March 23, 2009
The light that you seek, the love you seek, the vision you seek, the balance you seek, the help you seek has already been bestowed by God. Each of you, in fact every human being, all that has been created, has been bestowed the light, has been bestowed the love of God. When you are given the love of God, it is not a commodity that one earns or is entitled to based on specified criteria. God loves because that is all God can do. Everything that comes from God is a result of that love. It all begins with love. Yes, God loves human beings but God also loves the minerals of the earth. God loves all that exists, whether animate or not. God loves because God cares.
You are asked to be loving because you are asked to be caring. Your lives must be characterized by seeking to be loving and that means seeking to be caring. When you are caring, that attitude is directed not only to other human beings, but to everything that is. You’re loved for the simple reason that you exist. You’re cared for, for the simple reason that you exist.
You experience needs. Indeed, the use of the word vessel is particularly appropriate, for two things happen to a vessel. First, a vessel is filled, and secondly a vessel has the potential to provide nourishment, to provide life, to provide love, to provide balance, health, faith, hope. Your lives are vessels. There is no life whose vessel is empty, but the gifts of that vessel are gifts of the spirit. They are gifts of the soul. They are gifts where each individual is unique. No two gifts are the same.
If you pray for health, you are praying for balance—that you know. If you are praying to be loved, you are praying for a balance—a balance between giving and receiving. You receive love from others, and you give love to others. What you receive is always according to what has the greatest potential for the balance that you need.
Every vessel has a different shape. Every individual has different needs. Every individual experiences concerns, worries, and anxiety about health, justice, relationships. Every individual has needs about what it means to have hope, for every individual defines hope according to those needs. One person prays for health, another to be relieved of suffering, another prays for inner peace. All of these hopes are directed towards what is seemed best for achieving the balance that is appropriate.
The question was raised whether some individuals are destined to or given paths that do not include the gift of life and the giving of life. No individual is presented with a path void of the opportunity for giving love. For some, the giving of love is the giving of life, but there is no predestination. For others, the giving of love is the giving of justice. For still others, the giving of love is the giving of beauty. Every individual has the capacity to give love, including those who are felt to be mentally or emotionally limited. They, too, can give love. What they give is what they can give. No gift of love is measured by the same yardstick that is applied to all human beings.
If each of you accepts the mantle of giving love, then each of you will find the most meaningful expression of that in a way that is in keeping with God’s desire for that love always to be unselfish and nonjudgmental. You give love by caring for a family member. You give love by caring for a stranger. You give love by enfolding yourselves with patience and tolerance and acceptance. When the vessel is filled, you may also drink from that vessel. The vessel as it is filled is not just for the benefit of others.
How is that vessel given life? It is given life by others. It is given life by you. The meaning that you give to your own life always has a context. No human being exists entirely alone, for even when physically alone a human being is in the presence of thought, is in the presence of a sensitivity to touch, is in the presence of sounds, is in the presence of something seen. For some, all senses are available; for others, less so. But each individual exists in context, and it is in that context that the vessel is filled and replenished.
The context within which your own lives are filled is ever changing. You are not assigned to merely one context. You are not expected to have your lives filled in only one way. A life of growth is a life of change. Strength comes from change, not from constancy, for constancy can lead to complacency and a security that ultimately builds walls between you and the context that fills your lives. For your lives to feel rewarded, you all must be flexible. Your vision on your path is never in a single direction, for your direction only takes on character when it is viewed with some context. If you are held in a prison and are fully consumed by one thought, namely not being in prison, then you miss whatever opportunities may come your way that can help to change your condition. Life is not to be felt as a limiting or a restriction of the path. Your path must contain many side journeys, for you establish the context when you establish what it is that gives your life real meaning.
How are you to know God if all you think about is God? To know God, you must know your neighbor. To know what it means when you hear God is love, you must know what it means when your neighbor is loving. You must therefore know what it means to be loved. By being loving, you are learning to be precisely what God is. Being loving is only possible when you are open to the context of love in life. That love can be expressed in countless ways, and for that reason, your vision must always be broad.
Each of you has an opportunity to allow your lives to unfold in ways that are in keeping with the love that illuminates each of you. You pray for balance in health; the balance will be achieved. You pray for inner peace, and the inner peace will be achieved. You pray for stability, companionship. That stability and companionship will be received. But all human beings must allow themselves to be open to the evidence of those hopes, those needs having been addressed. If you seek peace within and you are consumed by anxiety from another direction, the peace that you already have is overlooked, is missed.
Whenever you pray for something, turn around, look in all directions for that which you really seek, and you will find it. It may not always be immediately recognizable. You may have to open your eyes even more, but you will find what you seek. All human beings find what is sought after as it relates to God’s presence in their lives. You can seek great monetary fortune, but what you are really looking for is the freedom from deep anxieties. It is not the money, but rather the freedom of fear. So to the individual who prays for financial success, God hears these prayers coming from an individual who believes himself or herself to be somehow inadequate, and by acknowledging your own adequacy, the fear that grows out of a lack of that adequacy is no longer the motivation that is expressed in needs for something that is in itself less essential.
When you pray for balance, be open to all that leads to balance. When you pray for peace, be open to what leads toward peace. When you pray that your vessel will be filled with love, look around you and see the love that is there. Every individual, every human being is cared for by God. All that is, is important because of its creation. There is nothing that deserves or merits or is entitled to love. All is loved.
You are loved. You are guided. You are nurtured. Your vessels are filled. Drink from them with gratitude and be filled with love.
Amen.