It was 25 years ago, in 1988, that Matthew Fox published his book "The Coming of the Cosmic Christ".

I was thrilled then with his vision of converging world understanding, his call for "Deep Ecumenism", his call for a global ecumenical council -- for an ecumenism that "calls forth the wisdom of all the world’s religions."

THE PATTERN THAT CONNECTS

"Part of the work of this council," said Fox in 1988, "might be to declare an ancient but forgotten doctrine: The Cosmic Christ, the pattern that connects all the atoms and galaxies of the universe, a pattern of divine love and justice that all creatures and all humans bear within them."

For me, the vision of "pattern that connects" – a phrase taken from renown epistemologist/scientist Gregory Bateson – correlates directly with Jesus Christ’s statement, "I AM the Vine, ye are the branches." I see this pattern that connects as a vine – indeed, as a living breathing universal network of interconnected/intertwined souls, in the spirit of One Body, connected and vitalized and made whole through the Cosmic Christ...

Today, in the world-wide growth of universal interspiritual community, something very much like this vision is being realized in myriad ways. If we are at all connected to the teeming growth of interspiritual community over the internet, we know that this "vine" that interconnects us is growing at many levels – spiritual, psychological, philosophical, emotional – and, through internet and hundreds of alternatives devices and media – electronic.

I AM THE VINE - THE COSMIC CHRIST AS NETWORK

Today, for me, this issue has become one of intentional design and direct realization. It has become a process of intentionally developing a collective/co-creative process that can lead our world-wide conversation into a simple basic clarity, fully supporting the birth of transformative global community at the highest levels of realization.

As thousands or millions of us have responded to something like this call for universal ecumenism, for a widely shared simple universal understanding of spirit, we have collectively moved along an evolutionary path of continuing discovery. Our hearts' desires and instincts have continued to merge with our minds and our intellects. Through a long evolutionary process of collaborative co-creation, as we listen to one another and learn from one another, we are discovering something together that I believe promises to unfold the full power and meaning of this Cosmic Christ energy as it might be realized through global community.

Here in the context of our Alliance conversation, we have been exploring these universal principles, in ways that for me personally have been highly illuminating. Are we indeed part of global/collective process that is discovering a core universal principle enabling and empowering this Cosmic Christ energy, through "a pattern that connects"? It seems to me that the answer is "Yes". And if this is so -- let us master this emerging simplicity, realize its energy within ourselves -- and do what we can to interconnect the world through it...

"TO HAVE A CENTER"

Yesterday, I was looking at writing of the perennialist philosopher Fritjhof Schuon, perhaps best known for his book The Transcendent Unity of Religions, introduced with great praise by Huston Smith. Schuon's related book of essays, To Have a Center, introduces many themes critical to our collective process of interspiritual discovery.

"The leitmotif of Schuon's work was foreshadowed in an encounter during his youth with a marabout who had accompanied some members of his Senegalese village to Basle for the purpose of demonstrating their African culture. When Schuon talked with him, the venerable old man drew a circle with radii on the ground and explained: 'God is the center; all paths lead to Him.' Until his later years Schuon traveled widely, from India and the Middle East to America, experiencing traditional cultures and establishing lifelong friendships with Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, and American Indian spiritual leaders." http://www.amazon.com/Frithjof-Schuon/e/B001H6O0XE

If needed and appropriate, we can defend and articulate this vision with detailed scholarship. We can -- and perhaps we should or must -- introduce the works of depth psychologists, of scholars of comparative religion, of dictionaries of symbolism, of every form of comparative scholarship that can correlate and document this emerging simplicity and clarity.

But in this context of careful scholarship, perhaps the most thrilling point of all -- is that our natural instinctive understanding, in its "pure naive state" -- as illustrated by the vision of the indigenous elder who influenced Fritjhof Schuon -- can be trusted.

PATHS ARE MANY - TRUTH IS ONE

It seems that this emerging vision of Center, and the myriad teachings that have told us that "paths are many, truth is one," are right. It seems increasingly clear that we can trust this natural organic simplicity. We can build a world of safety and real understanding based upon it.

Around a core axial center with the absolute stability of a consummately-engineered bridge-abutment, the world interreligious community can interconnect its vision for goodness and emerge in its full potential for world illumination.