You are divine. That’s a seldom heard phrase in Unitarian Universalist circles, but I believe it. You are divine. You carry within you a piece of the Universe—a part of the infinite—a portion of all that has ever been. You are unique in time and space—and that is no accident, because you are part of the divinity that encompasses all. Those molecules that make you hold atoms and particles that existed before you and will continue after your life is done. You are unique, you are divine, and you are a part of something much larger than we can comprehend.

The mystics have written about this. Minstrels sing of it. Actors portray it. Spiritual teachers preach it. Philosophers strain to describe it. A recognition of our divinity has been called enlightenment, awareness, insight, wisdom, and consciousness.

Consciousness of this kind calls us to take on the ultimate challenge of leaving a self-view and seeing our interconnectedness. Can you see that while you are a divine being, so is everyone else? You are unique, but not independent from all.

Can we see that if we are divine and have a spark of the infinite at the core of our existence—that everyone else holds the same inside? Most of us can recite our UU first Principle: “The inherent worth and dignity of every person” —but do we use it as a lens to view others as divine? Do we rejoice at our own worth and dignity, but only accept others as having something similar (but not necessarily equal)? Can we see the divinity in others even if it is disguised?

Unconsciousness means not seeing our divinity—and not seeing the same in all. Most of us spend our lives unconsciously chasing things that we are told are important: money, power, things, security, certainty, happiness. Many of us spend our lives unconsciously holding stereotypes, biases, and profiles of “others” that separate. Such a life unconsciously misses the abundance of divinity disguised around us. Every negative stereotype you hold disguises the divinity in others.

As 2020 ends and as a post-COVID world begins to be revealed to us, let us not slip into unconsciously attempting to recreate an imagined past. Let us strive to consciously look for the divinity disguised in ourselves and in others. This is difficult spiritual work. However, the chaos of 2020 has handed us the possibility of starting over by seeing divinity where it has always existed. We just missed it because it was so well disguised. ………………yours in shared ministry………….Russ