January 19, 2004
The nurturing hand of God embraces each of you with an unbounded and complete unconditional and supporting love. You are given life to experience love, both in its receiving and in its giving. Your ability to receive and give love is a central component to a life that is reflective of your understanding of God. You receive love…you give love. It is a continuous cycle. When you become overburdened by a sense of anxiety or loss or fear, you are, in effect if not in reality, removing yourself from that circle. It is for each of you always to remain within the circle. You are a part of that circle.
You give as you have been given. You give love as you have been given love. You give compassionately as you have been given through compassion. You give in peace as you have been given peace. The circle of giving and receiving is essential for your lives to be filled with meaning. You cannot just receive and you cannot just give. The circle is continuous and unending. Human beings have the choice of participating in that exchange or not.
When you are healthy and not, in any way that you are aware of, dealing with an affliction, whether it be emotional or physical, you may feel that life is perfect, that life is as you wish it, and all is well for you and those around you. You all need to experience those moments of feeling complete well-being. It is in such events that one easily believes in the goodness and constancy of God in your lives. But when you become aware personally of suffering, when there is illness, as you may define it, it is the natural human response to feel the separation that we have spoken of before—a belief that somehow you are separated from God, a belief that somehow life has turned against you, a belief that something deeply treasured has been lost, or that something deeply treasured may be lost. These are understandable emotions and they are experienced by virtually everyone. But it is these experiences which lead to a more realistic understanding of the true power of God within the human condition.
God speaks to you most strongly when you feel in some way lost, for what you hear is then the result of your seeking, of your listening. If you don’t listen to God, you only know of God by supposition, you only know of God because God’s existence seems to make sense, seems to be logical. But when there is affliction, when there is worry or anxiety or pain—whatever the illness—you are brought directly to the question of how God fits into your life and how your life fits into God. Your experience of God becomes not merely an idea but an actual vision.
That vision may not come immediately. For some, the view comes quickly. For many others, there is a dominance of self-pity and fear that gets in the way of their ability to listen. To fully listen, human beings must somehow remove themselves from their daily concerns about self. You cannot fully hear God when all you choose to listen to is yourself. You are only aware of the fullness of that loving presence when you set aside listening to self.
Healing can best be defined or described as a clear vision of God in one’s life. There is of course physical healing, and there are many afflictions for which physical healing is an expected and logical outcome. But to be truly healed means your lives are governed by the glimpses of God that you have experienced. We say “glimpses,” for no one feels one hundred percent of the time within the Light. But if you have seen the Light once, you know the Light is there. If you know the Light is there, your lives can become transformed by that knowledge. It is the transforming of that Light that is the real healing, the state of health that we refer to.
None of you experience affliction as a negative result of your efforts to live your lives as best you can. There is no sense of mea culpa. You are never guilty, you are never responsible in that way for illnesses, for emotional concerns. If some experience depression, it is not because of the way they lived their lives. If someone is dealing with cancer or another life-threatening ailment, such afflictions are not a punishment. You live the lives as best you can. You make the choices you make because of the information and beliefs you hold to be true.
There is no human life that is perfect. There is no life that can be lived which, if pursued in a particular way, will be free of anxiety or sadness or illness or pain. No such life in human form is possible, and therefore no one is directly to be blamed for the afflictions one endures. Certainly there are issues of lifestyle that can affect medical conditions, but those matters of lifestyle are not necessarily matters of faith.
If you think of being, as you say, “right with God,” then you imply that there is something that is wrong in your condition with God. There is no one who is in that position of being wrong with God. That condition simply does not exist anymore than a child is really in some way wrong with a parent. Yes, children take actions that may not be pleasing to parents, and parents may be angry or hurt and may respond in ways which may or may not be appropriate. But there is a love nevertheless. Those of you who have difficulty in your recalled experiences with parents can still be assured that despite those difficulties, despite the reactions you perceived, love was present.
It is even more so with God. Each of you is godly. Each of you shares part of what God is. There is nothing you can do that separates that relationship. You may not act in a godly manner, but you are no less godly. The individual who acts with the greatest disregard for the largest number of people is still godly. That individual’s behavior may be in opposition to God’s wishes, but that individual is never separated from God’s love. For this reason, there is never justification for feeling guilt that because something was done or something was not done, certain afflictions are imposed upon you, are brought into your lives. That is simply not the case. You wonder if you had lived your lives differently, whether what concerns you in terms of health would be eliminated. And we can say there is not that connection.
What is it then that we mean when we say that illness comes out of an imbalance in your lives? We speak of illness, not in the physical sense of something hurting, something not functioning. We speak of illness in the light of matters of the temporal issues of the body dominating the matters of life. One may be gravely ill and yet have great faith, great warmth, great love, boundless compassion. Such a life is not dominated by the infirmities of the physical experience of living. That life is centered on the recognition of something more important, and that is the divinity of all human beings and all that has been and will be created. That individual sees himself or herself as part of that greater creation. That individual is not dominated by anger and loss, even in the face of pain. Someone may feel the pain, acknowledge the loss, and yet be dominated by a capacity to be loving and giving in a way that may be possible. That is a life that is not characterized by illness. The illness has lost its sting. It is part of life, but it has not become life, and therein lies the balance of which we speak. When there is suffering, when there is anxiety, when there is pain, it is a part of life but it does not become what life includes in its own fullness.
The individual for whom you pray can be given healing at any time. It is a healing of the spirit of that person, what that person really is: one capable of love, one capable of receiving love, giving it out. Ultimately, that is a life of health and wholeness. It is a life in full balance. It is a goal that is worthy of all to seek: the balance of life dominated by spirit. All individuals are capable of such healing. The soul struggles at times with the challenges that bring about healing, but it is precisely those challenges that bring strength and light to the soul.
The soul is not an abstract construction that human beings have fashioned.
It is permanent.
It is real,
and when you are no longer experiencing human life,
you are fully conscious,
you are fully alive,
you are fully aware of others,
you are filled with great love,
with great joy,
and an overwhelming capability and desire to give,
to nurture,
to uphold,
to lift up,
to comfort,
to love.
It is permanent.
Every deed that you are engaged in that serves to uphold, to lift up, to affirm, to love nonjudgmentally, to love compassionately, is an opportunity for you to experience what is permanent in your life. You are then aware of your soul, you are then aware of your spirit, and you are aware of the spirit of others around you who act in such a way.
You are enormously blessed because you are aware in principle, and occasionally with evidence, of God’s presence. You must be guided by your commitment to the constancy of that presence, and therefore be assured of your ability to interact with others, affirming, uplifting compassionately, and in every way loving.
You all hold the keys in your own hands to seeing God and being God. Be uplifted by this! There is much each of you has before you to give and to embrace, to validate, and to surround with the loving hands that embrace each of you from God. Welcome that embrace! Grasp it tightly, and become an extension of that gesture to the life that surrounds you.
We bless you in that loving embrace.
Amen.