Fear separates; love unites.

September 7, 2017

All of creation, human and nonhuman, finds peace in the presence of God’s light.

You seek peace, but you seek peace on a broader level than that which is provided in the simplest of terms. You seek military peace, political peace, personal peace, spiritual peace, peace that is deeply felt within, and that is as it should be, for you and all people seek peace as it is understood and interpreted. It’s not selfish to seek personal peace if you are feeling personal anguish. It’s not selfish to pray for peace for a nation if the nation is not at peace. You pray for peace as defined by the needs you identify.

Real peace far exceeds the specifics of peace that readily come to mind. At its most important level, true peace is peace experienced and demonstrated between two separate entities, for in the experiencing of peace, there is an acknowledgment of the oneness that is shared. Personal peace may be a peace of relationships between people, between societies, governments, or nations. Personal peace is a peace that is felt with the heart and the mind, but there is also a physical peace, a balance. Issues of health are issues of peace.

When you pray for peace, you are praying for balance. When you pray for peace between people, you are praying for balance, an acceptance of equality of both sides of the scale. You and another are equally valid and equally valuable. You and another contribute as you can contribute. There is no measurement of one contribution being more important than another. It is merely a recognition that you both contribute.

Peace within elements of society is an acknowledgment of the balance of those elements of society. All components of every society are equal in some form or another. When you fail to recognize the balance, you are failing to see something that is considered of value. Two individuals offer two different gifts to the world, but one gift is not more valuable than another. One gift is merely different from the gift of another. For one, the gift may be measureable in monetary terms. For another, it is the gift of acceptance, the gift of valuing others. Which gift is most important? They are all of equal importance, but the gift that is more reflective of God’s presence is the gift of acceptance, the gift of love as expressed in a way that affirms and upholds.

Human lives can in some ways be viewed as the balancing of two different entities. Consider for a moment the traditional scale where weight is placed on one side and the scale tips in that direction. Weight is then applied to the other side. The balance that is sought is not achieved immediately. It swings, but the pendulum swings up and down or back and forth ultimately to achieve equilibrium, to achieve balance, to achieve a sense of rightness.

The swinging back and forth as that point of equilibrium is achieved is much like the swinging back and forth that is experienced in relationships between people and organizations, localities and nations. It is a swinging back and forth between religions that are institutionalized and spiritual pursuits which are less identified with specific religions. Balance is what is sought, and it is balance that will be achieved, but in that process there is motion. First one direction dominates, and then another, and ultimately the balance is achieved. The peace is reached. 

You express concerns about the needs of a particular church. What is being sought there is a balance, a balance in terms of needs, but also a balance in terms of how those needs can best be met and equalized, with a result of a kind of equilibrium of an institution. The swinging back and forth is part of that process of achieving balance, of achieving a kind of institutional and spiritual peace. There is no one way to achieve that peace any more than there is only one way to achieve national peace. The peace, the balance you seek, whether within the institution of a church or relationships between nations or political parties or religious denominations, is a fluid process. It is not realistic for a moment to believe that the balance that is sought after can be immediately found, and yet the process of finding that peace is what commitment to engagement toward that end requires. 

You look for peace within an institution. That balance does not occur merely by wishing for it. There must be a commitment which is the basis for action, but that action may be prayer. It may be a commitment to the certainty of success without an overlay of time limitations. In short, believe in the process. Believe in the fluidity of that process. Take the long look. What is sought after is not achieved readily. It takes time. It takes time to build commitment, commitment to common goals and commitment to the importance of the search, of the seeking. 

This is also the case as you experience your concerns about leadership nationally, internationally, and morally. If you observe a small segment of the totality of the process, you may say to yourselves, “This is seeming chaos.” But when you believe in the direction of the process reaching a conclusion which is indeed reflective of God, then you accept the reality of delays or frustrations, the reality of disillusionment, the reality of feeling deceived, the reality of feeling misdirected, and you begin to become aware that all of these reactions belong to the process that ultimately elevates and affirms, that ultimately leads to the balance you seek. 

