April 23, 2009

• Incarnation/death compared to ocean evaporation/rain

• Relationships are exchanges of energy

You are surrounded by a multitude of all souls. This multitude includes souls you know, but also the souls of others whom you have never met. This is a great mystery to you on your side for it is difficult to understand how all souls can be with you.

Think for a moment of that proverbial drop of water in the ocean. That moment of rainfall when that moisture strikes the surface of the ocean, it is again surrounded by the entire ocean. Without that drop and without countless similar drops, there would be no ocean. Just as the moisture that falls as rain joins the ocean, it is the moisture in the ocean that contributes to the rain. The rain was not created somewhere else and then falls. The moisture existed all the time. This is as it should be because it is what God has created. It is indeed a kind of balance. Moisture leaves the ocean; moisture returns to the ocean. The moisture that leaves the ocean is really part of the ocean, and when the moisture joins the ocean, it is a return. It is not an addition.

It is so also with the spirit. Just as God created all that is, created all you can see, created the ocean, God created the totality of spirit and each of your souls belongs to that totality. The souls that accompany your human lives are analogous to the moisture that is in the air from the evaporation of the ocean. That moisture belongs to the ocean. Your souls belong to the spirit, and when the spirit that is within you, your own soul, is no longer associated with the physical, it returns from whence it came. Your soul, your spirit, joins The Spirit, the totality of all that is spirit. It is a cycle of transformation, but not a process of creation. You are not creating something new when the spirit that accompanies human life joins the collective Spirit. Nothing new is seen, only a transformation, a return to the origin of All That Is.

Your spiritual lives consist of a kind of circular activity. For awhile the spirit is part of the whole. For awhile the spirit accompanies the physical, and then returns to the collective Spirit, the Spirit Center. This cycle continues until each entity of spirit is so completely Love itself that there is no longer purpose for human participation. It is that transformation into pure Love that adds to the energy of The Spirit, the Spirit Center.

Each of you contributes to the whole. You do not create the whole, but you contribute to it. It is much like your relationship with others. You do not create another personality. You do not create your neighbor. You do not create an associate. You contribute, and in contributing the spirit energy is strengthened. It grows and expands. It expands through contribution, not creation, for creation was the realm of God’s activity. It is not something that you do in physical form or spirit form.

You are always asked to contribute to another. This contribution is in the form of compassion and affirmation, value giving, loving. All of these belong to contribution, but none of these create in themselves. When you contribute to another, you are in reality broadening vision. You are giving meaning, context to life. By contributing to your neighbor, you’re enhancing your neighbor’s sense of place, sense of being. You are reinforcing the energy of another.

In an orchestra, instruments reinforce, they contribute to the sound. They transform energy. The energy appears to be different, but it is never simply created. Just as sound is the transformation of another form of energy, the spiritual support that you provide is a transformation of your own energy, for what in the end is spirit but energy? It is a form of energy created originally by God. That energy is merely changed. It is given character. It grows, it develops, it deepens, it broadens, but it is never again created.

Your relationships with another are based in fact on an exchange of energies. Someone can enter the room and the energy level can be greatly decreased. Another can enter the same room and the energy is inexplicably heightened. Nothing has seemed changed, and yet there is a feeling that was not there before. Such a change in energy is not restricted to certain people where others have no energy. All human beings have this kind of energy that interacts directly and clearly with others. When you are asked to be affirming to another, you’re being asked to transform the energy within in order to reinforce an energy field of another.

Your relationships are relationships of energy. Love is a relationship of energy. Aggression is a relationship of energy. Jealousy is a relationship of energy. Compassion is a relationship of energy. These manifestations of energy are manifestations of spirit. You are who you are because of the energy you contain.

We spoke earlier of the need for you to feel as vessels being filled so that you may nurture—nurture others, nurture yourselves. But what fills the vessel? What fills the vessel is the energy of spirit if you allow it to do so. Spiritual energy can be blocked, but never permanently and never completely. If you are ill and feeling in some way remote, distant, separated, you can still feel the loving energy, the Presence, if you will, of another. Even when a human being is in the depths of perceived darkness, there is always a crack in the door. There is always some way that energy can enter.

You’re always asked to be open to those around you, but in being so asked you are also meant to be sensitive to the energies around you, to be sensitive to the negative and the positive. Each of you has seen others whom you don’t know who radiate a kind of internal energy that leaves you feeling stronger, more fulfilled, more loving. You may not have met that individual. You may not know what history that individual carries, but in a profound way you are affirmed. Your soul is receptive to that energy of another.

Health, balance—these both involve a shift in energy. There is an energy of healing. There is an energy of peace. There is an energy of love. All of these positive energy fields are the creation of God. They are part of that spiritual Presence. When you pray for peace, you are praying to be sensitive to those energies that surround what it is you define as peace. You cannot have personal conflict with another whose peaceful energy you see. You cannot have conflict with another who is a recipient of your own peace. You cannot have conflict with another when you are aware of a connection of that other to the grand creation to which you all belong. Recognizing your neighbor is recognizing an energy that complements and affirms. It is not an energy of control, but an energy of strength.

Being strong in spirit never implies being controlling in spirit. If you are strong in spirit, you are strong in the energy of vision, vision that takes in all that is around you. If you’re strong in spirit, you’re receptive to everyone. You’re challenged in your life’s experiences to use the energies you feel in ways that strengthen, that affirm, that lighten, that illuminate, that clarify, that warm, that love. Responding to another is not an intellectual pursuit, but it is a natural reaching out of your own energy. Just as warm air expands, an energy force that is loving can only expand. It never contracts.

So you are asked to expand your energies. You are never expected to create them. At times each of you is unable to reach out, and that is nothing to regret, for there are times when your vessel must be filled by another. Allowing yourselves to be vulnerable is allowing the vessel to be filled, and when you are filled with that spiritual energy, you’re able to nourish others.

Human life is a life that discerns what energy is spiritual, what energy is actually temporal. At this time of year, you look around you, you see the evidence of great energy in nature—plants grow, trees blossom. But you are also aware of the increase in energy expressed between human beings at this time of year. Human beings are empowered to look out, to look up, to look over, to look around. It is easy to feel fulfilled with what you see, but you take that fulfillment, you remember its beauty, and when the days are dark and the weather is cloudy, your memory can provide energy that sees beauty in the clouds, sees beauty in the darkness, that sees beauty in a natural environment that is at rest, is at peace.

Bring to your relationships a willingness to share the energies you have. Bring to relationships a willingness to be receptive to the energies others bring. Be open to minister. Be open to be ministered to. Be open to being loving. Be open to being loved. Allow the energy that is the spirit to transform and give light to others. Be open to the energy that comes from us, from your guides, from all guides. Allow the drop of rain to receive the energy of the sea. Be strengthened, uplifted, affirmed in all ways.

You are blessed in your energies. You are blessed in your ability to recognize the spirit energy that surrounds you. You are blessed to be surrounded by all spirits, known and unknown. Be strengthened and affirmed in that awareness and reach out to nourish and to love.

Amen.