January 22, 2008
You walk with God.
You talk with God.
You act with God.
You think with God.
You touch with God.
There is nothing that you do or that you think or see or experience in any form that is without being with God.
All people are on a journey. Much of what you discussed tonight is about a journey—your own or that of someone else—but you are fully aware of the reality of that journey and its great differentiation, one from another. Every human being is on a path. No one leaves that path. The path has tributaries and detours as well as clear direction, but that path is a part of who you are. You never really step off the path and into harm’s way or conflict. The harm, the pain, the mental anguish, the sadness all belong to your own path, just as what you rejoice in, what gives great pleasure, what provides a sense of mission or accomplishment.
All of these varying experiences belong to your own particular path, but you are not subject to what is on that path entirely. There is much that is drawn to your path that is, in part, of your own making. We do not need to expound upon making your own reality, creating that reality, for you are aware of that principle and it governs much of life. But we do say that you attract much of what belongs to your path.
There are those whose paths contain seemingly insurmountable difficulties, and yet they seem to be ultimately of little significance, these details, these difficulties, these challenges, for the individuals who are on those paths may be characterized as very positive, very hopeful, very faithful, very confident. Regardless of what is encountered, they pursue and they persevere. There are others who travel along their own path consumed by negativism, consumed by a conviction that all is somehow not good, not loving, not God-inspired. They travel along their paths with a kind of cloud above them that always seems to be raining down one insurmountable difficulty after another. These two paths may hold within them great differences, and yet the manner in which each person travels along a given path has a significant impact on what they encounter.
What can you learn from this? Namely, if what you seek is peace and understanding, then try yourselves to be peaceful and understanding, and you will recognize evidence of precisely that which you seek. To experience a form of peace, you must approach the challenges of life with a commitment to being peaceful. If what you seek on your path is a commitment to loving relationships, then you must become loving. If you traveled your path in isolation, then you are unable to experience the love you seek, you are unable to experience the peace you seek. If you wish in your journeys to encounter a particular quality of life, you must try in your own way to emulate that which you seek. You are, in a manner of speaking, creating that reality by your commitment to becoming that reality.
The leader that is pugnacious, the leader that is confrontational, will be challenged to see evidence of cooperation. That leader will be blinded to the potential that resides along the path.
Each of you is therefore lovingly encouraged to become what it is you seek to encounter. Your interaction in life is much like seeing through a filter. If you look through a red filter, it is nearly impossible to fully experience the beauty of a variety of colors. If you view life through a clear glass, you see all that is beautiful as well as what creates pain and turmoil. But by blocking out part of what you experience, you in turn block out the very things of value that you seek. You see what it is you are willing to see.
You’re asked to take personal risks. You’re asked to get off that center state of comfort. You’re asked to step away and allow yourselves to experience what is on your path. Those experiences will always be different among individuals. No two people live life the same. The two may share a life together, but they see things according to what filter covers their vision. Despite these differences, what you see is a part of your own journey. Seeing life through a red filter allows you to experience a part of life that is different from someone viewing life with a yellow filter. The experiences of life will not be identical, but your views of life, change as they may, are appropriate for who you are, where you are.
Are your views appropriate for always or are they temporary? Your understanding of life is always temporary. It is through your experiencing what brings joy, what brings pain that provides another filter, another way of viewing what accompanies you on your journey. From your own path, the path of another may seem cursed or enormously blessed in comparison with yours. You cannot travel your path without being aware that there are those whose lives are more difficult as well as those whose lives seem more fortunate.
Reality is that each path is the same in value. There is no path that is unfairly difficult. There is no path that is unfairly fortunate. Your own path is never unfair. Your path is your path. Your journey is your journey. But by looking for what is similar between your path and the path of another, your vision is broadened, your understanding is expanded, and your deep capacity to be loving is enhanced.
We know of your concerns for others. The fact that you share your concerns with one another is in itself most helpful. Just being concerned, just surrounding someone with supportive, loving thoughts is enormously helpful. You may or may not recognize the benefit of that help. You may feel that help is inconsequential, but you can always be assured that when you pray for another, benefit is always forthcoming. You live to be loving, but being loving does not mean you always see the results of that love. You have to proceed on your journey with a strong faith that your efforts to be loving are fertile and will be of benefit—benefit for those for whom you pray, benefit for you.
