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The expansion of our embrace, or inclusiveness, we often use in referring to other persons, like races, religions, nations, genders, ... Yet, Life manifests as the totality-of-things. The Taoists refer to this as All-Under-Heaven or the Ten-Thousand-Things. The Way of Spirit is to become more, not less, sensitive to what appears through our senses. The gates of the body are means to welcome and become intimate with the manifestations of formless Spirit in the forms of the world. The world of things, that which, through our attachment, was a hindrance to the motions of Grace, now becomes a means, through nonattachment. For in nonattachment, we allow the spaciousness for communion-happening with the totality-of-things. We have allowed the closeness to arise that was not possible with the prior clinging. The sensitivity is due to intimacy; they are one.
Howard Thurman -
It is easy for me to take things for granted and to deal with them without sensitiveness. When have you noticed the color in the sky? When have you looked at the shape and place of a tree? What about the light in the eyes of your friend when he smiles? The gracious manner that your child has in meeting people at the door? The moving insight and the power of the words of a hymn, the music of which you enjoy? The renewal of mind and body after a night of restful sleep? The way the cut in your finger healed, leaving scarcely a trace of the opening? The spontaneous response which overcomes you when you are face to face with some poignant human need? The times when deep within your heart you whisper a thank you to Life, to God or, as you may say, to the Fates!
*"Magic All Around Us," in Meditations of the Heart.
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