"In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker visits the Degobas system to be mentored by Yoda in the ways of the Force. Luke has a rough landing in a misty swamp. He meets a little gerbil-like being who talks in a very odd cadence. This odd little hamster turns out to be the famed Jedi warrior Yoda. Yoda reluctantly agrees to mentor Luke. He takes Luke through a series of exercises to teach him how to use the force.

During one exercise, Luke and Yoda are at the site of Luke's sinking starship. The ship slips beneath the surface of the swamp and disappears. Yoda tries to get Luke to raise the ship using the Force. Yoda tells Luke about the force: "Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings we are, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you. Here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere. Even between the land, the ship." Yoda goes on to raise the ship.

Luke responds, "I can't believe it."

Yoda replies, "That is why you fail."

Yoda teaches Luke that the Force is the consciousness of the universe, the force that ties everyone and everything together." - Rick Richardson

Darwin's Perspective - Because we primarily experience life via the consciousness of our Mind, we tend to see everything as separate. Right now, as you look around, your Mind can identify several distinct and seemingly separate objects in your surroundings. So too, we see and feel ourselves as separate "objects" from our environment. Thus it is natural for us to separate matter into these distinct chunks and understand everything that is between these objects as space.

But we know from our schooling that between us and these objects is much more than space. The air we breath can be broken down to be identified as molecules just like the building blocks of our Body and all of these objects. Thus, in reality, there is not so much a true separateness but rather an objective point in which we classify something as being big and cohesive enough to be an object. Like parts that become an automobile, the Mind identifies and classifies objects based on the largest distinguishable chunk.

So too physicists help us understand that the energy we experience everyday as light and sound has a structure to it as well. The light that is entering your eye right now and the sound hitting your ears is traveling to you. Thus the very environment in which you take for granted and divide up into these distinct chunks (e.g. you, computer, chair, radio, sound, light) is actually comprised of very small elements.

When we live our lives and experience life via the singularity of the Mind, we see ourselves as separate and distinct objects. In this perspective, things happen to us and we try our best to survive, persevere and triumph. When things go well, we feel confidant in our abilities. But when things go poorly, we feel lost and vulnerable.

The mystical Yoda character represents the embodiment of living both a physical existence and a Spiritual existence. By understanding the relationship between the two, Yoda exemplifies how one can find harmony between the two and have one's life enriched. And while our ability to raise starships from a swamp may be lacking, the very world we live in is existing within this dynamic environment. When we bridge the gap between the physical and the Spiritual, we gain insight and wisdom for living a Spiritual existence.

That is the work we're doing here. Like Jedi students learning about life like newborns, we are re-discovering the beautiful relationship with God that has been available to us all along.