I view the world as one organism. I know it is not quite scriptural. But to me, everything is connected. The whole world recycles life and allows life to continue. Elements transition from one form to the next, like how fire turns water into steam. And how the currents of the ocean affects so much of our weather, as does the movement of the earth around the sun and the moon around the earth creates seasons of change, all of which keeps moving everything else forward. It is all comnnected.
It is similar to the concept of the church being one body under Christ. But more encompassing. I don’t believe life can exist without God, and there is no place where life can exist where God doesn’t exist.
Psalm 139:7-12
New International Version
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
In this way, I believe showing kindness to another person is actually showing kindness to myself. Showing love to another is showing love to myself. And if we are one with God, Loving ourselves and loving others is also showing loving to God, in whose image we were made.
There is also this idea that by putting good into our world, we improve the world. And we benefit from that. So actively engaging in love, kindness, and affection toward others can be a very selfish thing in all the best ways. If we are one. If we view the whole thing as something that matters.
You know that scripture where Christ tells John thatary is his mother, and Mary that Kohn is his son?
John 19:25-29
New International Version
25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” 27 and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
Imagine a world where we treat all our elders as our respected parents and grandparents, and all the youth as our vulnerable children? And our neighbors like brothers and sisters? Where we look after the people around us like everyone is family, like we are part of the same tribe… What a healthy healing whole world that would be.
