It is so good to be in the natural setting of the valley where I live, between the pines and the granite rocks to the west and the red sandstone and rim rock to the east.

Where is the God of these hills? Where is the God of this valley? Is He here? Is She here?

Where is the God of the community where I live, Sunrise Ranch? Where is the God of all that happens here? Where is that God?

Where is the God of the place where you live? Do you ever feel a heart-numbing loneliness as you drive suburban developments? Have you felt a desperate, frenetic chaos as you ride mass-transit through a large city?

I see the valley where I live as a symbol for the whole world. Any place where people live could be seen that way. As I look out upon the pastures, the buildings, the sandstone and the pines of where I live, I wonder, where is the presence of the Living God?

Many of the people who come through this valley in increasing numbers are on a critical stretch of their life journey. The point of that journey is to come home. And the pathway home is through the heart. There is no other real way to come home. Our two feet are good for a lot of things. They can take us places in the physical world. But our two feet can’t take us home.

The pathway home is through the heart. Ultimately, it’s the transparent heart that allows us to be at home. Being at home, we bring the presence of the Creator into the Creation. We are meant to do that as human beings. This valley is craving the presence of the God in that way. Many human beings come to this valley, wandering on their journey, and the valley is here for them. And there are people in this valley who are here for them.

But if you listen to the wind, and you open your heart to this valley, you will sense its craving for the presence of the God of this valley.

This valley is a symbol for the whole earth. This earth was made and designed to live in the presence of the Creator, the presence of God by whatever name. We as humanity are made to be that presence. That is, after all, what is told in that ancient story of our creation passed down in the book of Genesis. It describes the valley as a garden. It says that we were made in the image and likeness of the Creator, which must mean that we have that goodness, that character, that reality built into us.

The story says that we are present to tend and keep the Creation. If you read between the lines just a little bit, it’s not very hard to see that there was pre-incarnational intent described in the words of the story. We came here for a reason. Why have we come to earth? To be the God of this valley, this place where we live, wherever it may be.

In the heart of every person is a longing, a desire to know the real God. There may be a lot of resentment, resistance and rejection of religion. Given the state of religion in our world today, we could well understand how that could be so. But that doesn’t change what is in the heart and core of every human being. It is the longing to know the presence of the Creator.

The truth is that the Creator is always present. I don’t care how any male human being treats you. The truth is that Father God is always there for you. I don’t care how any female human being treats you. The truth is that Mother God is always there. Always.

When we walk the path of the heart, we find that in embracing the reality of Mother God and embracing the reality of Father God, those realities are activated through ourselves. They become real in our own heart and mind. Without pretense, without self-righteousness, and without the usual eroded sense of what the word God means, we become that. The God of this valley shows up through human beings. There is a presence that fills the valley so that all that wander and journey to this valley feel that presence. They feel it in meeting someone at the front desk at Sunrise Ranch. They feel it when they drive through the cutaway in the Rimrock. They look at the red sandstone and they feel the presence of the Living God.

I honor the Native Americans who lived here many decades ago. We can still see teepee circles in the valley. We pick up arrowheads off the top of Green Ridge. They brought the presence of the Creator to this valley.

In this day, there has been a small core of spiritually conscious people who have come home through the path of the heart at Sunrise Ranch. There is a small core of people for whom the One Law of all Creation is something more than a principle, or an idea, or a teaching but for whom it is a living reality. It is the working of the power of Creation through a human being. It is a human being honoring the presence of the Creator and thus coming into an experience of bringing that presence. In this way, the real God is present through spiritually awake human beings worldwide.

The reality of God is the very core of Creation. It is the Creator who lives in every atom, every cell, every plant, every animal, and every human being. That power of Creation expresses itself so uniquely through a human being. We don’t shine in the way the sun shines, although we shine. We don’t grow just like the plants, although we grow. We have the amazing capacity as human beings to bring the power of Creation into the world in a way that is unique to us.

We have that power to give. We call it Love. It is the power of caring. It is the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is in all things. It has the potential to be expressed and embodied uniquely through human beings. That spirit fills the rocks of this valley. It forms the overarching dome of encompassment for all who come into this valley.

The Holy Spirit is real because there are people here who truly, truly, truly love one another. Even as the beams in the geodesic dome at Sunrise Ranch holds it up, so do the bonds of love between people create space in which the Holy Spirit can live in this valley.

I say to you that the Creator is not separate from His or Her creation. The Creator is not separate from what emanates from Him or Her. You are not separate from your spirit, and neither am I. So when people are touching the spirit of this valley, they are touching the God of this valley. It is coming through people who know that reality and who share it in living color amongst themselves; people who have become, through their innocence and openness and their transparency, the God of this valley. Not an old man up in the sky stroking His beard or looking down upon us from His cloud with wrath. I am not talking about the God of religion. I am talking about the real God.

The real God is the God of all valleys and all trees and all rivers and all people and all lands on this whole earth. But in most places there are not people, as there are on Sunrise Ranch, who embrace that reality for themselves and share it amongst themselves on an open-hearted basis. Wherever that happens, bless those people, and may what each of us do in our own lives offer love and support and encouragement and inspiration for such people wherever they are. The God of their valley is showing up through them.

