TO THE DEGREE....

Just what does this little qualifying phrase mean? Some years ago I often heard my minister and other Religious Science (aka, Centers for Spiritual Living, or CSL) speakers use the phrase frequently, and I didn’t get it - until I DID get it! And it turns out that when used in the way I understand these words, the expression is extremely powerful indeed.

To the degree any of us understands and expresses our Divine potential is the extent to which we invite God’s power, light, and love into our lives, and into the lives of others and our planet. It’s all about consciousness, awareness, habit, and intention.

Everyone can name any number of individuals, past and present, who live/d very un-Godlike lives. Yet why would anyone choose hate, war, and unhappiness over love, peace, and joy? Names that come up swiftly to my mind include Hitler, Putin, and even Donald J. Trump – all people whose words and lives represent/ed divisiveness, hatred, racism, and an overriding high opinion of themselves as all-powerful, righteous (and always RIGHT) individuals. Well-known figures representing their opposites include Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Jimmy Carter, to name just a few of the most recognizable.

While the religious or spiritual beliefs of those latter individuals may differ on the surface from my own, all were or are some of the best examples of people who have lived and practiced their belief that an omnipresent power many identify with as God, is the creative instrument of love behind all life, everywhere. And to the degree they understood the Truth of their being was the extent to which they lived that Truth and expressed all-loving goodness in the world.

That implies that ANY of us who identify at our deepest understanding of ourselves as “children of God….made in the likeness of God….” can express God’s love, light, peace, and understanding in a world that so often seems riddled with hatred and darkness of all kinds.

As a child I understood that “God” was some distant entity living far away in a magical kingdom called heaven (where I’d go when I die, IF I practiced God’s commandments!). As an older adult I made a radical shift from that early belief to an understanding that God is the Life Force that lives, breathes, and expresses in and through me, Susan, TO THE DEGREE I invite its presence of love and light into my life. And that is the extent to which I personally experience and enjoy prosperity of all kinds, and the degree to which I share the same with others in this world.

Regardless of status, ethnicity, or any other qualification with which you may identify, God does not discriminate. That all-powerful, ever-present, eternal Life Force that creates and sustains all life, everywhere, is present in every sentient being on this planet and beyond. It is the Force which has no beginning and no ending. That’s an understanding that makes unnecessary any human attempts to define when Life began, or when it might end. Life is eternal and ever-expressing. Just because that “life” may not resemble you or I doesn’t mean it’s not created from God-energy. After all, EVERYTHING is ultimately energy. We’re just the densest expression of God-energy, as are all other material or physical forms.