Just for Today — Be Kind to All Living Things

Well, we have come to the fifth Reiki principle which is — Just for Today, Be Kind to All Living Things.” [If you have not read my previous posts about the Reiki principles, be sure and do this.]

This fifth principle encourages us to embrace inclusive living. Unfortunately, too often we find it easy to be kind to those who are like us, who are kind to us. But this principle encourages us to be kind to all living things.

I believe that it is time that humanity makes the move to a more inclusive way of living and I believe that we are moving in that direction. Maybe it is not seen in the big names in politics, education or even religion but on the level of the ordinary world citizen. Everyday more and more people are taking those first steps on the spiritual path — turning their back on old notions of exclusion, fear and hate and turning toward those of inclusion, hope and love.

The numbers of people who are living their lives from a center of spirituality is growing every day. They are shining their light in a world of darkness and the light is growing. Unfortunately, as in the physical world, it is often the darkest just before the dawn of spiritual light. I can only imagine that just before every great spiritual revolution of the past, the people living then felt that life surely could not get any worse — and then the light dawned and humanity was offered a new path to walk. And my friends, the same is true for us today.

Now is the time that we truly need to remember that this planet is our home. And as such, it is time that we begin to value and care for this planet — from the soil, rocks, water and air, to the plants and animals, all the way up to the human and yes, even to the invisible dwellers on the planet.

We must realize that there is a matrix — a connection that exists from the smallest subatomic particles all the way up to, yes all the way up to God.

The writer of Ephesians says “there is one body and one Spirit…one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”

One of my favorite preachers, Barbara Brown Taylor writes about this passage in her book of essays titled The Luminous Web: Essays on Science and Religion:

we have made much of the ‘above all’ in Christian theology, placing God at the top of the organizational chart of the universe and ourselves, as God’s deputies, right below. But what about the ‘through all and in all’ part of the equation? In a world like ours, which even the new science calls a web of relationships, there is no place to stand apart from and above the rest of creation.

She then says that “what if the universe is not merely the product of God but also the manifestation of God — a ‘eucharistic planet’ on which we have been invite to live?”

I too have been wondering the same thing for quite awhile now. Yes, I believe that in some way God is transcendent — a part from us but I am beginning to see God more as imminent — Emmanuel, God with us, and we with God — in and through us. That’s why I talk so much about living and moving and having our very being in God.

We can only begin to remember this and live in this new awareness as we move beyond our old tribe and even civilization or nation-state mentality. Brian Swimme, in his informative book The Universe Is a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story says “the tribe will not be the center of the human world, nor will the civilization, the culture, nor the nation-state. It will be the Earth community as a whole that will be understood as our home, our womb of creativity and life.”

As you have read these words that I share with you, I pray that we will each begin the process of remembering that truly we are all one community on Planet Earth — soil, air and water; plants and animals, humans. And that we will let that remembrance color and give our life new meaning and direction beginning tonight and every day we live.

“Just for today — be kind to every living thing.”

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