Ongoing integration of self
Let’s do a brief meditation on the integration of self (physical, biological, knowing and loving). Let’s centre ourselves for a moment. Let go of the days travel and concerns. Take a deep breath and relax. I would like us to think about our various parts, what makes us what we are, how our organs and activities function and interconnect to make a whole self.
Let’s begin with our bones, our skeletons. Their functions are mechanical and physical. We rely on them to hold ourselves upright, to provide a solid frame or scaffolding, to walk and get about from place to place, to lift and hold. Electric charges keep our cells active.
Think about the chemical reactions that keep us alive including the oxygen transfer in our lungs, digestion and the constantly changing combinations of atoms and molecules in every one of the 37 trillion cells in our bodies that never stop pulsing and wiggling.
Notice how all those cells combine in 78 main organs that work together in the most amazing combinations to form our biological selves – our hearts, lungs, brains, livers, kidneys and nervous systems – more complex than any computer system.
As biological organisms, we see, hear, feel smell and taste but beyond the biological, we are reflectively aware that we do these things.
We can remember what happened yesterday and compare it with what happened the day before. We can imagine what we will do tomorrow or what someone is doing far away. We experience dreams and reflect on them.
We understand and know. We think about the images, feelings and experiences that flow through our senses and imaginations, what we see and hear. We ask questions. We develop ideas, concepts and theories about them and how they relate to one another. We judge what is true and real.
We decide and choose, select among possibilities and opt for what is worthwhile and what seems good to us. We make ourselves what we are to be – the one and only version of ourselves that ever will be. We become a human, responsible self.
To cap it all off, we love and fall in love, going beyond ourselves, reaching out to another or others, be that a person, a community, the natural world or God (whatever we conceive ‘God’ to be). We are thereby transforming our selves, creating bonds of transformation.
We really are amazing beings. For me, the most amazing thing is this – I am and we are.
Acknowledgement of Country and Heritage
From the creative moment of the Big Bang through billions of years of universe-formation, humans appeared on this Earth.
Some made their way to this land
The Kaurna people have cared for and loved this place for thousands of years.
It became Country in mind and heart.
We acknowledge with respect the elders past and present for they hold the memories and traditions of the sacred ceremonies, rituals and initiations that were performed here.
With gratitude and appreciation, we recognise and accept the inheritance of faith and spirituality offered to us by our indigenous forebears.
May we listen to the wisdom, breathe the air and be open to the spark of Light deep in the Spirit of Country.
On our growing selves.
I began as an embryo formed by the coming together of an ovum and a sperm, resting deep inside the body of a woman.
Next came differentiation into various cell types, then limbs and organs.
I was totally dependent in the warm dark comfort of my mother.
Just when I thought I was complete and developed, I was suddenly pushed out through a painful experience to a cold, strange world.
Everything was confusion: my life-giving umbilical cord was gone, I could not see anything, noise everywhere, cold and hungry. Fortunately, my mother had milk for me. I quickly learned how to suck for it.
Gradually, I worked out how to survive – mainly by screaming when I needed feeding, warming or cleaning.
Thankfully, I could sleep at will.
I was a functioning organism, sensing and sensitive, but still totally dependent on others, conscious only of my own well-being.
Gradually things changed, I became aware of my environment, of people, distinguishing between the good ones (mother, for example) and not-so-good who just ignored or even annoyed me.
I discovered what I liked and disliked, found my voice and my feet (literally).
I learned that I was a separate person from others, began to remember things, hold on to images, and have a sense of my place in my world.
Childhood gave way to puberty and adolescence. I learned to think, understand how different things are made up and connected to each other, make decisions, relate to other people.
Almost without realising it, I became a young adult, psychic with deep feelings I could not articulate clearly, sensitive to experience, understanding and knowing myself and my environment (human and natural), deciding and choosing how to grow myself and my world and reaching out in love beyond myself and immediate concerns.
I began more and more to think for myself, to make choices that affected not only events outside of me but also choices that changed or affirmed who and what I am. I was really becoming myself – a unique, wonderful, loving person.
Through and in it all, I was discovering God, not just as the out-there God I had learned about as a child, but as the actual creator, foundation and sustainer of all that is, Something beyond all knowing or imagining but in whom or in which I lived and loved.
I married, had a family and created a career. Others took different paths.
I have had some wonderful moments of happiness and fulfilment as well as times of deep frustration, despair and unhappiness. Everyone’s biography on its own could fill a library.
So, here I am, still searching, astounded by what I find, grateful for the guides, rules and teachings that enabled me to find my ground and for the freedom that now allows me to go beyond them into spaces where I have never been before.
Let’s think of it as letting the divinity that we and all others share, evolve and have a real effect in making us better persons bringing about a better world – in other words, the Kin’dom of God.