Connection With All of Life

Interfaith Celebration Gathering

While we all share some commonalties, we are each also quite unique and special. Our uniqueness is what sometimes confuses us into believing that we are all separate from each other instead of the interconnected beings that we actually are. Until we learn humility, however, most of us cannot accept this interconnectedness. We prefer to see ourselves as separate and distinct from all other persons. In this way, we can feel superior (or inferior) to other groups of people. This unfortunately also frees us to judge and condemn.

We judge and condemn others who do not do as we would have them do. But what we judge or condemn in others are our own disowned characteristics. On first hearing this philosophy, most people feel, "That can't be right! I know exactly what I don't like about so-and-so.” But, once we really get honest with ourselves, we find that we either do or have the capacity to do the things we condemn in others.

What we dislike in others are our own disowned parts. What we complain about, point fingers at, and are irritated by in the behavior of others is behavior that we ourselves have done. There is a tremendous blessing in taking an honest look at ourselves and owning all our behaviors, even the ones of which we are not so proud. When we begin to realize that we ourselves are capable of doing (and probably have done) any one of the things we find so irritating in others, it is a tremendously freeing experience.

We need to get to know ourselves and accept ourselves. But to do this, we need to understand that God already knows every part of each of us and not only accepts us, but loves us just as we are. When we can truly accept this, we will then be ready to get to know ourselves, both the good parts and what we see as our bad parts. One of the best ways to do this is to sit down and make a list of what we see as our negative attributes and our positive attributes.

What we learn from this process is that we are imperfect beings, and it is only by accepting our imperfection that we can begin to work toward perfection. Max Ehrmann in the ‘Desiderata’ said “If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself”.

It is this profound realization of our true measure of imperfection that allows us to begin working toward the perfection that our Creator represents. We work toward perfection by replacing our negative characteristics with positive characteristics. It is not enough to merely give up a bad habit. We must replace the bad habit with a more positive one. We are much like a patch of fertile ground. When we pull a weed from fertile ground, another one springs up in its place. We need to replace the weed with a flower, tree or shrub. When we do this, the weed cannot return to drain the goodness from the fertile ground.

Once we have learned to accept ourselves just as we are and have begun our own transformation, we soon find that we have gained a great deal of acceptance and tolerance for the behavior of others. And it is in this acceptance and tolerance that we begin to feel the first stirrings of a realization of how very interconnected with others we are.

We undergo a transformation that is described by Lao Tzu put it in the Tao Te Ching as, “When you realize where you come from, you naturally become tolerant, disinterested, amused, kindhearted as a grandmother, dignified as a king.” Lao Tzu goes on to say, “When you are content to be simply yourself
and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.”

May God add a blessing to these humble words.

AMEN