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We are not seeking uniformity, but rather unity, which implies differences. Unity created by the Spirit can only be had among people who are different! We are not talking about conformity, which is low level religion. “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:4-7). Our word for this is a “charism,” a gift that is given to you not for your own self, but to build up the community, to build up the whole Body of Christ.
In 1 Corinthians 12:27-30, Paul explains that you in your togetherness are Christ’s Body, but each of you is a different part of it, with different gifts. Then in chapter 13 he says that love is the greatest gift. When you live in love, in that “vibrational state,” if you will, when you live at that level of communion where you let the life get in and let the life flow out of you to other people, you are living a transformed life. Up to then, it is all play. This alone is what it means to be “in Christ.”
What we’re doing in contemplation is consciously choosing to let go of our ego, to let go of our mind and our identification with what is merely our life situation (where most people self-identify) so that we can fall into our one true Life, which is “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).
Adapted from Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation, disc 7 (CD)
Gateway to Silence:
I am hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3).
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