- “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!” (Psalms 133:1)
- “I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:23)
- “That their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ.” (Colossians 2:2)
- “That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them.” (Luke 24:13)
- “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:24-25)
- “The understanding cannot be enlightened unless it is believed that love for the Lord and caring for the neighbor are the principal and essential things of the church.” (Arcana Coelestia 7233).
- “Intellectual things, or those which are of faith, do not make up the church, but the voluntary things which are of love.” (Arcana Coelestia 709).
- “The angels of heaven are not together in one place, but are divided into larger and smaller societies in accordance with the differences of good of love and of faith in which they are.” (Heaven and Hell 41).
- “Heaven as a whole is like a single individual, having all the organs and members that every human body has. Each community within heaven is also in the human form, being composed of smaller communities, each with its own function.” (Arcana Coelestia 1259).
- “In the other life everyone without exception must perform some use, because a person is born for no other purpose than that he may perform use to the community in which he is and to the neighbor, while he lives in the world, and in the other life.” (Arcana Coelestia 1103.2).
- “Every unity has its existence from diversity, for a unity that is not the result of diversity is not anything; it has no form and therefore no quality. When, on the other hand, a unity comes into existence from various parts, and these various parts are in a perfect form in which each attaches itself in series, like a congenial friend to another, then the quality is perfect.” (Heaven and Hell 56).
(top photo by Alison Cole)
