Inclusivity!

by Michael Ketterhagen

Mary and I have been Associates of the Sisters of St. Agnes for the past 15 years and will be celebrating our Jubilee anniversary with the sisters and the other associates this coming summer.

Recently, though, as we participated in a “home circle” group, called “The Seekers,” in which we are discussing the values of the Sisters, our group chose to discuss and explore our understanding and involvement with the value of “inclusivity.” Certainly, all who know the mission of the Fond du Lac Center for Spirituality and Healing know that The Center is for “people of all faiths and backgrounds.” The Center was opened for all of God’s children, even though we are grounded in the science, philosophy and spirituality of The Yoga Tradition.

Anyone who enters The Center is welcome and included. The Center has been living the CSA Christian value of inclusivity since its origin in September 2000.

In reflecting on the concept of inclusivity, I realize that all who enter our lives are to be included by us. Then, we are to exclude no one with whom we have contact. Everyone who enters our lives, enters purposefully. The Divine Order of Reality, the Divine Source of life, has brought them to us or to our attention for some reason. It is for our growth, either spiritually, physically, mentally or emotionally. When another enters our life, we can learn how we feel and what we think about that person, or that type of person.

Swami Rama always talked about having a strong mind that can kindly accept or reject anyone or anything that is presented to us. All that enters our life is a gift from the Divine, whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad. A strong mind has the ability to accept or reject with kindness any gift we receive from life. We do not need to accept any harm at all from life. We can say, “No, thank you.”, and proceed to accept the goodness that we need.

Besides our ability to mentally not accept evil and then do something about it, when a stranger enters our life, our feelings will betray our inner thoughts about the person and will manifest in one of two ways. We will either ignore the gift (person), rejecting them because we feel an aversion toward them, or we will accept them, welcoming them because we are attracted to them. Both ways of responding to this new person or event comes from a weak mind. We may not be responding as a free person. The responses come out of aversion or attraction, that is fear or desire for pleasure. They are not free acts on our part and therefore don’t come from our loving core. They don’t respect the dignity of this stranger nor our own dignity.

Encountering a new person, even if it is “accidental” is an excellent opportunity to grow spiritually. It is actually our spirit giving us the next step on our spiritual journey, giving us our next movement toward wholeness and love of all. Our spirit gives us the opportunity to learn to love even our enemy. We begin to thank that “enemy” who doesn’t smell right, or doesn’t look right or thinks differently than ourselves for our next growth in the spirit.

The presence of the divine in our lives knows what is good for us and our strong mind can, when we know the gift is not needed, gently return this gift. All we need say is: “Thank you, but I give this back to you as I do not need that now.” That is honoring everyone’s dignity and honoring the divinity within everyone. That’s inclusivity.

We may not need to include everything/everyone in our lives. Maybe we need only include the dignity of all who enter into our lives.

I pray to the divinity within you!