July 13, 1999

• Being mindful of life’s lessons

• Choose to illuminate your surroundings

• Keep prayer foremost in your mind

God illuminates your group, all of you, and strengthens your souls in their journeys of life. You do indeed find yourselves engaged in a journey. In a very real sense, the human journey, although at times numerous, remains brief. Any journey that is anticipated is perceived to be longer than the actual experience, in retrospect. And so it is with your lives. You look back upon your experiences, many of which occurred quite awhile ago, and yet they seem immediate in so many ways. The journey is brief, relatively speaking, but every detail of that journey has a life of its own.

There is nothing that any one of you is engaged in that is insignificant, inconsequential, lacking in impact. Everything that you do has importance. Everything that you do should be fully engaged. If you are out for a walk, bring your attention to the beauty of nature. Bring your attention to your interactions with others. Those interactions may indicate needs. They may be a reflection of God’s presence, directly in front of you. They may be opportunities for you to reflect God’s presence.

Your activities are the grounds for learning, for growth. Even a vacation provides an opportunity for growth. It is not facts per se that are important, but your perception of the world—specifically, the people. When you are aware of historical events, it is not really the events themselves that are of ultimate importance. It’s the people who generated those events. When you are relaxing in meditation, it is not necessarily the specifics of your insight that are important, but your connection, your feeling of belonging that is of ultimate significance—your connection to God, your connection to all of creation, your connection to family, to neighbors, to strangers, to animate and inanimate. It is your feeling of belonging fully that is the greatest benefit to be achieved by just being still and meditating, allowing yourself to be receptive.

Your lives are important indeed, but that is true of everyone, regardless of calling, regardless of how an individual’s efforts or interests are measured by others. All life is significant, all life is important. You chose this life for the lessons to be learned in it, but those lessons are not obviously of specific nature. They are, rather, attitudes—the lesson of being receptive, the lesson of being loving, the lesson of being loved, the lesson of sacrifice,

joy, of sadness, pain, exhilaration, discouragement, achievement—these are all attitudes. There is nothing that is included that has any connection with materialism. There are no lessons to be learned from material possessions. There may be lessons to be learned as a result of acquiring them, but the material itself has absolutely no meaning.

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Your lives are rewarding in the end because of your growth. Your lives have meaning because of your interaction with all that has been created. One is not identified as successful unless one creates more of real significant worth in attitudes than had existed prior to one’s efforts. Each of you enhances life through the effects on the creation. You do not enhance life by what you receive. You do not enhance life by accolades you may be given. You do not enhance life merely by the strengthening of self.

Life is enhanced as it relates to others. A life of strength is a life of giving. The strong spirit is the spirit that illuminates outward rather than reflects inward. You grow through that outward illumination. You grow as you pray. You grow as you serve. You grow as you listen. You grow as you love. You grow as you give. That growth is a part of the process, the most important process of your choice of human life.

Life is unique. For many souls, it is a long time by human measurement before human life is experienced, and it may burn brightly. For other souls, the choice is made relatively quickly to experience the human form in its interaction.

Your lives are indeed sacred because they hold within them the capacity to illuminate outward. There is no other element of creation, of God’s creation, that has the power to illuminate another. That belongs strictly to the human. Yes, there are elements of life, there are aspects of creation that provide pleasure: a beautiful sunrise or sunset, powerful mountains, weather patterns, flowers, animals. The difference, however, is that the human being reflects outward willfully. The human chooses to reflect outward. No other form of creation is given that kind of choice. Some elements of creation are pleasure-giving to those who are sensitive to that presence. But human beings are given the power to willfully reflect outward if they so choose. That difference is significant.

