March 2, 1999

• Use of metaphors and symbols in spiritual beliefs

• Viewing God as father or mother

• God abandons no one

• No faith system has the only answer

God is with each of you and recognizes your prayers of gratitude and of loving support for others.

It was an interesting and beneficial discussion that you had. Your perception of metaphor as it relates to an understanding of spiritual knowledge is in some ways entirely appropriate and correct. There is indeed a larger body of wisdom, knowledge, and love, far greater than you can immediately recognize. This wisdom, this love, this power that affects everything living, everything that has lived is important to recognize. You may call it God. You may have other names that describe it, but much of that description refers to this sense of presence belonging to ultimate knowledge, ultimate love, ultimate peace, ultimate humanity, so to speak. But beyond this need for metaphor to connect your understanding with this ultimate knowledge is the necessity of understanding how the metaphor is built and what its impact is for each of you.

As was intimated earlier, we, your guides, are not merely metaphors although we can serve the function of a metaphor if it brings individuals a more personalized relationship between themselves and this ultimate knowledge. Most everyone seeks a path that provides a connection with God. This connection is not merely an intellectual exercise. There is much of an emotional component to one’s association with God. If one asks the main leaders of all the leading religions of the world, they would confirm this.

How does one understand God? Is it through prayer, is it through meditation, is it through the study of nature, of environment, is it through the observation of others or the desire to understand oneself? Obviously, it can be all of these. There are many means. These means are often carrying the weight of metaphor.

There is a representation of reality of the connection between your existence and our existence that provides meaning for your individual searches. Your guides exist not only to transmit spiritual insight toward each of your souls, but also to take an active place in the evolution of your own lives. That participation may be very broad. It may be broad for awhile and narrow for awhile. It may involve your perception of self or the perception of others. But your guides do serve a purpose that enhances your lives beyond being metaphors.

Much of organized religion is based on symbols that contain within them principles or essential truths. When the symbols become more important than what they signify, the denomination, the church, the synagogue, the temple, the mosque loses its way, for symbols are just that. They are representations, they help you to comprehend, they help you to relate, but they are not in themselves the full embodiment of the truth that is sought.

Your lives are filled with metaphor. They are filled with symbols. They are surrounded by statements that attempt to explain this action, this fact, this item or another. Symbols are important. You cannot fully appreciate life and all that is enhanced by life without an appreciation also for the presence of symbols. For many Christians, the cross is an important symbol, especially at this time of year. It provides a focus, it provides a perspective. It has with it associations that are formed at an early age and stay with you your entire lives. The symbol of Easter is really essential despite its essence as a means of execution. You cannot fully comprehend your lives without these symbols, without metaphors.

To understand God, you have to understand one another. You may feel that you as “the other” serve as the symbol. But you are more than merely a symbol of some greater being. You are essential for the work that must be done to confirm and affirm the presence of God. Human beings are necessary for God to be effective. God may be all- powerful in some minds, but that power has no meaning without the presence of the human. That is what is essential in this equation of reality—temporal and spiritual.

Sometimes it helps to think of God as mother or father, depending upon your perception of the place of mother or father within your own lives. As each life is different, your perceptions will also vary. Since those perceptions vary, there can be no unanimity to understanding, but for some it helps to address God as mother or father. It gives a context. That context does not describe God in any way, but does provide a perspective by which one can achieve a better view of God.

Many religions accept symbols as part of their religion as ways of giving meaning to what they do to support their beliefs. You must always grow in your capacity to accept what for you may be a symbol in a superficial way but for others may be essential for complete understanding. Those two perspectives are not entirely opposite. They both can continue to flourish simultaneously, side by side.

No faith has a lock on its beliefs. There is no faith system that has the only answer. There are many faiths which believe they have the most important answer—the purpose of life, the fruition of love—but those are merely tentative answers. They are answers that have symbolic meaning for those who share that belief. Whether you believe in symbols or reject them, you must acknowledge their importance. Because they are important to some, they are important. The numbers give no added meaning to their importance.

Your faith keeps you going forward. Your faith changes regularly. Sometimes it is a faith that rejoices, and other times it is a faith that questions, that ultimately suffers. The beliefs you hold provide meaning for your lives. As your lives change, your beliefs and meanings take on new characteristics. Each of you is evolving personally, spiritually. That evolution requires questions, because it is in your response to those questions that your faith is defined. If you believe that there are no absolute answers, then you are more tolerant of the beliefs of others, and that defines in many ways the exercise of your faith. Contrary beliefs define contrary faiths. If there is any absolute faith, it is the belief that God is all-inclusive, that God is never exclusionary.

There is no part of God that rejects another human being. There are no grounds that will justify God’s rejection of you. There is nothing you can do to be abandoned by God. There is nothing you can do that will deny God’s love in the world. You may choose not to see it, but you cannot deny its presence. Its presence simply is. That is a fact of faith. That is absolutely correct, well-founded, well-grounded, indisputable. All else is a matter of degree. Your lives differ because those degrees differ, but those differences create neither lives of greater nor lesser worth.

As you continue in your pursuit of life in a godly manner, allow yourselves to suspend any judgment on the worth of another. Deny any opportunity to malign human beings. Deny any actions that foster suffering. Deny any philosophy that claims it is the best. Recognize personal pride that may feel something is the best. That is fine, but you can never accept the feeling that someone is best at the expense of something or someone else. That is not a life representative of God.

Your lights are strong. Though you are fatigued at times, distraught at other times, face discouragement, worry and anxiety, your lives nevertheless are strong. You are blessed as only God can bless. You are loved only as God can love. You are strengthened only as God can fortify. And you grow only as God would wish you to grow. Believe in all that you are, believe in all that you seek, believe in what you have accomplished, and you will be well on your way to developing a full awareness of God’s impact on your own individual as well as collective lives.

Your guides are not metaphors. You are not blessed by metaphors but you are assisted by them. You are blessed by God and you are blessed by us, for it is God who bestows blessings on us to be conveyed to you, and it is God who bestows blessings upon each of you directly. Have faith in those blessings, rejoice in them, and let those blessings bring you peace and comfort.

Amen.