Welcome to the Infinitely Precious podcast produced by Infinitely Precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.

Hello, beloved. It's me, James, coming to you for another episode this week. I've been thinking, a lot about, about the world, about our sense of connection to one another in this world, and what is breaking that sense of, of belonging, why we draw so many lines. And I know we can look at it from an evolutionary perspective, and you can certainly do plenty of reading about why we became tribal and the like. However, one of the refreshing things I found myself doing recently is I've been, reading about the revelations of the Aramaic Jesus.

It's a great book by Neil Douglas Klotz. I recommend it if you are interested, in reading it. I remember some years ago, I ran into a young woman who, was from The Middle East, and she was talking to her mother. And, when she was talking, I was interested because I could tell that what the the language she was talking in wasn't it wasn't Arabic, and it wasn't Hebrew. So I said to her but it had some similarities, some real similarities.

So I said to her, What language is that you are speaking? And she said to me, James, it is Aramaic, the language of Jesus. The language of Jesus. And one of the things that Neil, Klotz, Neil, Douglas Klotz says in his books about, the Aramaic Jesus is the fact that Jesus would have spoken in Aramaic. That would have been the common tongue at the time.

He wouldn't have spoken in Hebrew, and he certainly probably would not have spoken except minimally in Greek at all if he knew much of it. And so when we look for insights sometimes, it can be helpful to look at the language that Jesus spoke. Now you might say to yourself, okay. This seems very convoluted. This doesn't seem like a normal podcast from James.

And that's okay. That's okay. The reason I go there is because this week, I've been pondering the word that Jesus would have used when he spoke about god. The Aramaic word is. In Western parlance, we talk about God and use the word God.

It's a it's a it's a word. It points to a reality that is so much larger than three letters could ever encapsulate, more than the five letters of Allah, could encapsulate. But what god means is so, radically open to interpretation. God is love. God is judgment.

I mean, god we we put a lot of things on god, that word. What's most interesting to me is is the word means, sacred unity, all, the inclusive everything. It doesn't mean that god it's not pantheist. It's not saying that god is the land or god is everything we can see and touch including ourselves and that somehow we are god. That's not what it's saying.

Not what it's saying. But what it's saying is that Allah draws us into this larger sacred unity. We're a part of all that, of what God is and what God is doing, and we are also not God. We are separate from, and yet God acts in and through us. We are expressions of this, this sacred unity.

Each one of us as human beings are expressions of this sacred unity. And if that's so, I talked a little bit this earlier this week on my last podcast about ruha, the Aramaic word for spirit, breath, wind, and air. We breathe from the common air, the sacred unity, and it becomes a part of us, and then we breathe back into the sacred unity. And if you just think about how we are all connected and if you're one of those people who is working, for people right now who are being excluded by, some of the new, the new proposals, the new executive orders that are coming out that seem to identify only certain people as people, and the rest, not so much. If you're finding yourself working for those folks on, that find themselves on the outside, Those folks are part of the sacred unity, a part of the all, a part of what, Jesus might have called, Allah.

You know, the sacred unity which includes and is other than God as well. As we look at that sacred unity, I want to invite you and me as we work to include all in this sacred unity, as we work to recognize we all belong to one another, to the world in which we live, to this vast and expansive infinite universe in which we find ourselves, as we as we work on, that we work from that grounding of unity. Take a step back for just a moment, just long enough to recognize that what you're doing is not so much against anything, but for that which has always been part of Jesus' the approach of Jesus to the world in which we live, that it is a sacred unity, that it matters. The trees, the grass, the water, the wind, the air, all of that matters. And also do all of our neighbors.

All of our neighbors. That's the ones that we are pushing back against as well as the ones that we are standing with and working, with and for who we see as being treated as less than part of the sacred unity. Because for us, the guiding principle is that sacred unity, that that preciousness, that value that each of us has. So as you get caught up sometimes in the finger pointing I'm not saying that some of the finger pointing isn't appropriate. I'm saying as you get caught up in it and you want to demonize the other, it's a natural reality to want to do that.

As you find yourself being caught up in demonizing the other, take a step back and remember that why we do this is not so much to demonize the other, but to be sure that all are included in this sacred unity, this all. The to be drawn into this, to recognize that each of us is a part of that, and by recognizing it, to help others recognizing it in their in themselves and in their other neighbors. So, if you look around and see that the sacred unity is being broken and you get angry, that is a natural and healthy response. But always remember that the motivation for what we're trying to do, love, hope, inclusion, justice, however you want to speak about those, is the same thing about which Jesus spoke whenever he used the word alaha. When you read it in English, if you read the Bible in English, every time that Jesus says, god, you can substitute aloha, the sacred unity, the connectedness of all things, that which connects us to one another and to everything else.

That is God, the connector, the divine connector of love. So just a word of encouragement. I spent more time today at the beginning talking a little bit about language and words, but words matter. Language matters. The way we talk about one another matters.

Recognize that as you work with and for one another, that you're working for the sacred unity. Not everybody sees the sacred unity. Some people, especially when we deprive sacred unity of its value, then what it allows some folks to do, really allows any of us to do, is to seek to dominate and push away and control anyone who doesn't fit in to that, because we're no longer focused on that. For you and me, I wanna invite us to think from the place of sacred unity so that we can be inviting others to join us in recognizing and honoring the sacred unity that is amongst us all. It's a thought, perhaps a little bit more esoteric than is usual, but I think it's one that grounds us.

If you can think of god and perhaps instead of using the word god, because it's just a word. It's not a name. You could use the word Alaha, at least in your own personal prayers, recognizing the sacred unity, the connectedness of all things, the God behind the scenes and in the scenes and with the scenes and as the scenes as they appear. It's just another way of looking at what you do, what you're working for. Some of you, some of us tirelessly working for.

And it's hard work. It is hard work, especially when it seems like power pushes the other way. But we get to work from a place of love, a place from sacred unity, a place of alaha. Remember, in the midst of it all, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. And until the next time, may Allah be with you.