Thomas Aquinas reflected that our tendency to hope for change implied there is a good, a potential good enfolded, already existing but not yet unfolded, that being the Creator’s intent and intended ways of working. Unfolding this enfolded potential is the work we are each expected and created to accomplish in our lifetime. To unfold the potential enfolded within, not merely within ourselves, but in others as well as in the earth and life processes we touch, requires that love be present in our process. For if love is not present in our process, love will not be present in the outcomes. With and through Christ, love has entered and become available to our processes on earth. Yet, love is not evident in many of our processes… our processes of sustaining our lives (eating, clothing, transporting, travelling, housing, etc.) and our processes of advancing the state of our humanness (educating, parenting, teaching, etc.). For love to enter and do its work, we must become as little children; we must accept our instrumentality and become receptive instruments. When we open our hearts, minds and spirit, love finds the opening… and using us as instruments, love enters our processes. When love is present in our process, we begin to “see” wholeness – the intended working and unfolding of the life of the whole around us – making possible, should we take steps along this path, should we move towards wholeness, the unfolding of enfolded potential.
Reading the Gospels, one may reflect this process to be Christ’s process. He saw each person, not as the senses presented them, but at their essence… as their name, their essential and intended role… and he called upon them to fill their role in the larger whole, in the life of the whole, being clear that we must “love one another as I have loved you.” If love is not flowing into, through and between one another, we will be unable to fulfill our role, our calling… calling which is always related to the family of life on earth… not only human life, but all of life. It is truly impossible to love one another outside of harmony with the living energy field, the life energy field in which we live… be that the mountains, the prairies, the deserts, the watersheds, the shores, the rainforests, etc. for we are, each and all, living creatures. We are part of life and not separate from life. We are reminded of a prayer, “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, enkindle in us the fire of your love… and we shall be created and you shall renew the face of the earth.” …we shall be created; we shall become what we are intended to become, our potential unfolded through the work and roles we take on – and for what purpose? “Renew the face of the earth.” We do not renew the face of the earth; we may not boast this accomplishment. We are instruments, if we give an unconditional YES to the call, in the renewal of the face of the earth.
Our work – the work of developing a philosophy of living potential – is that of preparation… preparing for receptivity to the wisdom of intent, accessible through seeing the essence – the pattern of intent, in the intended ways of working – of the works, the unfolding creation; and through accessing the going forward wisdom of the word. For example, the gospel according to Luke, Chapter I, provides insight into receptively preparing ourselves for the wisdom of the word, the wisdom of intent: turn hearts to all children and minds to the wisdom of the Creator’s intentionality. Turning hearts to work for all children and minds to the wisdom of right and good… right for advancing humanity and good for the life of the whole – the whole of life. So this is what we are making an effort to do: turn hearts to work for all children and, minds away from fragmentation and divisiveness, to the wisdom of wholeness, while making ever more visible the essentiality (made clear through the life of Mary) of our becoming receptive instruments; of answering YES to our calling. For the truth is, we are not in charge; we are not the center of all; we are not the source. There is but one Source, our Common Creator; we are instruments; we – each and all – have work and roles in the unfolding of the enfolded creation… work and roles through which “We shall be created and you, Holy Spirit, shall renew the face of the earth.”
Sandra Maslow Smith
Philosopher of Potential
