June 16, 1998

• Spiritual nurture for self and others

• Express your vulnerability

• Meeting the needs of self and others

God joins you together. The strands that are brought together are varied in color and texture and character, but there is a strong common bond for you, and this bond, of course, is the light of God that you all find nourishment from.

We’d like to talk a bit about the issue of spiritual nurture as it relates to each of your lives. Nurture is a kind of sustenance, but the nurture that you often think of is the nurture that comes from food and friends and activities, projects, careers. The nurture that we speak of is a spiritual nurture. It is received by you in many ways, both individually and collectively. All souls must be nurtured. There is not one soul that is completely self-sufficient or self-fulfilled. To the contrary, the only nourishment that feeds the soul is received through others.

You speak on occasion of nurturing your own soul, but what is happening is that you allow yourselves to be open enough to be nurtured by others. To the extent that you can be open to others, that growth replenishment can take place. When one blocks oneself from others and sets up a wall, no nourishment is received. There is no strengthening of the soul. The soul continues to live, of course, but it cannot grow and does not strengthen.

Your spiritual nourishment is directly connected to the relationships that you have with others. You can be nourished through the acts of a total stranger. It is not necessary that such strength-giving be experienced only through the activities of someone you know well. This fact is so important because it places you in the position of responsibility to be ready and able to enhance the spiritual strength and character of someone else, even someone whom you do not know well. Your lives ultimately have meaning only in the context of how they enhance the life of another. That enhancement is a spiritual enhancement—it is not material. Certainly what you may do to help another materially may lead later to spiritual enhancement, but the material gift to another is not in itself spiritually nourishing.

When you wish and need spiritual nourishment, it is you who are really in control. You are never spiritually victims. Each of you has within you the power to enable this nourishment to be achieved. When you need spiritual comfort and support, it is you who control that comfort, for it is you who welcome and are open to it. Being open to others necessitates taking risks. It is not achieved in a guarded state. It is achieved by being vulnerable, allowing yourselves to be seen, allowing yourselves to be recipients of what others may do.

This vulnerability of which we speak can sometimes be visible to others, made evident by an expression of need, of asking for help. It is hard for many to admit they need help. It is hard for you to admit you need help, for there is the matter of pride, of not wanting to let your defenses down, of not wanting your weakness to be evident to others. But it is through that willingness to be vulnerable, it is through your willingness to

those needs. Such acknowledge weakness acknowledgment, such willingness to be vulnerable, to be in need of nurture is made evident not just by words but by actions. You do not necessarily need to say you need support. You may indicate it through your actions, your expression. There are any number of ways that that is transmitted to another.

that others become aware of

And so it is with your willingness to nurture. You do not have to expect another to say, “I am in need of your help.” You have merely to be observant, sensitive to the meaning of what others say or do, and then respond to that perception. When you respond to another’s deep needs, it is you and the other who both grow. Each soul is made more whole by the efforts of one on behalf of another.

Sometimes you have need for nourishment but have not recognized it. You feel you are totally self-sufficient. There are no great needs pressing upon your consciousness. That is not uncommon, but it is deceptive. Those needs may be there, but through the deception, the self-deception, you prevent others from strengthening your own life. It is important that you allow yourself to be open to others, to let others see you as you are, to not be afraid of showing need. Even if you feel there is no need, the lack of fear allows others to read you. It also allows you the blessing of reading the unspoken needs of others.

Nourishment is given by being present, as we have said so often. It may be through shared activities, sharing in projects or interests, seeking out mutual issues of concern. In each of these cases the act of sharing enhances both parties. Love is an act of giving, but it is in that giving that souls are strengthened, and as each soul receives nourishment, the life of the person is given greater depth and purpose, meaning, intensity. There is no one who has no need for strength and nourishment.

You reach out in prayer to God in times of great need but too often fail to realize that those needs might be responded to most effectively by your neighbor. You hear of others who suffer great trauma, and you pray to God to be responsive to those needs. We suggest you pray for the wisdom yourselves to be responsive to the needs you observe. It is in and through your response that God’s presence is felt and the issues of need observed. God does not make that presence felt in the world through some kind of abstract activity separated from humankind. It is through humanity that God acts. If you are aware of the needs of another, therefore pray for your own abilities to be responsive. You are then being nurturing, and you gain as well as the other.

The next time you pray that God intervene in a situation, pray also that you are made aware of ways that you might be an instrument of that intervention. Individually you cannot change the course of the world, but you can make a difference. World changes are not necessary for the growth of the soul. There is nothing more important in the world than the individual. Be aware of those around you and of those needs that are not being expressed. But also be aware on a deep level of your own personal needs and be willing to take the risk of vulnerability, the risk of showing your need to another. That is not a selfish act, for in doing that you are also giving spiritual nutrition and strength to those who come in the spirit of help. It is not a sign of weakness to admit need. It is a sign of great strength, and it is an act of faith because you offer that with a conviction of benefit to all parties, and such recognition is offered through the understanding that all have needs, even the one who is helping.

Your spiritual growth also is not abstract. There are times when that growth is strong and intense and you can feel energized by it. There are other times when such growth, such nourishment is subtle and slow, and that may feel at times as if you are without any guidance. It is precisely at those times when you feel alone or down or dejected when you are really open for the strength-giving presence of another.

The challenge for you, therefore, is two-fold: one, to be willing to recognize your own needs and for others to recognize those needs; the second challenge being to be more aware of the needs of others and your position within the realm of God’s response for which you pray. Great openness in all directions is necessary. When you live your lives with your eyes wide open to needs that seem to be unmet, you are living your lives as an instrument of God, and you are thereby enabling God to become a more effective force among human life. What greater joy can there be? It is a life of giving and it is a life of receiving, but it is never a life of isolation.

Seek out those opportunities for giving and those opportunities for receiving. Both are indeed necessary, not always at the same time, but either one or the other should prevail constantly. You are then in touch with life around you. If you feel you have no needs and you recognize no needs of others, you are going through your lives spiritually blindfolded, and you are making the possibility of growth of the soul much more difficult. Your lives will be enhanced with your eyes being opened.

Human life is a great opportunity because of this chance to be open to giving and to receiving. Lessons are to be learned that cannot be learned anywhere else. Welcome those opportunities, embrace them and make them a part of your daily lives.

We reach out to you with our prayers because we know your needs. You are not so aware of ours, and that is as it should be. But we see your needs, and we make ourselves available to you. We see our own needs individually and collectively, and we respond to one another. That is the great lesson of the spiritual realm of life that we all recognize, and such recognition provides great beauty to our lives that you can only have but a glimpse of in human form. The principles are the same. The spirit is the spirit. It is the soul. Whether on our plane of living or on yours, it is the same.

Accept our prayers for your continued growth. It is in moments like these when you turn to reflect upon God that your growth is enhanced, and the colors we see of your souls become most radiant.

God’s blessings to us are God’s blessings to you. God’s love for us is identical to God’s love for you. May you spread that love through your concern and service to others and your openness to their service to you. We are all blessed with God’s great light.

Amen.