July 8, 2019

• Service is listening

• Looking into another’s eyes

• Prayers are translated from wants to needs

• It is the act of prayer rather than the words that is important

It is with peace, balance, and love that you are open to God’s constant presence as well as our own ability to comfort and guide, for we are also responding to you as God’s response to you. There is nothing really special or different in any significant way that identifies our function in your life as being other than what your function can be in the lives of others. We minister to each of you according to your needs, and it is with that same spirit contained within that you can minister to the needs of others.

We have indicated before the importance of each of you finding ways to be of service, service to others, of course, but also, lest it be forgotten, service to yourselves. What is it that we mean when we speak of service? True service is not one of providing answers but rather of providing a receptivity to what is there. You can talk to others about God and about the importance of being loving, but that is not the same as your being fully open to that Presence. You do not learn of God by being told of God. You learn of God by experiencing, feeling, and seeing God’s presence through your interactions with all that surrounds you—human beings, nature, everything that exists. You know of God because you have seen evidence of God. That is the only way you can really experience in fully conscious ways God’s presence.

Many devote themselves to trying to describe their conception of God to others. Speaking about God to others is in itself generally ineffective. Sure, it’s good for others to know you have a sense of what God means in your life, but that does not necessarily translate directly into what God means for them. They can learn about a perception of God, but learning about the perception of God is not the same as perceiving God.

When you are serving others, such service is most appropriate when that service is exhibited by who you are, not what you say. How you serve others then is not by merely speaking about God. You are serving others effectively when you serve without necessarily labeling the source of that service. It is by giving of yourself that others may learn to perceive that there is a God. It is by how you respond to others. That response, as we have said on frequent occasions, may be simply being present and listening.

The experience of many, including your own experience, is often of wanting to speak but really not being heard. It is that creation of an environment whereby all can feel they are being heard that you are giving evidence of a presence whose source is beyond merely the interpersonal exchanges that take place on a daily basis. The center principle of serving others, therefore, is listening, not telling, not directing, not dictating, not asserting, just listening. But this listening is an intentional act. It is not simply being present.

Serving means listening truly with a loving heart. You must always remember when you are listening as you serve others that you are not listening to the words. You are listening to what is behind what is being said. Words are merely the representation that remains far deeper, that goes beyond the reach of words. To be the hand, the heart, and the mind of God means listening always in a loving, accepting, nonjudgmental way.

Too often human beings are consumed by the need to be doing, for many are judged by what they do. Your judgment of others is often predicated by what others do, not by who they are. It is so important that you find ways in your interactions with others to be blind to what is done and to be clear about who they are. You are far more than what you do, and yet what you do is what is observed on the surface. You know of instances where you have said what is expected to be said and what is expected to be heard, and yet have felt inside you that there was more to your perspective than what was represented by words. So it is with all human beings.

It would be meaningful for you to make an attempt to be with another, looking into another’s eyes, and remain completely silent. You will be amazed at what you learn about another. It is sometimes said that the eyes are the window to the soul, and there is some wisdom to that, not so much what the eyes say, but there is an understanding that comes across about the beauty and the sacredness of the other that will never be adequately described or explained in words. When you look into the eyes of another but remain silent for a while, you cannot be disengaged because you know that the other person is looking directly into your eyes. It is a total engagement from the core of one to the core of another.

If you can maintain that gaze with an open heart to receive whatever you receive and to give whatever you can give just from the gaze, you cannot then break that gaze and enter into deep disagreements. There is a sense of unity that occurs when you intentionally engage in this form of presence, for neither of you is doing anything other than looking at the person opposite you. There are no actions to judge. There are no opinions to challenge. There are no grounds for any other kind of engagement. It is one on one. It becomes heart to heart. It becomes soul to soul.

Such an experience is not entered into for a few seconds, for you often look into the eyes of people with whom you are speaking, and yet you don’t see, you only hear, and in the hearing you immediately judge either the validity of what’s being said or the question of your own opinions. Looking eye to eye at someone is a direct way of experiencing firsthand who the other is, not what they do or what they are. Words have no place, but an intentional exchange by your openness will go far in helping you become more willing to be open to perfect strangers.

The objective of all of this is to see one another as you are, not as you hope to be, not as you want others to see you, not in hopes of convincing or changing another’s views. You are simply being open. You are listening, not to words but with the heart. You are seeing with the heart. You’re not seeing the clothes someone wears or the political perspective someone has. You’re seeing far more.

