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We separate spirit and matter as if they were two different things, though we know now, from quantum physics, that matter is simply fields of force made dense by the spirit of energy that is the base of everything. We are one with the universe, in other words. We are not separate from it or different from it.
And we are not above it. And we are in it-all of us and ev-erything-swimming in an energy that is God. And so we are not separate from one another, or different from each other either. We are, each of us, simply one more sliver of humanity seeking to become more human, trying to be godly, and we will never be it either by diminishing ourselves or by degrading others.
To be enlightened is to see behind all the forms life takes to the God who holds them in being. Enlightenment sees, too, be-hind the shapes, icons, and language that intend to personalize God to the God who is too personal, too encompassing, to be any single shape or form or name.
Enlightenment takes us beyond our parochialisms to the pres-ence of God everywhere, in everyone, in the universe. It ignores color. It disdains gender. It releases gifts and listens to voices not its own precisely because they are not its own.
To be enlightened is to be in touch with the God within us and around us, in ourselves and in others, more than it is to be engulfed in any single way, any one manifestation, any specific denominational or nationalistic or sexual construct, however good, however well-intentioned that kind of benign ungodli-ness may be.
God is radiant light, blazing fire, asexual spirit, colorless wind. God is the magnet of our souls, the breath of our hearts, the stuff of our lives. God is no one's pigment, no one's flag, and no one's gender. And those who certify their God under any of those cre-dentials make a new idol in the desert. To be enlightened we must let God speak to us through everything and everyone through whom God shines in life.
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Joan D. Chittister (In the Heart of the Temple: My Spiritual Vision for Today's World)