by Pamela Gray and John Gray
Pamela Gray: Like the murmuration of birds we just watched via video, we gather today in a consciousness of playing our individual parts in one whole, right now in this moment. I am so thankful for the spiritual intelligence of those who participate in these gatherings. This is not an arena of speakers on the one side and listeners who are here to be enlightened on the other. The opportunity for us all is to participate in a combined flow of creative expression, both with the words expressed and with all that’s back of the words that springs from our states of heart, mind, and experience.
Speaking words of love, truth, and light, we know that their transformational effect is dependent on what is in our own clarified consciousness. This is why we gather to consider these things, to lift them together in consciousness. I define this as a heart and mind stayed on our Creator and having a generous view of the world.
Recently I have been meditating on words from Psalm 23. Here is an excerpt I feel is pertinent today with respect to the state of world affairs, and perhaps in our own lives: “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Ps. 23:5-6)
Those last words sum up our reason for being: to dwell here, to be home in the house of the Lord on earth. My cup runneth over with love! These are living words for me because this is my experience every day. My heart-cup is so full of the love of being present in the lives of many people and having them present in my life. This gift of love works both ways. As much as any holiday, I love to acknowledge the birthdays of friends who have a spiritual consciousness—aware of having incarnated, anointed with the oil of love, to give the gift of love on earth. For me, these are to be acknowledged and celebrated.
The excerpt speaks of a table prepared and points to our daily fields of opportunity to let love manifest in whatever life serves up in the moment. It states, “in the presence of mine enemies.” Perhaps a quick read of that might seem to refer to people one is at odds with or to “bad” people out there in the world. A deeper look dares us to search our hearts. What are the holdouts of my love’s radiance? What is not flowing because of my feelings that this or that should not be happening with family, friends, politics, or on the world scene? If the heat of emotion fuels that fire, is that not as destructive as enemies would be? Well, whatever it is that is happening, it is happening. Trust is essential—not trust in the effects of things that we see and feel, but deep trust is in the overall cycle of restoration. This has everything to do with oneness with our Creator. As I am one with my Creator, I am one with the creative process. And this is really something to ponder: the clarity of trust in consciousness opens doors for us to be channels on earth through which the restoration of consciousness is manifest. Many people have faith, and blindly repeat like a mantra, “Everything happens for a reason,” without any real, personal connection with it.
I see, in news reports and firsthand, many people who are inspired by dramatic events to rise in consciousness. I was listening to an interview with a family member of a now-released hostage in Gaza. She quoted her loved one, speaking of her experience in a dark cell, “something inside me was growing stronger in the weakest hours of captivity.” Life was calling her to rise in spirit and mind; to keep thriving. Unconquerable life prevails when one is in alignment with it!
I was thinking also of the three young Palestinian men who were shot in peaceful Vermont over Thanksgiving weekend. One of the men, shot right through to his spine and now paralyzed from his chest down, wanted people to know that his situation was just one of many. He went on to convey that if the situation had happened in Palestine, he would probably have died on the street, and the person who shot him would have never been caught. Even in the face of tragedies, there are countless examples in the world of people finding personal connection and agreement with what is right and true.
The story of Master Jesus calming the sea, as described in Mark 3:35-41, is apt today. He was with a few of the disciples when suddenly a mighty storm came up and thrashed the ship. The disciples demanded that the Master save them from perishing. The Master, being who he was, rebuked the wind, and the sea was calmed. He didn’t do it to impress the disciples. He had been performing miracles all along. His greater rebuke was for the disciples, for they had had sufficient spiritual training under his wisdom and example to be as he was: one in spirit to handle whatever arose. But in their fear and lack of trust, they failed to acknowledge their own power. Personally speaking, it’s being fully centered in what is right and true that itself brings rebuke.
Have you been in a car with teenagers lately, listening to their music? I have. The other day something caught my attention—you always have these little moments when you can connect with something in young people’s lives that might help in some way. Playing on the radio was popstar Pink’s song entitled, “Turbulence.” She sang, “Panic is temporary, but I’ll be permanent. So, when it hits, don’t forget, as scary as it gets, it’s just turbulence.” Good advice! As things proceed, we may see a great deal more chaos in the world, and it may not feel like “just turbulence,” but I say to my heart and mind, be still. Hold steady. Be permanent in the vibration of the power of love and trust.
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me….” I change that today to “surely grace and mercy shall follow us.” Words are powerful. The word grace is defined in the dictionary as “the influence of the spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate or strengthen them.” Mercy in the dictionary reads, “something that gives evidence of divine favor; blessing.”
Giving grace and mercy in all our ways is true leadership.
John Gray: I am always so thankful to be waltzing with this lady, and for so many years!
Grace and mercy are two of the myriad qualities of love. They “follow us” because we sow their seeds all the days of our lives. Gardens grow in our wakes.
Human beings are not aware of what they’re not aware of, but most are looking for something that’s worth finding. As Zen teacher Cheri Huber says, “That which you are seeking is causing you to seek.”
Perhaps you were as excited as I was to learn the other day that Merriam Webster announced their 2023 word of the year. The word is authentic. The article I read about this stated that the Merriam people do not select words of the year arbitrarily; they choose them based on the total number of online look-ups. This year, authentic has been the most looked up word in the English language. Isn’t it interesting that people are looking for the authentic more than anything else!
There are billions of people on our planet who hope and maybe sense that something true and authentic exists. Hundreds of millions—billions, probably—profess belief in a supreme being. Many even have faith that an authentic spiritual self might exist. It seems a relative few have actual personal experience that this is true, and fewer yet who know divine identity personally. A clear indication of identity in this Eminent One is seeing all the created world in high altitude perspective and understanding. As Pamela said, it’s also a generous view.