What we know for sure is our own experience. We can’t do anything about them showing up, but we can do something about us showing up. We can do something about how we are embracing the reality that is in us, and how we are expressing it into this world.

It is an age-old tactic of human nature to divert attention away from one’s own destructive behavior by pointing the finger at others. The old adage goes: When you are pointing a finger at another person, there are three fingers pointing back at you. Keep that in mind when you hear someone speak ill of others.

The most obvious example of that in recent history on the world scene is Nazi Germany. The only way they were able to accomplish what they were—and accomplish is rather bizarre word to use—was that they distracted the populace by pointing the finger at the Jews, the gypsies, the homosexuals, the English, the whomever. As long as they could divert attention to their alleged enemies, people wouldn’t become aware of the horror of what the Nazis themselves were doing.

Some of those in politics today are masters of that. “Never mind me. Pay attention to all the people I am pointing my finger at.”

It makes one embarrassed to be an American. But it is an age-old tactic. There are public figures—some of them politicians and some of them in the media—who you only need to listen to for about a minute to know that they are pompous, arrogant and vitriolic. And if you ask yourself, “How is it that they are so persuasive with such a large percentage of the American populace? How? How did it happen?” I suggest to you it is for exactly this reason. They divert attention away from themselves to all the supposed enemies around. And then they have appealed to the fear and hate of the populace which is widespread.

But it isn’t just on the political scene that such things happen. At every level of human experience where someone doesn’t honor, express and embody the Creator that is within them, they resort to pointing the finger. It’s predictable in my experience. They have to blame their vacant expression on something or someone, and divert attention from themselves. But for someone who knows what’s going on, they may as well be holding up a sign, “No God here.”

There is a fine line of distinction between truth-telling, which is a much-needed quality in our world today, and dishonesty, blame, projection, and the spreading of suspicion and fear. There’s a fine line, but a real line. It’s crossed all the time where there is a vacancy in the heart.

At the individual level, what really matters is not the deceit and manipulation of others. You can’t enslave a man or woman who is truly free in their own heart. A man who is truly free in his own heart isn’t subject to the spreading of suspicion and fear. He doesn’t buy into hatred.

A man who is free in his own heart is free to express the Creator that he is. A woman who is free in her own heart is free to bring the Creator that she is. Whatever anyone else says or does, Mother God is present. That reality is present for all who know Her and embrace Her and express Her and embody Her.

Whatever any man does or doesn’t do, the reality of Father God is present within that man, present within all men, present and available for any man or woman. That Love is present, that power is present for us all. And through the magic of the working of the One Law, we become what we touch and respond to, what we embrace and then express. We become magically transformed—beautifully transformed—in the living color of our life. Not just in our religious or spiritual life, in our real life. And then we inherit the privilege of sharing that reality with other people and with anyone who is knowing it. And if you know it and I know it, there we are. We are owning our “stuff.”

There are two kinds of stuff to own. There is all the shadow stuff…all the little lies you might tell yourself and other people, all the little dishonesties, all of the smallness and hurt that’s in there, all the ache of the heart, all the anger, all the fear. We either own it or we disown it. If we own it, we put our arms around it. We say, “Know what? I love you anyway. I love all that stuff not because I want to perpetuate it, but because I love myself and I love whatever is in me.” I am loving it into wholeness.

We are either owning our stuff or disowning it: “You made me do it. It’s your fault. I’m unhappy because of you.” And if you’re disowning it, you’re unhappy; and if you’re owning it, you’re happy. When you own your stuff, you’re doing exactly what the God of you is doing. The God of you is owning your stuff. So when you are owning your stuff, you are also owning your creativity, you are owning the God that’s within you. You are being the reality of the Creator that you are. This is the second kind of “stuff” to own—the sacred source of your being and all that flows from it.

It all goes together. Be suspicious of someone who is trying to own their God without owning their stuff. That’s a dangerous person. That is someone who is owning their God and then putting their stuff on you. Of course they are not really owning their creativity because you can’t do that truly without doing what the God within you is already doing, which is owning all of you and taking responsibility for it.

Our energy follows our conscious awareness. When we become self-aware—when we see our stuff—the holy spirit of who we are begins to infill that stuff and begins to transform it. The stuff begins to change, just because there is consciousness there, and with consciousness follows energy. And our energy as a creator is ultimately creative. So the working of Love is under way in the heart, filling all those empty places, all those hurt things, all those bad memories, and we are free.

That same spirit overflows and fills the valley where we live. Where is the God of this valley? I say, right here. Where the real God shows up, there is an experience not only of coming home but of being at home in a place where Creation can occur. All of Planet Earth is meant to be that home.

Wherever you are, if you come home through your own heart, it is home because you’re there, and you wouldn’t sully that place with your own discord.

I am home, and I am bringing the peace and well-being, the contentment, the assurance, the comfort of home right here where I am.