Welcome to the Infinitely Precious Podcast produced by Infinitely Precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.

Hello, beloved. It's me, James. It's good to be with you, to be your companion, and to have you be mine here on this journey at the Infinitely Precious podcast. Thank you so much for joining me, for sharing the podcast, and for being a part of it. This week, the topic that I've chosen is based on a request that was made to me from one of our listeners.

They had heard me talk a little bit on another podcast that I'm on, the Spiritually Not Spiritual Not Religious podcast about the idea of incarnation and asked me if I might take some time and elaborate on it. And so I'm glad to do that here on the Infinitely Precious Conf podcast. So welcome. I'm delighted to have you with us here today. So the word incarnation for many folks, particularly those who come from the Christian family will recognize that as a word that is often used to specifically refer to a particular person in history who was the incarnate word of God.

It was the word made flesh. If we want to borrow the Gospel of John's language in the prologue, we often think of someone very specific as a time when the divine revealed was revealed amongst us in a person and that person was Jesus. And so people think of incarnation in that way. I have come to think of incarnation in larger way than that. Incarnation is not something that just happened.

It is something that is happening and has been happening ever since it all began. That this great unfolding of which we're all apart, the universe that's ever expanding, is a reflection of the divine in some particular fashion that each one of us is a unique reflection of the divine. So, incarnation then is the expression of the infinite in the finite. Now, of course, you cannot express all of the infinite in a finite being. But an aspect of the infinite can be expressed.

And I want to say this to you. There is something about God that can only be seen in you. Just like there is something of God that can only be seen in me. And it's a wonderful thing to think about how if indeed whether it's a metaphor or literal that in the beginning stories in the book of Genesis in Genesis chapter one verse 26 when the divine speaks about making humanity in the divine image and likeness. That we are reflections of the image of the infinite in finite packages that the finite incarnation in each one of us is also making the unseen seeable.

And remember that phrase, there's something about God that I can see only through you. And that's true for everyone else. Every time we see someone else, we are encountering an image of God that can't be seen anywhere else. That image reflected in that person. Now we could get into a long conversation about whether that image is blurred.

Perhaps if you thought of a mirror that has gotten all sorts of things on it needs to be polished. There are times you can't see as much of the image perhaps in a particular person as might be truly available deep within them but we are each reflections and therefore, each of us is encountering god and each time we encounter someone or something, we could kind of catch a pause, take a moment to stand back, and pay attention. What am I seeing in this encounter with this person or this tree or this bird? What is it that reflects the infinite? What is it that reflects the divine that I can see?

So when I think about it that way after I've paid attention then, it's not about a comparison. I'm more the image of god than you are. You're more the image of god than I am. What it becomes is an invitation for us to recognize if everyone and everything in some way reflects the image of God, we're all part of this vast constellation. All of us not in competition with one another, but each of us as a point of light reflecting or emanating some aspect of the eternal in and through each one of us.

And it's certainly a beautiful way to think that each of us is that point of light that makes all the difference in the world. Then love becomes the key. That holds it all together. That holds us all together. It also means that when on the other side, I diminish the other I obscure god.

And when I honor others, I reveal god. But let's just be honest with ourselves for a moment because honesty isn't very important. And I think that I tried to be very honest in the Infinitely Precious podcast. In all honesty, we forget, we react, we judge. It happens to all of us.

And in so doing, we obscure the image that is right before us. We lose sight of it in the other who is before us in that moment. Now, than let this be yet another way to beat yourself up or to shame yourself. We've talked about shame before. Rather than that, let it be an opportunity to rise to awareness.

Oh my goodness, I'm judging that person. I'm fragmenting that which is meant to be whole. I am obscuring God by making this judgment, by diminishing this other person. And the only way to the other side of that then is to step back to become aware that I have diminished the other. And perhaps it's only been in my own mind.

So the other doesn't even know I've diminished them. I need to come back to a place where I recognize, whoops, I misstepped. I crossed a line. And this is an opportunity for me to come back to return to myself, to see myself more completely and to see the other more completely. To recognize that my own perception is sometimes limited and clouded.

And my own reaction, my own judgment, my own forgetfulness. I need to be reminded. And that coming back to awareness of the other in front of me as the image of God is an invitation to do just that. Now, isn't it kind of amazing that the divine can be expressed in infinitely different ways? Often I've heard it said that to say mystery is not a cop out.

Mystery doesn't mean unknowable. It means infinitely knowable. And to be infinitely knowable is to see an aspect in every place we go, including in ourselves. When we become aware, we have the opportunity to recognize, whoops, cross that line, to release it, and to come back to return to ourselves. And that's a beautiful pattern that seems to just pursue us for all of our lives.

Now, you may think I've taken something away from Jesus by indicating that all of us are part of the incarnation. What about Jesus? Well, when I think of Jesus, I think of Jesus as the embodiment of the pattern itself. The transparent one who let us see what the pattern is. Let us see what true incarnation could look like.

What it means to be truly human. And to let the divine shine in through and as you. That happened in Jesus in a unique and particular way and is special to us. It opens the way for us to begin to, to follow that same path. That's the invitation of this, of this way of faith.

The difference this can make in our everyday lives becomes an invitation. It becomes an invitation for us in moments of intention and awareness when we bring our full attention to the moment. To ask ourselves in every encounter, in every moment, where is God becoming visible for me in the now? Where is it be where is God becoming visible in you? Where is the divine recognizable in another?

Where is the divine recognizable in this moment? Is there a place I am feeling spirit moving that touches me even in this very moment? Even if it seems infinitesimally small and unimportant, where is the divine becoming visible to you right now? Because that's incarnation. That's the reality of the ever unfolding beauty of God's creative spirit that unfolds as the universe expands in more and more vital and varied display.

And that's enough. You're enough. The early mystics and even today's mystics would say part of our real job, our work in this world, is to polish our mirrors, to wipe them off so that we reflect better and more the image and ripen more and more into the likeness the divine in whose image we are made. Well, are my thoughts. Thanks for the question and the invitation to talk about it.

Remember always that all of you are welcome at any time that you hear one of the podcasts that you have a question, you have something you'd like for me to talk about. I'm certainly willing to entertain and sit with whatever it is you'd like for me to raise up in conversation and sit with it and see what comes for me and if there's enough there I will certainly share it. Remember most of all that you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. I want to say a special thank you for joining me today. I wish you all the best until our next time together.