Image by 🆓 Use at your Ease 👌🏼 from Pixabay

I remember many years ago when I was in the infants school, there was a Jewish girl in my class called Isobel Jo Rosenstein. When we had religious education (RE) classes, she would have to go and sit in a classroom all by herself because the RE classes were Christian based. Things might be different in schools these days; I’ve heard of some schools actually teaching all the major religions. But, recently, I’ve been thinking about Isobel even though I haven’t seen her for over 60 years. It occurred to me that at a very young age (we would have been around 5 or 6 years old) we were already being taught about division and difference. Now, I’m sure that Isobel’s parents were more than happy for her to be segregated instead of risking her being indoctrinated through the dogma of another religion. But It occurs to me that us kids were being taught that if someone was a bit different to us, then they should be segregated; almost “quarantined.” I like to think that today, Isobel would be welcomed into an RE class and invited to give her classmates a bit of an insight into her religion.

Now fast-forward from those days of ostracization to the recent news that the Church of England has appointed its first transgender archdeacon. This of course, is a huge step forward for the church, although inevitably it has caused division. To say that some “feather ruffling” has taken place would be an understatement. Within a certain context, I feel that this is a huge event for the LGBTQ+ community, who have had to battle in the face of adversity for so long, just to be regarded on an equal footing with so-called “normal” people. It’s great that diversity can be celebrated instead of being feared and discriminated against. Having said this, for me there is the bigger spiritual picture.

It most certainly is wonderful the way many of us celebrate diversity these days, how we see our differences as something that can bring us together. In the UK, for example, we have come a long way since the days when there were signs displayed in the windows of guest houses that said, “No dogs, No Irish, No coloured.” But, in ultimate reality we are all One consciousness; in truth, there are no differences. Until our species learns to look beyond differences and simply celebrates the beauty of who we are, there are going to be problems. There will always be bigots and there will always be sections of the community that will be the subject of bigotry.

“we are all One” is not a throwaway comment born out of new age ideology, it is an actual “thing.” There is only One soul, which is you…and me…and everyone else on the planet and beyond. We all shine with the same light because we are the same light, we all exist within the same field of infinite consciousness because we are that field of infinite consciousness. I think it’s too much to ask or expect, that all people everywhere suddenly see beyond the surface and gaze upon the beauty of the soul, but we are getting there, albeit slowly, and that is surely something to be celebrated.