Me and My Relative, The String Bean

My very existence is one unified wholeness.

Know. Knowing. To know. To know the miracle in all that is about me.

Separate. Separating. To be separated. To understand that miracle in all that is about us.

And for the separation of the mind from the body, the mind from the soul . . . and then … what is there beyond the knowing . . .

The service today in our little UU church is about "knowing." About "Science and Religion." About life being the miracle. About the miracle in all that is about us.

And there were readings and meditation from the Celtic tradition.

And the choral music, so filled with pathos, so discordant, yet so resolving to unison.

I feel so touched. And, as our minister just said ... "nothing is too wonderful to be true."


With the separation of the mind from soul comes knowing. And science has focused on one kind of knowing. The knowing of the hoops and circles of atoms to galaxies . . . Of the quest of the underlying constant of all.


And the separation of soul from mind comes knowing. To dwell on the primal perceived angst of separation and salvation. And religion focused on one kind of knowing.

And both science and religion take us to the cohesiveness of the earth-centered, spirit filled kind of knowing. The knowing of the body separate from mind and soul. And yet, only existing within the confines of mind and soul.

And we all live each day, seeking our balance between our knowing of the spiritual and the knowing of our science.

We, as human beings, have our ancient heritage encoded in our genes ... we know of our animal nature. We have a sense of our presence. We may know that the sun, the water and the earth, the fire, the wind are our relatives. We may concede we are all but one. We each experience, in some visceral way, our experiences of the "outer." These experiences of the sun, the wind, the stars, the water, the creatures, the plants about us. And this gives us, allows us, to then experience the "inner." The presence of the indwelling Spirit.

Each brings something to the whole of life. The birds are the best at flying. The fish are the best at swimming. And we are the best at reflecting to the universe this miracle of life.

Baskets were just past through our congregation. We were encouraged to take, to hold, to touch, to experience, to thank our relative. The basket in my row contained fresh green beans and bananas. We were to take something. Our relative. To know.

And I did. A fresh green string bean. And to think of our shared existence. The string bean and me. Of our common miracle. Of the intimate blending of science and spirituality within each of us.

I held my string bean. My relative. I touched him. Looked at him. Smelled him. Bit into him. Listened to the crunch of him via the vibrations through my jaw to my inner ear. I tasted him. The astringent pungency of essence of fresh, raw, string bean. And the life within my relative was incorporated into the life of me. For we were one, we are one, we will be forever one. And the indwelling Spirit of Life that sustains both my relative and me is the miracle that forms the conjunction of mind and soul into body.

And to know is to know. To understand is to understand. And the separation of mind and soul is the oscillation that maintains my existence. And it is the oscillation on the primal level of things of science and things of the spirit that fuels my life itself.

And religion is void without science.

And science is void without religion.

And to make science religion is to debase both science and religion, to make pornographic that which is complete and beautiful.

And to make religion science is to debase both religion and science, to make pornographic that which is complete and beautiful.

But in the touching, the feeling, the smelling, the tasting, the assimilation of my relative the string bean . . . is to blend the science and religion of my very existence into one unified wholeness.

And so the words of a well-know hymn in the Unitarian-Universalist hymnal are so fulfilling, so complete in the blending of the “outer” with the “inner,” so encompassing of the whole of my life . . .

Come, sing a song with me, come, sing a song with me, come, sing a song with me, that I might know your mind.

And I'll bring you hope when hope is hard to find, and I'll bring a song of love and a rose in wintertime.

Come, dream a dream with me, come, dream a dream with me, come, dream a dream with me, that I might know your mind.

And I'll bring you hope when hope is hard to find, and I'll bring a song of love and a rose in wintertime.

Come, walk, in rain with me, come, walk, in rain with me, come, walk, in rain with me, that I might know your mind.

And I'll bring you hope when hope is hard to find, and I'll bring a song of love and a rose in wintertime.

Come, share a rose with me, come, share a rose with me, come, share a rose with me, that I might know your mind.

And I'll bring you hope when hope is hard to find, and I'll bring a song of love and a rose in wintertime.


[Words and music by Carolyn McDade. ©1976 Surtsey Publishing Co., “Singing the Living Tradition,” Hymn Number 346. Unitarian Universalist Association, Boston, MA.]

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