Build what you believe in.

May 14, 2011

God is. God is all that is. God’s response is all-encompassing. There is nothing human beings and other life-forms can do that diminishes God’s response, God’s presence, God’s love, God’s creation. 

You are correct in your understanding that much of what colors your perception of the direction of humankind is the result of your changing abilities and technologies of communication. It is the change, the evolution of such communications, that forms an incomplete and often erroneous perception of the progress of good, the prevalence of evil. 

From our perspective, it is clear that what is expanding is what is good, not what is bad, not what is considered evil. We see the evolution of human beings as being positive, as being more loving, not less so. We see an increased capacity of human beings to overcome great challenges of adversity. We see human beings learning more about what it means to be loving, what it means to be giving, what it means to sacrifice, sacrifice one’s own specific desires in order to enhance the life of another. That is a development which is clear to us. 

The growth in the spreading of light is immediately apparent, but when you walk into a cave, you are not aware of that expansion. If you are surrounded by darkness, there is no distinction to be made between sunrise and the noonday light, and yet the sun does rise, light does always return, warmth does expand. Light spreads, for it is an active presence. Darkness does not really spread, for though darkness is real, it is void of the energy to truly expand. 

When you consider the character of life as you perceive it today in comparison with your memory of decades gone by, you often are quick to serve an indictment upon the very nature of that life. This is of course understandable. When you are in the middle of a storm, you don’t really know its size, and you really don’t know its duration. But when the storm is viewed from a distance, it is far easier to understand its impact and its direction. Being surrounded by a greater awareness of what happens in the world, your vision can be confounded, overwhelmed, thereby reducing your full understanding of what happens. The earth is indeed transforming. It is indeed evolving, and you are a part of that growth. You are a part of those natural changes and will therefore be impacted by them. 

Human life, human activity certainly has an effect on the earth’s evolution. That you know, but the energy that is contained within the earth is far greater than the energy on its surface. As you look out and contemplate the heavens, you recognize that each star is like a sun, many of which have their own solar system. The creation, the transformation of energy that is seen as stars, far exceeds what human beings are capable of meaningfully changing. There is a natural progression in creation. There is a natural pattern to evolution. That pattern is one of change as it approaches balance, equality. 

Human life is much like those stars that evolve and change. Human life is filled with great diversity that is superficial, that is temporary. Your lives are designed not to remain static but to evolve, to grow in your ability to reflect your own perceptions of what it means to be permanent, what it means truly to live forever, what it means not to create or be created but rather to change and to be changed. 

Yes, you are fully aware of much turmoil, but you have within your own light the capacity to transform, the capacity to change what is dark into what is bathed in a bright light. What you do to assist that transition is connected directly to your perception of God, to your perception of what is godly. Your understanding of the Divine Center of all creation is quite different from what it was as you began this human journey. It is your experiences that provide for depth. It is your experiences that provide a context for interacting with what human life encounters. 

We have said before that you are the same person as an adult that you were as a child, and yet you display many differences, for you have evolved. You see your human life from a different perspective. This growth is the whole purpose of human existence. You grow through observation, but your observation is enhanced through your growth. Both work together. 

You’re asked in your human lives to be somehow responsive in the midst of confusion, in the midst of fear, responding in a way that reflects your understanding of God. What should your perception of God be? There is no single way to understand the presence of God. There are many doors that are open to a meaningful view of God. Through those many doors, certain concepts are always recognized. 

One is a belief in a loving relationship with God. How do you have a loving relationship to God? That relationship is achieved through faith, through observation, observing those moments when you clearly see God’s hand. All religions of the world speak of a loving relationship between God, humankind, and all that exists. But where each religion differs is the concept of how that loving relationship is carried out. For some, it is forgiveness. For others, it is a kind of punishment for what is seen to be wrong. But that punishment that is often a concept of God is not a punishment void of love. Many perceive God as a kind of human figure, a human-like presence, and for those for whom such a vision of God is important, there is the belief that God punishes because God cares, not only cares but dearly loves. For other religions, God is seen as a peacemaker, as a force that reconciles, that breaks down barriers, that strengthens.

The truth is simply stated yet difficult to apply: God is because you are. You are the evidence. You and all humanity provide evidence that God exists. There are, of course, many who deny that and feel there is nothing beyond what is experienced in human form, but the reality is just as you exist—you can see, feel, touch; you are fully aware that you exist—that same kind of reality applies to God. God is because you are, and you are because God is. You cannot deny God’s presence without denying your own existence, and that is impossible. 

So, what is your response to the turmoil that you are increasingly aware of? Your response must grow out of an acceptance of your belonging to a system of all that is. There is never full balance in what exists, for with full balance there is no motion. Without ignorance, there are no grounds for the accumulation of knowledge. There will always be a distinction between what you experience and what you would prefer to experience. That gap is always present. 

You seek an elimination of the forces of nature that cause destruction. You seek the elimination of human beings who inflict suffering on others. You seek the elimination of poorly guided decision-making. You seek the elimination of illness and wrongdoing. You seek the elimination of pain, of anxiety, of fear. Human beings are driven in some manner by that desire to completely eliminate what they feel to be unnecessary or uncalled for, but this is a part of why you experience human life. It is to experience that differential between what you are aware of and what you hope for. 

Being a part of a continuum of creation that is constantly evolving results quite naturally in exchanges of energy, exchanges of condition that create agony as well as a sense of achievement. It is, however, most important to remove yourself as much as you can from a focus on the narrow field of what it is that you are enduring and think more instead about how you can continue to evolve in the midst of an evolving chain of reality. In a meaningful sense, you evolve, you grow, you develop as you work with what you experience rather than by devoting all efforts in opposition to that experience. 

The cost of natural disasters is unimaginable, but when you acknowledge that what are seen to be natural disasters is, in fact, the natural evolution of this system of all that is, then you can focus your attention on how you work with nature. The same holds true in your relationships with others. You can choose to be critical of how this person leads, how that person behaves, what this group believes in, what another group is engaged in. Such focus emphasizes the differences. Better it would be to find ways of engaging positively in a far broader sense than what is commonly done. 

You look for peace. You find peace by generating it rather than fighting what you perceive as evil, as wrong. You create much of what you seek by being what you seek. Build what you believe in and spend less effort trying to destroy what lies outside those beliefs. This is not merely an effort to pretend something is not there that you find offensive, but it is using your own energies, your own thoughts to personify, to become what it is you seek.

If you seek peace in a community, be the figure of peace. If you seek peace with a neighbor, be that force of peace rather than attempting to change the neighbor. If you seek to live in peace with your environment, then adapt your living so that it may be peaceful. 

It is easy to feel helpless in the presence of many challenges. You cannot change the whole world perhaps, but you can change your response to the world, and that spreads the light that then embraces all in its view. You’re given life not to change others but to evolve to reflect God and become what it is you seek. 

God blesses you as you strive to believe and to become. We pray for your growing belief in the possibility of being godly, and we support you in all ways as you become what you truly believe. God’s light is your light. It is to you an objective to reflect and to become the light that surrounds you always. 

Rest in the Light. Believe in the Light. Become the Light! 

Amen.