Fostering Oneness with God

Practicing Constructivist Tenets of Growth in Interpersonal Communication Skills

by Elizabeth McIlvain, EdPhD

One theme explored in R. Thomas Ashbrook’s Mansions of the Heart, (2009) is "Mansion Five: Longing for Oneness with God."

 When you team up with Ashbrook to ponder the unique notion of the nature of the Fifth Mansion, Ephesians 3: 17-19 comes to the forefront: 

. . . so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;

and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be

able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth

and length and height and depth, and to know the love of

Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled

up to all the fullness of God.

In my experience as a dual dimension, multiple year WC Refugee Initiative volunteer, the human connection closely emulates the Oneness with God idealized by Ashbrook and passionately sought through Constuctivist interactions of the people of God, whether they be cultivating enhanced interpersonal communication skill between diverse groups of teens or amongst English Language Learners striving and struggling to master a second language.  As refined skills emerge strategically, the wholesome, peripheral, and meaningful relationships fostered by exponential growth in loving relationship to one another and the Father, each and all are intertwined as entities drawn in communal tether to the Father of us all.