You may have noticed HEB has started carrying this soap with a very busy label. It’s new to us, but not a new product. My family used it when I was a little girl. This bottle of Dr. Bronner’s is a peppermint bubble bath to me!
Emanuel Bronner, the creator of this soap, was a third-generation German soap maker. After narrowly escaping the Nazi regime of Germany that claimed his parents, he came to the United States.
In 1948, Bronner started his soapmaking company. At the same time, he earnestly began his preaching career. Heartbroken by the loss of his parents in the war and with a deep desire to somehow prevent those tragic events from happening again, Bronner preached sermons on his “All-One or None!” ideology espousing unity and Oneness. He sold homemade soap on the side. In 1950, when people would not stay to hear his preaching, Dr. Bronner devised a way to send his message along with them. He put his sermons on the soap label.
The resulting packaging had tiny print, covering everything from the soap maker’s “Moral ABC” to espousing generosity and love for Spaceship Earth.
Pretty wacky sounding. And perfectly sensible to a child reading a soap label in a bathtub. Of course, we should be good to each other. Of course, we should love and take care of the earth. (And how fun that it’s a spaceship!) And to a young person who had not yet seen suffering or hatred, it seemed possible that people could live in a state of Oneness or Unity. To my young mind, it seemed perfectly feasible that we were All-One and somehow connected. The world was limited only by my imagination.
“We are all connected.” That sentence is only four letters long. And difficult to possibly imagine in my adult experience. Because we are not physically connected at all. We don’t look the same, we don’t like the same things, and people do things that others wouldn’t do.
What the heck exactly connects us? Am I connected to the people in the jail down the highway in Kennedy? I can’t be - I would never do the sorts of things they have done.
This thinking takes us into the realm of duality - the quality or state of having two different or opposite parts or elements – how can that be if we are all connected?????
Like many spiritual principles in many different faith traditions, this notion of Oneness is a paradox.
To be able to sit with paradoxes is no small accomplishment. Especially challenging is to come away with an understanding of this notion of Oneness that honors the fullness of life – those experiences of human duality and all the feelings that go with it, as well as an awareness that somehow, in an unseen way, “we are all connected.”
This concept of Oneness means different things in different faith traditions:
According to John Henry Strong, Oneness is described in traditional Christianity: The believer lives in Christ as truly as he lives in the atmosphere about him. Christ lives in the believer as truly as the air fills his lungs with the breath of life. For the believer has become “one spirit” with his Lord.
Other cultures and traditions also have their own ideas and philosophies related to the concept of mutuality and common nature, according to Christine Lord:
In Buddhism, Oneness or Wholeness is the same as interdependence of all living beings on each other.
Zen philosophy states that one should move away from individualism and detach from their own body and mind so that they can see and live the big mind.
According to yoga, nonviolence towards fellow human beings is at the core of the yogic way of living.
This is by no means a comprehensive list, nor has this been a complete talk on both the beautiful and complicated theological concept of Oneness.
I am here to say that the paradox of Oneness is a worthwhile concept to contemplate, meditate, and pray about. I cannot promise that this idea will fill your awareness completely and impart a constant state of peace and unity as you walk this earth.
However, you might find what I’ve known.
Gorgeous, glorious, unexpected, and all too brief moments of that interconnectedness. Perhaps in the eyes of a newborn. Or in a sunset. Or when love is demonstrated in acts of service.
You might wonder what happened to Dr. Bronner. His family had to take over the business as he became more and more obsessed with his theology, eventually to the point where it was thought he was so out of touch with reality that he underwent electric shock therapy in the 1970s. I might add that many Biblical prophets may have been given electric shock therapy had they lived in the 1970s.
I don’t mind telling you, as I took my bubble baths in the 1970s, his ideology imprinted in my childhood heart as part of my faith formation.
Because while he was an eccentric character, his eclectic theology came from an honest and deep desire to spare the world the hate, grief, pain, and atrocities he had known.
A prophet, indeed.
I thank you for reading, be blessed this day.
Comments