Resisting the Illusion of Separateness

One of the things I love about One Spirit is its commitment to resist that illusion of separateness through education and the sacred practice of being together. People come together at One Spirit to practice being a manifestation of love in the world—rooted in the truth that we’re more than connected… we are interdependent. We come from the same Source. Therefore, your survival and thriving are bound up in mine.

When I first began leading at One Spirit, I got a lot of pushback from my Christian community.

It wasn’t blatant, open questioning—it was more of a lingering “Are you sure about that?” that hung in the air whenever I would talk about my work.

So much of the Christian identity is about being separate. I’m reminded of the verse where Jesus says:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword”(Matthew 10:34).

I understand the call in that verse—the need to ritualize a kind of consecration, to be exclusively used by God. But in this season, authentic coalition building is necessary. The times demand that we come together across difference, without losing the depth of our convictions, to resist the forces that would keep us apart.

What made me know this was the work for me was the vision of justice and solidarity—a spirituality of interdependence made possible.

I had always worked in fields committed to building momentum and capacity for people from different races and vantage points to work together to build a more just and loving society.

So the idea of rooting that kind of solidarity in spirituality not only made sense to me—it was a welcome strategy that brought together two key values in my life. The theory that undergirds this is the notion that we are all connected by a common source.

We are all created by God and made in God’s image—Imago Dei.

Many religions echo this truth in their own ways: that there is a divine imprint in every person, and that to harm another is to harm something sacred. Whether in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, or countless Indigenous traditions, this conviction grounds the belief that every human life carries infinite worth.

Some call it Spirit. Some call it God. Others call it the Universe. What matters isn’t the name—it’s that we recognize a shared responsibility for one another. That’s the work we need right now.

That’s the kind of leadership, friendship, and community that challenges division the most.

For me, that means building in a way that doesn’t just serve my own growth, but reinforces the truth we’re all a part of something bigger.

That our lives are tied together.

That there is no “them.”

There is only “us.”

Courtney Bryant

CEO, One Spirit Learning Alliance

Meditation on Relational Repair and Spiritual Care at One Spirit

In the aftermath of fracture, there is often a desire to "fix what is broken."  Yet Spirit frequently reminds us that Her language is that of wholeness and Oneness; thus, there is nothing to fix because nothing is "wrong" nor is anything broken because we are "never separate."  Therefore, tending to the after-effects of a fracture and the arising emotions of a rupture, albeit needed and necessary, will not get us to the "heart of the matter" where restoration lies.  Restoration is not simply tending to relational repair but must also include "reconciling consciousness."  Reconciling the moment that we placed another "out of our heart" where they became "other."  That is where restoration begins, in the heart.  Restoration is the process of renewing "right relationship" with The Divine within ourselves, with another and in the world. Right relationship not as what I deem right or what you deem right but what is in alignment with the Divine Order of Creator, Created and Creation.

When we look upon the aftermath of a fracture, it's not the "creation" as an outcome that needs most of our attention, rather it's "the intention of the creator" that requires the majority of our focus. What is my intention, what is your intention, what is our collective intention when it comes to restoration?  Are we first and foremost, restoring love in our hearts, compassion in our thinking, relationship in our actions?  And how do we do that when we have so many thoughts and feelings to move through?  BREATH is how we do it.  Breath doesn't  “do” anything with all of those feelings yet it does allow us “to be with" them instead of feeling at the effect of, victimized by, powerless in the face of them.  Breath enables us to "have our feelings instead of our feelings having us."  Breath can ground, center, restore, renew, uplift and connect us to ourselves, one another, the world.  Through breath and connecting to The Divine Within, we access our agency, own our sovereignty, stand in our power and engage with our world and each other from our interconnectedness.  

Relational repair is only possible from our interconnectedness.  It is the consciousness of our interconnectedness that we need to renew for restoration to be fulfilled and transformative.  Thus, we invited the community (past and present) to come together at the end of July for a moment to “catch our breath and take a breath.”  Not as a bypass of the fracture but as an acknowledgment of the byproduct of BREATH as the ever present container that holds each and every one of us right where we are and just as we are….every experience, every emotion, every expression and every embodiment of our humanity.  Breath is the “active” presence of Oneness that holds ALL OF US AND ALL OF LIFE. Perhaps if we allow our awareness of it as such, it may serve as the pathway to “activating Oneness” on every level of our existence—-individually, collectively, environmentally and globally. 

Just as breath restores our minds, bodies and souls individually, let's allow it to do the same collectively. Let us collectively breathe in the words, "I Love You" as we breathe out the words, "I'm Sorry."  Let us breathe in the words, "Please forgive me" as we breathe out the words, "Thank You."  Let us allow breath to restore Oneness, the practice of Ho'oponopono to restore wholeness and our "nephesh" to breathe new life into our sense of spiritual solidarity as Community.

—Rev. Laurene Williams
Seminary Class of 2013, ISCC Class of 2017