March 12, 2007

• God engages with every thing

• Honoring differing perspectives in conflict

The loving God, who is the Mother/Father of all that exists, is with each of you, individually and collectively. God is a part of your lives and your thoughts, your emotions, your actions…all that you experience in human life. But God is also a part of the existence of all that has been created. God is no more engaged in your life than God would be in the life and existence of something seemingly inanimate. The engagement between God and creation is fully present. It is only human beings who create differences in their own awareness, for even life-forms that function on a different level than the organic functioning of the brain have an awareness at some level of something beyond.

You may wonder “how can we say this about plants, about other animals? How can we say something about awareness in something that is essentially inanimate?” The truth is that all that exists reacts. There is nothing that has been created that is nonreactive, that is fully, totally inert. That reaction may be elicited by heat, by cold, by magnetic presence nearby…any of a number of stimuli, but everything reacts. If you place a stone near a fire, it will become warm. It doesn’t just exist. Everything reacts to what is around it, and therefore every item has a kind of awareness, conscious or unconscious, of a connection with something beyond itself.

Each of you has been engaged in a discussion of relationships, namely your connection with what is around you. Human beings, unlike other life forms on earth, are the only elements of creation that are capable of collectively considering something beyond themselves. And that is what you are actually doing, and it is to this concern that we continue to share and to focus God’s light.

You’re aware of the need for an understanding of perspective but, you rightly conclude, acknowledging a perspective is different from responding to it. The acknowledgment is a kind of response but response goes a step beyond acknowledgment. You cannot respond appropriately without acknowledgment. You cannot understand how to deal with another until you have gained an understanding of the perspective of another, and that action, that taking understanding and placing into action, is what we wish to focus on at this time. If you understand the perspective of another, you are in a superficial way standing in the shoes of another. You will never fully understand what brings another to a particular viewpoint, but you can gain a kind of feel for that viewpoint.

Achieving an acknowledgment of perspective is useless unless you affirm or reflect your view of that perspective. If someone accuses you of something that you feel is unjust, it is appropriate to begin a discussion by reflecting back what you understand has been communicated to you. You must become clear about not only what is said but what is intended. The two may be very different, but as you clarify in your own mind through questions, you will begin to perceive an appropriate response.

You cannot respond in that manner to issues that you do not understand, so the first step is to be sure that you understand what another is really saying. In other words, the first step is to be a very perceptive listener. Listening is crucial to your response. It is always important to separate yourself from blame or from guilt or shame, and to just listen until you know what is truly being expressed.

Oftentimes conflict with others arises, not from disagreement but from misunderstanding. If you fully understand, you may have eliminated much of the conflict in your life. Human beings rarely say what they think. They merely reflect what their emotions are, and it is those emotions that are often the first expression of your conflict. Get beyond the emotions, allow them to be expressed, but look for what is really being said. Understanding the level behind the emotions is vital to dealing with conflict in your lives. You may find that you do communicate well, there is no misunderstanding, that it is clearly a disagreement.

It is essential for each of you to be open to allowing others to express their perspectives as they wish to express them. You know yourselves the difficulty that you feel when you are not given a chance to fully express yourselves. You must allow this among each other. There is so much energy expended in self-defense and so little in “other” awareness. The resolution of conflict must begin with “other” awareness. Eliminating the defensive stance is important for all relationships.

What you are doing, then, is a kind of affirmation. You are actively affirming the validity of another’s perspective. You are not necessarily agreeing with, but at least affirming its validity. If you are in conflict with another and that other individual openly values your opinion, openly values your perspective and allows you to express that without judgment, the conflict loses much of its energy. You sense that; another senses that. There will always be time for you to express yourselves honestly and supportively, but you must make conscious effort to allow others to express themselves. Without that openness, without that space, there is no room for resolution.

What you are doing in that process is actually placing yourselves in the proverbial “shoes” of another. You are trying to understand why others react as they react, why they hold other positions. In so doing, you may come to the resolution that you both are seeking the same outcome, and it then is a manner of style rather than substance that clearly is the cause of tension.

All of these steps are steps of affirmation. They go to the heart of resolution. Conflict is not a matter of one side being right and another side being wrong. You don’t resolve the differences by convincing someone to change a position, to change a perspective. That may be the result but it is not the goal. The goal is to find the common ground that unites you. If there is common ground with which to work, there is plenty of room for different perspectives. Each party is ultimately seeking the same result.

