Jennifer Kavanagh - Heart of Oneness: A Little Book of Connection

Journey Home

Jennifer Kavanagh is a good narrator, she takes us to the heart of what matters in so many lives.

The World is our Cloister

One would have to be spiritually dead not to find a very great deal here which is worth reading - and putting into practice.

A Little Book of Unknowing

She continues in her books to nourish both the spirit and the ever inquisitive mind with ease and panache.

Small Change, Big Deal

Read this book if you care about world and UK poverty and want to be inspired!

The Failure of Success

A truly all-pervading sense of decency and honesty permeates the book.

Simplicity Made Easy

Jennifer writes beautifully and clearly

The Emancipation of B

This is one of the most original books Ive ever read.

First published by Christian Alternative Books, 2017

Christian Alternative Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd.,

Laurel House, Station Approach,

Alresford, Hants, SO24 9JH, UK

www.johnhuntpublishing.com

www.christian-alternative.com

For distributor details and how to order please visit the Ordering section on our website.

Text copyright: Jennifer Kavanagh 2016

ISBN: 978 1 78535 685 8

978 1 78535 686 5 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017932883

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

The rights of Jennifer Kavanagh as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Design: Stuart Davies

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY, UK

We operate a distinctive and ethical publishing philosophy in all areas of our business, from our global network of authors to production and worldwide distribution.

Sometimes we despair. Our screens and newspapers are full of violent images: bombed villages, random killings, the wilful destruction of precious historic sites these are all expressions of mans inhumanity to man.

We live in a divided world. Human beings struggle to live together. Whether at the level of family, community, nation or world, we row, we fight, we kill each other. Communities are riven by racial, political and religious divisions. Conflict is part of the human condition, and it is all too often expressed in violence. Our world is full of poverty, inequality and injustice. Fear, greed, power-seeking and desperate need turn fellow human beings against each other and blind us to our common humanity.

This is a reality of which we are fully aware.

At times of political turmoil and humanitarian crisis it is all the more important to hold fast to the core values that define us as human beings and as part of something far beyond us. We need to remember that alongside the horrors there exists a parallel reality: of compassion, love, daily acts of kindness and selflessness, expressions of what we know in our hearts to be true: our essential interconnectedness. Most of the ills of the world stem from our departure from this reality.

There has always been a tension between the individual and community, between individual countries and attempts to bring them together. Conquering, empire-building and imposing a colonial power have made way for more subtle forms of powermongering, but also to more collaborative unions. Over the past century we have seen the establishment of the United Nations, the Commonwealth, and a number of regional groups focused on trade or self-defence. At the same time there is a desire for separation: peoples such as the Basques rebel against what they regard as artificial borders and push for recognition as a separate entity. In recent years and months we have seen a stronger drive towards Scottish independence, and the UKs vote to leave the European Union.

We live in a paradoxical world. We are always alone and, whether we acknowledge it or not, always in community. We are unique, and yet theres only a hairs breadth of DNA difference between us and, not only other humans, but other species. With about two million species so far discovered, the planet is unimaginably diverse, and yet it is one. In the variety of religions, at the mystic level it is united. And it is in the Divine, at the heart of the multitudes of creation, that unity can be found. It is this series of paradoxes that this book will seek to address.

Life at each moment encompassesboth self and environment of all sentient beings in every condition of life as well as insentient beingsplants, sky and earth, on down to the most minute particles of dust (Nichiren, in Pearce).

No man is an island,

Entire of itself,

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor of thy friends

Or of thine own were:

Any mans death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind,

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

(John Donne, 1572-1631)

It was in the year of 9/11 that I set off with my then partner for a years backpacking round the world. Everywhere we went, there was an uncomfortable sense of a divided world, with its coexistent wealth and poverty. The divisions were highlighted by the attacks on the World Trade Centre, which took place just as we left the USA. In the previous months, as we travelled through Southern and then Central America, the influence of the US was everywhere to be seen, and resentment sometimes expressed. At one caf in Brazil, a man leant over to our table and asked a question that fifteen years on has a renewed relevance, Why are you Brits always hanging on to the coat-tails of America?

Soon after our journey I wrote:

It was a strange year in which to travel: a time in which the relation of one country to another, and particularly between those in the developed world and those which are developing, were more acutely focused. I had not wanted to spend time in developed countries, but, on looking back, I can see that it was valuable to experience views from different countries and to carry messages from one to another. We are one world, and we all have responsibilities towards each other.

The sense of a divided world is not only between countries, but within them. We are well aware of the huge differences in wealth between countries. Those of us who live comfortable lives in largely affluent countries may be conscious of our good fortune. We know how much poverty there is the world, of the vast differences between one country and another. We have been less conscious of the inequality within countries although, with the growth of food banks in rich Western countries, our awareness is perhaps growing too.

We live in a world beset by inequality and injustice. The horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade may be over but, although slavery is no longer legal, the practice is widespread in many parts of the world, including in the West where people are trafficked to be sex or domestic slaves or indentured labourers. Even within legal parameters, inequality and ill-treatment are rife, especially in the treatment of those with less power: those in lower positions in a hierarchy, such as children or old people.