One stupendous whole

I couldn’t take my eyes off of them! From a 3rd floor apartment window in Boston I saw a professional dog walker with nine leashed clients moving down the street as one. The dogs were all unique—small, big, spotted, and plain—but, each one was moving as part of the whole. Their individuality didn’t divide them. Their common purpose united them.

OK, it was only a dog walker and a pack of dogs agreeing to move together from point A to point B. But, with all of the divisiveness reported in the news lately, remembering the unification it symbolized is like a breath of fresh air!

In fact, the unity of the dog walker and his furry friends is a great metaphor for how I think about God and His creation. Like the dog walker, God is always at the center. He’s guiding, correcting, and keeping everything in His one and only spiritual creation operating efficiently and harmoniously as one.  Just like those obedient dogs, each of us, unique and individual, has the ability to listen for God's direction, and move along with Him. That’s the reality of things.

However, when we watch the news and hear about the divisions in the world—from political arguments to terrorist attacks—it doesn’t seem like anyone is moving along together at all. But, each day we can catch glimpses of the reality of things—the unity that God is causing and maintaining right here and now. It takes willingness and some diligence not to get taken in with all that seems to divide us, and instead, magnify those moments that unite us.

You know that feeling you get when you let a car cut in front of you in traffic? How about when everyone is on the same page in that business meeting you went to this week? We can actively notice the moments in our day when things just click. They have a rhythm of their own, and it feels good. That peaceful feeling is actually our spiritual sense. It is evidence of the action of God, the infinite and only Mind, working in each one of us and moving us along as one. These experiences point to something spiritual and stupendous in which we're all included.

I’m talking about this: “As an active portion of one stupendous whole, goodness identifies man with universal good” (First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany, p. 165). Each of us then, is an integral and good part in God's universe. God is, right now, identifying you, and everyone else, with universal good. This is our true nature as God’s loved children.

Again, no one is left out. It would be impossible for even one of us in the entire world to be outside of infinite good. God, infinite good itself, fills all space. The more willing we are to see this fact, the more opportunities we’ll find to express good and to see it expressed in the world.

Thought by thought, we’ll see that no one can ever be less than an active part of the allness of good. And, just like those dogs who probably had a treat waiting for them at the end of their journey, our reward is a growing understanding that God, the all-powerful good that maintains peace in the world, is present, active, and that each one of us is moving as one with Him.