When I spend time contemplating God as the One Infinite Reality, my understanding of the Infinite Oneness of Life always grows a little. As human beings, our conscious awareness and understanding is finite. Regardless of how much we stretch our hearts and minds trying to understand Infinity, we will only grasp a fraction of Infinite Truth and Possibilities, of Infinite Love.
How do we avoid getting locked into lives limited by our own limited understanding of Infinite Intelligence, of Universal Spirit? We begin by remembering that the One Infinite Reality is undivided, complete and whole within Itself. From this perspective we can see that each and every person is part of the Wholeness of God. Each one of us has a unique perspective on Infinity, and all of these individual perspectives combine to represent the vast diversity within the One Life that is God.
Rumi summarizes this concept of moving from judgment to Oneness in his poem:
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’
doesn’t make any sense.”
We want our children to develop into the best version of themselves they can be. We nurture their bodies, minds and spirits. Typically we begin by mirroring what we saw our parents do, or what we see other parents do. For those decisions where we thought our parents could have done better, we may try out some new approaches.
One of the most amazing benefits I have gained from parenting is learning to co-parent with my children’s father or stepfather. Some of the strongest opinions I have held about “good parenting” turn out to be in conflict with my children’s father’s or stepfather’s opinions about “good parenting.” Having the mutual goal of wanting the best for our children creates an opportunity for us to listen to each other – as representatives of God’s Infinite Love and Wisdom – and to discover perspectives and possibilities that we would have otherwise ignored. Children benefit from this enlightened parenting perspective – and from the united and consistent guidance from both parents. And once we figure it out for one child, we are called to discover a different perspective for the next child who is their own unique expression of God.
Love and light,
Rev. Pam
