Gathering

How much more powerful blessing becomes when we gather together

We are each individually a source of blessing to the world through the very fact of coming from our Source. In addition, we each develop our gifts to the world in the course of a lifetime, and that is also a blessing.

Note that it’s always in relationship – to Source, to world. So even what I’m calling “each individually” here isn’t quite individual.

How much more powerful blessing becomes when we gather together (e.g. “to ask the Lord’s blessing”). And this gathering can take so many forms. For example, we can gather together with our physical environment, allowing it to be alive and sentient and in relationship with us. We can gather together with other humans. And we can gather in the subtle and spiritual environment, whether we think of this as forces or energies or principles or beings.

There emerges from our interaction a quality to the purpose itself that we could not have invoked alone.

“Gathering” is all about intentionality. Without losing my individuality, I can dare to open myself to the living presence of the other. This includes not assuming I understand them, and not renouncing the gesture of understanding either. I turn toward them. I embrace them and am willing to be embraced. This can happen just by directing my open attention toward them – whether it’s a countertop, or a human, or a subtle being, or something else.

When we come into each other’s presence, with open hearts and minds and a somewhat common purpose, we enrich and enable that purpose. We enrich it in the sense that there emerges from our interaction a quality to the purpose itself that we could not have invoked alone. (Every good conversation does this too.) And we enable our purpose in the sense that the power of our asking, of our shared orientation, seems stronger than when one person tries this alone.

Matthew 18:20: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” It may be that when we gather in the name of anyone or anything, that being or thing is more present and an anointing occurs. Maybe we can even invite Gaia, the Earth as a whole, to be more present among us.

Michael Lipson, PhD is a Clinical Psychologist living with his family in Berkshire County, MA.  He is the author of Stairway of Surprise (2002) and Group Meditation (2010) both from SteinerBooks.  He teaches workshops in meditation and consciousness studies both locally and globally.