goes in that direction.

The Soul

The soul is the God part of us that we recognize. The soul is an added dimension to our expanding reality. It is another manifestation of the God reality. The soul is that part of us that can stand aside and judge our actions and the consequences of those actions. It is that part of us that perceives and helps us perceive the greater whole. The soul grows as our consciousness grows. Indeed, even other animals have souls; though, they do not recognize it.

The accumulation and understanding of experience nurtures the growth of the soul.

Language

To understand reality, we must learn its language. To understand mathematics, we learn its language; to understand art, we learn its language. To understand God, we learn God’s language, which is precisely what we are doing whether we know it or not. God’s language, i.e., method of communication, is what we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, lift, build, and discover.....it is all we perceive.

Everything communicates. Everything has many voices. Even a stone calls for our attention with color, texture, size, heft, shape, place. We communicate with the language of a stone plus sound, movement, and more. And our means of communication are ever improving to the degree we are free of artificial and prejudicial impediments. We receive God’s messages/lessons with a limited capacity for reception and understanding. These messages are received, selected, and interpreted basically for our survival so that we may ultimately evolve to the reality of God.

Our senses receive and learn the word of God. Our intellect reads it. Our soul interprets it. The story is God.

The Teamwork Kids
Ten Children and their spiritual adventures in faith
A Noble Pursuits Production

www.theteamworkkids.com