You are not asked to agree with everyone. That is not what peace-making and affirmation are about. You are asked to listen and to try to understand. In your understanding, you may find you are the party that changed, for you have an ability to change your own perspective, your own reactions, your own thoughts, your own opinions. You are not responsible for what another thinks, but if all parties to a conflict recognize some common ground, one can build upon that. Allow for differences and achieve what ultimately is achievable.

These relationships, these opportunities for resolution are why you are given your human experience. We say that you grow through these relationships and that is absolutely true. You wonder about the value of pulling back from conflict, of pulling back from challenges, of pulling back from that which creates tension and anxiety. Certainly there is a place for that. We spoke about thinking of yourselves as batteries that can be recharged and recharged and recharged. It is important to acknowledge that need. Yes, you do become stronger through use, but part of that strength comes from reflection, from obtaining another perspective. When you are at rest, you see life in a different perspective. You see life perhaps through the absence of that which creates anguish and worry, concern.

You are allowing yourselves to imagine and experience life that is characterized more through resolution than through conflict. That has an important place in your spiritual growth, for without experiencing life free of such difficulties, you have no understanding of what it means to work through the many challenges that you face. The growth takes place through the challenges, but it is through your response to those challenges, not just the presence of them. And if your response is one of trying to resolve issues rather than to dominate, that kind of growth is what we speak of, but you must see and be aware of the reality of resolution in order to strive for it.

It is at moments of rest and moments of recovery, of strengthening in that way, that you become aware of the value and the potential of reduced conflict, for the nature of all that has been created is balance, is stability, and there is growth that takes place as a result of the achieving of such a state. When you are in conflict, balance has been lost. When you are away from conflict, there is a balance which is experienced and that provides the hope, the potential, the vision of a newly achieved balance in other areas of your lives. Without that rest, without that drawing back, you have no vision of a potential outcome to a situation.

If you are a child and have only experienced hunger, you have no understanding of what it feels like not to be hungry. But if you experience that state of lack of hunger, you are more able to acknowledge the importance of achieving a state of no hunger when you do experience hunger. If you experience only the dark, you never see the light so you never recognize it. But if you have moments of light, then you have a perspective of what the dark may ultimately bring forth and that provides confidence, that provides courage, that provides insight.

We have said from the beginning that you must learn what it means to be loved before you can become loving. What is the motivation for becoming loving if you have never experienced what it means to be loved? It has no meaning whatsoever. It is just a concept. Growth therefore takes place through action and inaction. It is because of that growth that you are able to find stability. It is through that growth that you become more able to affirm and to be loving.

You are asked in human life to grow through your challenges, but it is not the presence of those challenges that creates the growth. It is what you do that creates it, and as you become more aware of what can be created, you are then more empowered to create that which you seek. If you know the meaning of peace and have experienced it, you are more able to do what must be done to lead a life toward that peace. Viewing what is possible is as important to growth as doing what is possible.

Your lives are a constant balance between what you seek and what you know. The more you know, the more realistic is that which you seek. The more you know about love, the more loving you can become. The more you have experienced compassion, the more you value compassion in your own relationships with others.

You learn through the experiences of expression. You learn through the experience of action. The learning takes place in both directions. You have no reason to fear that if your lives are going well, you are not learning. And there is no reason to fear that when your lives are filled with challenges, you are somehow failing.

You are growing, you are learning, you are becoming more god-like in your spiritual awareness, in all activities of your human life. It is a great gift you have been given and it is a gift to be used wisely. You’re not given life to be pressured. You are being given life to be inspired. Whatever is necessary for that inspiration becomes an indelible part of that inspiration.

Be joyful in your gift of life. Be joyful for your potential. Be joyful for the peace, the balance that you observe from whatever sources. Be joyful in the love you are given by others, for they provide the loving interaction that you then initiate. Life is about you, your growth, the growth of others, and your connection that you make between each of these poles.

Our lives as your guides are lives of giving, of serving, of affirming, of instruction, of comforting, of inspiring. That is what we do always in pure nonjudgmental love. We never stand in judgment of you. We never serve to punish or to criticize. We are with each of you, encouraging and affirming and loving. You cannot lose, you cannot fail, you cannot fall behind, for we are always there to lift you in our loving arms and carry you forward to that wondrous loving God.

Amen.