Dedicating Our Lives to Love

by Kathryn Peters

As I was thinking about what I wanted to say concerning "dedicating our lives to love," my mind kept wandering back to what a friend once said. She had mentioned that we are given an opportunity on this Earth to "turn the ordinary life into an extraordinary adventure." Now that line captured my attention, as I am sure it did yours, because learning to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary is the art of living well — indeed it is the alchemy of creating Heaven on Earth, much like spinning straw into gold!

And when I pondered the thought of spinning straw into gold, and other such magical things, my mind journeyed back in time to Merlin, Arthur, and the noble knights and maidens of Camelot. Camelot, even the sound of that name is romantic and it was such an enchanted chapter in time, when life was a celebration of the mystical. And whether or not you believe in Camelot, whether you feel the main characters in that tale existed or not, the point remains that Camelot represents a time in collective consciousness when we believed, without a doubt, in our own spiritual magic. It is a time when knights and maidens alike stood tall in their personal attempts to champion righteousness. When they championed the spiritual virtues of goodness, justice, and truth.

I believe in my heart that we are, in our own unique way, attempting to champion righteousness in the world. And therefore we all are attempting to breathe new life into Camelot; a 21st century Camelot…a Camelot of the future. And even if you have never thought of it in these terms, think of it now. Think with me how glorious it would be to live in a world, once again, where splendor, beauty, kindness and balance reign supreme! For don’t we all long to see such a world, for ourselves, and for our children? Don’t all of us long to re-establish a working value system in the lives of all which honors the preciousness of life? Don’t we all dream of recapturing the magic of living, which is, in truth, the spiritual essence of our physical selves?

I think such a dream is possible, and I believe this dream can come to pass one person at a time. By each of us, in turn, embracing this vision, and doing our part to insure its creation, we can transform the straw of the ordinary life into the gold of an extraordinary adventure. And in so doing, we also dedicate our lives to love.

But first, I do believe we must embrace at the deepest stratum of our beingness, two very vital and basic components of our eternal reality. First, we must know, beyond any doubt, that we are the substance of God. Secondly, we must know we are the image of God. When I say we are the substance of God, I mean quite literally, we are comprised of the exact same consciousness that constitutes Supreme Source. That pure consciousness is love. Therefore, God is love, and we are the glory and spirit of love. So, the next logical question would be, what is love?

In my effort to define love accurately, I turned to my desktop dictionary, and read that, “love is a profoundly passionate and tender affection for another person.” Well, that sounded pretty good in the right context. That definition describes romantic love. I was looking for a definition for the love of God. But then, the love of God is an energy so expansive, so omnipotent and so omnipresent, a force so powerful and profound, it nearly defies all definition. In fact, the Buddha told us some 2600 years ago that, “if we think we can define God, we have no concept of God!” Yet for today, let us agree that love is the power of life, the universal creative life force that impregnates itself, bringing into manifestation everything from the known universes, to a single blade of grass. And that very same creative life force is our essence. You know, the Course in Miracles tells us the only difference between us and God is the fact He created us, we didn’t create Him. In every other way, we are one and the same.

To me that is an absolutely thrilling concept. And once we grasp it at our core, we can begin to transform ourselves and our lives for the better. Once we realize we have the power of God within us, we can begin to manifest Heaven on Earth, living the extraordinary life without putting ourselves through any more suffering and despair.

Now let us look at what it means to be the image of God. Again, I turned to my trusty Webster’s dictionary because I believed it could handle a definition for a simple word like image. Image is defined, “to represent or reflect the likeness ofÉ” So as the image of God, we represent His loving nature here on Earth. It is important we reflect this Indwelling Holiness through our every thought, word, and deed. We are the emissaries of Infinite Love within the third dimension. This is one of the most important parts of our Earth assignment, and by the way, friends, we are all on Earth assignments. You know, it is not just the prophets and the sages who were sent here on missions from God. We were all sent here by God. Do not fool yourselves. No matter who you are or what you do, you were, in truth, sent here by God to be an instrument of love and healing on His behalf. It makes no difference what outer form your mission takes; it doesn’t matter if you are a mom, or a plumber, a reiki master or a baker, for in reality, you are a sacred vessel for Divinity within this realm of existence. And it is time we all remembered this. It is time we all started to live our lives as through life on Earth depended on us, because it does!

ever before has Earth and all her children needed us to be more conscious of the part we play in this spiritual melodrama. Never before, at any time in our history, has humanity been in more need of love and spiritual understanding than now. And for those of us who has a working understanding of spiritual principles and the nature of God, the time has come to stand up and be counted. There is a call to arms being sounded, and we who have spiritual ears to hear it, must come forth and fight the good fight in whatever way Spirit leads us. Like the knights of yore, we must take up our arms, and do battle with anything that tries to block the Light of God from shining upon the Earth; and our arms are not to be swords, and battle axes of steel. Friends, we must arm ourselves only with love. We need nothing else. This alone is our greatest defense, our most impervious shield, and absolutely the one unstoppable weapon, at our disposal anytime, any place. And if we are not willing to fight for ourselves, our families, our country, our Earth now, then when? If we are not willing to say yes to consciousness, now, then when?

