Adult Religious Education — 9:30 AM
Dale Craig, “The Interrelationship of All Things”
The pandemic has increased our isolation from the interaction of our world: the birds, rivers, grasslands, mountains, bees, and animal life. We have had to re-establish contact with our neighbors, friends and relatives to get together and be with each other in person.
Jenny Odell, in her important book “How to do Nothing,” speaks of resisting the attention economy and re-establishing personal context. Our attention is diverted and directed constantly toward what distant entities want us to be involved in. We need instead to be with our families and friends and understand how we live in our specific local environment, with its particular birds and animals, soil, river, and micro-climate.
The Buddhist view, which Thich Nhat Hanh has expressed so eloquently, is that Interbeing is the basis of life. We cannot have a piece of paper without also connecting with the tree, the water, and the clouds that went into the making of it. We ourselves are the result of generations going back long before us, and we exist in relationship with every other being, past and present. If I harm another living being, I harm myself. I am composed of the world around me. I grow vegetables and then, eating them, make them part of my body. I drink the water from local rainfall, and it sustains me. I am entirely dependent upon the specific range of the heat of the sun at its exact distance from me. When I smile to someone and they smile to me in return, I am made whole.
Questions
How do you escape media influences and turn to enriching your private self?
What is the natural context of your present life, including rivers, flowers, butterflies, hummingbirds, fish, and other forms of life?
How are you relating to the others in your life after the pandemic?
Can you give examples of Interbeing at national and international levels?
Main Service — 10:15 AM
Visit Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church
Social H
