Have you seen the face of God today? I have. I had the privilege of a friend joining me for a part of my walk this morning. I felt totally blessed to be in his presence, and a blessing was given to me through his friendship and his kindness. This is part of what is possible as a human being. We get to see the face of God in each other and to know that you can bring the face of God wherever you go.

Yesterday I had the privilege of going to the Evolve Expo, where David Karchere had a chance to speak about Finding Your Tribe. In referencing the power of a tribe of people, David quoted Margaret Mead, who said this:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Small groups of people can come together and change the pattern of all of humanity. I’m looking for a small group of people who are seeing the face of God.

David also referenced the Declaration of Independence. He thought some of those present might be looking for a tribe who are interested in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Is that something that your tribe is interested in?

Here is the opening statement in that document.

 When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The spirit of this declaration is relevant today. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to separate ourselves from the way human beings have been living on this planet, and declare that we together will do it in the way that is of God’s laws and Nature’s laws—which is the same thing—then we become a new nation, a transcendent nation. I’m very interested in that. How about you?

I’m very interested in acknowledging that there are things I am impelled to separate myself from in order to experience the things that are real and important to me. And not just important to me—they are the very way in which I am designed to be, and you too. This is not rocket science, as my friend Steve Short loves to say. This is not something that requires a great deal of analysis. We are designed by the very nature of life itself. The very atoms in the cells of our body are vibrating in resonance to the same current as all of life.

Do we think that we’re special and can live in a way that ignores the natural laws that govern how we are made? If we do, we are living in the descended nation. When in the course of human events the people of the descended nation decide to wake up to their true nature, they form the real nation. But right now it needs to be a transcendent nation, to transcend that which has infiltrated almost every aspect of our lives.

There is so much in the human world as it is that has a quality of descending energy. It takes courage and desire to live the dream and live in a different world. It takes courage to live the dream in a world in which the popular belief is that the only way to experience heaven is to die. It takes courage to live the dream in a world in which so many make the futile attempt to find happiness through accumulating more wealth than those around them.

Chris Foster’s poem The Transcendent Nation portrays the opportunity we have to know our connection with spiritually awake people around the world. His poem is so relevant to me today. It is relevant to the experience of Man as he was made to be. Man meaning both men and women who are representing the true quality of life through their living, the design of truth, the power of love moving through their human experience. That’s Man. It’s not a bunch of people trying to get along. Anyone who participates in the transcendent nation is a part of the body of Man, true Man as he was designed to be.

The word Man is a masculine pronoun, but I’m not just speaking about people with male parts. I’m talking about the true nature of all people. Man and woman as they were truly meant to be are made in the image and likeness of the Creator. We are designed to be creators.

This is from Chris Foster’s poem:

I stand
In my imagination
On the golden soil of the Sun
And watch the earth
This tiny grain of cosmic dust
Floating so nonchalantly through space.
A brave little speck of dust it is
A rather incredible place
Alone there in immensity
But a wonderful place
A place set apart
Among the stars.
A little closer to the sun
And we would burn up. A little further away
And everything would freeze.
In other words it’s all
Just right!
I look at the earth
And I see wholeness
A blending and interweaving of ocean and sky
And continent.
I do not see any borders
Or boundaries. They are not discernible
From where I stand
On the sun.
I see just one planet
One earth
One home.

How are you doing down there, people?
Have you awakened yet from your sleep?
The alarm is ringing…you must hear it,
Surely!
It’s time to get up,
Open an eye,
A mind,
A heart,
So the light can come in.
The dawn is waiting,
Your own true purpose and destiny.
You’re not going to let it all go by, are you?

Here are words of invitation. Anyone can wake up spiritually and have a real experience of being part of the transcendent nation. It is my prayer that my words offer that same invitation.

My friend Susan Short shared this thought with me the other day: Everything in a person’s life is significant but not more significant than what is coming from the invisible source of Being.

How you feel—it’s significant, but not more significant that the source of Being within you. Everything that happens in a human life, and everything that a person can think or feel, is part of the creative process. Don’t let it go to waste, but don’t let it take over. The transcendent nation is ruled by Truth, not by the things that are passing by and distracting us. Those “distractions” may be trying to find their place in the transcendent nation. It may feel like they would like to take over your world, but so what? They don’t have that much authority if you don’t give it to them.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for people to wake up… That is my declaration of independence today.

I find this happens for me in stages. How about you? I wake up and then I realize there are some parts of me that are still asleep. Sometimes they show up and I wonder, Where did that come from? I thought I was fully and radiantly present, and all of a sudden I wake up to this gnarly little thing that’s present in my experience! I don’t even want to admit this part of that old nation is still present.

In the midst of the awakening process, things that need to pass away poke up their little heads and say, “Oh, really?” And I can say, “Welcome to this transcendent experience”—or “You are not the boss of me!” They are the same thing. “You are not the boss of me and you will not convince me of your supreme significance.”

In my life I have gone through cycles in which it sometimes feels like everything is flying high, it’s all coming into place, and then, What happened to all that glory?

Something new needs to be transformed and it can feel uncomfortable and I can interpret it as failure. I thought I was doing so well. This feels like hell. Why are these people in my life? I thought they were part of the transcendent nation with me.

We have the glorious possibility as a human being of knowing that we are creators who are incorporating all the outer elements of life into Creation. The invisible realm of Being within ourselves and the visible realm outside of us are then both participating in the same experience. I know many people who feel that their spirituality is all about the invisible and then curse what’s happening in the physical realm—their own body, their world, the weather, their football team.

The truth is that the physical manifest world and the invisible realms are all spiritual. As creators we are the means for the vibrational pattern in the invisible to be revealed in the physical world. We can allow the manifest to be a reflection of heavenly design…or not!

When we separate the two, we lose the opportunity of creating heaven on earth and the opportunity to participate in the transcendent nation. And we have a hellish experience. We sit around waiting for someone to fix things and we have a world full of hurt and disappointment. I’m looking for a tribe of people who say this is all spiritual and I am responsible for it all.

So, have you seen the face of God today? I have. And how do you see the face of God? You look for it. You don’t sit on a stump and just hope someday something or someone will come along and say, “Here I am, the face of God.” You look at the world through the eyes of God and you see His face everywhere.

Here’s another little piece of Chris’s poem:

Old, dry and withered
Like autumn leaves ready to fall
The nations of the world hang on grimly
To past glories
And dreams.
They do not want to let their dreams and their glories go
But they must go
Because there is appearing in the earth an event
Without precedent
In human history,
A new nation that transcends
Traditional boundaries,
Owning allegiance simply to integrity in action…
The formula for a well world.
Nothing is more important
To the people of this new nation
Than this.

A new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that nothing is more important than our revelation of the power of the Creator moving through the human experience, so that we are the face of God, we see the face of God, and we become a transcendent nation together.