2013-12-19-Personality, Spirit, and Adventure
Marin #230
Contents
• 1 Heading
o 1.1 Topic: Personality, Spirit, and Adventure
o 1.2 Group: Marin TeaM
• 2 Facilitators
o 2.1 Teacher: Michael
o 2.2 TR: JL
• 3 Session
o 3.1 Opening
o 3.2 Lesson
o 3.3 Dialogue
o 3.4 Closing
Topic: Personality, Spirit, and Adventure
Group: Marin TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Michael
TR: JL
Session
Opening
Dear Michael and Mother Spirit, Merry Christmas! Happy Birthday, Michael! We wonder about those hundreds of billions of years ago and what was maybe your true birthday, your coming out here into time and space. It makes your birth as Jesus seem not so long ago. A little over two thousand years ago seems so much closer, and we can marvel at the changes you’ve brought to this tired old world with your birth, and your life.
Last Monday–actually the Monday before last–you gave your Christmas message, and so we ask you to repeat it again for us, if you would. There you pointed out the gift that Christmas brings is most truly–aside from all the presents and things–the way we give of ourselves to each other–most fundamentally our time; just giving our time to all our loved ones, and the other volunteer things we do. It’s giving our sympathy, giving our caring. Sometimes it’s holding someone’s hand, or just touching them, giving them a hug and letting them know that they are not alone, they have someone with them who cares.
It is for this we thank you too, Michael: for being here with us, not only by having your human birth here, but actually being part of us now—you, and Mother Spirit, and our dear Father. It’s for this we thank you. Amen.
MICHAEL: Good evening. This is Michael, and Mother Spirit, and we share your own dear spirit of Christmas Time here. As your wonderful Christmas carol talks about “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight,” meaning they were met in me, it also mentions that “in the dark streets shines an everlasting light.” And so, my children, Christmas is not then so much about me as it is about you, for you too have this everlasting light within you. You, along with Mother Spirit and myself, we can together thank our Father for that everlasting light that is Life Itself. With all the presents and various celebrations, we take time out to thank our Father for life–for living–for that is always truly, truly beyond us all. It’s something that came to you by way of our Father, through Mother Spirit and myself, and then through your human parents–this thing of life–to be alive–to be living.
Lesson
Personality, spirit, and adventure
Then there is what you do with it, for you are a living creature who is more than any other animal on your world. You are super-minded. You have more than just brain activity happening within you. You have your personality. You have your creative spirit. With these you can decide what to do with your life. In this season of giving and receiving gifts, it’s so good to take some time out and meditate. Just be still. Feel your breath within your chest. Feel your heart beating and think, “Thank you, Father. Thank you for me. Thank you for my life. And thank you for all of these other personal beings all around me, especially my dear friends, these other folks with whom I spend my life.” For this is a great spending, is it not–that we have our personalities; we have our creative spirit.
You, as well as Mother Spirit and I, right out of ourselves: we can create. We can decide what to do with this life of ours. For here comes the adventure of living, almost unavoidable. We tease you about getting stuck in a bubble of familiarity and doing your best to control all of the adventure that comes your way–not knowing, maybe five minutes from now, what’s going to be happening to you, the true essence of adventure. Because here it comes anyway. You’ve got a whole universe to go out and explore, to meet and greet, to grow into.
And yet you can determine so much of this with your creative spirit that’s part of you. It’s what you can decide to do, and commit yourself to. It’s the way you can shape your future that hasn’t happened yet, anywhere. Even on the largest scale, the future has not yet happened. And it is yours–endlessly, if you choose.
What are you going to do with it? It’s all your hopes, all those things that you would like to see happen to you and to your loved ones. Yet in this poor war-torn world of yours, not only all the hopes but all the fears too are very valid in a way. The more you know of history, the more you know simply what has happened to folks–sometimes totally beyond their control—you know the pure accidents of time and space. These things happen.
Right in your human heart, beating and keeping you alive, you have your whole realm of feeling, of being connected to something changing, and changing with it: all these hopes and fears right in your own heart. This is a wonderful and even somewhat scary definition of what it is to be human, what it is to be at times somewhat like a pawn of circumstances. Do whatever; do your best; these accidents of time and space do happen.
Still, you can have the courage to keep them in your mind, for the appreciation: that this life of yours is conditional, not only for food and shelter and warm clothes on a cold night–not only these physical aspects of your living–but for all the spiritual aspects too that make life worth living, the value you get day to day, and the way this sustains you.
Spirit, value, and possibility
For it is very true that if this goes, if your life becomes not worth living, death soon comes, and I don’t mean by suicide. I mean by your withering away in a spiritual sense with a positively threatening emptiness–if you wanted to think about it this way. It’s the overwhelming emptiness that strikes you from time to time and lets you know that you are not only a mental and physical being with all your knowledge, all your understanding, even all your experience in your soul. You are also a spiritual being and it’s this value of your life, valuing those around you sometimes as much as yourself. This is what sustains you as well. All your hopes and fears are what give you your sense of value. They help you measure all the possibility that you encounter. And yet always, always you will fall somewhat short of the conceivable possible because you are a limited being who can—hopefully–imagine more than they can yet do.
Neither you nor I are God himself. It is the very limits to our possibilities, and the effort it takes to approach them and wrestle with them; this is what gives meaning and value to our lives. And so we trust our Father that our lives are as they are. Our lives do have limits for us to explore, and expand, and appreciate.