In an email exchange with some friends recently, I wrote about my perspective. I edited the words somewhat and will read them.
“I find myself feeling very appreciative of the billions of bipeds on the planet who are stirred by spirit in any way whatsoever. I’m not counting apes and emus here; just the human bipeds. There is little or no resistance to spirit in the natural world and in the planet itself. For the ‘crowning creation,’ however, it’s a different story. So, just to make something up, I’ll pessimistically conjecture here that even if half or more of humanity is unreachably lost in small, dark, self-centered worlds, many just trying to survive, how many of the 8+ billion total does that leave? Conjecturing on, what if the spiritually stirred or stirrable proportion is, say, three billion people or even two billion? That’s still a lot of living flesh on the planet, and to whatever extent there is willingness (almost entirely unconscious) to be moved by the creative process, there’s a lot of relatively coarse pneumaplasm being generated. Some of that substance is, unknowingly to most concerned, looking to rise and serve at more refined levels. The invitation and impulse to rise in vibratory rate is offered and extended from on high through the rare and few who truly, consciously, bring the Eminent One into expression on earth.
“Religious followers and all spiritual seekers, artists and scientists, musicians and teachers and entrepreneurs, caregivers and countless more—including just about every child on earth not forced to exist in survival mode, and everyone else I’ve inadvertently omitted from this list—all are parts of the stirred or stirrable portions of humanity. To all I say, ‘Thank you for your expressions of faith and passion, innovation, innocence, and beauty! Not really knowing why you worship in the ways you do does not diminish the real service you render.’ I see no poor, ignorant fools out there because I don’t pay much attention to the emotional and mental machinations of humankind. As for the gaps, and lacks of awareness and weird ideas and all that, I say ‘So what?’ I’m interested in what’s here, not in what’s not.
“And what’s here is massive. Spirit enters this dimensional world through single-point apertures, we say, and it emerges with unimaginable power. Shekinah, Parousia, effortlessly moves the world and a lot of they that dwell therein. We are among those who recognize that what is additionally, absolutely required in order to connect everything up in the creative process is the presence of a conscious focal group sharing divine identity. Any who really see and know this may play parts in this essential focal group of angels incarnate. Some of us sense that this is a small band, probably a verysmall band, and it forms the conscious core of a much larger resonant body. As I often say, the body of God on earth is not in the process of forming, it is. It is becoming Self-aware because the One whose body it is, is being received into the body’s consciousness.”
Let us see what’s going on everywhere in the light of divine consciousness. From this perspective we see that every detail necessary to the fulfillment of God’s purpose on earth is present, functional, and at our command. And there is nothing wrong.
The One Spirit is the single and only cause of everything in the cosmos. Within this tiny bubble of humanity here on earth—which most consider to be big—everything that occurs is caused by the One Spirit in action. To one degree or another, in every moment, every human being either resists and reacts to it, or responds and resonates with it. Life-affirming events are born through positive resonance with the One Spirit. Death-dealing events are created by negative resistance. Like a simple algebraic equation, the sum of the positives and negatives indicates which predominates, and that produces personal experience. If resonance predominates, an individual is generally positively moved by the One Spirit; if there is a majority of resistance, the opposite.
Does this remind anybody of a Martin Exeter poem? It does me.
“Any moment of hating, any moment of lying, any moment of resentment, is a moment of dying. Any moment of loving, any moment of giving, any moment of thankfulness, is a moment of living. All our moments add together like the digits in a sum. And the answer tells us plainly whether life or death shall come.”
Anyone take exception to Martin’s simple summation? All agreed? I see nods in the Zoom rectangles on my screen. What does it really mean to agree? We’re probably all acquainted with the Bible passage, words of the Master Jesus, “Again, I say unto you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.” (Mat. 18:19)
Maybe like me you’ve wondered at times about the profound meaning of agreement. It’s one of those many words in the English language that can be used without full understanding, yet we may think we know and may even agree as to what the word means! Dictionary definitions of agreement include, “the act of coming to a mutual arrangement” and, “the state of being in accord.” The former suggests a negotiation leading to a settlement or contract; this is the most common meaning of the word agreement in the manmade world. “The state of being in accord” has transcendent meaning. It is a state of being that is not and cannot be manmade. “Being in accord” is what the Master was referring to, not to hammering out mutual mental understandings.
Recently I’ve become fond of a previously unfamiliar synonym for agreement: syntony. Its etymology is the Greek syntonia—literally, agreement—from syntonos, “being in harmony,” which is itself a combination of roots meaning unified and voice and pitch. I love the musical metaphor! Voices in harmony are not all the same; there’s range and diversity composing a unified whole.
That verse from the Book of Matthew is a divine power formula. Wherever there are two or more in syntony, the power of the spirit of the Great Eminent One creates through them, through us. We must recognize this to be the way human beings are designed to function. Together we sing the world anew.
I’m preaching to a choir ensemble right now. We are among those vocalizing the Word, harmoniously, in one accord. The audience to this sounding is the required resonant material. And it’s all here, present and sufficiently available to be re-formed, re-created into a new earth. This is happening now as we sing! As leaders characterized by grace and mercy, we see and know that the restoration of the true state of heaven on earth is happening right now, right before our spiritual eyes. Let us see, without judgment, all the diverse millions and millions of essentially fine-hearted people who serve the creative process. Let’s see those whose primary resonance is with what is authentic. Yes, there’s also a lot—a whole lot—of resistance and consequent hell on earth, but the rising up is infinitely greater. The power of the Eminent One is absolute. As our bodies and minds and hearts remain in syntony with this One Spirit, “Behold I create!”
(The concluding music was a video of Pete Seeger singing God’s Counting on Me, God’s Counting on You — written by Pete Seeger and Lorre Wyatt)