Journal of Sacred Work

For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body–Jews or Greeks,
slaves or free–and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:13

   As she breathed in her final hours, I looked into my friend June Ammons’ eyes, asked her what she was thinking? Thoughts of husband? Children? Friends? "I’m thinking of myself," she told me. "I’m thinking about how I need to prepare for eternity."
   For a moment, I felt a unity of my soul with hers. Whatever seemed to differentiate us, our skin color, our sex, her terminal illness against my apparent health, these surface differences dissolved as I watched her life fade away in the light of her room in the hospital where I served as president….

   Each of us catches glimpses like this if we are open to them. If the eyes are windows to the soul, what we see when we look into another’s may surprise us. We look into a baby’s eyes and see our own souls. We gaze at someone we love, or even someone we hate, and our own reflection appears. 
   "We were all made to drink of one Spirit," Paul wrote to the Christians of Corinth. And perhaps, more than we know, we are all part of the same spirit.
   The world sends us strong messages that we are different from each other. Society divides us into social and economic classes. Our eyes tell us the difference between our skin color and that of another. As we value the similarities between us and our parents and siblings, we note the differences between us and strangers.
   The idea of friends and strangers can be damaging to loving care. Christ was called to teach us to cross the boundaries that seem to divide us, to trust even if we are taken advantage of, to love our neighbors, even especially our enemies. For Christians, there are no strangers – only people we are familiar or unfamiliar with.
   Love’s teaching is simultaneously powerful and stunningly ineffective. We say we believe in Jesus’ teachings, yet when is the last time we prayed for our enemies? Forces of brain chemistry and hormones push us to try and defeat each other, take advantage of each other, use others for selfish gain.
   And here is Paul’s message that we were all "baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free." We are made to look differently and to think differently about many things. Yet we are all baptized in the same spirit and we are all of one soul.
   I don’t expect this meditation to change anyone’s thinking because there is nothing new in these thoughts. Yet, perhaps this reflection may re-awaken the part of each of us that senses the oneness of all humanity. And as this recognition comes, maybe it will become easier to reach out to others in need.
   A few hours after June and I engaged each other’s souls, hers left her body. I came into her room only moments after she died. Her husband, Edsel, honored as the first black Bishop of the Methodist Conference in Ohio, was sobbing quietly. Nearby, a female minister recited prayers in a low voice, a second female minister wailed in a high-voiced ritual of ancient tradition. Two of June’s six children stood by the bedside. In the middle of this unified circle, June’s lifeless body lay stiff and still, as if frozen in mid breath, her face turned upward, her eyes open, her soul merged with the eternal.