August 21, 2007

• The journey of life, accompanied by guides

God uplifts and supports and strengthens each of you in ways that are most helpful and the most loving.

You all understand the experience of pain—physical, emotional, spiritual—and it is wholly appropriate that you ask for guidance on how to approach those dark moments of the soul, those moments when you feel least able to recognize God’s light shining on your own lives. Human life can be said in part to be characterized as a learning experience, specifically learning about how to encounter all that exists which seems to lie outside the lighted pathway to God. No human being experiences life without pain of one sort or another. There will always be cause for worry and anxiety and fear—fear of the unknown and fear of the known. Every life includes these elements.

A life that progresses clearly toward a loving existence void of judgment or criticism can be observed in the means by which those trials, those tribulations, are encountered. Wise is the person who welcomes the day with all that it may bring with it. It is rare to find someone who can begin the day and pass through the night without fear, without anxiety, impatience, worry, the feeling of guilt or regret. But you are asked, as are all human beings, to pursue a path that leads in the direction of strength to endure, and an acceptance that carries through the day. You are not asked in life to be blind to the sufferings that occur, but rather you are asked to become more aware of these sufferings, your own and those of others, and be willing to rise above as an act of faith and love. It is not an empty love that we speak of. It is a love characterized by a belief that at the end of the path the light is golden, the light is warm, the love is all- embracing.

You are part of a journey but the journey has a goal. It has a destination. The destination of every journey is the peace, the light, the life, the love of which we have so often spoken. If your attention is brought to the grand journey, then you can overcome the bumps that you encounter along the way. It does not mean that there are no bumps, but rather that the importance of them, the dominance of them is greatly lessened. It is the bumps and the detours that help contribute to the character and the characteristics of the journey, but it is not the journeys themselves.

When you travel a great distance on the road and you are excited about the destination, you are more willing to put up with difficulties encountered than you would otherwise be if there were no sense of a rewarding destination. If you felt you were on a journey that had no end and that the purpose of the journey was strictly to journey, you would be more heightened in your awareness of what happens from moment to moment and that awareness would tend to dominate your thoughts. The long journey is made endurable because of the goal that you keep before you.

And so it is with your journey of human life. If your attention is on the destination, you’re more enabled to accommodate detours and interruptions because you know that those detours are not destinations in themselves. They’re only a means at hand to reaching the destination you seek. If you seek to become compassionate, to be loving, if you seek to be an instrument of peace, then all that you experience can be understood as part of the journey that gets you where you wish to go. All of this that you experience brings depth to your destination. It gives meaning to the destination. If you toil arduously to achieve an objective, that objective carries great significance, but if you reach that objective with no effort, its value is greatly diminished.

Each of you seeks objectives that indeed are characteristic of God. How you reach that objective is of course different, one from another, but as long as you focus the greatest energies toward what it is that is godly, then all else that you encounter can be seen as an important stepping stone leading you in the direction that you seek.

All of us who serve as guides have experienced human life form. We know what it means to experience great disappointment, seeming defeat, pain, illness, the death of loved ones. We have experienced in our own lives what you experience collectively, and from our perspective as spirits standing next to you, residing within you, being a part of your lives, we are empowered to help you, to lift you across the many divides that separate you from where you want to direct your destination.

Your guides are not just a helping hand. We are a kind of light. We are a light that your souls are drawn toward. We communicate with your spirit even in your unawareness. Our communication is ceaseless for it is our loving responsibility to help you as you journey toward God, as your spirit evolves in strength and light. We are with you as you experience the true impact of love, the impact of nonjudgmental relationships. We are with you as you learn to be tolerant, to be understanding. We are with you as you learn to give. We are with you as you seek God’s love.

You are never alone. Even if you reject our presence, we are always with you. That is our connection to your spirit. When you are faced with challenges, disappointment, anger, fear, it is we who help to focus God’s loving light upon your spirit. Your lives are never fully in the shadow. You are always connected to that light, but it is we who can help that light to penetrate and to inspire and to give faith and strength for your journey.

We see your lives in complete detail, but our relationship to you is not dependent upon our giving specific directions of what you must do every step of the journey. We see your lives as a journey. We see your lives as potential. We see your lives as a response, a response to the Spirit Center that is God. Because of this wider vision, we have a particular view that helps us give you strength to endure and overcome.

How do you approach the challenges that life presents? Acknowledge first the presence of God. Acknowledge our presence. It is an active presence. We do not wait for prayer in order to serve your spirit, for we serve, nurture, we strengthen regardless of your complete awareness or lack of it. Our commitment to you is constant. It does not waver. In those moments when you feel separated from an awareness of God, we work with you and for you. We shine a light to illuminate your path. It is always our wish that you make every effort to be aware of and receptive to our presence, for that makes your journey and its loads much lighter. Even when you reject or forget God’s presence and the reality of our participation in your lives, you are carried across the thresholds. We are the bridges that get you from joy through despair to a continuation of that joy of spirit.

It is important that you have faith in our presence and in our ability to guide your spirit and to direct your human lives along paths that are appropriate. Each soul has different needs. Each soul has different lessons to learn. Each soul is empowered differently, but every soul nevertheless proceeds in an appropriate path that has as its destination all that you pray for—peace, strength, health, balance, joy, love.

We are your guides and we serve with love because it is God’s wish. We are dedicated to getting you through, to facilitating your growth. Be open to our presence. Be open to God’s light. Be willing to suspend fear and anxiety. Be willing to suspend all that you perceive to be negative, and allow yourself to stand upon the ridge and look out across the land and know that your destination is bathed in glorious light.

There is joy. There is total love. There is the warmth that you seek—God’s presence. And there is the alleviation of all that brings trouble and challenge to your life. This is how you endure and overcome. This is the spirit to encounter all on your path that brings concern.

Your lives are blessed. The lives of all human beings are blessed. Allow your life to take on its shape, its characteristics, its own form, its own light. Avoid comparison with others for that is a comparison that can never be won. You will always encounter others who seem to be more fortunate. Eliminate this comparison and accept the truth that each of you is on the path that is most needed at this moment in your lives. Have faith that when that path changes direction, it is for good purpose and it is part of the complete journey bringing you to the goal of that great loving light.

Lift your eyes to the goal, and keep your hearts warmed by your faith, and you will be blessed with strength and endurance, and you will be given the gift of love. Rest in the knowledge that you are in God’s light and rejoice and give thanks for the path that you’re on. It is blessed by God. It is illuminated by God. It is given its spiritual strength by God, and it can only lead to God, the Spirit Center of all creation.

Amen.