I do realize how very challenging it can be to try to remain connected to Spirit when the demands of life are screaming in your ear nonstop. But remain connected we must, for without our connection to God, we can all too easily slip into the sleep of ignorance, where we completely forget, on a moment to moment basis that we are the substance and image of God, sent to Earth on a sacred mission of love and healing. We can’t afford that!

So, we have to get very serious about our daily spiritual practices. It is not enough to go to church once a week. We have got to plug into our spiritual source everyday. We must implement spiritual tools of prayer, meditation, and affirmation with commitment and consistency in order to remain conscious at all times. Dr. Wayne Dyer has a great line I love to quote. He says, “there is no way to enlightenment, enlightenment is the way!” It is a conviction of the heart that we stand on firmly and unwaveringly. We must make a decision to become conscious of our spiritual essence and eternal identity as the substance of God. Ralph Blum in the Book of Runes writes that, “Even more than we are doers, we are deciders. Once a clear decision has been made the doing becomes effortless.” Once we, as champions of Spirit, make the decision to become conscious, or remain conscious, the Universe will do everything to support that decision. And we must also support it by establishing an open line to the spiritual realm. We begin that process by making time each day to talk to God in prayer.

n a book on Mother Teresa, this sainted woman tells us that, “prayer makes the heart large enough until it can contain God’s gift of Himself.” She goes on to advise us, “ask and seek, and your heart will grow big enough to receive Him and keep Him as your own.” Praying to God opens a channel for communication, and we must aspire to do it without fail. In a book called Angelic Messengers, the author suggests we say a prayer of dedication each morning, a prayer of appreciation at noon, and a prayer of acceptance for all that has graced our lives during the day each night. This is splendid advice which will serve us all well. You know, in my practice, I counsel many people who come to me with problems in their relationships, struggles in business, and health concerns. I always ask at some point if they have prayed and meditated on their difficulties. More often than not, and this never ceases to amaze me, they tell me they have not, or they were thinking about praying as a last resort! A last resort — it should be our first line of defense. What we overlook here is the fact that if we are praying on a daily basis, the challenges of life cease to be. I don’t mean a problem will never confront you again, but if you are praying each day for strength, wisdom, and to know the workings of Spirit in your life, there will be very little that comes along to throw you off center, I guarantee it!

So, through prayer we talk to God and through meditation, we listen. In order to hear the voice of Spirit, we must turn off the external clamor. Spirit speaks to us in the silence of the soul. We must be still in order to receive God. We must stop talking in order to listen. Through the spiritual art of meditation answers come to those of us who seek. What meditation does for us is that it heightens our intuitive receptivity, and opens our minds to Universal Mind where we find the thoughts of God. You see, the Universe is in a state of balance at all times. For every problem, there is a solution to be found within the very fabric of that problem. The key to being centered, balanced and happy in life, is to pray and meditate on the balance of God, receiving our inspiration from connection with God, while we act out our lives in service to God.

The third spiritual tool we need to develop is the art of affirmation. Affirmations can be used as a channel through which your prayers are answered. Mentally affirming the positives in any given situation is a powerful way to magnetize the perfect outcome. An affirmation of love or life repeated throughout the day, conditions the mind to receive gifts from Spirit. It is an essential part of the daily devotional practice. Through prayer we talk to God, through meditation we listen, and through affirmation we create a means by which to easily receive higher energies of inspiration.

I know none of this is earth shattering or news to any of you. But the problem for most of us is that although we already know what we have to do, we fail to make time each day to do it. We tend to play an on again - off again game with these spiritual practices, which leaves us feeling unfulfilled. So consistency is the key. Realizing that as we discipline ourselves to do these daily practices we improve the quality, of not only our lives, but also the quality of every life which makes contact with ours. The Course in Miracles tells us, "there is only one of us here." And that means everything you do to yourself, or for yourself, you do for all of us. For the sake of our worldwide family, we must begin today to open our hearts and minds to the magic of Spirit through the simple practices of prayer, meditation and affirmation. Taking spirituality out of the theoretical, and making it a practical application of love is the next step for each of us.

Kathryn Peters is an ordained minister, the author of Love is my only Master, a mother of six and she currently resides in Las Vegas. She can be reached at 702-593-1224.