Experiencing that kind of connection to another will help you begin to become more open to the unspoken needs of others based on a firm sense of unity with another. You and the other become consumed by what unites you, what makes each of you human beings a total equality, total worth, total value, total sacredness. It is difficult to just suggest this to a perfect stranger, and it is not necessary to take that step. But with someone you trust, someone you know, to spend a few moments in this way will go far in helping you find what is most appropriate in serving another.

Service is listening. Service is never judging. By listening in this way, you find a common identity, and when you recognize that identity exists not only between those who know one another but those who are total strangers, you can transfer that sense of receptivity and sensitivity into a situation where there is less or no familiarity. In its most significant way, the most meaningful root of service to another is in listening. It is in being present intentionally.

Avoid the personal wish to impose what you feel to be right onto another unless such advice is requested, for sometimes serving others means being responsive to the outreach of others for help. The best way to respond and help is to truly understand what is being asked. For some, what is being asked in words belies what is needed. What is needed may be simply a nonjudgmental affirmation of the value of another.

The fact that you care personally is more helpful to others than feeling the need to come up with solutions. The desire to offer solutions is, of course, understandable and a very human characteristic. It is not wrong to offer solutions, for that is a kind of service, but it is significantly more impactful when you discover ways of responding to what you sense, not to what you hear.

What you sense comes through to you as a result of your own life experiences. You bring through your service toward others much of what you carry with you as a result of your own life experiences. That is, of course, appropriate, but it is important to realize that your own life experiences may not necessarily provide the most important help to others, for no two people experience life in the same way. Approaches to life’s issues that are helpful to one may not be specifically helpful to another, but your own approaches may help you perceive in a nonvisual way, seeing with the heart, seeing with the mind, seeing with the soul what is most beneficial.

The desire to help others is essential. You don’t serve others truly out of duty. You serve others out of a will of spirit, a will of the heart. You serve others through your love, not your sense of obligation.

You understand the ideas behind loving your neighbor as yourself. But what is meant is being open to your neighbor as you are open to yourself. Both directions of openness require personal honesty. They require you to understand what your real needs are, not what your wants are, and in learning to recognize that difference, you become more sensitized to learning the needs of another and not the wants of another.

When you pray to us, when you pray to God, the response to those prayers is not a response to the wants. It’s a response to the needs. You pray for the health of another because you want another to be returned to normal, as you may define it. But the real needs are the needs for peace, the needs for balance. Your guides, the Spirit Center, God, understand how to translate your outcry based on needs into a receptiveness of those needs. The outcry of wants is translated into a receptiveness of needs. All that is expressed gets translated into what is truly needed.

For this reason, the words that are uttered in prayers in themselves are not important. It is the praying that is important. It is the reaching out, the opening up to let light into the true needs that you have, the true needs that another may have that is most important. In prayer, do not concern yourself with what may sound selfish, what may sound self-serving, what may sound judgmental. Those are merely words, but in the act of those prayers, you are opening yourself to God. You are opening yourself to the Spiritual Presence that is always there for you, and the consequence of those prayers is the opening that is so essential, and you receive what is there. You are connected to that Spirit Presence.

Prayer is important, for it is truly an act of opening the windows. Judgment is the absolute opposite. By judging you are closing off that openness. You are giving a final determination of worth versus no worth. You are uttering a distinction between what is good and what is not good. You are claiming a position of authority that determines what is right and what is not right. All judgment serves to close the shutters. It is prayer that is the antidote to judgment.

Pray, be open, serve—all three concepts depend upon you seeing truly the who and not the what, of recognizing what is beautiful in life and not just criticizing what is not beautiful. Recognizing this beauty is in no way denying what creates pain and misunderstanding, but it is nevertheless turning your intentions to what fully reflects God’s presence. It is acknowledging what is sacred. It is being open to what is meant and not what is spoken.

A meaningful life is a life of service. The recipients of that service will change, of course, throughout your life. But it is the service, it is the acting in love, the listening, the understanding bathed in the spirit that wins the day, that affirms the spirit and gives value and sacredness to all you encounter.

Be warmed by your connection to a loving God, to the guides that illuminate your pathways. Embrace all opportunities to meet others with an open heart, with open hands, open minds. Free yourself of judgment—judgment of others, judgment of yourself. Accept your own sacredness, your own potential for love, and seek out the sacredness and the potential for love that exists among all people. In so doing, you will be the hands, the heart, and the mind of God in the presence of all that is sacred.

Amen.