Unity dissected

Unity is in the news…

On the surface unity is a great end goal. The challenge with unity is that the goal line keeps moving. Are we all trying to score or are some of us busy defending the goal line? Once we recognize that pure unity is impossible due to both the micro and macro reality of our own fallible nature, as well as the stuff outside of us that we can not control, we learn to embrace everyone’s boundaries with courage. Trying to explain the dividing line of ideals and beliefs within our families and neighbors is like describing 12 o’clock only as midnight, when 12 can also mean noon. Open your eyes! If its light out, its noon!

Our ancestors across the world, throughout the ages, weeded through the philosophical and theological understanding of our subjective and objective truths. Will we all ever recognize that silver platter of knowledge and wisdom that’s been handed to us and just agree to agree that agreeing doesn’t need to always agree with us?

Within us all, the micro

Unity begins within. Forgiveness is for the forgiver. Healing requires a good look in the mirror. Right in the eyes…deeper.

Red blood and blue blood mix in the heart as a menagerie of various purple shades. Is there compromise in the process of that unifying event? No! The red blood and the blue blood are the same blood! When the blood is blue, it returns to the heart after it distributions of oxygen to the blood vessels in the body and then the blood exits the lungs with a fresh supply of oxygen, as red blood.

Rinse. Repeat.

The oxygen is a temporary resource the body uses for survival. We cant take it with us.

So red blood is the hero (right?) what in its effort to selflessly reward the body with fuel, involuntarily drawing from a seemingly endless provenance. The blue blood is simply an empty rail car duteously returning for a resupply in a constant state of gasping for air?

No.

Oxygen causes Decay. Rust. Aging. Oxygen has a negative charge. So the red blood cant stay red and the blue blood cant stay blue, again, because its the same blood! Blood perpetually changes the content of its character for its host to not only survive but to thrive!

Just as our blood cells automatically returns to the heart in its thirst for a replenished supply of oxygen, each of us needs to recognize our role as individuals carrying the resources of sound thought and the actions necessary for the survival of mankind. The negativity needs to be stripped from our attitude in the quest for harmony.

Unity and privilege, the macro

Just like oxygen, the privilege(s) available to everyone on earth are limitless when we value our mutually inclusive existence. So the analogy being made in this case would be that the oxygen is like privilege. Privilege too, is a resource.

privilege[ˈpriv(ə)lij]NOUN

  1. a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.

Time

Why does it matter whether its noon or midnight? Where we are in life is unique to each one of us yet we all get the same 24 hours a day.

In his song “Old Man”, Neil Young, Canadian-American, Musician, Songwriter and Activist wrote:

Old man, look at my life
Twenty four and there’s so much more.
Live alone in a paradise
That makes me think of two

Perhaps the line ‘that makes me think of two’ could be interpreted as the two states of everyone of us; the yin and yang, giver and receiver, red and blue…

Space

In 1624, 397 years ago, English metaphysical poet John Donne wrote the prose “No Man is an Island”:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent, 
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were:
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were.
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

The message of this prose stands true today.

Maybe some of us don’t care about the greater good of humanity.

Forgiveness? For what? For my thoughts that are different than yours?

And healing? What needs healing? I’m not sick!

This island, Earth, can get pretty crowded at times. Our thoughts, needs and pursuits overlap with the desires of our fellows clouding the boundaries of ‘who am I’. We continuously struggle in our quest for sound leadership. Struggle is natural.

Working together toward the needs of future generations has always strengthened our united front. We need to keep focused on that.

The middle ground

In 1958, Sheb Wooley, an American songwriter wrote The Purple People Eater. If you listen to the lyrics closely you will discover that the one eyed, one horned, flying monster was Not purple!

Nope.

He Eats Purple People!!

There is no conclusion

Red and blue are used to show magnetic fields, temperature which, like blood, they are forever changing. There is no finish line. Unity requires effort! Unity remains fluid when we use the differences between us as a catalyst for change not as a stagnant barrier.

The privilege(s) available to us all on earth are limitless when we value the mutual inclusiveness of our existence.

An event in the heart, where red and blue make purple. After all, home is where the heart is.

A cleansing of both body and mind on the path toward unity.

Rinse, repeat.

33cubed

Before we dig to deep into what ‘Be the planet’ can become, I should clarify that ‘the planet’ in this case is this one, earth.

The words ‘Be the planet’ belong to all of us. Go for it. Put it on a shirt or bumper sticker.

As a baseline, can we all agree that we put the same individual effort into getting here on that first day of life? I had no agenda the day before birth. Did you? (our parents may have had an agenda for us; a discussion for another time).

The earth is 260 billion cubic miles or (1 trillion cubic km). There’s just under 8 billion of us in 2021. Dividing 8 billion into 260 billion we get roughly 33. Roughly 33 cubic miles per capita. That’s a good chunk.

Did any of us deserve to be born? If we deserve to be born then justice was done because justice is getting what we deserve. Grace on the other hand is getting what we don’t deserve while mercy is not getting what we do deserve. So which is it? Does it matter? Can it be all three? Is it possible to deserve and not deserve the same thing simultaneously?

Equality often sounds like a worn out word. There’s to many variables for us all to feel equal in the myriad layers of our global economic onion. [Insert 10 millennium of human history here].

With that in mind, ‘be the planet’ sets its course on the emotional layer of that economic onion. The currency is empathy. We each get 1 share. The value of each share is a reflection of the character we present to each other.

empathy[ˈempəTHē]NOUN

  1. the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

In a just world, if any of us deserve to be alive, then we all – all eight billion of us – deserve a fair share of this place in heart and mind, regardless of our status.

P.S. You don’t get to pick the location of your 33 cubic miles unless you can lift it 😉

Be the planet.

…its an idea.

What does “Be the planet” mean to you?

Where are you from? Nice to meet you : )