GOD'S RELATIONSHIP WITH US, ie. Her parts.
So, what is the actual
relationship between God and Her parts (us)?
1.
Part to
Partnership with God.
2.
Our
connection with God.
1. Part to Partnership
with God.
From being part of God
to being apart from God.
When we are a part of
something it is quite difficult to See or Know what that something is. We
identify with that something rather than with ourselves, and then can not know
how we are the same or different.
When we are apart from
something, it is much easier to See that particular something in its own right,
and to use that distance to find out more about the differences between us.
The basic structure/model
for this relationship between God and Her parts is this ‘coat-hanger’
(upside-down?) on which we can and will hang a great many concepts.
A PART APART
PARTNER
(The English language is a
marvellous thing!)
What is this diagram
showing?
The first line shows a
contrast between 2 opposites which in this example are, being a part of
something and being apart from something. I refer to this pair as the first
Absolute Opposite; the AO1. They are the 2 ends of a continuum which stretches
from being a part to a little bit apart to a long way apart.
We use Contrasts to See
and differentiate between opposites, and the further apart/away we are, the
more we can See, as in, ‘Consciousness loves Contrast’.
The second line is the
opposite of both these ‘ends’. I refer to this concept as the second Absolute
Opposite; the AO2. It is neither one end of this continuum nor the other. It
has also gone from the two separate ‘ends’ or opposites, to the single concept
of ‘partner’ that has unified the separation.
The AO2 always has the
effect of being ‘above’ the AO1s, in that it includes both of them,
while at the same time it makes the contrast between them particularly
clear. Thus we can ‘See’ them more clearly. Another way of saying this is that
the AO2 clarifies or ‘locks in’ or ‘holds’ the contrast of the AO1.
“In holding the tension
between opposites, a 3rd thing will appear that transcends the opposites and
resolves the conflict.” LOPKER p.167 (quote)
In this particular example
of apart and a part; the part can learn to be a partner as well as play its
own part, once it knows how to be apart, and this is an important concept.
I will be using contrasts,
continua and opposites further down the track.
It is from this logic that
I suspect that God is wanting partners, and really, this whole UUS is built on
this hypothesis. It makes sense to me.
Another pair of opposites
could be
WITHIN WITHOUT
WITH
but I find the part,
apart, partner more useful.
So many of our religions
imply that getting back to being a part of God is where we ‘ought to’ be aiming
or heading or it’s the reward for life on earth. But what if we are meant to
embrace being apart as the way we get to explore our own energy and define and
refine our own understanding/knowing of ourselves?
Thus, as we learn to be
fully apart, we become more able to be a partner with God, as well as playing
our own part in life.
Then how do we relate to
God within this concept?
2. Our actual human relationship with God.
How do we grasp this in
human terms? One way to ‘get at’ this is to go back to what Jesus was trying to
say.
Jesus describes the
relationship between us humans and God as father to son, or parent to child.
So what happens physically
and psychologically between parents and their children?
Physically.
The primary connection
between parent and child is of physical blood, our DNA. This connection exists
regardless of whether or not there is any later relationship between the parent
and its child; ie, this connection cannot be broken by anything. Part of the
father’s DNA is in the child and there it stays as an integral part of the
child.
Thus, I think Jesus is
saying that no matter what we care to think about this connection, part of God
is within us whether we know it consciously or not, and it cannot and does not
go away.
Psychologically.
If God wants the part to
be apart so that it (=us human beings) can become a partner, how might this
work? What are our religions trying to say? What would be a human equivalent if
there is one? How could we describe that?
In Jesus’ time it was
normal for the son(s) to join the father working in the fields or a trade. I
think this relationship is what Jesus was trying to describe. He was always
trying to use human concepts to describe how God and Heaven ‘felt’ to
humans. We have lost some of these meanings because we have lost some of the
social organization of Jesus’ world.
We are entirely used to
referring to God as ‘Father’, but ‘son’ seems to have shifted to ‘only Jesus’,
when in fact I think we need to be really clear that we are all children or
parts of the Unity we call God and are taught to think of as Father. We are a
part of God as the child is a part of a parent. The child starts off as a part
of the parent and ends up apart from the parent.
Thus, our relationship
with God is as a partnership with a loving parent, wherein we grow from child
to adult.
The child learns with the
father while it works with him in the family as he grows up, and continues to
work in partnership as an adult, and ideally each delights in the other. They
are learning about themselves as they notice their differences and their
similarities. Also children generally yearn to be like their parents (if all is
well).
