Photo: Christmas gifts donated by St. Andrews Episcopal Church, 2010
Journal entry. Sedona, Arizona. December 18, 2010.
We had our annual “Christmas Gathering” with the local students (of spiritual teacher, Dr. Hawkins). Food, singing, fellowship. Quite joyous. The fellowship hall (of St. Andrews church) was full. I put together a slideshow of photos of our spiritual community over the last 5 years. It was amateur in skill but made from the heart. It showed, close-up, the many faces of people, young and old, who had come to be at his satsangs, as well as photos of him and his wife, their love for each other, and their pets. I had taken all the photos at their request.
Doc’s comment before the slideshow was: “Christmas is the celebration of Christ as Lord, seeing the Divinity in all things, all the time, God is in everything and is everywhere. I suppose at some university they would call it pantheism. But it is so. God is everywhere. That is the difference – to see that Reality.”
My inner feeling about the photographs was that the Light of God shined through each person and animal. When I took the pictures, I saw or felt a radiance coming through the eyes of everyone, and so I titled the slideshow, “The Face of God.” It was based on Doc’s statement: “When I look in people’s eyes, I see only one Self. The Self of the teacher and one’s own Self is one and the same.”
When the slide show ended, he said to the gathering, “You just saw the Face of God – God is in everything.”
Also, I had this belief that each person in the slideshow – since they were being seen by him – received something of his love and grace. I knew that whatever he glimpsed was blessed.
Of course, the ego part of me suffered with anxiety – was he pleased with my effort? It mattered little to me what others thought. I was concerned only with HIS opinion of it. When I went to his house two days later, I was completely relieved when he said to me, “It was very heartwarming.”
I have a long way to go before I see as he sees: “Christmas is the celebration of Christ as Lord, seeing the Divinity in all things all the time.” I need constant reminders, and Christmas is a great reminder.
Christmas is the remembrance of the Light of God in all things, of the presence of Christ in all.
—From the private journals of Dr. Fran Grace, author of The Power of Love: A Transformed Heart Changes the World, a book dedicated to her teacher.