About 5 billion years ago (that’s before you arrived) about 5 billion years ago, this thing happened. And I say this thing happened because I want us to get that it was one singular, identifiable event – not several generalized, abstract events. About 5 billion years ago, this thing happened: the conditions in our local cosmos somehow coalesced and converged and combined into such a harmony that life emerged.
And I say life emerged because I don’t really believe life began. It might have looked like life began from our limited perspective. After all, there was nothing. Then, there was something. So, it might have looked like a beginning. However, I say life emerged because I believe the life principle existed before our cosmos exploded into light and the life principle will continue after our cosmos implodes into darkness (and that will be after you leave, by the way). I don’t mean to unsettle you with the whole “implodes into darkness” thing.
Go ahead with your vacation plans. Keep paying your credit card bills.
This is one of the many beautiful contributions of the Unity paradigm: while birth and death might look like beginnings and endings from our limited perspective, a broader perspective reveals them as just entrances and exits for the life principle that knows neither beginnings nor endings.
So, about 5 billion years ago, life emerged, and life emerged as a singularity. Life emerged as a singularity we now call a prokaryote. Think of this prokaryote as a bacterium with a hard shell. And the problem with this hard shell was predictable: our prokaryote’s ability to grow had limits. And because of this limitation, evolution seemed to pause. At which point, life had to change its tactics.
And what happened is that these bacteria with hard shells began to organize into collaborative communities which expanded awareness and intelligence. And from that point, evolution lurched forward again.
Well, over time, these bacterial communities gave rise to a new cell called a protozoan. You’ll recall one such protozoan from your 6th grade science class – you called it an amoeba. So, while it’s tempting to think of this amoeba as a new organism, it’s really just an evolved form of bacterial community.
Now, the problem with these protozoans was that they resembled water balloons. And as you know, all water balloons are fated to the same sad ending. So, the problem was that the protozoan’s membrane could stretch only to a point, before it would rupture, killing the cell. And because of this limitation, evolution seemed to pause. At which point, life had to change its tactics.
And what happened is that these little water balloons began to reorganize into collaborative communities which expanded awareness and intelligence. And from that point, evolution lurched forward again.
In the earliest of these communities, cells started by performing the same jobs but ultimately developed specialized functions which led to the creation of differentiated jobs and skills which gave rise to even grander communal organizations we would come to know as dandelion, and dog, and dolphin, and Danny DeVito.
So, while it’s not inaccurate to say that a human being appears to be a single entity, it’s more accurate to say that each of us is, in fact, an advanced community of 50 trillion specialized cells.
Like our protozoan ancestors, humans started by performing the same, hunter-gatherer activities but ultimately developed specialized functions which led to the creation of differentiated jobs and skills which gave rise to even grander communal organizations we would come to know as tribes, cities, states, nations – all multi-cellular organizations of sorts.
Now, we might pause to glean some hope from this history. After all, if life’s pattern over the past 5 billion years is to hit a wall, get stuck, reorganize into greater collaboration and then to lurch forward, maybe beneath the messy surface of today’s world, we’re really just reorganizing for greater collaboration and readying to lurch forward again. How hopeful is that in these days of fragmentation and fractiousness, that we’re really reorganizing and readying for new and higher ways of being?
So, we might pause to glean some hope from this history but that hope really isn’t my point. My point is that we are hardwired for connection by virtue of our history.
We are hardwired for connection because somewhere deep, deep, deep in our psyches, we remember that we have a common grandmother – a gooey, hard-shelled grandmother who emerged from the smoke of a new planet some 5 billion years ago. We are hardwired for connection because somewhere deep, deep, deep in our psyches, lurking beneath our many identities – identities such as culture and ethnicity and gender and religion - we know that it’s something of a deep connection that best defines us as members within the family of life.
When we in Unity say we are one, we aren’t espousing some feel-good, airy-fairy new thought platitude. We are invoking a shared memory as ancient as time itself.
I might suggest that we are inextricably connected to one another as siblings in life’s unfolding longing to know itself. And because we come together in spiritual gatherings, I might say we are inextricably connected in God.
Somehow, this strikes a similar tone to the words of the mythological patriarch Moses when he defined God as “I am,” or, “I am that I am,” or, “I will be what I will be;” I am-ness, beingness, is-ness, unfolding-ness.
We are inextricably connected to one another as siblings in life’s unfolding longing to know itself. We are inextricably connected in God.
