The Story of Noah's Ark

Question:

My family and are have been searching for years for "something" and through a friend discovered Unity. It is so in line with our beliefs, but we are not near a Unity Church. So my husband and I were discussing how to teach our kids things and moving away from "old views" passed onto us from our parents. And this story is one we were perplexed about. Thank you!

Comment:

I’m delighted you’re finding something in Unity that resonates with your own beliefs. I hope you will continue to explore the ways in which www.unity.org can provide support to your entire family. I recently discussed the Noah’s Ark story, and how to present it to kids today, for an adult sponsor of a Unity youth group. Here’s what I wrote; I hope it may help you as well.

  "I think I’d start by emphasizing that this is a story that people told around campfires for hundreds and hundreds of years, at a time when their understanding of God was very limited. They believed in an angry and punishing God, and so whenever anything bad happened, they assumed that God was deliberately doing it—and so the people who suffered must have deserved it. Today we still recognize the Power of God in natural events like hurricanes and floods and earthquakes. But we don’t believe the people affected are being deliberately punished. Jesus taught us that God is a power of Love, and that what happens in the world is an expression of our collective consciousness—not a specific punishment directed against specific people.   We’re told that the people had forgotten their relationship to God, and were making ignorant choices; "every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5).  When the Power of God comes up against such expressions of evil, it seeks to cleanse the evil. It’s not punishment. It’s that the One Presence and One Power seeks to dissolve all expressions of fear and ignorance that are not like itself. The people who died were simply experiencing the consequences of their own negative beliefs and choices. And they were still spiritual beings, so ’death’ was not equivalent to being destroyed forever. Their spiritual beings were lifted out of the human morass they had allowed through ignorance and sensual distraction, so that they could try again in other lives and experiences.   So the spiritual message is clearly, I think, that choices have consequences. And sometimes the most loving thing the Power of God can do is to clear away the mess we’ve made so we can try again."   Blessings!

Rev. Ed