Universal Family

Amid happy laughter among friends, equals in the family, the rule of living--Do to others as you want others to do to you--unfolds in three levels, then six levels. A path to ascend to the way Jesus lived the golden rule is full of lessons, including lessons about how not to get overwhelmed by a seeming Mount Everest of idealistic challenge. Relax. Learn. Decades of labor shared easily. And don't let philosophical complexity upstage your moral and spiritual intuition! The golden rule is about living the truth in love.

Walking in beauty integrates person and community with land, cosmos, and Deity. The heavenly pattern of that integration is truth that we can taste, "on earth as it is in heaven." The goodness of beauty assures us that we can share this taste with others. Trusting the promise of our personal and planetary destiny, we relax and enjoy the unfolding. Not that life is easy, but the meaning and value of our struggles make the yoke light. New Mexico landscape photo, www.lovethesepics.com

Having been concerned recently about relating as a potential minister to a possible future congregation, I had two transformative discoveries catalyzed by Margaret Benefiel’s book The Soul of a Leader: first the realization of myself together with a future congregation as a living organism, and second, a new level of self-realization—of myself as soul. The next day, thinking of “saint Amy,” as I call the manager of a nearby store, I experienced a great revelation of mercy as divine love applied to the very imperfections of such a congregation.

A soldier who had seen enemy soldiers kill her friends could not accept the idea that all humankind are the children of God. Are the teachings of Jesus really applicable in this world? Intellectually I agree with the golden rule that if I were part of an army bent on conquest, raping, killing, and reducing cities to rubble, then if I could be stopped in no other way, I want to be killed. But intuitively war is a gross violation of the golden rule. Off the battlefield, it is good to extend a measure of trust. If I’m in a situation where I feeling insecure and ambivalent about how treat others, for example, if I am an immigrant in a country where I am regarded with suspicion and resentment, it can make all the difference to meet a strong, positive, beneficent person whose ministry banishes fear and destroys anxiety. Treating people with positive expectations has proven benefits. Yes, wise trust grows gradually. And real love includes being alert, strong, and ready to speak up when serious error is spoken or evil done. But God-knowing persons trust now that eventually divine love will rule this world, and we can embrace wise love and an intelligent application of the golden rule now to help bring closer the future era of peace and liberty. We can treat all persons as who they truly are. Credits: By IbRasmussen - Detail from Image:Vor Frue Kirke Copenhagen altar.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1859520 https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2015/02/11/syria-damage/182fd1c2db4749fa254683d8f5910651cca25d84/images/lead-photo-1050.jpg

Problems are more likely to be overwhelming when multiple kinds of problem are tangled together: uncertainty, disappointment, apparent defeat, the sheer difficulty of what is to be done, the immensity of the task, and the inexplicable in a situation. How do you learn the matching positive attitudes? Photo credit: http://www.polevaultplus.com/category/two-old-men-bumbling-to-better-pole-vaulting/

How do divine truth, beauty, and goodness show up in ordinary life?

Vacations! During World War I around Christmas time, 1914, a series of unofficial cease-fires occurred, and German, British, and French troops sang Christmas hymns and fraternized together. Next, consider lyrics from “Singing in the Rain”: “I'm singin' in the rain . . . What a glorious feelin', I'm happy again. I'm laughing at clouds, So dark up above. The sun's in my heart, And I'm ready for love." Last, use a vacation to become spiritually centered, and see others, not merely as drenched in rainstorms of cultural tensions, but looking by faith through these storms into the other's spirit center.