I invite you to join me in a Creation Meditation as you read this Pulse of Spirit today.

I had a conversation with Karen Pritchard yesterday, and in the middle of it, she made this statement:

 People aren’t building enough bridges to rebuild the family of the world.

In 1955, the New York City Museum of Modern Art showed a photo exhibit called The Family of Man. The exhibition took the form of a photo essay celebrating the universal aspects of human experience. It then toured the world for eight years, attracting more than nine million visitors. As a young boy, I saw the book by the same title that showed photos from the exhibit. As the black and white images of ordinary people did for so many others, they touched my heart and inspired my spirit.

The phrase family of man, while beautiful, tends to cast us all in a masculine light. Of course, the photos showed both men and women, as well as children. It was depicting what Karen called “the family of the world.”

To build the bridges that rebuild the family of the world, we have to bring goodwill. Goodwill is a positive extension of love. Carried to excess, it has us being a doormat. And yet, at every step along the way, there is goodwill to be extended: an initiative of graciousness and an opening to an experience of unity with other people.

Where there is division, it’s rather hard to tell why. You could try to blame it on one party or another. But does it matter? If there is division, everybody is sharing in it. But I think it is possible that, in the case of divisiveness, there may be one party who is actually there in goodwill. But without reciprocity, there can be no unity and no peace. There is no bridge to rebuild the family of the world

Here is an attitude that helps to build a bridge:

The good of all people is the good of my people.

I don’t have to sacrifice the good of other people to uplift my people, my family, my community, my organization, my country, my party, or my culture. The good of all people is the good of my people. If there is peace in the world, that is good for my country and my family. When we all take care of this earth and each other, that is good for my community and my loved ones.

The good of my people is the fulfillment of my life.

 Is this not the message we have to bring to the world? Yes, we understand that the good of your people is important to you. But the good of all people creates good for my people and your people. I serve my people when I’m here for the good of all people.

I rephrased Karen’s observation this way:

We are building bridges that rebuild the family of the world.

We are reaching out for the good of all people and bringing that spiritual medicine into the world. From the historical record, I know that people who have done that have, at times, been welcomed with great love and appreciation. And at times they were met with rejection and criticism. Whatever others’ response, we have goodwill to bring, not allowing our hearts to be hardened. We are building bridges that rebuild the family of the world.

It’s early for Christmas. But when I think of goodwill, I can’t help but think of these verses from the Christmas story:

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (Luke 2:13,14)

I do believe we need some Christmas angels here on earth now—a heavenly host incarnate in the flesh, bringing goodwill to the world. This is our positive reassertion of what is true in the face of whatever might be present, including all that is not true.

Here are the words of the first verse of the most popular Christian hymn of all time. It was written by John Newton, who had been a slave trader. His conversion began during a particularly rough storm off the coast of Donegal, Ireland.

Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost
But now I’m found
Was blind, but now I see

It is such an interesting way of saying something, naming what resonates so deeply: I was lost, but now I’m found. What does it mean to allow yourself to be found? Sometimes people speak of knowing God’s love. It is a beautiful thing to know that you are loved by the Divine. How about being found by the Divine? And along with being found is being known. For that to happen, a person has to show up in their life in a way that says, Here I am. See me. Know me. Have me.

Being known must relate to cosmic intelligence and Divine Mind. We might imagine that cosmic intelligence sees us whether we like it or not. Perhaps so. But that wasn’t John Newton’s experience. He felt lost until he allowed himself to be found.

When we let ourselves be found and known by the Divine, we become a conscious part of the divine pattern. We know we belong in that pattern. When we let Divine Mind in, we begin to be Divine Mind, thinking within our human experience and within our human world.

Within the intelligence of Divine Mind is the loving heartbeat of the Divine. We come to feel and know the vibration and power of the Creator, beating within our own heart.  

Spirituality can be a comfort. It can be an upliftment. It can warm our heart, and it can be a wonder. And yet it’s more. True spirituality is a recipe for manifesting the Divine on earth. True spirituality is the formula for building the bridges that rebuild the family of the world. Because within true spirituality, there is the divine pattern and divine power. The drumbeat of love is the power of Creation, and the intelligence of Divine Mind brings us the pattern of Creation.

We are right in the middle of a Creation Meditation. It is ecstatic. It is union with the Divine; it is being found; it allows the drumbeat of love to reverberate through us. It’s communion together and communion with the Divine. It’s uplifting and empowering, and it’s world-changing. For we who are serious practitioners of spirituality, we meditate together to re-create the world.

For that to happen, our own human soul has to reverberate so strongly and powerfully with the divine pattern that it’s coming through us. The heartbeat of love is resounding through us into the world. We are bringing the frequencies of the divine design that reorder the social fabric in which we live. Those frequencies and that pattern are carried upon the drumbeat, coming through consciousness, bringing new awareness to the world in which we live. We see and know the spiritual DNA of a new world. We bring the freedom that lets the people go. It is a freedom to be oneself and freedom to participate wholly and fully in this Creation Meditation and the fulfillment of that Meditation in life.

We’ve been found by the great God of the Universe, who has reordered our souls. We are no longer the lost boys or the lost tribes. We are found people, and we are finding each other. And we are willing to be found by each other. We are finding human beings all over the face of the planet. Divine Mind has come into us and is now doing the finding, entering human souls around the world.

We have been changed, any one of us, when we’ve been seen for who we are and known by another human being, when that human being brought divine vision and the goodwill of the angel.

To be seen and to be known for who we are is a rare gift. Let us find each other. Let us be willing to be found, and let us find the family of the world, building bridges to rebuild the family.

That is our prayerful Creation Meditation. I can feel the attunement current flowing with that drumbeat, with those frequencies of divine intelligence that we are unleashing in and through ourselves and among us all, wherever we may be.