Your lives are enhanced by your willful choice to illuminate what is around you. You can choose, so to speak, to keep the light under a lid, but that choice helps no one, enhances nothing, and does not serve to strengthen your own soul. You’re strengthened, you’re given greater direction only as you are able to reflect outward. The illumination is your purpose. Reflection toward oneself, while providing insight, does not in and of itself result in spiritual growth. You must, of course, at times reflect (you use that very term) inwardly. But for growth to be achieved, that reflection must lead outward to action. Human life provides the chance to transfer the energy reflected within to energy illuminated outward. Giving of yourselves is the exercise of that God-given gift of life.

All humans are indeed equal, but this equality is an equality of potential. It is not an equality of action as measured in a particular frame of time. Some are more ready to give, to reach out, to embrace than others. That is okay. For those who are not ready for such action, the time will come when they are. Whether it is relatively soon or relatively distant is unimportant. All souls ultimately do reach out. All souls ultimately do become loving, self-sacrificing, compassionate. That is the nature of the divine that is within each of you. You either allow that to happen now, or you allow it to happen at some point in the future. The fact is simply that it will happen.

You may wonder at this point what difference it makes to choose toward the outreach rather than be focused on the inner search if all will ultimately be reaching outward at some point in time. The answer is there is little difference. It is a matter of style rather than substance. There are those who are ready, and others who are not yet ready. That is perfectly acceptable. There are times in each of your lives when you are motivated to reach out and other times when you feel incapable of such action. That is okay as well. There is no reason for pride when you are reaching out, just as there is no reason for guilt when you are not reaching out.

What is essential is to know what it is that your soul and you as an individual need at the moment. You all need at times to be loved, and that is important for it provides the strength and perspective to be loving. It is not a matter of weakness or failure to be in a position of needing to be loved. There are no grounds for great pride and self-importance when you are motivated to reach outward. It is merely the right time for your soul to engage in that outward journey.

Your lives, therefore, are a balance between reaching inward and looking beyond yourselves. You will cycle from one to the other. What we are saying here is that the contrasts in your life are met as they should be met with prayer. If you pray for God’s presence to guide you, and you feel unable to reach outward, accept that. Be willing to be receptive to others reaching out to you. By first responding through prayer, the course that your life takes from moment to moment is secure in God’s guidance.

Prayer, then, is your connection to life’s journey. Prayer is the map. Prayer is the vehicle. Prayer is the light that shows the way. No way is better than another way, but there is a way that is more appropriate at a given moment than another way. By prayerful contemplation you will be assured that you are moving along the journey of life as is best for you. Allow yourselves many more opportunities for prayerful contemplation. Too often you recognize the value of prayer and yet are reluctant to engage in its practice. Prayer is powerful. Prayer does work. Prayer provides a connection to God. Prayer provides a connection to all that has been created, and it is in prayer that you should place your faith.

It is very difficult for humans to fully understand the impact of prayer. You get glimpses from time to time of its importance, of its meaning, of its benefit, but so quickly you lose sight of it. Keep prayer foremost in your mind and your journey will be secure, the way will be lit, and you will find your destination in the company of God’s light.

We do pray for each of you. We do respond when your prayers are offered to us. We do pray to God, and God responds to those prayers. We are fully aware of that response. There is no doubt, there is no questioning, there is no misunderstanding. It is absolutely, undeniably clear. That is the difference in our perception and yours, but prayer continues even in our life-form.

As we said earlier, we really are the same. The energy is different, but the spirit, the soul is not destroyed, is not changed. It is continuous, and its existence is uninterrupted at any point. What your soul seeks, we seek. What your soul develops into is merely a stage of what we develop into. It is indeed a continuum. Pray for us and our development, for when you do so we are strengthened in our abilities to reflect God’s guidance back to you. We benefit and therefore you benefit. It is, as you say, a “win-win” arrangement. All grow through the exchange of prayer.

You are blessed by God’s light. You are blessed by God’s love and compassion, and we are blessed by that same light, love and compassion. Our obligation, our desire is to pass that clearly to your lives and we do it lovingly and with great care. All of us, you and we, are bathed by that brilliant light of the Creator of all.

Amen.