The challenges you all face on your journeys are in fundamental ways the same for all. It is just how these challenges are clothed that differs. There is the challenge of understanding “why life.” There is the challenge of understanding “why me,” particularly when it is you who may be suffering. There is the challenge of asking “why someone else.” Your answer to such questions must be one of accepting the value of those challenges as being appropriate to where you are on your own path, to where someone else is on his or her own path.
Every path, and we emphasize every path, leads to God. There is no path that leads, as you would say, to hell versus heaven. All souls are heaven bound. There is no spirit that is left in the darkness and abandoned. Therefore, as you contemplate the sufferings of others, as you contemplate your own agonies, be faithful in your acknowledgment that, difficult as they may be, you are experiencing them as you should. It is part of your journey. If you are ill and you need medication, both the illness and the treatment belong to the path. You cannot say the illness doesn’t belong, for without the illness, there is no treatment. You cannot say the treatment doesn’t belong, for without the treatment, there is no resolution.
Journeys always contain balances. There is a left and a right. There is pain and joy. There is fear and joyous anticipation. There is sadness; there is happiness. All are part of your journey. But as you experience one, for a moment you are oblivious to the other. When you experience great joy, you can for a moment forget the pain that you have experienced. Likewise, when you are experiencing great pain, you will easily forget what pure comforts and an alleviation of burden feels like.
Each of you is consumed by the present, whether it is concerns for the present or concerns for the future. Those concerns are experienced now. You don’t travel your path saying, “In three months I’m going to be very, very concerned about ‘something.’” You either are concerned or you are not concerned. This is so typical of human life. Even though you are worried about the present, about the future, or are concerned about something in the past, you still live in what you recognize to be the present. The reality is there is no past or future or present. It is all a single reality, not split into three conditions.
On your journey, it is important therefore to acknowledge that what you feel are concerns for the future need not be concerns. You live now. Your life is now. What you are is in great measure determined by what has happened to you in your perception of the past, and therefore the past and the present are the same. The future is governed significantly by what you perceive is the now, and therefore the future and now are intimately linked, and by extension the future as you perceive it and the past are intimately linked into a single identity.
It is for each of you to engage in your personal journeys, characterized by an effort to reduce anxiety and worry, to reduce regret and guilt, and focus rather on what accompanies you at this moment in your spiritual development, what accompanies you on this path. When your path and the path on another intersect, you are given an opportunity to interact meaningfully as part of your journey. It is also part of the journey of another. That intersection may be brief, in your terms. It may be lifelong, in your terms, but that intersection, that experiencing of something in common, is a moment that belongs to your path and the path of another. It is an opportunity to become loving. It is an opportunity to be responsive to each other. It is an opportunity for two hands of God to be joined, however brief they may be.
You are asked to join hands with one another in spirit, in prayer, in your dreams, your hopes for a world motivated by the search for peace. You are asked to be interactive with one another. You are asked to see each other clearly, not clouded by filters that only allow what you want to see through. Proceed along your journey welcoming the opportunities to interact significantly with others. Proceed along your path filled with the commitment to be a hand of God, to be a heart of God. Uplift another. Feel uplifted so that you may be uplifting. Accept when you are given health by another whose path crosses your own. Allow yourself the gift of giving and receiving love, support, affirmation, encouragement. The touch of love is the touch of heart.
As you focus on your heart, follow freely the direction it leads. Listen to the voice inside, for it is providing you with a view along the sides of your path, and is enriching, fulfilling, providing warmth and love to the spirit. Your paths are filled with much that gives hope, that gives faith, that gives courage, that gives love. Reach out to both sides of your paths and fully embrace all that accompanies you on your journey, and your journey will be blessed beyond measure.
We are blessed by your vision. We are blessed when your paths intersect with ours. We are blessed by your prayers for our strength, for our development, and you are blessed by your vision of your unseen companions that accompany you constantly in your journey of life. Grab hands with us, and together we move forward in God’s light.
Amen.