{"id":114056,"date":"2017-10-16T17:28:35","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T17:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/?p=114056"},"modified":"2017-10-25T10:35:31","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T10:35:31","slug":"marking-global-oneness-day-and-united-nations-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/marking-global-oneness-day-and-united-nations-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Marking Global Oneness Day and United Nations Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/b>October 16, 2017<\/div>\n
By Terri MacKenzie, SHCJ<\/a><\/div>\n
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\"\"<\/a>Halloween is not the only day to celebrate this month! Tuesday, October 24th, is a double-header \u2014 Global Oneness Day and United Nations Day. This is a day to nurture and elevate\u00a0our consciousness\u00a0of unity and the organizations that can further our living as One.<\/p>\n

We celebrate the awesome and indisputable fact of our biological and atomic unity and also celebrate the existence \"\"<\/a>of an institution founded by 51 member states in 1945. Seventy-two years later it contains 193 members (plus two observer states). Despite having quadrupled its original size, it still makes communication possible among its widely disparate members, and it still fosters many services that help the needy throughout the world. So, both in spirit and with leaders of all nations, let us <\/i>CIRCLE THE WORLD WITH LOVE on October 24th!<\/p>\n

To many our unity seems obvious. Yet violence, prejudices, \u201cisms,\u201d phobias, and delusions of independence and superiority persist. Sad!<\/p>\n

These days many seek knowledge of their ancestral roots and watch TV shows that\"\"<\/a> explore other peoples\u2019 roots. We usually delight in discovering close or distant relatives, and want to understand our connections. Yet we forget or don\u2019t realize that all life on Earth \u2014 and all creation \u2014has been connected from the start. Curt Stager (Your Atomic Self<\/i>) writes: \u201cTo look into the night sky is to survey distant gardens in which the elements of life are ripening, and your body is a composite harvest from these cosmic fields \u2026 Earth is indeed a kind of surrogate mother to us in that our bodies are derived from it, but we exist today only because our true star mothers died long ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

We also share Earth\u2019s current and potential-future calamities. Mary Southard, CSJ, sees the positive side: \u201cWe as a nation and a planet have been hammered by fires, floods, hurricanes, natural disasters of all kinds these past months.\u00a0 We are living in a moment of unparalleled crisis in Earth\u2019s natural systems, and challenge to our human intelligence to respond in this unprecedented OPPORTUNITY to create the world we all want to live in. .\u00a0. .\u00a0 .\u201d<\/p>\n

So let us use October 24th as an opportunity<\/i> to deepen our own awareness of our moment in creation\u2019s spacetime. We know so much more about our interdependence than did past generations, and have vast opportunities to learn more. Let us include learning more about the United Nations and the unique services it offers. (c.f. www.un.org\/en\/sections\/history\/history-united-nations\/index.html<\/a>) \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Recently we\u2019ve seen examples of people coming to the aid of others endangered by violence as well as by floods, storms, fires, and other calamities. October 24th would be a perfect day to join those who are awakening to our global responsibilities for one another and all life.<\/p>\n

Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton recently coined the phrase \u201cclimate swerve<\/a>\u201d to describe the massive climate awakening that\u2019s finally happening in the US. [Many other countries are way ahead of us!] These kinds of tragedies across the nation and world are creating unprecedented receptivity as people search for solutions. Now is our time to reach more people than ever and actually build the political power to change the current systems.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Many of our problems and systems were created before humans realized their interdependence with one another and all creation. Albert Einstein said that \u201cNo problem\u00a0 can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.\u201d Oct. 24th is a good day to alter our level of consciousness in order to solve these problems!<\/p>\n

Einstein also gives this advice, perfect for contemplation alone or together on Oct. 24th:<\/p>\n

\u201cA human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pope Francis agrees. In Laudato Si\u2019<\/i> he writes:\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.\u201d (par. 2)<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople may well have a growing ecological sensitivity but it has not succeeded in changing their harmful habits of consumption.\u201d (par. 55)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt cannot be emphasized enough how everything is interconnected. Time and space are not independent of one another, and not even atoms or subatomic particles can be considered in isolation.\u201d (par. 138)<\/p>\n

Jesus prayed that all would be one. Today we need to pray that we accept that reality and act accordingly. May I suggest that we save some time on Oct. 24th to expand our consciousness by rereading parts of Laudato Si\u2019<\/i> or by learning more about the United Nations or by pausing in awe to consider how interconnected and interdependent we are \u2014 with all creation, from the very beginning!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October 16, 2017 By Terri MacKenzie, SHCJ Halloween is not the only day to celebrate this month! Tuesday, October 24th, is a double-header \u2014 Global Oneness Day and United Nations Day. This is a day to nurture and elevate\u00a0our consciousness\u00a0of unity and the organizations that can further our living as One. We celebrate the awesome […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":385,"featured_media":114058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/385"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shcj.org\/american\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}