Friday night, Connie and I attended a wonderful Christmas party, and Dianne brought to our attention an intriguing event she had seen on the news. I went home and searched the Internet to find out more. It happened a week ago, around the time we gathered here for worship.

Last Sunday morning, commercial crab fishermen about six miles off the coast of the Farallon Islands looked out over the waves and saw something struggling in the water. It was something big - a fifty-foot, fifty-ton humpback whale entangling in crab-lines.

They contacted the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, and after securing permission, six scuba divers and three staffers went out to rescue the whale. They found the whale on the bottom, weighted down with crab cages. Ropes had enwrapped the tail many times, and had tied up one flipper. One rope had cut into the whale’s mouth. Deep raw cuts marked the whale’s body. The whale was exhausted, periodically fighting so hard for air.

Methodically, the divers cut the ropes. One diver worked a few feet from a five-inch eyeball, looking right at him. Gradually, they freed the whale and it revived. It swam in circles in the area for about fifteen minutes. Then, an awesome thing happened: the whale came around and gently nudged each diver before swimming out to sea.

The whale goes off to complete its journey. The divers and staffers go back home to celebrate Christmas with their families. There is some Christmas magic in this.

Two different animals … one walks and one swims

Two different species … one lives on land and one lives in the water

Two different worlds … one communicates with words and one by echolocation

Yet something reached out over a distance and drew the two together. One, risking their lives in shark infested waters, to lend a helping hand. The other, with a power to kill in a single swat, gives gentle touches of gratitude.

Like the hoop of which Black Elk speaks … the whole hoop of the world, we see the hoop only when we look in a sacred manner. Many small hoops, all embraced by larger hoops, and finally, one large hoop. In the center, grows one huge flowering tree. To look in a sacred manner, and to feel the hoop, is the whole meaning of LOVE. Indeed, this is the whole meaning of RELIGION world over.

I remember watching a film of a Native American "Hoop Dance." The dancer held in two hands what seemed like a hundred small hoops. The dancer would dance the hoops, weaving his body in and out of the hoops in intricate ways. It was mesmerizing. Something in what this dancer was doing depicts what we all do. We dance in and out of the many hoops that make up our lives.

I have seen this dance, and I have read books about the hoop, but it was not until one day when I stood on top of Pike’s Peak in Colorado, I felt it. A huge mountain, Pike’s Peak. Above 15,000 feet. Walking around the summit, looking to the east, out over the flat planes of Colorado you see sagebrush and dry riverbeds. Around to the south, towards New Mexico you can see the highway trailing off into the haze. Over to the west, where there is a rocky sloop going down the mountain, you can see several mountain ranges, all spreading out toward infinity. North looks up toward Denver and Boulder.

Walking around the summit, you can always see the horizon. It is a gigantic hoop, and you are in the center. Wherever we go, we are always in the center of our hoop, embraced and held solid by four directions.

It is not something we know in our heads. It is something we can feel. I do not know how we lose it, maybe staying indoors so much of the time. It is with us and feeling it brings with it a sense of the sacred.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest who got in trouble with the Catholic Church. If I recall, they sent him to China where he continued his research. He was a priest and a scientist, a paleontologist and biologist. His passion was to integrate religion and the natural science, which is what got him into trouble.

He scratched around among rocks, and then wrote prolifically, proposing a far-reaching idea, namely, that human consciousness itself is evolving. Collectively, we are growing smarter and smarter. He saw the collective consciousness of humanity evolving to a kind of unity, what he calls the "Omega Point."

His truth is similar to what Lovelock suggested with his "Gaia Hypothesis." The earth is not mechanical, but a living organism, a huge biological system. Chardin called the evolving consciousness of the earth the "Noosphere," or we might say, the ‘Mind of the Earth.’

The feeling for this is what Black Elk called, "the sense of the sacred." It is what Chardin called, "the sense of the earth," and it is what I like to think of as being a good "Global Citizen."

I saw a play about Chardin once and there was a line in that play. I do not know whether this comes from Chardin or from the playwright, but for me, this is the perfect definition of love:

"Love is the affinity of being for being."

"Love is the affinity of being for being."

It is what makes six scuba divers and three staffers free a stranded whale, and it is what makes the whale come back and nudge each diver before swimming off - "The affinity of being for being."

It is what makes a mother or a father crawl to the ends of the earth, just to get a candy bar for their child - "The affinity of being for being."

Love is what a Jew claims when he or she enters a home, and touches the mezuzah with a kiss before entering. Inside the Mezuzah, on a piece of parchment, is scrolled, "The Shema." The defining creed of Judaism.

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all they soul, and with all they might.

The most important thing we can say about God is that God is UNITY. God is ONE. Each of us is a part of that ONEness. To feel that, by whatever tradition, is LOVE.

"The affinity of being for being."

It is love that compels wise men from the east to make such a long journey, draws shepherds in from the fields, and makes angels sing above mangers. Love was born into a troubled world and wrapped in swaddling cloths. Like Anna and Simeon in the temple, we hold this child. We hold our families gathered around our Christmas trees.

We hold our communities, and our most favorite enemy.

When we grow up spiritually, we can learn to hold the whole earth when we learn to look in a sacred way.

There is an Islamic story about Isa Ibn Maryam, which is one of their stories about Jesus, son of Mary. The Koran and Islamic tradition has collected many such stories. This one is about Isa Ibn Maryam, Jesus son of Mary, looking for disciples. He came upon a group of people, huddled against a wall. They were frightened, shivering and careful about being very good.

"What are you doing," Isa asked.

"We’re afraid of hell," they replied.

"It’s a horrible place; we’re being very good so we won’t go there."

Isa went on. These were not those among whom he would associate. Soon, Isa came upon another group, scattered in little pockets around a field. They were happy, and talking in cliché that only they knew.

"What are you doing," Isa asked.

"We are celebrating heaven," they replied.

"Such a wonderful place: only we are elected to inherit this place."

Isa went on. These were not those among whom he would associate. Eventually, Isa came upon another group of people, scattered amidst the peoples of the world. They gathered from time to time for silence, and then went again amongst the people.

"What are you doing," Isa asked.

"We have seen an invisible Truth," they replied.

"Reality is ONE, a seamless fabric; we’re about mending the rips."

"These," Isa thought, "are those for whom I was born, and those among whom I will associate."