This was a Sunday morning realization.

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Life occurs -- shit happens -- life is what happens while we are making other plans. If there is any force behind the happenings, any cause(s), it is purely automatic, entirely natural, out of our control entirely. This is the raw material of our experiences.

Those experiences do not come with built-in meaning. We are the meaning-makers, the myth-makers, the religion-makers. We ascribe meaning to the raw experiences, and we do that communally. We share our beliefs with others. We don't want, or can't afford, to be alone in this need to interpret. We decide that there is a lesson for us in every happening. We seek to know who caused this thing for our benefit, who decided to do it on our behalf, who to thank for it.

We personify the forces that bring us into being, that bring us health, growth, happiness, wholeness. We ascribe initiative, creativity, decision-making, and manipulative powers because our primary experience is with persons and as persons. We have these powers, however limited, and so the forces of the universe must have them, too.

But wait!! Maybe the form in which the universe has these powers is us. Think of that!! Maybe we are the consciousness and the force for making the universe a better -- or worse -- place. And the only self-consciously active element in the universe beyond us individually is us collectively. And the only form beyond us collectively now is the collective us past, present, and future.

The way the universe works is automatically in accord with physical and organic principles. What we add is theory, myth, systems of meaning -- and these make all the difference. What enriches life is that we see occurrences as containing lessons for us to learn, we see birds and animals as totems, we find the sacred in the ordinary, we think of ourselves as embodying spirit, we see the world as creation rather than chaos, we see God in a flower....

We do that, and we think we are discovering what is already there. Unity comes close when it says, as Deepak Chopra does, that our minds create our reality. Yes, and in doing so, we are great, majestic, awesome -- but then we almost immediately pass on the credit to someone else. It can't possibly be us; there must be Someone or Something greater.

We don't want the responsibility for the planet. Or for humanity. Or for our community. Hell, even for ourselves. Pass it on to a higher being. Here, you take it. I don't want it. It's too much for me. I an not That.

But I am That. I am the consciousness and the conscience of the planet (maybe of the universe). I am the meaning-maker. It is in my power to find and to manifest the potential for good that is in me, in humanity, in all that exists.

It -- survival, growth, health, wholeness, peace, joy, love, hope -- won't happen without me.

This is the meaning of Unity. God and I are One. There is no meaning, no worth, without God, and now I know where God is and how to access God.

And now I'll go feed the ducks.