December 11, 1987
God joins you together. Each of you faces, individually, matters which greatly differ one from another, but because you are joined you have the unified opportunity of providing support to one another. The support that you may provide is different for each of you and yet is very direct. You have the chance of offering this support through prayer and through direct communication. The most important thing you can do is to pray for your own needs but also for the needs of others.
Your lives are indeed at a crossroads. Each of you faces decisions. Which responses are most appropriate? When are those responses most effectively given? It is never easy to deal with one’s own remorse or anxiety, let alone to deal with those very feelings of others, but this is the beauty of human life.
In our existence we feel no deep remorse or anxiety, but we do recognize your needs, your anxieties, so our growth proceeds in a different manner from yours. In human life you must balance response to self with response to others. In our life there is no self; there are only others. There is no spiritual mirror, so to speak, by which we see ourselves and evaluate ourselves. We can only look outward. By so viewing reality, we grow from within. You who are still on the human plane of existence are often extremely aware of yourselves as well as others.
Life can be viewed as a transition from an existence surrounded on all sides by mirrors to the development of an existence with no mirrors. The manifestation of such a goal of life with no mirrors is selfless love. Young children live an existence surrounded on all sides by mirrors. They are aware of themselves. The image may be distorted but it is there and all-encompassing. The mirror also blocks the view toward regions beyond. Gradually in life the mirror cracks, slowly disintegrating to leave a broader sense of life, a more meaningful existence.
The crossroads you find yourselves standing at is a moment in your lives when another corner of the mirror is disintegrating and you are thereby forced to look outward, to look beyond. This unfolding of a broader perspective is the gift that life bestows upon all who wish to share in it.
There are many who insist on trying to reconstruct those mirrors from the fragments which lie beneath their feet. Life for them has purpose but no significance, for the purpose is narrow, one of regaining a reflection of self. It is so limiting it stifles one and prevents the growth which is the natural outgrowth of a broader image.
Difficulties which humankind faces may be either accepted and worked through, or they may be defeating. When you turn to God asking for direction, you are choosing the broader view. You are willing to turn your attention away from self. You may see this in others. One of you remarked on the transition his father has made in his view of life. A mirror has been broken and he prayed for the resolve not to reconstruct it but to have the courage to see what lay beyond. That is what spiritual growth really is. It is the ability to set one’s sights outward rather than focus on a reflection of self.
Any crisis in life may be met with optimism, recognizing its potential, or pessimism, rejecting its broader meaning. Sometimes it takes courage to view what lies ahead. The future for all, of course, is one of growth. It is a growth which can only come through courage to risk, through courage to act, and through the courage to accept who one is so that one may look outward, no longer in fear.
Faith is really courage. It is not cowardice. Faith is not a blind acceptance of whatever may happen. Faith is the strength of will that allows one to recognize what lies ahead in personal relationships, health, financial realities. It is easy to give up and withdraw from responsibility. It is quite another thing to choose to be one’s own captain in uncharted waters.
Our purposes in your lives may be viewed as strength givers, allowing you the flexibility of choice. If there were no choice, there would be no dilemma. Without dilemma, there is no insight. Without insight, growth has no direction. We provide you with some insight, but it is you who must take what you know and have the courage to look out and beyond.
It is not easy to accept the end of one’s life or the passing of another who is greatly loved. Life is to be enjoyed and relished, nurtured and cared for. It is natural to rejoice in life, to rejoice in the reality of life. When life comes to an end, that which has provided much happiness is finished. The closing of a chapter in a book is not the end of the story. It only marks the change to a new direction of focus. This of course you know, but do you believe it? Is it part of the insight which governs your own decision-making?
Transitions are important. Crossroads are essential. In the entirety of human life there are few roads that are really dead-ends, rather there are many ways of reaching the same objective. The best way for one need not be the best for another. It is up to each of you to chart your own course. Only through prayer will you be given the insight necessary to make the proper choices. Though a choice may be proper, it does not follow that it be easy. Neither does it follow that it is necessarily the most difficult.
Live your lives devoid of fear—fear of feeling, fear of forces beyond your control. There is no reason to act out of fear; one must act out of insight. Insight comes through prayer and meditation most effectively. There are many who don’t pray and have no understanding of meditation and yet achieve insight. There is no single means for you to find direction and solace to life, for no two people view the same issue in life from an identical point in the path of spiritual growth. Growth which takes place can be said to be tailor-made to the needs of the soul. If your view of the world is from a mountaintop, you can clearly see where you must be heading. If, on the other hand, your view is limited to the sides of a tent, you have little understanding of direction and perspective. For you to know where you are going and how to proceed, you must have the long view. We help to provide that view, but we can do it only when you openly ask, when you willingly invite our presence and influence.
We share your prayers. We share your concerns. We guide your spiritual focus. We illuminate your souls with God’s light. Invite us to break down the barriers which cloud your vision. Reject the tendency to reflect only your own self-needs. Bring into your lives the needs of others as represented by the needs of each in your group gathered at this time. God responds to your concerns, and God’s light illuminates the landscape around you providing perspective and direction in your daily lives.
We bless you and all those for whom you pray with God’s peace and light and love.
Amen.