October 25, 2018

• All pray to the same God, regardless of name

• Not just one way to heaven

• Losses are really opportunities for love

• When does life begin?

• Human life is inhabited by spirit

• Creation of universe was not accidental

The God to whom you pray is the same God to whom all human beings pray. Names are unimportant. Those names that you refer to when you think of a God are labels of convenience. They are ways of bringing the reality of the Spirit Center, the energy that is the creation of all, into a more manageable, understandable form that has meaning to you and to others.

We speak to you in different terms than we speak to others, but what we share with you we wish for you to come to understand. In different cultures, there are those who turn to the God they understand in order to find meaning to life, in order to understand why they are as they are: Why is there life? What’s it’s purpose? And what is the most appropriate way of traveling that path of life?

You are only too aware of the divisions that arise that try to define a path by prescribed criteria that determine relevance, validity, meaning. There is no one way to “enter the kingdom of God, of heaven.” It is simply not true when we consider a literal interpretation of one way, but we can say that for each human being, for each house of the spirit, there is a particular path that is the most appropriate way for that soul to unite fully with the Spirit Center that is God. In that sense, there is only one way, for each spirit, each soul, has its own appropriate way.

When we say there is no one way, we are saying there is no common way for all to enter the kingdom of God, to enter the presence of total Love. Each individual has a different way, a different path, and therefore a different pathway. There is no pathway that is more relevant, more appropriate, more valuable, more effective, more efficient, or more blessed than another. You are on your own pathway, for that pathway is precisely what is most appropriate for you.

There are lessons to be learned by all. There are experiences which must be gone through for all souls. These are not specific experiences. They’re not experiencing war or famine or success or whatever, but rather they are experiences from which love is experienced, received, amplified within, and then sent forward.

The losses that you think of, whether a loss of life as you know it or loss of life experiences that are considered part of the normal pathway, those losses are not losses. They are indeed changes. They are indeed new directions, and each new direction has with it new opportunities for experiencing, receiving, expanding, and sending out love.

When life brings to you the challenges of sadness, of grieving, or of being especially vulnerable, those are avenues through which you are offered love. That offering of love is from others as a reflection, a representation, of God’s love. When you receive God’s love, it is not just a feeling that somehow God loves you. It is an acknowledgement that you have felt love to have been offered to you. That offering is through the lives of others. It is through the moments of seeming chance encounters, chance opportunities. Those encounters, those opportunities, are not by chance. They are the direct expression of the love offered by others. They are the direct expression of the beauty, the warmth, and the wonder you encounter in life around you.

Life is of course a series of twists and turns. It is a succession of light, dusk, darkness, and dawn. Life in human form is an important part of your growth as loving bits of energy that belong to the cosmos of creation. Those you encounter in life are not by accident. The circles or orbits or tracks or pathways of your life interact with others, and it is through that interaction that you are brought to a deeper understanding of the true loving nature of spirit.

One of your group asks about his brother and another. He wonders how they are. They are with us, and their spirits are embraced through our presence. They know they are loved. They’re loved by all whom they knew. Both spirits are resting. Their lights are becoming more brilliant, and they are receiving so much love. They will expand the love they receive, and they will send it out and shall become an integral part of the fullness that is all love. They have been loving in their ways, and their progression is to become only love.

Human life has its natural cycle. Each of you has already experienced human life at a prior point in the circle that leads to becoming full love. It is a consequence of your knowing one another that you are together at this moment. You will continue to be together in future life-forms, for paths that intersect draw from one another, and that shared connection remains part of that eternal path. There is no relationship that is lost. There is no relationship that is forgotten, that is only transitory. All with whom you have shared moments on your path will share influences in the future.

Each of you grows, not merely through your own life story, but you grow through what you share with others. Sometimes that sharing is painful. Sometimes it brings great spiritual joy and refinement. Whatever that experience is, there is much to be drawn together and given meaning.

You wonder about how and when this life of which we speak begins. We have frequently asserted the truth that it is never appropriate to end a life. Human life exists only in connection with the spirit. The fact that cells expand and divide is part of the natural function of cells, but when we speak of a human life, we speak of a human life that is inhabited by the spirit. All that exists exists in the presence of the creative energy that you speak of as God, for that energy is part of every blade of grass. The blade of grass is part of creation and is sacred, but in the most significant way, what separates the sacredness of that blade of grass from the sacredness of human life is the presence of spirit contained within that life.

The spirit becomes a part of human life at that moment when human life senses the presence of love. There is no purpose in the spirit being part of the cellular structure of something unless there is the potential, the reality, the experience of being loved and being aware of that love. A mother can love the presence of a growing being within. That being is being cared for by the nurturing spirit of the mother, and yet the growth of spirit within that emerging being begins shortly before the actual birth. We say “shortly”—we do not wish to specify a particular number of days or minutes or months, but there comes a point in the development of that being when there is a direct response to life on the outside. There is an awareness of life that exists beyond mere division and specializing of the cells that belong to the entity.

There is little to be gained by arguing among people about when life begins. When you are concerned about preserving and honoring the life of a human being, you must recognize that a human being that is a means of a spirit developing is not in itself a reality at the point of conception, and yet that moment of conception is a sacred moment, for in the vast realm of God’s creation, a new form of life is beginning, and that form of life, that very beginning, is a sacred moment.

We may also affirm that such beginnings, in all forms of life, are sacred, for creation, the very beginning of all existence, is sacred. The starting of life leading to human life is no more or less sacred than the beginning of the life of a tree or the forming of particular chemical components. Creation, God’s creation, is all about life. It is all about the energy of life, the interaction of life and all that is experienced in life.

We say that as you become more love, you send that love out. Why? Because it is the essential element that nurtures the continuation of God’s creation. We often say you are the hands, the feet, and the eyes of God, but we can say that all that lives, all forms of life, belong to the creative energy that is God. Because all belongs to that creative energy, it is sacred. It is special. It is meaningful. It has purpose. It has design.

The creation of the universe was not accidental. Your universe was created because of the presence of many components that interacted together. The possible randomness of such interaction would mean the chances of your universe being created would be practically nil. The fact is your universe was created. Your universe had a beginning, and it began not by accident, but that beginning meant that there was more that was created, that there was a succession of creation, all belonging to the creative force that is God.

Human life belongs to that succession, but human life requires the presence of spirit. Spirit requires as part of its creation, its mission, the presence of human life. The life of the human and the life of the soul exist symbiotically. There are many human beings who have no awareness of spirit. There are human beings who believe the concept of spirit is simply an effort to find meaning, any meaning, to their lives but doesn’t really exist. Such a belief does not change what is. It only reflects what is understood. You are fortunate in gathering a glimpse of the spiritual side, the spirit component of human life. It is only a glimpse, but it is enough to give you faith in its existence, and believing in its existence, you are in many ways guided in how you respond to life around you.

You are blessed as you seek to know more. You are blessed in the journey of understanding. You are blessed in your questions. In many ways, it is your questioning and the questioning of others that holds the seed of knowledge, of understanding, the seed of vulnerability.

Be open to the expression of God through the presence of others. Be open to what you are shown. Be open to the reality of this union of spirit and human life, and give thanks for the views you have, for the journey you’re on, and for the knowledge that in all, God is, and therefore you are.

Be in the light. Be with love.

Amen.