Become another to be loving.

October 2, 2000

God is with you in a very personal and very spiritual way. You are incredibly blessed, and it is so rewarding for you and recognizable to us when you acknowledge your faith, when you acknowledge those moments when you truly feel guided. It is not often that you acknowledge such guidance. You may pray for it, but when it arrives, it is too seldom that acknowledgment accompanies that arrival. We do not imply that you are ungrateful but rather that you don’t see, for when you do see the hand of God in your life, you do acknowledge it. 

We want to speak at this moment about seeing, and in particular about seeing your own blessings. Perhaps the most meaningful blessing that you can receive is the blessing of love from another or love from several. Of course, there are many views of what love can be, but we speak here not of a physical love but of spiritual love. It is difficult to be loving if you have not experienced love. Just as the actor cannot effectively express remorse unless remorse has really been experienced, you cannot express love without having received it. 

We speak of the importance of vision. It is a vision not of the eyes but of the heart. You know those moments when love is offered, when compassion is expressed, when giving has been experienced with no thought to what will be received in return. True sympathy has no equal and opposite response to the one who expresses sympathy. The recipient may always express appreciation, but such appreciation does not carry the weight of real sympathy. The vision that is required is the vision of receiving that sympathy. 

If you look back upon any day, try to remember a moment, any moment, when you have received love from the spirit of another. There are many days that go by when you do not see that love. There are many days when you travel blindly, seeking an objective yet really not seeing the way. Seeing spiritually means perceiving at the most profound level. 

It is like listening. You cannot hear the call of the softest bird if you are surrounded by noise. To hear, you must find quiet. To see love in your life, you must experience moments of peace, tranquility, and vulnerability. Your seeing is greatly dependent upon your receptivity. The more you are receptive, the more you are willing to be open to what happens, the more you will see. As your spiritual vision improves, as you become more sensitive to the gifts of love offered by others, you will in turn be empowered in your own sensitivity to find options and opportunities for expressing love in an active way. 

To be the most loving toward someone else, you must become for a moment that other person. You must sense the fear, the pain, the anxiety, the impatience, the anger that another feels. In a sense then, your ability to see relates directly to your capacity to become. If you are concerned about the well-being of nature, first see how nature supports you, how it is important to your own well-being. Then and only then allow yourself to become joined with that for which you pray. 

When you pray for nature, you are fully aware of your connection with nature. You cannot talk yourself into that awareness; you can only experience it. That then is seeing nature. That is knowing the impact of nature upon you. You are then aware of the oneness of you and nature, and when you pray for nature, you are therefore recognizing and affirming that oneness. Your vision is completely clear. 

It is the same way with individuals. If you experience love from others, you are empowered in your abilities to become another person. Obviously, that doesn’t mean that you are exactly the same, but you identify in a profound manner with another. When you become that other person, you are then able to reach out and be loving and supportive. You are empowered to uplift another, giving another strength and confidence, even health. Your ability, therefore, to uplift another is related directly to your ability to see yourself as the other. 

When you pray for peace, you must understand how peace has influenced you. Only then can you reach out and become peace yourself and extend yourself fully to the situation at hand. You cannot pray for peace when you are in turmoil. You cannot really pray for joy to be visited upon another if you are filled with remorse. You cannot pray to be loving if you are antagonistic toward those around you. You can pray that you can feel love. You can pray that you be open to experience joy, but you cannot fully send joy to another when you are living in darkness. 

Part of the process of seeing with spiritual vision is imaging. By imaging, you are allowing yourself to be part of that for which you pray. When you pray on behalf of another for health, you offer that prayer from your own vision of what it means to be healthy, the conviction of what health feels like. A prayer offered idly that someone may be healthy in the future, with no connection to what that health feels like, is empty. Those prayers are but words, and although the words are not necessary to reach God, the identification with that for which you pray is essential. 

When you pray that another experiences real love, you can only do so having experienced real love yourself. It requires that you be open to love. It requires that you be open to grow and develop through the presence of everyone around you, even those whose actions may be repulsive to you. In truth, you can grow, learn, and benefit in the presence of all people. There is no one who lives who cannot benefit you in some manner. You can always learn. You can always draw insight, and it is from that indwelling of influences that you are then empowered to send them out on their way. Spiritual vision is essential for spiritual life. 

You must experience love in order to grow. That is the supreme nutrient to life. Love is the basis for all that one can experience. Make every effort consciously to be open to seeing, not just reacting. Reacting without vision can be dangerous. It can hurt. It can bring pain to another, but you can be assured that reacting through vision is guided through God’s presence and your own guides’. 

What do we do for you? We devote our existence to your vision. If we can help to open your eyes, the outcome will be clearly God-directed. Our loving responsibility is to open your eyes. It is our objective to make you more sensitive to life around you. Why? Not just to elevate you, but rather so that you may elevate and affirm other spirits, other individuals. 

The benefit of life is not how much you learn but how you give. By learning, you can give, so that learning is essential, but it is not the reason you live. You grow spiritually not from what you learn but from what you apply. Your vision is your way of learning, but after vision comes action. After vision flows love. The more you express your love, the more you grow spiritually. 

If you were not needing to express love but merely to learn, there would be no purpose in human life. You could remain on a spiritual plane and simply learn. But that kind of learning is empty. You need to reach out and give to others. You must dedicate your life to serving others in ways that become apparent to you through your vision. That is why you are given life. 

That is why you are together at this moment. You are seeking vision. You are seeking understanding—understanding of God, understanding of guidance, understanding of personal relationships, understanding of what it means to be faithful, understanding what it means to reflect your perception of God. That is vision. It is a long process, but it is absolutely essential for your own spiritual growth and the growth of others. 

You benefit by the love expressed from others. You do grow. If you are not aware of that love, the growth is not so profound. But your growth is fully formed and developed as you express to others what you have come to know through your own vision. Life is beautiful! Life is to be seen. It is for you to receive the impact of life on your own experience, but it is for you to mold and shape life outwards so that it may glorify all of God’s creation. 

You are blessed as you are aware of your vision. You are blessed as you act on what you have seen through that vision. The reality of God’s creation and therefore of God is enhanced through your response to vision. Pray for vision. We pray for it. We pray for our own vision, we pray for your vision. Seek it out, be focused in your desire to see. And with that vision you will become more fully aware of the brilliance of God’s life and light as a part of your life and light. 

We bless you with God’s life and with God’s light. May it burn brightly within and provide you warmth and strength and boundless love. 

Amen.