My wife and I were in Northern Michigan for a week of vacation. On our first evening there we had dinner at the Hungry Tummy Restaurant in Beulah. For a variety of reasons we seldom eat rich desserts, but we were on vacation, after all. My French Silk pie was sinfully delicious, but hardly conducive to sleep. So all night long, through some combination of waking, dozing, dreaming, thinking, and meditation, I was focussed on this theological journey of mine, and in the morning I had five categories of affirmations. I was able to write them out quickly, without my usual groping for words. It was, truly, a spiritual experience. What follows is "My French Silk Connection."

* * * * *
MY FRENCH SILK CONNECTION: A MEDITATION ON ONENESS

I.
I AM ONE with all that exists and all that has ever existed.

I AM a willing participant in the natural forces of gravity, electromagnetism, and nuclear interaction.

I AM bound by these forces. They restrict my freedom, while providing an order that enables me to live and work in reliable interaction with all physical phenomena.

I AM unable to change or even modify these forces.

I AM able to accept these forces, in appreciation and gratitude, as a given, as a gift, as grace.

I AM able to live in harmony with these forces.

I AM able to find beauty in the order of the natural world, and in its justice and impartiality.

I AM grounded in the physical universe in a sense that I perceive to be cosmic and spiritual.

II.
I AM ONE with all life, past, present, and future.

I AM a product of, and a participant in, cosmic creative and evolutionary processes.

I AM the constant recipient of benefit from the processes that foster and sustain life.

I AM unable to change these processes that provide the biological order and life energy that are the basis for health and wholeness.

I AM able to affect the environment for continued growth and evolution, for myself and others, for better or worse.

I AM able to accept and, to a limited extent, understand these processes.

I AM able to appreciate and praise these processes.

I AM able to cooperate with these processes; I am free not to cooperate with these processes, and, consequently, to experience the justice implicit in this natural order.

I AM co-creator with all that operates to build an environment that allows these forces of growth and healing to function at maximum effectiveness.

I AM connected with transcendent life forces; I experience and express that connectedness as a form of spirituality.

III.
I AM ONE with all humankind.

I AM aware that humankind has created cultures and traditions that express perceptions of the appropriate relatedness of humans with the sources and forces of the physical and natural world of which they are a part.

I AM formed and shaped by my culture and tradition. I cannot be totally free of that which has shaped me; it continues to frame my thought and belief. I can re-interpret it; I can understand it as myth, metaphor, and poetry. I can identify the portions of my tradition that are culture-bound and place them in perspective. I can reject those portions that I find inconsistent with my truth.

I AM able to respect and appreciate all cultures and traditions.

I AM one with all humankind and therefore able to supplement the truths of my tradition with religious insights from other cultures. Eastern religions, particularly Taoism, sing truth to me, as do Native American belief systems.

I AM able to feel kinship with the natural/spirit worship that found expression in the Goddess religions of indigenous peoples long before the "world's religions" established patriarchy, hierarchy, and human dominion over the natural world.

I AM in touch, through the collective unconscious and through dreams, with the universal archetypes and wisdom of all humankind.

I AM engaged in a journey of discovery, drawing on the best that I know of scientific fact and theory; Eastern and Western religious traditions; contemporary expressions of spirituality in literature, art, music and dance; and the psychological constructs of Carl Jung, to find a synthesis that expresses my commitment to health and wholeness of self, society, humankind, and the total environment.

I AM grounded in my sense of unity with the physical universe, with all life, with all humankind, and with the mystery that lies beyond rational knowledge but can be approached through intuition.

I AM surrounded by, and one with, love, that eternal, pervasive human/divine energy that has the power to bind and heal.

IV.
I AM ONE with my Self.

I AM a person of many parts:

-- child of my parents from many generations
-- child of my genetic propensities and potential
-- child of my circumstances and environment
-- child of my own responses to my nature and nurture
-- child of my relationships, expectations, opportunities
-- child of talents developed and expressed
-- child of my shadow -- the repressed, the ignored, the undeveloped
-- child of the animus and the anima
-- child of the right brain and the left brain
-- and more

I AM on a journey of understanding my Self as a step toward self- acceptance.

I AM on a journey of accepting myself in the wholeness of all my parts -- light and shadow -- as the universe accepts me, without judgment.

I AM on a journey toward balance and harmony, health and wholeness, and sometimes I find them.

I AM finding spirituality as I find balance and harmony, as I become more of an integrated Self.

I AM finding, within, a spiritual Self that underlies and transcends all of the parts of myself.

I AM becoming centered in my unity within my Self and with all.

V.
I AM ONE with all that is Supremely Significant and Ultimately Real. Those eternal forces and sources and energies that constitute how the universe works, and that I call "God," find expression in me.

I AM one with all that exists, with all that lives, with all that is human, with myself.

I AM one with the way the universe works, past, present, and future, and I participate in its mystery.

I AM in unity with all. God is not other, because nothing is other, not even mystery.

I AM one with God expressed as the Christ within, the Buddha nature, the inner light, the presence and power for good, the potential and promise of abundant life, the Kingdom of God within.

I AM a follower of the Jesus example:

-- By being fully human, he was able to say, "When you have seen me, you have seen God."
-- By being fully who he was, he showed what it is to be spiritual, to be divine.
-- From his own experience he could say, "The Kingdom of God is within you."
-- He said to his all-too-human disciples, "Greater things than these you will do."

I AM aware that all of the major religions contain some version of the admonition to "look within" for wisdom, insight, truth, understanding, and spirituality.

I AM one with God.

I AM.



(Copyright 1997 by C. Grey Austin, all rights reserved.)

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