February 11, 2013

• The presence of God is a quiet presence, for God does not shout or bellow

• Your lives ideally are lives of listening

• Listen to the plants and rocks, for they speak

• God created all for the purpose of establishing total unity

• When you pray for those who have joined us, those prayers are really prayers of gratitude

God’s hand is upon each of you whether you are in a circle or actively engaged in whatever activity or pursuit occupies your concerns and attentions. The presence of God is a quiet presence, for God does not shout or bellow. God does not proselytize. God does not promote. God does not threaten. Quite simply, God Is, and you are a part of that totality of loving energy. You are asked constantly to be loving, but you are asked not as a kind of duty or expectation or condition that must be met. You are asked as an acknowledgment of what it truly means to be human beings.

Your lives ideally are lives of listening, but listening is not passive. Good listening is intentional, for it has purpose. It has reason. Human life devoted to listening means a life aware of much that is around you—not just other human beings, but everything. When you listen, you are aware. When you are aware, you connect. And when you connect, you are an act of God of which we spoke. Listening therefore is a connecting. You listen to your neighbors when they are in distress. You listen to your family especially at times of great upheaval. But it is also important to listen to what nature is.

Listen to the plants. Listen to the rocks, for the rocks speak. They speak not in words, but they speak in their presence, in being there. When you listen to rocks, you are listening to the ages that have created the rock. When you listen to the rock, you are connecting to a time, as you register time, that long precedes the human form of life. Consider what the rock was before it was the rock you see. You understand something of its past. You acknowledge that the rock did not always appear as it currently does, for it is formed out of minerals of the earth that were at one time molten and that existed in some form prior to the creation of the earth. There is much to hear in the rock. Listen to the trees and you will listen to what the tree means and where the tree is. In listening you will hear all that depend upon the tree and all that the tree depends on.

If you listen to your neighbor, you listen not only to words that are said, but perhaps more importantly, to what is not being said. Consider for a moment your own feelings. Consider the experiences you have had that shape where you are on your current journey. There is no one else who has been a part of that element of your own creation nearly as intimately as your own awareness. No one truly knows you as a person. They know a manifestation of you through your interaction, but no one truly knows you. It is therefore impossible for you to fully know someone else. Just as the rock is, as you listen to it, so also is the person next to you whether you know a name or context for that individual or not. You are aware of a minute portion of who that person really is, of what may motivate that person to do whatever is being done.

We say you are given life to listen. We could also say you are given life to observe. It is ultimately the people in your lives that provide the raw material for your own spiritual development. If you live alone with no contact with others, you will of course continue to grow spiritually. But your growth will be far diminished from its potential unless you allow yourselves the luxury, the inspiration of listening. By listening you learn of life beyond your own perspectives. You learn of life filled with joy, filled with fear, filled with acts of great courage and faith. You learn of lives dominated by a fear of rejection—rejection by others, or worse yet, a rejection by God.

By listening you evolve to a point in your lives when you no longer feel guilt. For those who feel guilt at some level, they have not grown in their ability to listen, for in listening you learn to accept another. You learn to welcome something or someone into your lives. You welcome them because you are not being judgmental of them. You welcome them because you affirm their equality. If you can live with such affirmation, what grounds can there possibly be for being critical of yourselves for what you feel are your own failures? By accepting yourselves, you no longer will see failure in life. You will see challenges. You will see moments of great joy. You will see moments of penetrating sadness. You will see all extremes, and you will become more accepting of the detours and seemingly pointless dead ends that you may experience in life.

Seeing God everywhere also means recognizing the God within. It means recognizing your own godliness. With such recognition, you can never feel failure. You can never feel guilt. You can never feel the sense of letting yourself down or letting others down. And you will be able to accept the reality that others may perceive differently than you.

We speak so often of connection, connection to God, connection to your guides, connection to others, connection to yourselves—seeing yourselves, accepting yourselves, and in so doing accepting others. Life is indeed about listening, becoming aware, bringing into your own lives all that you experience beyond the immediacy of your own condition. You become aware of guides, not because you are told of them, but ultimately because you hear them. You hear them as words, as nudges, as hunches. You hear them in the actions of others. You hear them in the words of others. You hear them in your own efforts on behalf of another.

God created all for the purpose of establishing total unity. Each day in your life you must seek unity. You must seek what is common, what joins all of you. What you hear and what you see with your spirit center can only reinforce true unity that you pursue in your own way. Individuals vary in what it means to speak of unity. Individuals vary in their ability to understand what they hear, what they see, what they feel. These are difficult concepts to apply, but if you open your hearts to the healing presence of the world around you, you are then able to connect more meaningfully to what you hear, to what you see. Your lives are not intended to be complex webs with no apparent direction. The fact is each of you is heading in your own appropriate direction. Sometimes that coincides with another. Sometimes that is not so. Your path is filled with what uplifts and encourages. Your path is filled with stones. Your path is filled with all that generates great happiness and deep despair. But your path is also accompanied by God’s light, the light of the Spirit Center that unites All That Is. With that light, you are never in darkness. You can close your eyes and cover your face so you see no light, but that light is still there. And when you open your eyes, you open your ears and you see when you listen. You can reinforce your conviction that God Is and that you are and that you are an act of God.

We, your guides, serve God, but we serve God by serving you. It is through our interactions with you daily that we grow, and it is God’s will that all of us grow.

Those for whom you pray who have made the transition to our form of life continue to grow, continue to develop. They continue to find strength, and they continue to acknowledge their awareness of your prayers on their behalf. When you pray for those who have joined us, those prayers are really prayers of gratitude. They may of course be filled with sadness, but nevertheless even the saddest prayer is recognition that God is a part of all life, that God is a part of all that exists, that God is a part of all forms of life—those which you see with your eyes, those whose reality is beyond your reach.

Go forth interacting with all, acknowledging the brotherhood, the sisterhood of all. Be willing to accept what happens in life, and allow yourselves to find meaning to all that you hear. You listen to us with your ears. You listen to us with your hearts. You listen to us with your hopes and fears. You listen to us in your joys and in your sorrow. You listen to us in your great bounty and deepest needs. God responds through us and independent of us, but we serve to increase your ability to listen, to recognize that God Is and therefore you are, for each of you is a part of the God that is.

Rejoice in your connections with others! Rejoice in your awareness of the rock and the tree! Rejoice in becoming a peace and a love that you seek!

Amen.