OPINION by Mike Porter
"We are all children of God" – Zorika Trief Wheeler, spiritual philosopher
At an advanced age (about 10 years ago), I began to feel a strong need to consider creation, my part in it, and what I actually see when I open my eyes. Assuredly, I felt, one can believe in what one sees.
I began taking a deeper interest in my surroundings. I started to look, carefully and deliberately. I saw people, animals, birds, sky, sun. I saw the night sky – the moon and the stars. I saw mountains, rivers, seas. I saw things growing. I saw creation.
I am a part of creation but – I realized as I looked – that's all I really know. I was given this wonderful gift of life, a gift which I share with everyone and everything around me.
The nature of the true gift is that it's given freely – both the gift and the decision of how one will use it.
We talk and write about this marvelous gift. We want to understand: 'what is life; why are we here?' But, to be honest, one can only speak for one's self. So, I thought, the question really is: what do I personally believe?
That I share in the creation surrounding me is a fact, and I respect this. Not to respect creation would mean, in effect, not to respect oneself. This is not only negative; it is also ingratitude on the part of the recipient of this greatest of gifts.
We live in the same world, yet each of us differs in his interpretation of creation and the Creator or, to use Bernard Shaw's words, the "Creative Force". After all, each of us has his or her own individual mind.
Our helplessness in the face of the unknowable becomes a void which we need to fill. We strive to find meaning and reassurance in our lives.
Wise men, in their endeavors to overcome this void, have given it varied interpretations. They offer us answers, and we often act according to their writings and in their name.
Essentially they write about belief; it is the same belief, but the interpretations may differ. These interpretations may become an essential part of our belief. They become almost as important, it seems, as our belief in the Creator.
We begin to participate in the discipline of interpretation. This wise man knows! Thus it is written. We are reassured; we follow the discipline; it becomes of paramount importance.
But in our search for answers to the unknown, are we losing the simple acceptance of our existence?
In this endless quest for answers, we often find ourselves walking along varied and different paths. It is now that we must tread carefully; the danger of our drifting apart from our fellow man becomes more and more intense. Are we, unknowingly destroying our feeling of oneness with creation, our essential awareness of belonging to one family – the family of man?
Do we perhaps seek a personal creator, an entity who watches over us and over those who share the path we tread – our path?
The essential truth remains: we have all been given life. Not just everyone, but everything.
Perhaps to understand more fully this harmony with creation, to be conscious of our belonging in and to it, we need to use both our head and our heart.
Outward differences do not alter the inner truth. We belong to one family; we are in one world. We are all children of the Creator.
People have to find room in their hearts to accept the "other" – fellow-man – whether or not that person has a different world-view. We are all sharers in this same great gift of life.
I have met people – among them Christians, Jews and Muslims: believers all – with an all-embracing view of the world. Their clearness of vision, their belief in the Creator, and with it their unfailing acceptance of their fellow man, whatever path they may follow, should be an inspiration to us all.
And here I return to my first paragraph, which reflects the essential weakness of this argument. It was many years before I began thinking past myself and my surroundings – I first had to grow old.