Blessings, dear friends, in this season of love and light: making time for silence in these busy days, may our hearts be open to receive the Gifts! And may we see like a child with eyes of innocence, love and light beaming blessings to one another and the world.
Some centuries ago Joachim of Flores prophesied that there would be in the future a new age that would be the Age of the Holy Spirit. This is Sophia's age, in which She declares: Omnia coniungo ("I unite all things"). Sophia the God-bearer, becomes the "inner mother to the Divine Child, the incarnating Self within us", enabling us to be born again, through the Spirit, in the world. And in this new world, Sophia helps us to see in the geometrical forms of Nature, the natural shapes of the human soul.
The peacemakers are called children of God, because that is precisely what they are: the conscious offspring of the Creator. The peacemakers are men and women who have adventured down the avenues of healing and caught the current of their divine identity. The children of God share the spirits and purposes of God. The peacemakers have internalized the seven steps to wholeness outlined in the Beatitudes: they recognized their weaknesses; they long for what they need to change; they are gentle, unpretentious and nonviolent; they pursue right livelihood; they have compassion for others; their motivation is pure; they offer unconditional love to all.
Through the mystery of inner work, darkness is turned into light. The chaos and confusion of our unconscious gradually and miraculously reveal a higher center of consciousness which is none other than our innermost essence, "the face we had before we were born". This is the Self, the Divine Child, which was always present within us, but hidden beneath layers of ego and conditioning.
The spirit of childhood is a spirit of simplicity and joy that goes together with the greatest intelligence and the most advanced knowledge. Here more than anywhere else the law of contrasts holds: one must be great to be secure enough to be truly childlike -- just as one must be strong to be infinitely gentle, and wise in order to permit oneself to be foolish. Spiritual childhood is a matter of trust and self-surrender into God's hands.
I envision a world where children are born to loving parents who want and cherish them, who recognize their pure and divine nature; where women and men are respected and honored as equals and cultures are based on the ecstatic experience, creative expression, exploration and protection of the interconnectedness of all life ... where the values of love, affection, compassion prevail, nurturing all beings... It is possible to create a realized world -- a pure land -- but we must all return to our primordial nature. That is the pilgrimage we are all on. It is the sacred space from which all sacred places are born.
We have heard it said that the eyes are the windows of the soul, and the soul is very present in children... We have all been children, and we all have memories of our childhood: those experiences of the emotional body which are palpable and still radiating from us. Those experiences have consolidated and crystallized the imprints upon which act as our frame of reference for who we are, and what we are allowed in our life today. When we make contact with that inner child, we are able to shift from the emotional body's experience to the deeper, more profound love of our cosmic self. The child reminds us that God laughs.
In every adult there lurks a child --
and eternal child,
something that is always becoming,
is never completed,
and calls for unceasing care,
attention and education.
That is part of the human personality
which wants to develop and
become whole.
God is directly present in the person who has the pure heart of a child and who laughs and cries and dances and sings in divine ecstasy.
How great is the difference between the secret friend and the child. For the friend makes only loving, living, but reasoned ascents toward God, but the child presses on to lose his or her own life upon the summits in that simplicity which does not know itself. When we transcend ourselves and become in our ascent toward God so simple that the bare, supreme love can lay hold on us, then we cease, and we and all our self will die in God. In death we become the hidden children of God and find a new life within us.
Childhood is the foundation stone upon which stands the whole life structure. The seed sown in childhood blossoms into the tree of life.
Those who have the humility of a child may find again the key to reverence for, and kinship with, all of life.
If children are to keep alive their inborn sense of wonder, they need the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with them the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. For those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
The child is the creation of that ecstatic, stainless, motiveless pure love. It is that pure love in the heart and soul that give birth to the Divine Child. It is that pure love that leads the soul right into the heart of the godhead.
There is a child that exists in all of us. For some, this little boy or girl is buried alive under years of pain and abuse. As we uncover the child spirit, we experience the emotions, the thoughts and even the behaviors that have been repressed for decades. Unless at some point we are able to embrace our inner child at whatever age and stage it shows itself to us, we will re-enact childhood events in some very destructive and unconscious ways. Yet through this courageous work we find the pathway to joy, serenity and wholeness.