May 25, 2021

• What is God?

• Striving to be a reflection of God

It is, of course, the spiritual presence of God that illuminates our ability to communicate to you and others what the presence of God really means. We spoke previously about the need to expand your vision of that presence in action, but we would like to devote much of what is being shared at this time to a deeper vision of what is meant by God’s presence, and especially given the concerns you have that involve the peace that you seek in the world.

We spoke about conditions and expectations. Such themes are human, and they exist only in human form. No other life-form on your earth generally applies conditions and expectations toward a relationship to a Spirit Center, to God. It is not an easy task to become clear in your understanding of what God’s presence means. That difficulty arises out of your needs to overlay expectations and conditions. That effort that is so human is because your interaction with life around you is generally given meaning because of your expectations, your conditions, the definitions that you place upon your search for meaning.

If human beings are to understand God, it is of course much easier to perceive of God in very human terms. This desire, this tendency to humanize God, to humanize the Gods of so many cultures, is a reality because that is how you interact with one another. Societies are identified on the basis of expectations, conditions, norms of behavior, agreed upon beliefs, agreed upon fears, agreed upon perceptions of the Creator or the Creators. The forces of nature are often given human characteristics. You speak of storms often in the masculine or feminine. You identify in language much that surrounds you in quasi-human form. You may not identify plants as humans, but plants have a response. They respond to light, to moisture, to heat or the lack thereof, but there is a response, and often that response is viewed upon in merely human terms.

The history of humanity is often portrayed as an expression of the need to appease the creative powers that are identified as Gods or God. There are cultures that engage in practices that are designed to please the Gods or to please God. You’re, of course, aware of individuals who make a deal with God. “God, if you will do this, then I will do that.” Such a perception of God is of a power that is human, that makes deals, that is appeased. God or Gods can express anger. They can express favoritism. They can bestow blessings to those who deserve them, perceiving as they do a God who weighs the merits of one person or one culture or one belief system to be more deserving than another.

So it is that the human experience, living life, is in many ways an encouragement to perceive of God as human-like, a male or a female, or many males or many females. In truth, the God who is the Creator is none of these and all of these. God is none of these because God is not human. God is all of these because the creative power that has led to your lives is a presence that is not just a chemical presence or a physics presence or astronomical presence or scientific presence. The God that is the creative center, the Spirit Center, is a power that is one of caring but not in a human way. It is a caring that is much deeper.

The attempts that human beings make in understanding God are in themselves slightly true in that there is a God that is loving and caring, but the reality is that this truth that human beings seek out is only part of that truth. God is not merely the natural laws of existence. There are natural laws of existence, but they exist because there is a Spirit Center, a center that is one of love, not specifically a human form of love, but a love that is experienced by human beings and by us as a warmth, a comforting, a strengthening, an affirming presence.

The God that we experience in purely spiritual form is a God that includes some of that human character that is so often described, but God cares through the very act of creating, because in that creation there is a balance. There is a kind of peace. We don’t speak of absence of war. We speak of balance, a sense that all that is is necessary. All that is has meaning. All that is is related one to another.

The creative power that is associated with the Spirit Center is a presence that provides a kind of atmosphere in which all breath the same love. It is the breath of life. It is that love, that caring that is the breath of life, and as human beings evolve in their capacity to be caring, to be loving, they are keeping the presence of God among all they encounter.

God is the creator. We could say God is the creator of balance, of harmony. God is the creator of relationships, relationships between people and cultures and nations. It is the power of that presence that provides the “aha” moments in life. When you seek something, and you ultimately feel you have arrived in the presence of that which you seek, and you acknowledge it to your innermost self, that is the balance that is God.

When there is strife, whose reality has become so evident in your own society and across many nations, there is a gap in an acknowledgment in the unity of all. There’s a gap in the acknowledgment of the true meaning of God. When you become overwhelmed with a sense of connection to others, there is the presence of God. When you feel you can express your closeness to others, there is an expression of God, for you, in your own expressions are then experiencing, even momentarily, that balance.

When you feel that harmony inside, and you feel motivated by that peace, it does not necessarily follow that others will recognize the presence that you experience. Sensing God’s presence in life, sensing that balance, is a process that involves individuals initially. Ultimately the light that is God’s balance permeates the shadows in all corners.

You as human beings cannot be expected to change all shadows and all darkness into light, but unless each of you in your own way reflects what you know to be the true balance, the true love, the true unity, it will not impact others. You live with the light because that is what you do. You do not live in that light with the expectation that all shadows must therefore disappear. You do what you do because it reflects what you believe. It is not your responsibility to change others. Your responsibility is to be reflective of your understanding.

God’s presence is not something that is activated. It is not something brought to bear on a situation from the outside. To achieve the balance that is necessary, it must be a collective effort. It is in witnessing that godly presence in others that your own vision is broadened. You do not become more godly in your response by being told about God’s presence. It is ultimately by seeing evidence of that presence that you become convinced of its reality.

If you wish for peace, be peaceful. The peace that you are experiencing is God, and in responding to that peace, it will have an effect. We said you do not activate God, but we do say that it is in the collective response to a sense of unity that brings God’s presence to others.

What is God then? The many interpretations by humans of the nature of God describe a portion of God, but there is so much more to that sense of balance, that sense of communion with others than what is identified by one group of people or another. If you feel God is loving in a human way, at least there is a sense that there is a loving presence, but that loving presence is far beyond the human sense of love. A God that is loving, a God that creates what is in balance is not a God of vengeance. It is not a God of anger but rather affirmation, patience, support, care.

The God whom we know from our own heart’s vision is a God of care, a God that is compassionate, a God that is comprised in part of all that has been created. God is what is created, but God is also the strength that led to all that is. God is the Creator and the created. Because you are a part of the created, you belong to the Creator. All belong to the Creator. There is no sense of independence, separateness, exclusivity, uniqueness to what has been created. The strife that you know of is based on an identity, but that identify is itself exclusive. It excludes whatever is defined as “other.” When there is a definition, an identity, to what is other, there is a denial of that absolute unity of all that is that is God. When you deny others, you deny the creative essence that is God. It is that denial, that sense of exclusivity, that preoccupation with self, whether individual, community, or nation, that leads to such strife that may seem impractical.

You wonder what is the pathway forward? What is the God-way that can lead civilizations, governments, communities, families, individuals toward peace? That way begins with an affirmation that affirms the unity, the equality, the validity of all. Some people are there. The vast majority of human beings are consumed by the preoccupation, that sense that there is always “other,” and that other is then a threat to me or to us. The way forward is a commitment to the belief that all are equal. It is not only the commitment to that equality. It is living that reflects that equality.

The nature of human beings is such that full understanding by all of that equality will never be fully realized. In saying this, we are not suggesting that there will always be war, but we can say that among humans, there will always be some sense of us versus them. Such differentiation may not lead to war as you perceive it, but there will always in human form be a kind of bifurcation of identity.

In our lives in spirit-form, there is no such bifurcation. There is no us versus them. There is only we. There is only that balance that exists, and because of that balance, there is only love. There is only care and compassion, the commitment to grow, the commitment to learn more of what it means to be loving, and a commitment to becoming entirely the embodiment of love.

What is God? God is the reality that all is connected, that all matters, that there is a balance that justifies the existence of all that is, not just on earth, but throughout the universe that you know of and throughout all the other universes.

When you pray to God, pray for vision, for in that prayer for vision will come all that is the reality of God surrounding each of you. You belong to that reality. You belong as intrical parts of the whole. Reach out to others. Express your understanding of unity in whatever way is best for you, knowing that in that expression of unity, you are indeed increasing the presence of all that is God.

Amen.