September 29, 2008

• All That Is is God

• Enhance transformation by honoring the divinity in yourself and others

God, who is the Mother/Father/Creator of the earth and the stars and indeed all that has been created, is with you and welcomes your love and your efforts to live a life that is filled with love and affirmation.

You ask many questions of such importance, for your questions, your curiosity, your seeking are all related to a single issue, the issue of purpose. There is purpose to each of your lives. There is purpose, there is a goal, there is a reason for all to exist and flourish. There is a purpose in your being together. There is a purpose in your sharing your fears, your joys, your humor, your tears.

The purpose that is central to each of your lives is one of drawing closer to the Spirit Center that is all that exists. When we say you are drawn to all that exists, we do mean that everything that has been created is not only an entity created by God, but is more importantly an entity that is God. The purpose of your lives in human form is to achieve some measure of understanding of how All That Is is a part of God, not just a creation of God. We often say, “All that has been created is sacred and has worth, has meaning.” But it is sacred and has worth and meaning only because it is God. Everything you see, everything you experience with your senses, is a part of what God is.

Often human beings perceive God in some human-like form, acting with human- like intentions, but God is so much more. We can say your fingernail is part of what physically makes up what you are; it is part of you. We can say by the same logic that you are a part of what comprises God. You are loved because you are part of God. Life is sacred because God is sacred, and life is part of God. There is really no division between you and God. You may or may not live godly lives, but you remain forever a part of God, just as a hand or a foot or an ear is a part of who you are.

There is no distinction between humankind and God. Obviously there are differences. Humankind is imperfect, is not fully love, but in an essential way, you are no different. The finger is no different from you. It has a different purpose. It has a different appearance because it is only part of you, but it is still very much an important component of who you are.

You are an important part of the Spirit Center you call God. Without your presence collectively, corporately, God’s presence is diminished. Every human being is a part of that presence. Every blade of grass, every aroma, every color, every stone, every atom, every subatomic particle, every planet, every nucleus…all are a part of what God is. The totality of All That Is is God.

God has created all, but in creating all, God’s presence is expanded. It is for this reason that each of you is sacred. It is for this reason that all human beings are sacred. It is for this reason nature, as you identify it, is sacred.

All must be supported, affirmed, given value. It is not an abstract concept or instructive device to say you must be loving. It is a matter of truth. Each cell in the body must interact with other cells in some form or another for the body to be fully whole. Each of you must find ways of responding to one another that in turn help to make God whole. God is not imperfect, but the power of God is only fully recognized and unleashed and freed through your own acceptance and love of others, through your respect for nature, whether animate or not.

You’re given life in order that you may grow, that you may expand. Matter tends both to expand and contract. When there is heat, the components of matter expand. When there is extreme cold, those elements contract. It is that way with God. When you are filled with a desire to be loving and affirming and giving, the reality of God, the energy of God expands. When you consume yourselves with self-interest, self- absorption, self-pity, self-fear, the energy that is God is reduced.

You are fully aware of what it means to observe negative energy in your lives, for that energy tends to diminish your own lives, and so it does to the power of God. You have also experienced those times of great elation, and as you look around you the world seems brighter, more filled with good, illuminated, not clothed in a dark mantle. Energy is an important matter in your lives, and each of you has within you the power to use that energy in the promotion of whatever it is that you perceive as godly.

Human life is an energy form, pure and simple. When you make the transition to spirit, the energy remains, but its character changes significantly. As you observed, there are many who are reluctant to change one form of energy into another form of that same energy. You are never asked to diminish your energy. You are never asked to create it. But you are asked to transform it.

The energy that you encounter in human life is like a ball of clay. You do not have to create clay in order to shape it, but in your shaping of that clay, you give it character, you give it grace, you provide an identity with its own meaning, but it is still a ball of clay. You can divide it in two. You can divide it into a hundred smaller entities. It is still the same amount of clay. It only appears to be different. It has a different form, a different identity. Those forms and identities are created, but the clay remains.

It is true some individuals prefer not to be transformed in their own energy. They wish to maintain the shape that they know best. But there are others who are willing to be transformed by the hand of God. You are asked to be willing to experience transformation. There is always risk, for in being transformed you take on a new shape, a new character, which may or may not be similar to what you already know. As a result, there are indeed spirits who have difficulty committing themselves to the change that can create greater forms of love.

You asked in your discussions this evening about what can be done to help the transformation. The best means of assisting another, to enabling yourselves to be transformed, is to provide an opportunity to acknowledge your own value, your own worth, for if you acknowledge your own worth, your own strength, you can be more willing to use those strengths, that energy, in new ways. But if you go through life convinced that you are a victim and not a creator, then you lack the confidence that somehow you can be part of the creation of a new shape. You feel powerless and helpless. You can help yourselves transform by acknowledging your own divinity. That is the strength that you possess.

In helping others, you must convince them of their own divinity, their own portion of the divine Spirit Center that is God. By acknowledging another’s divinity, affirming it and acting upon it, you give another the assistance necessary to accept transformation.

Acknowledge therefore your own divinity. It is not something you brag about or strut with, but rather something you accept with the deepest humility and gratitude. You are divine because you have been created, and you have been created because you are divine. This is the truth of All That Is. You cannot therefore be judgmental toward one who is divine. You do not judge God, therefore you cannot judge another.

You are because God is. You are capable of being love ultimately because God is Love. Your energy, your transformation traverses the journey of becoming loving first and then becoming Love. Every individual is given that gift. Every individual has that potential. Some lives are felt to be fulfilled when that potential is realized. Some lives are felt to be empty when there is no vision. Your lives must be characterized by vision, the vision of your divinity with the vision of All That Is being divine.

A tree grows toward the light, responds to it. A tree suffers in drought, but a tree is drawn toward the source of the nourishing energy. A tree is divine. It may not think as humans think, but it is no less divine than you. Trees are to be seen, to be felt, to be protected, to be valued. It is the same with all that God has created. Stones can be cherished, not because of their brilliance but because of their reality. The smallest pebble that you encounter is an important part of your experience. It is another form of energy that is a part of God and therefore of great value.

Sometimes you willfully transform that energy into a new form, a new shape, a new purpose, but that ball of clay is still clay. At the end of your transformations of that clay, you have not increased it, you have not decreased it, you have only changed it.

It is essential that each of you finds ways to affirm in others their own divinity. You do not have to use that term. You do not need to go to someone else and say, “You are divine.” But through your actions toward others, you are indeed affirming that divinity. The other individual, the other group, the other community, the other nation being affirmed and being strengthened is more willing to engage in the transformations that are necessary in God’s plan.

When you pray for change, when you pray for an improvement, when you pray for a release, you are praying for transformation of that clay into another entity that is characterized as beautiful, as affirming, as enormously loving. Your daily activities always provide opportunities for such transformations. Look for them, grasp them, bring them into your own reality, bring them into your own understanding of who you are and the path upon which you travel.

You are blessed by each other, for you are blessed by the potential each of you has to transform your own beings into heavenly light. Rest in the beauty and warmth of the lights that all of you are.

Amen.