THE acknowledgement of thankfulness given to those who have given to us, formalizes the receipt and is an offering of due respect, whilst it also ensures a full transaction rather than a partial fulfilment of that which was given.
Pledges and promises will be covered here also. But we begin today in strict reference to healing and thanksgiving, observing what does occur when one person consciously acts to give thanks and bestow appreciation upon another - what effects does this have upon the giver, the recipient and the quality and effectiveness of that which was so received?
Firstly there is the word: healing. Healing (in the context given today particularly) is a generality which applies to any situation or condition in which a remedial, beneficent action has answered in application a need. Effectively, a need which has been answered is a healing. Whether small or large, even perhaps of a momentary nature, this is what we do name (with respect) a healing.
There can also be a combined healing within any given eventfulness. There may be a combination of blessings which one gives to another, whilst also some of the very needs of the healer may be addressed in the transaction. However and in the main, we can purposefully be intent on the simplicity of any and every giving, without entering into complexities of how much and to what extent.
Charity itself is an attitude firstly - as remonstrate within Man (it is of course a divine and glorious virtue: i.e. an attitude of the Gods therefore, before Man) and manifest secondly. Charity and benevolence discern need and thus effect response. However, one may sympathize or empathize yet effect nothing because of it; and it is the expression and experience of charity which will initiate the enterprise of action to supplicate the need so recognized.
The experience of need itself speaks profoundly to the soul within the man. The further experience of having a need answered through the means of another is in actuality, a godly event; and the soul knows this and is imbibed by it. A need, by definition, is that something which pains the soul. It does not threaten extinction, but is as a sore aggravant, confusing to its own sense and reason, perspective and stability.
Physical needs in the physical world can disturb the soul because of the presence of the need itself - not necessarily because of the physical condition in its actuality.
Ordinarily the soul is quite comfortable and never discredited by a need of great gravity. Even its yearnings are sweet in experience, for the soul's wisdom knows that yearnings are the open entrances invoking the sweet happenings thus dreamt of, and are often so content therefore in the speculative waiting. The soul is not hurried or impatient, for time is not relative - it will not wear out or tire and is much involved in the general spectacle to not feel the pinpricks of any disappointment in natural occurrence.
However the metabolism of the soul's own reckoning was much altered upon the Fall. The peace which was once a given is now disturbed, and even the soul itself is called to stretch beyond its own knowing and mature. Not only have we the egoic tenderness toward life outside of our own immediate knowings and further experience to be accumulated, sorted and decided upon, we also have a similar reference weighed even within our intimate heart, our spiritual heart of self, which not only feels a pain of another nature, but also a love which hitherto was not possible in the creation of the naïve.
When a need speaks to us internally it calls us to realize that we are without something, and being without that something causes us discomfort. This discomfort is perplexing to the soul - the very concept is contrary to that which it has ever and only known. The discomfort itself becomes yet another need: not a need to be satisfied with no more need, but a need which is calmed, and a being which is enlivened when that first need is answered by another soul.
So there is the experience of the physical world and what comprises our needs there on every interlocking plane, and the subsequent difficulty the soul experiences just by the discomfort of being in impractical, awkward, and even painful circumstances at times, on these interlocking planes. Then there comes that other soul to us who may care for us and tend to us, on one or more of the interlocking planes, and the soul then acknowledges a great and profound happiness at this gesture or action of love which is offered it.
The experience of this need being met and tended to by another speaks more to the soul (each time) than it has previously known … and the joy definitely outweighs the discomfort (and that discomfort is dispensed with - there is no recall, no appendage, when the healing is perfected).
So one can see from this that it is indeed quite a godly event. In the highest sense the act of supplication is most godly and true to Him. Working as His emissary, moved by His Great Goodness, we speak to Him and He is there amongst such giving and receiving.
Within all of this there is one final consideration. For every act of giving (healing) there needs be also an act of receiving. The recipient cannot be passive or without a conscious willing to receive, or the transaction will not purposefully qualify.
How many spiritual gifts and healings have been expired or cast aside because of the complacencies, passivities of the would-be-receiver! You can even see the ghouls of the chronic 'would-bes' in the afterlife, harrowing over that which they have not - calling and sorrowing from a deep want, ignoring the piles of tributes so far 'unsigned for' and now out of reach. It happens!
Students who mournfully berate their teachers, who having been just given the ornament of scholars, the very treasures they themselves have pleaded for - most times rather than not - have been eluded not by the difficulties that go with that prize, but rather with their own state of ingratitude!
As a primary law of protection to each being, there will not be a transaction of receipt unless the receiver acknowledges and accepts that which is given, and to do this we return back with a thankfulness that consciously (and audibly) names the giver and responds in same kindness back.