Notice that this is within
a loving family where the parents love the child and want it. They care about
it and for it and protect it, and are interested in it and enjoy having it
around with them; in short, they serve the child’s needs and like being with
the child. (I may be banging on here a bit, but this is not always the case. A
good proportion of children would experience the family as anything but.)
This is a loving
relationship that grows and continues to grow as a sharing relationship, and a
delight in each other and both ‘grow’ in terms of learning about themselves
from each other and from Life; each becomes more conscious within their own
selves, which is the reason for life.
In effect, this is an
absolute win-win situation.
God loves it. The child
(us) loves it. And what is created through that partnership not only has a life
of its own and lives on to give life and growth to another, but it gives great
satisfaction to both in that partnership in having created that new life.
And so life continues,
eternally.
We could set up a diagram
thus. Here are other ‘coat-hangers’.
PART APART
PARTNERSHIP
within without
with
parent child
father son
together
Create New Life, Bringing in the Holy Ghost
So, what about the Holy
Ghost?
When new life is created
through a ‘partnership with God’, as happens in a loving relationship between 2
people of like mind and intent working together, something mysterious happens
as this new life ‘comes in’. This created thing has a life of its own, and yet
these 2 people weren’t really bothering to or trying to do anything except
enjoy having a lovely time together. (Sound familiar? That’s what metaphors are
for.) Where did this life come from? We don’t know; it’s a mystery, and stays
that way. Jesus refers to this as the ‘Holy Ghost’ as a name for an ‘event’
that has no name. This is how I think of ‘Father, Son and Holy Ghost’.
This act of Creation of
New Life brings great satisfaction to both of them. It is very satisfying, in
fact fulfilling.
My premise is that many of
us are looking for this state of satisfaction and fulfilment, both of which
give a ‘fed’ feeling, but it’s not the physical state that I’m talking about.
This state of having fulfilled one’s Self also brings peace and rest
God wants partnership
with us and so do we with God.
In this manner, we can use
an earthly human experience of fulfilment and satisfaction to extrapolate back
up (you mite say) to what God might be wanting for Herself as well as for
us.
Thus and so, if we as
children of God are able to grow up and define ourselves and know ourselves so
that we become increasingly apart/different while still being part of society,
we will be able to come into a partnership with God that feels wonderful and
creative for both of us.
Then as the child becomes
an adult, this partnership continues on an equal basis, because partnership and
collaboration require the ability to communicate with each other (talking to
each other) as equals. (Which religions include such a concept?)
This communicating with
each other as equals implies that ..
●
We both want to
communicate, which is what I think Jesus is trying to tell us.
●
We have direct
access to God in a natural manner,
●
We have worked
out how God communicates with us, according to our own natural abilities and
tendencies, (our own apartness or individuality)
God wants to
communicate.
The logic of this UUS
argues that She does.
Direct Access in a
natural manner.
One place in the bible
that I am aware of where man talks to God in a natural human way is in the
Garden of Eden. (See Adam and Eve addendum.) It is here that ‘God comes walking
in the Garden’. Notice that we don’t seem to ‘talk to God’ when we are in
heaven; there are no references to this happening anywhere. If we are a part of
God when we are in Heaven then of course there is no need to talk to God. But
the Garden of Eden is one place where it is taken for granted that this is part
of the natural course of events and we don’t query it.
Those people who have
learnt how to talk to God seem to find that living on Earth is a pretty good
place to be. So, maybe as we come into partnership with God and learn how God
talks to us, we begin to enter the Garden.
And maybe, a ‘coat-hanger’
diagram looks like this.
Heaven Earth
Garden
of Eden
How God communicates
with Her Parts.
This is a large topic
which will be developed in the Goal-Setting section, but it is up to each
individual to identify for themselves how God/Life connects with them and what
it actually means to that person.
Thus and so, this UUS
includes the logic that partnership with God happens in the Garden of Eden;
viz. when we are able to ‘walk and talk with God’, we have found the Garden.
Thus, we are on earth to
work out how to do that and what it sounds like, looks like and feels like to
us personally.
Partnership with God;
talking with God/Life and finding the Garden of Eden all happen while on Earth. They don’t happen when we are
Off Earth.
These things are the
earthly ‘rewards’ we are actually looking for.
Notice also that these
‘rewards’ are not the end-point of the process of life on Earth. They bring us
Life and we can grow in that to include more Life.
It is this structure of
understanding as well as the processes of how we get into this Partnership and
find the Garden, that are outlined over the following pages.
It is an On-Earth Useful
Understanding System (UUS) of what God wants for Herself and Her parts.
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