Dear Lightworkers,

Sandie Sedgbeer tells me that she received hundreds of messages from you after last month's newsletter updating you on what has been occurring in her life. I know that she was overwhelmed by your generosity of spirit. I honor each of you who supported her by email or whatever means you used. You did make a difference for her, and that is what this month's mini-editorial is all about.

When you responded to Sandie, you created a community of support for her. Community is an interesting word. The dictionary says, among other definitions, "a group of people having cultural, religious, ethnic, or other characteristics in common." During the middle of September, I participated in Steve and Barbara Rother's Espavo (meaning "thank you for taking your power") Conference in the Mount Shasta vicinity in northern California. There were about sixty people there for five days. I will be writing more about the experience and the region in the Travels section of my expanded website, http://www.ronmccray.com/. Now, though, I want to talk about the essence of the experience, the creation of a community.

For a community to exist, it does not need a defined geographical set of boundaries although that is one definition of the word. So, what makes up a non-geographic community? The dictionary definition quoted above stresses common characteristics. A common characteristic to me is something like all people who have big noses (I belong to that one), vegetarians (which most were at the conference but is a community to which I definitely DO NOT belong), or tea drinkers (it's better with ice). "Characteristic" to me denotes something that is external or observable externally. The 2002 Espavo Conference community went beyond the external to the internal. Sixty individual people arrived on a Sunday night and left Friday, individuality intact, and part of a new community. What happened?

Three things happened.

First, as far as I could tell, everyone had a commitment to personal, spiritual growth. This was not about looking good. This was not about whose belief system was "better" than someone else's.

Second, everyone was, if not always open minded, certainly open hearted which I think is far more important. Listening is so much more effective with the heart rather than the ears.

Third, and the greatest of the three, there was as much total love expressed as I have ever encountered and that includes more seminars, conferences, and other events than I care to remember or admit to having attended. Now, we are not talking love of the mushy, gooey, southern California air kissing kind of love. This was love of the unconditional acceptance variety - the kind that releases karma and frees the soul of the bondage of the past. This was, as Steve and Barbara "love" to say, seeing the human angel in front of you - and in the mirror. It really didn't matter if the other person or you is fat, thin, hairy, smelly, or had less than flowery breath.

Okay, okay, I admit that this group was a micro-micro-microcosm of the Earth's human population in a special place of enormous energy (Mount Shasta - it even clobbered my compass) participating in a series of experiences designed to stimulate the spiritual gland. You could even say that most people finding themselves in such an environment might succumb to sneaking glimpses in the mirror to see if their higher selves were standing behind them. Maybe so, maybe not, and that is not the point.

The point is that IT HAPPENED - this community based in love. Now a few of the folks there were "professional" lightworkers, and so, earning money or making a living by providing spiritually oriented services and products. They were in the very small minority. Most of the participants were everyday people: secretaries, managers, schoolteachers, health care professionals, computer geeks, sales people, parents - everyone that I got to know save one person (who really had been a Buddhist nun for a number of years) got up everyday and went about the business of making a living or functioning in the "real" world.

If IT happened at Mount Shasta, IT can happen anywhere: Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, USA, etc. What am I missing when tribes, cultures, religions, nations won't approach the world with love? It doesn't cost anything, anybody can do it, doesn't take training or certifications, applies to all ages, is calorie and fat free, meets vegan requirements, and doesn't cause cancer or heart disease. Wow! If I could sell it, I could buy Bill Gates. Problem is, I can't sell it - you got to claim it. And that, friends and neighbors, is a choice that hangs out there in front of each of us always within reach - all of the time.

IT HAPPENED at the Espavo Conference because the people in attendance chose to love one another, unconditionally. Regardless of race, religion, country of origin, and state of hygiene, we all loved one another, and out of that love, stepped up to support one another, without judgment, in whatever each person happened to be experiencing, moment by moment. I say any of us can do it. Love came built-in when we were born. It hasn't gone away. It's just covered up by the unhealed wounds received in the past. In spite of those wounds, we can slap a bandage on them and love one another while we heal. Love only grows in its power as the wounds are healed.

Out of the healing, a person just might discover who she or he really is: a child of God who loves her or himself - unconditionally. Does that ever make a difference!

As I write this, it is uncertain as to whether or not the US will wage war with Iraq. I do not like Saddam Hussein or George Bush, but I love both of them. (That is one of the cool things about spiritual love - you don't have to break bread or take long hot showers with anyone.) It is my most fervent prayer that this war will not occur. It does not have to happen. Love can make the difference.

My suggestion to each of you is, if you don't want to see the US and Iraq slug it out, then give your intention that there be peace in the Middle East (and throughout the world for that matter). After you give intent, then be in action in the matter of your intention. Pray, write somebody who can do something about it, meditate, think about peace (thoughts have more power than you might think), "send" love to the decision makers who would act for us all… DO SOMETHING! Create a community of world peace.

Two last thoughts that apply…Don Manuel Ruiz wrote that the fourth agreement in The Four Agreements is to always do your best. Oscar Wilde wrote in The Picture of Dorian Gray that action was a mode of purification. Think about it.