This is not just a compliance of a simple and divine courtesy (which by the way, if it was it would surely be enough reason in itself to observe). It even goes further than the law as described above, because beyond this it becomes a thankfulness to our Father as He is manifest in all Love that comes to us and is offered thus. Once again, the smaller law now broadens, and it can be said truly that we cannot receive perfectly even His Love if we do not respond in kind, and with the acknowledging receipt of thankfulness to Him.
Now there are some places of healing whereby the priest or the consultant has a place of offering designated, whereupon the receiver may give goods or monies in expression of their gratitude. This practice, we suggest, defers the true thankfulness and possibly interrupts the completeness which could have and should have ordinarily followed.
For example: whether collectively or individually I am there before the altar attending for a healing (or for many healings), and with me are my community of needs tagging alongside, pulling on my coat-hem, whispering in my inner ear; hugging at my chest, clamoring on my back, pulling at my heart, stinging at the groin; twisting in the stomach, aching at the feet, dancing in a distracting semaphore at the thoughts, living in the sneeze and the cough … I take all this rowdy bunch up to meet the priest to be instructed as to a better life, that I might regain a little more peace …
He meets me there under the rosy light of Charity - it surrounds the bier and dances around the candle's edge. Kindly beings have assembled to pray for my respite, to welcome the love that may now come and stay. Conditions will be different from this moment forth - the country breathes a little quieter, anticipating my soul's encounter. The priest knows this well. He lives for these moments. He perceives the higher and heavenly trials. His own soul life is pained with the ill-fitting world and he seeks to harmonize the corresponding divinities. He intuits the presence of his Beloved and acts accordingly.
So it is that there and then Christ comes before us. There amongst the chaos of conflicting needs, of little and not-so-little anti-angelos and elemental harbor; there to me who am expectant, yet half-awake/asleep and impervious to His Presence consciously, He comes in answer to these needs.
Now if I defer my thankfulness to a coin or a paper thrown into a bowl, I have turned from Him and from the administering priest as well and issued forth my spillage into some foreign and abstract receptacle. This is not effective! This is not an act we should choose directly after the event of healing! Only and only again, must we acknowledge and state out loud, in self-conscious receipt our thankfulness naming that of our giver. We bow to our Father, to our Christ, and to the community Altar (of the invisible beings who assist) and to the priest and namefully thank them all. Only then may we receive the true blessings into ourselves that have been offered. This is a meeting of the wills and most potent to us.
By all means, should we wish to give material donations for material needs at some other point, this of course is another wonderful transaction and does practice us also in the furthering of these heavenly ways. However, in relation to the healing as sought for by us in the practice of communion, it is ill-advised indeed to incorporate this as part of the event. Spiritually the dues need be met in response in kind. When we formally make this response, the spiritual worlds do know that they have been acknowledged and received and are glad.
When folk offer up a kindness, a consideration or a truth, and we take it for our own without attributing it rightfully to he who does give it, it becomes a thievery which will not profit the recipient, because the deal is never completed without the correct respect and process of receipt followed through.
Pledges & Promises
A pledge or a promise offers to supplement a need at some further stage, however it requires a similar receipt by the soul it has been put before, in order for the promise to be secured in actuality later on.
Therefore if someone offers up a pledge to something and the would-be receiver is unconvinced as to the viability of this offer, then the response of doubt itself will effectively and incontrovertibly put an end to the eventuality of that promise ever becoming fulfilled.
One can see therefore from this just how very dangerous doubts within our faith may be to us. The spiritual worlds cannot even begin to enter into a consideration of helping us if we do not accept their offerings of promise to us for our wellbeing in the future.
Sadly, in relation also to the clinics of healing where sound advice and instruction are given freely with optimistic and kindly servitude to specific need, it can also be said that there will be no lasting consequence if the recipient cannot bring themselves into the equation by responding in kind with a conscious desire to not only receive but to name the effective teacher and the powers beyond, and complete the healing with a thankfulness - either for the promise of hope or for the healing itself.
The more specific we can be in our naming and our thanksgiving the better. Specificity is so important. When an ordinary man names something he even so requires many helpers which connect him with the reality of that which he has named. Fully, his comprehension cannot encompass other beings or realities which are not incorporated within him, and so the naming shall not be invocative in the sense of the essential being or spirit coming to him, but what will occur will be the conjoining of being in that naming event.
So thankfully the individual need not be completely aware of he whom he names, but the effort itself to find the bearer of the gift will be secured and made apparent to all who are relevant - enabled by the spiritual powers assisting.
When I am uplifted and infilled with a natural joy from the sunrisen glow of early morning and I thank the beings of color, and those of the cloud who do offset that color, and for the beings of Creation, and our being of Christ, our being of the eternal morning and of Life itself, for the Love of Father God and for Father God Himself - naming and thanking all these and those besides - they know, and to me they are so then received!