And so, my dear ones, in this Christmas Time, as we think about that little baby there in the manger: this is the way for all of you too as it was for me–this human life you have. All the hopes and fears that keep you alive, and give your life meaning and value: this is what we celebrate. You feel yourself breathing. You feel the heart beating in your chest. You feel yourself come alive again in a kind of rebirth of feeling, all the wonderful feelings that your celebrations bring out. It’s all the wonderful folks you celebrate with, all you have to give to each other, and receive–that look in someone’s eyes, that hug, that laughter, that joy of getting together. This is what the season is all about.
Ah!—to choose!
For you can choose. You can choose to be blessed with this appreciation every day in your life, if you put forth the effort. You can determine to do whatever it takes to appreciate this new day happening. Then you can perceive and experience that aspect of God’s creation that is not repeating, that this new day has never happened before, and will never happen again. Christmas time, and then New Year’s, does bring this into focus. It’s a cultural thing, a thing of civilization that has been developed.
It’s also within yourself every morning in your meditations, just opening yourself to what’s happening. Have the courage to feel for those hopes. Do the hard work of understanding yourself and what do you want to happen, hand in glove with all the fears of what is also possible. Ask yourself: “What can I do?—because who knows what may happen to me today, totally beyond my control?” Feel the life happening within you so strong, so fragile: yet know too that it is your everlasting light.
And so we thank you, dear Father of all of us. We thank you that we too, every one of us, was that little baby onetime, so totally dependent upon the love of our mother and father; and so powerful because of that, the strength of that: the everlasting-ness of our life as well. We do thank you, Father, for the fact this can be a merry, joyful, wonderful time. Amen. Now if you have any questions or comments on this joyous season, bring them forth.
Dialogue
Student: Christ Michael.
MICHAEL: Yes.
Student: The one thing that has helped me, to be much closer to my brothers and sisters, is the reminder that they too are children of God. And since I’ve finally developed that within myself, I can see our world totally different. And it’s a beautiful world, with beautiful people. I thank you for that.
Other folks
MICHAEL: Well, my dear one, I thank you for your very perception. I mean, you are truly blessed if you can see this and feel this. That’s the key to appreciation, is it not, just to accept the marvel of others, and to actually perceive how they are truly children of God? You can see that uniqueness in each one, and not be put off by that, not be afraid of that, not be anxious of that. There’s something in every other person that is ungraspable and can’t be pinned down, maybe not even understood, just as you have so much in you only between you and Mother Spirit and me, and our Father. Then to be happy because of that, to welcome and celebrate all these other creations of God, these other personalities, as who they really are–as you say. So thank you, my daughter, for sharing that with us. May you continue to be blessed. May you even have this grow, grow in your heart and in your soul–all these dear ones about you.
Student: This is L. from North Carolina, and I just want to say thank you too, G. It really makes me feel good, what you said. I also just want to say: last Thursday I was so filled with joy by Christ Michael’s Christmas goodwill. It’s been a permanent feeling of joy because I’m still filled with it. I think it’s become a permanent feeling. I mean, my entire life has changed in one week because of what I have been so joyously inspired to do and be this week. So, thank you, Michael, and thank you, G. Merry Christmas!
Recognition, something spontaneously joyful
MICHAEL: Well, Merry Christmas, daughter. You are wonderfully illustrating the greatness of heart of recognition–to recognize and be thankful for what comes into your life. Sometimes with all of your efforts–and sometimes even in spite of all your efforts–something joyous just happens, and it becomes a part of your soul. It becomes a part of you forever. We–Mother Spirit and I–are tickled to acknowledge it and share it with you. So definitely, she sends her love and I celebrate with you, your blessing.
Student: Thank you.
MICHAEL: Thank you for giving it to us, in this wonderful season. (long pause)
My children, if there are no more questions or comments this evening, I do appreciate all that you have, and all that you have to give to Mother Spirit and me. For as you live your lives to the fullest that you are capable of, sometimes that takes such a great courage of acceptance–whether it is the hope, or the fear–the joy or, sometimes, the hurtfulness and pain. It takes courage for you to accept this, moment to moment, in order to keep in touch with this ever-changing part of you, your own mind and body; and then too the whole cosmos around you that you will be heading out into some day. Everything keeps changing out here in time and space, in human and celestial life alike, except personality.
Especially human life
Consider the courage it takes to understand it all, and then say, “Thank you, Father. Keep sending it my way. My ultimate trust–even beyond myself–my ultimate trust is in you!—and in this human life of mine that you designed, that is so universal throughout the cosmos. What it is to be alive this way!—with this everlasting light of yours that fills the universe, and keeps my heart beating. I pray that I may always feel this gratitude for life, and for all that it brings–the hope and the fear. For sometimes that very fear is a caution, and a respect for the situation. It is designed to keep me alive–help me survive, with what information it holds if I am open to it.
And so with my human life, I’ve learned too to appreciate all the boundlessness and the limitations alike that give me both meaning and value, without which I would not be. I welcome this is the nature of human life.” This can be your prayer.
Closing
The light of Life Itself
My dear ones, enjoy this merry part of Christmas–this joy, this acknowledgement of something as ungraspable as Life Itself: and yet to have it, and have it everlastingly. This is what the season reminds us of. This is what we get to share with our laughter and our hugs. Mother Spirit and I send you all a big warm hug, and all of the laughter in both our souls. I bid you be in my peace. Rest in it. Feel it. Delight in it. Good evening