It is easy for human beings to place time constraints on desired outcomes. So often we urge you to accept, if not understand, that time itself does not exist, but human beings are bound to a concept of time however fluid that may be. When you believe in a process, you want to see the objective reached within a span of time that is clearly identifiable, but the evolution of God’s direction is not bound to time. 

When many work for balance, you can be absolutely assured that such balance will be the end result that each of you in your own way is seeking. In order to feel a sense of personal peace, you must be committed to the reality that all that works toward balance will be met, will be met with success. The natural state of things is not toward total chaos. The natural state of things may seem chaotic in the short term, but the ultimate objective of balance will be achieved. 

You seek freedom of conflict, unity of purpose, and confluence of vision that points to what is good and what affirms and uplifts. Have faith that all that you do and all that others do toward that objective contributes to that objective becoming a reality. 

The church you speak of seeks spiritual leadership. That entity will find such leadership, of that you can be certain. But the leadership that is sought after is only assured when those who express their concerns are committed to its reality. That commitment is not merely stating a position, stating a wish or stating a preference. It can be approaching discussions in a prayerful state of mind, approaching discussions listening and seeing with the heart and approaching discussions void of fear and doubt. 

This same principle applies to concerns of the nation, concerns of the society, or concerns of a place upon the world’s stage. Ultimately your nation must listen, and that listening is among yourselves. What is it that uplifts, that affirms the dignity of all people? What is it that asserts that all human beings are of equal value, that affirms the axiom that what unites is much stronger than what divides? What you share in common is far stronger than the differences you observe. 

There are those who wish to spread fear because in spreading fear, there is a belief that that creates more strength among those whose creed is the dissemination of fear. Fear separates, but love and acceptance unite. Love and acceptance of others reflect what is true throughout all religious beliefs. Every religion has engaged, in one form or another, in acts that divide and do not unite, and yet the basic tenets of those religions try to affirm the connection that believers have with an all-encompassing Presence that may be labeled as God or another term. The basic beliefs are often threatened by the actions that are created around peripheral understandings of those basic tenets. 

Every society is generally convinced that its central tenets are indeed worthy of pursuit, even if the means for the pursuit are brought into question. It is therefore not unusual to find nations whose leaders feel convinced and committed to certain causes that are in opposition to the wishes and beliefs of the many. Leaders come and go. Leaders change. Wars are fought, won, and lost, but there is a goodness of the individual that belongs to each culture, and that goodness shares common ground with the spirits of all human beings. It is out of the recognition of that common ground, that balance of value, that leads society in the direction of what it means to be godly, to be good, to ultimately be accepting and nonjudgmental, to be patient, to be committed and yet assured that the goodness that is sought after is indeed achieved. 

Two individuals may be in disagreement with one another, but over a period of time come to recognize their common interests, the common good, come to recognize how they are the same. Those disagreements were but a small step that led in the direction of final reconciliation. It is part of the human condition ultimately to find that reconciliation. There are those who are committed to it, there are those who are not committed to it, but humankind nevertheless moves forward, closer to one another. Organizations, institutions, and societies all share that common course, namely an acknowledgment that brings unity, that brings affirmation, and that assures ultimate balance. 

Be committed as you can to doing what you are able to do that leads to understanding. Accept the fact that there are waves of resistance, there are forms of energy that temporarily stand in the way, but all lead inexorably toward unity. All that exists leads ultimately to balance. All that exists shall become peace. Each of you is part of that process of moving toward one another. 

Each of you is in the process of moving closer to an understanding of the needs of earth, the ways of nature, and the interconnected responsibility that is shared by all to become one another’s keeper. Expanding the presence of love is expanding the balance, the equilibrium, the peace that each of you seeks in your own ways. 

We, your guides, are an important part of that process. Look therefore to your heart, and there you will find us. We are with you in your seekings. We are with you on your roads to peace. 

Amen.