Core Circle WSL - Divinity
Opening Words:
“A fire-mist and a planet, a crystal and a cell, a jelly-fish and a saurian, and caves where cave-men dwell; then a sense of law and beauty, and a face turned from the sod, -- some call it Evolution, and others call it God.”
- William H. Carruth
Check in/Sharing
Topic:
“There is a small bulletin board in my study. I pin to it matters I do not want to forget or lose track of. One of the items there is an old-fashioned baggage tag, complete with strings for attaching it to trunks, suitcases, etc. On this tag, printed in large red letters, is one short word: G – O - D.
It is there to keep reminding me that God is a word, a label, of completely human origin and invention. For German-speaking people that word would be Gott. For French-speaking people, it would be Dieu. For Spanish-speaking people, it would be Dios.
For me the question is not "Do I believe in God," or "Does God exist?" The WORD God exists -- one item among countless numbers of them -- in The World of Words. The late Alfred Korzybski used a handy analogy to drive home a basic fact: “As a map is not the territory it represents, a word is not the thing it stands for.”
So the question my old baggage-tag suggests is, “What element or power or force, actually existing in the vast universe-that-IS NOT-words, shall I fasten this label to?”
For me, the answer is something I can't point to directly. I could only cite numerous examples of it. I have to resort to more words to describe it; and they would say essentially this: I symbolically fasten the word "GOD" to the power of the universe to bring forth out of its own components, more and more complex and sentient structures.”
- adapted from William D. Hammond
Focus Questions:
1. What experiences, forces, powers, principles, or feelings, that actually exist in your life or experience do you identify as divine?
2. Is there a plan or purpose for the universe and existence? If so, where does it come from?
3. There are many names for divinity; God, Spirit, Being, Allah, etc. Emerson called it The Oversoul. The Tao Te Ching calls it the Tao. Einstein referred to a “Unified Field.” Whatever you call it, is divinity… Good? Evil? Indifferent? Conscious? Free?
4. It is a fairly common saying that “God is Love.” But if God is Love, then Love must be God! Consider, even if just as a metaphor, that if Love is equivalent to God, then you only need to be capable of love to be inherently holy, and so is everyone else! Could this idea transform the world? Could it transform you?
Likes And Wishes
Closing Words:
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and death, in ebb and in flow. I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the lifethrob of ages dancing in my blood this moment.”
- Rabindranath Tagore