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Faces of Unity
Unity: one-ness, integrity, wholeness, continuity, undividedness, solidarity, relatedness and harmony of the parts of a whole, consistency; a quality: the attribute or characteristic or nature of something that is, that has being, that is real.
The word unity describes the relationship between things and thus it is specific to the perspective from which you view those two things; a living work of art, of beauty, that Christ is creating among us. Because its elements are alive – human beings – it is constantly a ‘new thing’, a dynamic thing formed of the movement between elements and not a static thing formed once and for all.
In this talk, I took the St. Paul’s plea to the Ephesians that they “maintain the unity of the Spirit” (Eph. 4: 1-3) and looked at four ‘faces’ of unity to see what that unity looks like with the different people in our lives.
1. Unity with Unbelievers
2. Unity with ‘Taskmasters’
3. Unity with Spouses
4. Unity with Self
This was an interesting topic to work on, and I like the handout I developed for it: Damned Lies and Divine Truths. If I give this talk again, I’d like to include mention of the spirituality of unity as understood by Chiara Lubich, foundress of the Focolare movement. I had a wonderful experience with Focolarini in Ottmaring, Germany during which they taught me priceless lessons from her insights into this crucial quality of community. The key, they say, to unity: identification with Christ forsaken.
Here’s a post about becoming small so as to create unity with another person, to facilitate loving communication.
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