You Are Dearly Loved

Introduction

Welcome to these pages, dear one, written with love and respect for you,  no matter who you are in the eyes of society, no matter what you may have done or neglected to do, or wherever you are in your life’s journey. It’s my deepest desire to help alleviate suffering—yours—or the suffering of someone close to you, especially if that suffering is an outgrowth of feeling unloved or even unlovable. I’ve known that feeling very well. It is my heart’s desire to help you know and feel that you are dearly loved.

Interspersed among the stories of my experiences are some of the insights that I have acquired along the way, as well as what I understand of spiritual theory. I offer many things as possibilities, some that may seem outrageous and some that are quite gentle.  Please take only what feels right for you—what resonates with you—and leave the rest. I offer it all to you with absolute love.

My choice of words

As I wrote this book I struggled with the issue of which words to use to describe the numinous force of love that I experience. No one word or term can encompass and express what is essentially indescribable and ineffable, but I decided to use the words Spirit or Great Spirit, for the most part, but sometimes also the terms God/Goddess, and “the divine” to represent what I feel. These terms resonate with me at a heart level. I’m aware that the use of the word God has fallen out of favor with many in recent years, for a variety of reasons. But I love what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said on the subject: “You see, as long as love is around, God is alive. As long as justice is around, God is alive. There are certain conceptions of God that needed to die, but not God.”¹

Things That Matter

In a few chapters of this book I speak about what I perceive to be unpleasant truths about our culture and our world. While some may subscribe to the myth that if you’re spiritual you shouldn’t focus on what is negative or dark in the world and in yourself, I disagree. We need to be aware of what exists in order to heal it. How can we heal the wounds caused by racial and social inequality, by religious bigotry and persecution, and by materialism and militarism if we don’t pay attention to them?

Deep down many of us do comprehend what is deeply out of balance in our inner and outer worlds, but we choose to look away and deny it because we’re afraid of feeling uncomfortable and insecure. We’re afraid of feeling adrift and helpless without the security of the illusions and beliefs we’ve bought into. But we can no longer afford to look away and allow the powers that have controlled us for so long to defile and destroy our natural world, including us.

I take support from great souls like Dr. King who discussed the danger of romanticizing the concept of a well-adjusted life in which we ignore the injustices of the world. In his book, Strength to Love, Dr. King stated that, “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted,”² and, “In these days of worldwide confusion, there is a dire need for men and women who will courageously do battle for truth.”³

Spirit’s Voice

Through decades of meditating, I have learned how to tune my mind’s receiver. I have learned how to distinguish the voice of Spirit from the voice of my own mind. Of course, the voice of Spirit is filtered through my consciousness, but it is still recognizable as a voice distinct from my own. When Spirit is speaking to me or through me there is a certain feeling, a certain unique vibrational force that comes through. It is the energy and feeling of deep peace and compassion for all of life. It is the feeling of having my heart opened and of having my consciousness expanded beyond the usual limits of the material world.

There were times during the writing of this book when I felt that the words being written were coming directly from Spirit. It felt as if there were two distinct “voices” being spoken throughout

the pages, my own personal voice and Spirit’s universal voice. Those sections of the text where I felt that universal voice coming through have been indicated with the use of italics. I hope that you will be able to hear, through my voice and heart, the sound of Spirit’s love for you. I hope that this love will open your heart to all that you are.

Spirit is whispering to you now …

Beloved, this Great Spirit of All That Is and All That Can Be is whispering to you—that you are and always will be my unending and boundless joy. As you allow this to be true, your loving kindness will start to flow, first for yourself. Then it will radiate out from you like gentle rain falling on a parched countryside, with all the thirsty beings soaking it up as if they’d never been loved before. You and I will thus take this living earth and all her precious beings into the arms of our gentle understanding, and we’ll whisper to all who are suffering now: We’re holding you close in our hearts as we bathe you all in the sweetest and softest rain of comfort and grace and love.

May all beings know their utter and infinite goodness. May all beings know that they are worthy of love and that they’re being held in the arms of Spirit’s love as if they were cherished children. May all who have life know that they are, indeed, dearly loved.