So, whether you best hear this as a conversation about physiology, history, spirituality or all of the above, the result is the same: we are hardwired for connection because connection is our natural state; and because connection is our natural state, disconnection causes pain.
At which point, we look at today’s world and ask: how does today’s world support connection and how does today’s world encourage disconnection?
So, I have to say: I’m not one of those people who thinks that all social media is inherently bad. It’s like so many trinkets on the playing field of earthly life – it becomes good or bad based upon the consciousness that wields it. Use it as a tool and it becomes a tool. Use it as a weapon and it becomes a weapon.
So, I’m not one of those people who thinks that all social media is inherently bad. At the same time, I believe social media has afforded us an unprecedented opportunity to disconnect.
It was the Austrian philosopher, Martin Buber, who set forth a model in which the I-it relationship is contrasted with the I-thou relationship.
In the I-it relationship, we stop seeing individuals with families and longings and histories and futures and we start seeing servers and rude drivers and political parties and customer service representatives. We stop seeing real people and we start seeing generic labels. Others are dehumanized and our interactions are characterized by what we might gain.
In the I-thou relationship, we stop seeing servers and rude drivers and political parties and customer service representatives and we start seeing individuals with families and longings and histories and futures. We stop seeing generic labels and we start seeing real people. Others are rehumanized and our interactions are characterized by how we might connect.
Social media has afforded us an unprecedented opportunity to establish the I-it relationship. How easy it is to post that scathing review without the inconvenience of having to face the hard-working entrepreneur who will continue working for her family, nonetheless. How easy it is to post that unfounded accusation without the inconvenience of having to face the leader who will continue serving his people, nonetheless.
Now, I’m no Danny DeVito. I admit that. At the same time, I have some inkling of life as a public figure. I have tasted the “it” end of the I-it relationship and it’s a bitter taste, indeed. And it occurred to me one evening that as fun as it is to jump on the bandwagon and to paste my laughing emoji on every clever meme about Taylor Swift or Kim Kardashian or God knows – any number of politicians (after all, they’ll never see it, right?), it occurred to me one evening that as fun as that is, there I was: assigning others to the “it” end of the I-it relationship – dehumanizing individuals with families and longings and histories and futures.
And it was in that moment of humble awakening that I chose to stop dehumanizing individuals simply because it’s easy to see them as superstars or celebrities or leaders.
With all good intentions, communities such as ours have encouraged people into the practice of saying, “Namaste.” You see this in yoga classes as well. It’s usually accompanied by a bow of sorts, and it’s been described as a Hindu practice in which the highest within me acknowledges the highest within you. And of course, it’s a beautiful practice. It speaks to the I-thou relationship in high form. The highest within me acknowledges the highest within you.
And yet, I would suggest that if you find yourself saying “Namaste” and bowing as you exit the sanctuary only to drive across the street for brunch to stare at your phone instead of looking up long enough to get your server’s name, you haven’t quite mastered the namaste consciousness yet.
Now, how might I know when I’m slipping from I-thou into I-it? Well, let me give you a few pointers.
If you catch yourself starting any conversation (and this can be an outer conversation or an inner conversation), if you catch yourself starting any conversation with a label, you might be slipping.
“Those men are (fill in the blank).” Allow that to be a yellow flag.
“Those gays are, those elders are, those Christians are…” Any sentence that effectively starts with, “Those people over there are (fill in the blank).” Allow that to be a yellow flag.
This dynamic is central to the rates of struggle among returning veterans: those who have been required to dehumanize in order to fulfill their responsibilities as warriors have to be embraced as humans upon their return, and we haven’t been so good at embracing them as humans.
The power of this primal connection is that wars are fought, and empires are toppled from the dehumanization of people.
And the hope of this primal connection is that while we tend to think the healing of the world will start when humanity has finally agreed on ideological positions or healed religious fractures, it doesn’t really work that way. The healing of the world will start when you’ve finally learned to look up long enough to get your server’s name. The healing of the world will start when you’ve finally become daring enough to extend a hand in friendship, when you’ve finally become courageous enough to break bread with some who are different from you.
The hope of this primal connection is that while we tend to think we’ll get better at human decency as we heal ancient wounds, in truth, we’ll heal ancient wounds as we get better at human decency; and human decency is something everyone can do.
Maybe this is why Buber wrote, “When two people relate to each other authentically and humanely, God is the electricity that surges between them.”
So, when you sing, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me,” you’re not offering some hopeful affirmation. You’re offering both an acknowledgment and a commitment to the ways of all meaningful progress.
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