Tuesday, June 9, 2026
CAC faculty emerita Cynthia Bourgeault highlights that the primary quality of the kingdom of God is an experience of interabiding—one with God and with one another.
The hallmark of this [kingdom] awareness is that it sees no separation—not between God and humans, not between humans and other humans. And these are indeed Jesus’s two core teachings, underlying everything he says and does.
No separation between God and humans. When Jesus talks about this Oneness, he is not speaking in an Eastern sense about an equivalency of being, such that I am in and of myself divine. What he more has in mind is a complete, mutual indwelling: I am in God, God is in you, you are in God, we are in each other. His most beautiful symbol for this is … where he says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Abide in me as I in you” [see John 15:4–5]. A few verses later he says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love” [John 15:9]. While he does indeed claim that “the Father and I are one” (John 10:30) … he does not see this as an exclusive privilege but as something shared by all human beings. There is no separation between humans and God because of this mutual interabiding that expresses the indivisible reality of divine love. We flow into God—and God into us—because it is the nature of love to flow. And as we give ourselves into one another in this fashion, the vine gives life and coherence to the branch while the branch makes visible what the vine is…. The whole and the part live together in mutual, loving reciprocity, each belonging to the other and dependent on the other to show forth the fullness of love. That’s Jesus’s vision of no separation between human and Divine.
No separation between human and human is an equally powerful notion—and equally challenging. One of the most familiar of Jesus’s teachings is “Love your neighbor as yourself” [Mark 12:31; Matthew 22:39]. But we almost always hear that wrong. We hear “Love your neighbor as much as yourself.”… If you listen closely to Jesus’s teaching however, there is no “as much as” in there. It’s just “Love your neighbor as yourself”—as a continuation of your very own being. It’s a complete seeing that your neighbor is you. There are not two individuals out there, one seeking to better herself at the price of the other, or to extend charity to the other; there are simply two cells of the one great Life. Each of them is equally precious and necessary. And as these two cells flow into one another, experiencing that one Life from the inside, they discover that “laying down one’s life for another” [John 15:13] is not a loss of one’s self but a vast expansion of it—because the indivisible reality of love is the only True Self.
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| Dear friend, In May I was honored to be invited to give the commencement address at my undergraduate alma mater, Malone University. That alone was humbling enough. But in addition—and quite to my utter astonishment—the University also conferred upon me an honorary Doctorate of Letters, a decision and ritual I would soon come to discover was the result of no small amount of work on the part of those responsible for it.  I must also freely admit: writing the previous sentence makes me a bit uncomfortable.Uncomfortable because, like many people I know, I am uneasy naming anything that potentially raises even the slightest hint of self-aggrandizement. Even talking about how worried I am that I might sound self-aggrandizing can sound, to me, well, self-aggrandizing in my potentially drawing attention to how virtuous I am in not wanting to draw attention to myself. Imagine living in my mind. All of that notwithstanding, receiving the honorary doctorate in particular has revealed some things to me about gratitude, belonging and becoming. It is commonly known that practicing gratitude has multiple health benefits. This does not necessarily make becoming a person of gratitude any easier. Perhaps this is why we refer to gratitude as something we practice. But on this occasion especially, I discovered that not only was I grateful, but that gratitude alone was not a word that adequately contained all that I was feeling.  When Dr. Gregory Miller, President of Malone, informed me of his intention to initiate the process that was required to award me the doctorate, I was immediately overwhelmed. I am aware of others who have received this type of honor but have never paid much attention to it. But this had my attention. And not, as it turns out, just because it had to do with me. Rather, that it had to do with community.One of the first thoughts that came to my mind upon hearing from Dr. Miller was, “Why me and not someone else?” I know of many other Malone graduates who are just as, if not more, deserving given what they have done to make the world a better place. But this thought of comparison was immediately followed with the awareness that I was, in so thinking it, simply protecting myself and my shy temperament from this attention. And not just attention from one person (Dr. Miller), but from an entire institution. Which revealed something more.I often say that, despite growing up in an imperfect family, it is still the case that anything good in my life that I have had something to do with has my parents’ fingerprints all over it. And contemplating being with all of those gathered for the commencement, I could see that it is equally true that the same could be said about Malone. However, it also struck me that in conferring the honorary doctorate, the Malone community was not just saying, “Thank you.” or, “Well done.”, although they very much did say those things. Rather, what I mostly heard them saying was, “You belong to us.” And in that moment the awareness arose in me quite viscerally that this ritual was so much more about who I belong to as much as it has to do with anything I have done. And this belonging is no mere abstraction, but an embodied encounter that comes, yes, in the form of a ceremony, but behind which are the voices and warmth of friendships and mentors who have continued to form me long after I have graduated. I couldn’t begin to name all of those whose lives are shaping me even as I write this. It is to them—and the present Malone community—to whom I belong. It is in belonging that I have become whoever it is that I am.  Furthermore, it was in belonging at Malone University (although I would not have known it at the time) that set the course for what it means for me to belong to the communities to which I am now a part and are forming me. People who love me and with whom we are all doing the hard work of being known.To whom do you belong who are forming you into who you are becoming?You don’t have to receive an honorary doctorate to know that these are important questions. But the moment you begin to practice gratitude, you will soon be drawn to and hopefully discover their answers. Godspeed, my friend, as your heart of gratitude expands, and you find yourself belonging—through no small amount of work—to those by whom you are deeply known and in whose presence you will become who God is preparing us for readiness to live in his heaven on earth when it arrives in its fullness. Warmly, Curt |
