"In a letter to a man who had lost his young son
to polio, Albert Einstein writes, "A human being is part of the whole
called by us 'the universe,' a part limited in time and space. He
experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated
from the rest--a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. The
striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true
religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the
way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind." Richard Rohr
I
love this statement by Einstein about humanity's main striving - that
it is the striving to overcome this delusion of separation. The
separation was never real, but we believed or felt it was. It was real
only in our minds. As Paul says, we were 'separated in our minds' but
never in reality! I believe we all have a longing to feel connected,
feel belonging, feel one with others, with God..it's the longing to be
loved, the longing for family, for home, for security, for oneness. We
can feel separated from all that and thus strive so hard to 'find' or
experience/feel it. I know I have spent most of my life, and most of my
Christian experience, searching for and trying to overcome that false
sense of separation, trying to achieve that experience/state of oneness
with God and so find relief and rest for my soul.
Richard
Rohr says the universe is the body of God. People want to know they
are one with something bigger than themselves. They say they want to be
one with the universe or may say 'the universe showed me..thank the
universe'. But what they/we really want is to be one, not with the
material body of God so much (the universe) but with the spirit of God
in that universe (the Person!). We want a soul connection of love, not
just a feeling of connection with matter. We want a personal
relationship with a real Someone who cares about us, holds us, talks to
us, loves us. We want a Friend! When we see we, as creatures of the
universe, are all part of God's body, we realize we already have that
connection within and we rest, we relax, the searching ends. We were
never separate from Life, Love, or God's Person. We are part of Him.
We are God's body. And our spirits are part of His Spirit! In fact
they are/it is ONE SPIRIT! We have always been just One, exhibited in
many forms and facets..many branches, yet all one tree! The tree of
Life is God and it is us, too, for we are part of Him..what a relief!
This is true rest for the confused mind and soul!
So
we are God's body and that's great to be one with the universe, all
people and things in creation being God's body. When we meet a person,
hug our pet, hold a beautiful flower, watch the waves of the sea, we are
meeting God in His manifestation as matter. That is special and
wonderful! Yet even better to me is that we are part of His Spirit
deep down, having a real relationship with a real Person, connected on
the spiritual level and the personal, relational level, friends with
God, children of God, God's beloved!
And
maybe what Richard Rohr is hinting at is that in the final analysis,
matter and spirit merge and everything is really made up of the spirit
of God, just manifesting in different forms, whether energy signatures
(such as sounds or light) or touchable material objects. All is really
part of God's being. Matter is just Spirit in another form, just like
everything is made of atoms, which turn out to be described at the
fundamental level as neither solely matter nor solely energy but somehow
BOTH. All melding at the most basic level into the oneness that is
God. Everything made of this wonderfulness, which is turning out to be
God Himself!